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elizabethrobertajones · 6 years ago

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14x02 watching notes

I appear to be fully booked for the whole weekend through to Tuesday so this may be the only thing I post about the episode until then, hope you all are having as much fun as Cas will at the party he’s apparently gonna throw to prove he’s cooler than all the other angels.

*readjusts my beanbag chair from Professional Sloucher to Serious Typing Mode* It's 5:13am and I've been awake 45 minutes watching this thing download and paused the new Adventure Zone episode for this... Mittens assures me it's well-recieved, so I'll go ahead and assume we burned enough sage to ward off the worst of whatever happens to their episodes...

Or, of course, Speight is directing.

So, expectations are pretty nebulous, because at this point in the story I really don't have demands, hopes or fears, except maybe that Buckleming don't handle or if they do, don't maul having Dean back. I DO miss Dean. It's very possible if he showed up in this episode everyone loves it because Dean-o is back.

I've never voluntarily called him Dean-o before. I think Gabriel's influence over the season is contagious.

Speaking of which... *hits play*

Are we getting a recap of Christian Keyes getting smushed because he, also, is alive? (er, the vessel, I mean) It would balance out Nick a great deal but it's also almost too much to ask I feel

14x01 recap: good, no sign of wirework. 14x02 recap: bad, everyone is levitating.

Also hilarious - no recap whatsoever of the past episode, because we have entered the Buckleming AU. Which is either Speight's shade or Buckleming's hubris that they don't need no canon to tell them what to do.

Nice. Creepy. Good start, sir. 10/10 would immediately go over and try and play that cursed piano despite my fear I would die instantly.

asdhdjsfkdsf the detail that Mikey took his hat off and a dramatic shot of it sitting there with the same reverent detail as the other spooky things from the rest of the intro shots

Interestingly the vampire that Mikey is bleeding is presented in much the same way as Lucifer was in 13x21, left to just stand there and dribble essence from the neck which making small choking noises. This is either stuck pig imagery, or the suggestion from unknown powers that be directing this to suggest that the entire Lucifer concept is being bled dry by wringing Nick out of it too.

This isn't going to end well.

While he's doing that, I would like to ask if that's a smidge of his own grace, or if he went and found Metatron's or something.

It also is very reminiscent of Lucifer creating demons - experimenting and playing to create the worst of the worst. Alastair and Lilith had white eyes and Lilith could do some sort of evil smite. The first demon, and the only one we've ever seen do that. Fandom long headcanoned that Lucifer used his own grace to make her, and it makes sense in a weird way that as he gets more corrupt, so do his creations - from pure white-eyed demons to murky yellow eyes to red and pitch black. Also: get more stupid. Azazel is the best and smartest, and each YED we met, if we assume they're in age order... Asmodeus is so dumb as a pile of rocks that you have to assume Lucifer realised that whatever he did to perfect the recipe in Azazel was tapering off and the good good stuff was over, so no more YEDs before you find out what Asmodeus's little sibling would have been like. His next known canonical attempt to make a demon isn't using his own grace, but using the Mark of Cain to corrupt, er, Cain.

Mikey is falling into this exact same nonsense from the opposite direction of his brother, AU or otherwise - humans are bad, corrupt evil things are better because they're less complicated and as an angel, humans give me a headache. Michael seems at least to have believed that there were good people - if he could just flipping find them - and that if he smote all the sinners maybe some good people would be left. It's coming at the same conclusion from opposite problems - he has earnestly sought out the best in humanity and then ended up scouring even the worst like Kip and those killers he mentioned, and finally settled on monsters, Eve's corruptions of humanity into bloodthirsty creatures motivated only by hunger. And now he's playing with them and using his own power to corrupt them further.

PS: Eve is going to be SO PISSED

That IS a very effective way to smite a vampire.

He's very clean and efficient and while he's "getting his hands dirty" in the metaphorical sense, there's a very careful remove in the actions we see on screen, of him standing watching very impartially.

He also sounds a shade more Dean-ish in that quip, and let's just go ahead and assume that the quip unlocked Dean a lil, or else that being in this vessel so long is beginning to wear on Michael - the influence goes both ways, and it's like seeing Captain Holt from B99 crack and quip, except this is the lawful evil version.

Plus, the flippy flippy and all... He's getting comfortable. I bet Michael might have been able to do SOME cool flip with a knife but trust me, you're possessing the second most blade flippy guy on this planet, second only to his husband, so that's a full perk of being in the Michael Sword and nothing else.

No one has asked Cas how he feels about AU Bobby, which is weird because he and Bobby were BFFs back in the day.

Trust me, it happened off screen. Sometimes Cas flapped up smelling like whiskey and cigarette smoke and Dean would be like dammit did you just come from poker night with Bobby and I wasn't invited?

(True behind the scenes details from season 5)

AUBobby wants a beach vacation as much as Dean does, though. Well, he wants to hunt by the sea.

Okay I never knew "veracity" could be used as a synonym for "voracity" but google assures me that people are literally just really lazy about it because I THOUGHT AUBobby meant voracity, but he SAID veracity, and I was like, why is he saying angels aren't known for telling the truth??? and then my other part of my brain that is more sensible but works slower caught up with the context... This language is stupid. I apologise to second language speakers for that line. It was said "veracity" but it means "voracity" because we are a garbage culture, as english speakers as a whole.

So yeah, angels aren't known for their partying, no offence, party!Cas.

This is now 2x between here and 13x20 that Cas has been directly accused of not partying, plus how he went to a party in 13x22 even if he stood stock still the entire time, so I have to assume that the rise of party!Cas is gaining narrative and symbolic momentum and we WILL see him kicking back by the end of the season.

"None taken, I tend to agree with you." TEND, as in, other angels are stuffy assholes who never party, but I, party!Cas, have stood with my arms by my side and a stoic expression, all through your welcome to paradise!earth party, so *I* am in fact, cool.

He misses those poker nights. Ellen and Jo taught him well.

AUBobby has a perhaps Jim Beaver-honed response to "it's Dean" when worrying about what's up with it. Or, of course, as much as he may have come to like the guy since the AU rescue, this was still a lil test of why they had to be concerned, leaving it to him as the one guy in the room who is still getting to know him, to say what is unspoken by everyone else.

Sam then prompts Cas to give us some clunky exposition on why he can't come, because Michael will sense him.

Buckleming, you literally are the ones who say Cas down in a chair and had him tattooed to ward him against angels. That was your thing. You did that. You.

It may be a sign of improvement that Cas is being left behind with specific explanations for why, but it's still hard to read Misha's expression as between Cas Is Sad He Can't Go Near Dean, which is crazy he's not putting up a fight and going anyway, and I Have To Say This Line To Explain It And They Don't Teach You How To Say Bad Exposition In Drama School.

"Yeah sorry"

This deserved at least 2 more lines of contention and scowling, or, of course, Sam proposing this to Cas on the spot, or Cas himself regretfully announcing that he had to do it to give them the best chance in a self-sacrificing way, then rationalising it with having to stay behind to babysit.

Cas just said Jack wasn't an infant. He's a year old. He's barely even a toddler yet. You really read that many parenting books and don't know that?

Okay yeah. Anyway lumping Nick and Jack together as charges to watch - a suggestion somehow that they're a joint burden? It demeans Jack to Nick's place, in the context. Cas hasn't actually had a great deal of on-screen parenting to Jack except like 2 nice moments basically bookending the entire time they've both been alive on the show in 13x06 and 14x01, and I'm going to have to chalk this up to a lil anxiety about bonding with the sulky teen Jack that it's something Cas now feels apprehension about. He's the father who's rarely home and clocked in the least time nurturing Jack directly, while Mary has a wild lead and Sam and Dean both also a good chunk of it, with Sam pulling weeks ahead of Dean, of course.

A sense of Dad Who Is Always At Work Forced To Bond With Child While Mom(s) Are Gone, to use some heteronormative tropes, feels like it's at play. The dad who is always away on business trips is forced to spend time at home over Christmas with the kid while the other parents are on a wild vacation to Florida... What fun scrappy bonding experiences do they get up to?! :D

Of all the tropes flying around, to stick to heteronormativity, Cas has always been "the father" to Jack while others around him waver between maternal roles or not. But even in the very start, he "completed" the parental "set" with Kelly.

Is that enough airquotes to be clear I support non-traditional family structures? :P

But it puts Cas also in a place of having some of these toxic masculinty types of fatherhood, of being away for work all the time and not putting in the work for the kid or being too eager to fight and sacrifice himself than to be there. Hard as he works to protect them all, his connection IS that of the guardian angel who watches over, the one sworn to protect, who most often talks about his bond to Jack under that obligation and that promise to Kelly, the sense of a duty to protect Jack, but very little in the way Sam especially fell hard on the side of "nurture" in the nature vs nurture debate and put in all the emotional labour associated with the mother in traditional parenting structures.

(This was good for Sam to do considering Dean had done it for him, and because Dean did it for him - being both mother and father - he's largely exempt and can dip in and out of how he parents Jack with impunity, given he had his moment about this in 12x22, days before Jack was born, and was therefore freed from character arcs grappling with it in the same way)

Cas is like "Nick is a MESS" same, buddy.

"He was housing, he deserves a shot at rebuilding his life" Sam is talking about himself here, which is weird because Nick was the topic of discussion a moment ago

I feel weird that Sam is admonishing Cas here, because Cas has not lain on the floor and thrown a tantrum about not going to save Dean, as ungrateful as he is being about babysitting Nick... it's making a weird conflict between Cas and Sam which is now veering into a philosophical argument about Nick, which makes me feel that if this is not just weird Buckleming dialogue issues where they find it hard not to write things as a conflict, Sam and Cas haven't had the rosy bro bonding time together while Dean is gone that it seemed, or that, like with Sam snapping at Mary about her optimism, Sam's in a Mode about this where he's on his last rag with everyone secretly because of lack of sleep. And Chief!Sam may also be struggling with being an authority figure among his own family, as every single one of them "outranks" him in age, parenthood, experience or scowliness, and Sam once described himself as "the least of all of you" meaning Bobby and Cas specifically of the people who in this room he'll find himself naturally deferring to. Sam's leadership is natural among the AU peeps but perhaps a struggle that with his family, he's still the leader, but there's no Dean to have the final word, and that in itself is an awful reminder, when he finds himself being the last word on a subject without Dean's input.

I have to assume this is like 5am and AUBobby showed up early to work to see Mary and the rest of the AU peeps aren't around yet

Cas then throws in the line about how all he can see is the supreme agent of evil, which is fuckin hilarious that it was Sam's trauma yesterday and we know angels are much more likely to relate to the glowy blob possessing a face, and anyway most of Cas's worst Lucifer trauma came from being POSSESSED by him, seeing him wearing Sam's face, or being beat up by Vince fucking Vincente. You only really ever saw Lucifer as Nick in 12x23 and the last few episodes of season 13, bar like one encounter back in 5x10. That is a very very recent association.

Unless, of course, he's still MIGHTILY PISSED that Lucifer killed off 2/3rds of his poker game and that's where his "supreme evil" trauma comes from.

Let's go with that.

Do you think Eugenie forgot that Lucifer was an hallucination in season 7, and also that Cas was dead during that?

(don't @ me about him seeing hallucifer in 7x17, he said in 7x21 that he stopped seeing hallucifer pretty quickly and I'm going with Edlund canon when in doubt :P)

"You talking about my dad again"

Jack. Hon. You have absolutely no relation whatsoever to Nick, except via whatever family line ties him extremely vaguely to Sam as a similar vessel of Lucifer. I don't even know how to describe where that puts him on your fucked up family tree, but trust me, you don't need to worry. Biologically, you are the son of an ex-president of the united states.

But yeah, snarky!teen Jack is here in full force. I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with the baby's angsty melodrama years :'D

Do you think

and I ask this hypothetically while full of dread that I am right

do you think Eugenie has forgotten that Jack is not Nick's biological son

Jack getting the good good framing of standing with his back to the war room, trapped in the library, as he's grounded. This central framing demands the eye to seek out wings, but in this case they're kinda furled behind him, if you see them as the dark shadows of the room beyond.

Of course the war room/library symbolism is always a thing, that action is the former, home the the latter, so this is clever to show Jack's desire, but also that he is stuck, and we see the bar patterned lights on the floor in the war room which are used as prison imagery. Jack's effectively locked out of the war room with a baby gate.

"Let's move," Sam says, with a virile pump of his gun, leaving Cas and Jack to feel impotent at home.

Sam does not get the dick imagery often enough

Blargh Nick again. Hello fuckface. Listen, I just wanna say before we get into this scene, that I've almost universally seen Mark P eyerolled at but said "at least he's a really good actor so the scenes were really good even if he sucks as a person and we hate Lucifer". I do not agree. I think he's a ham who over-acts and it was annoying as Lucifer but by this point expected and had at least transitioned slowly, but seeing Nick do the whole routine of standing up from bed, and then blowing on his stab wound and wincing and fanning it? That whole thing was just... too much for me. Nick should have been still and quiet and sad, but as soon as he started doing that it harked back to Lucifer in 13x13 when he was cold and hungry and over-acting rubbing his poor empty tum tum and rubbing his freezing arms. What made Mark P so good in season 5 was that Lucifer had a slow, cold and STILL menace to him, that while he might have gestured widely and been violent, especially in his dramatic scenes he was still and menacing. That's all gone by now and he acted Lucifer as a clown, and fair enough as an acting choice I guess when this isn't my favourite character or actor, but now it's salt in the wound that Nick was supposed to come across sad and vulnerable, and instead of bestowing some gravitas on him and taking us back to the start and actually TRYING, Mark P fell into clowning as if he thinks doing these funny things is what his fans who are apparently out there want to see, and my stretched to breaking point lie I repeated to myself about "oh he's a good actor at least" shattered because he was just playing the fool again, over-acting as if to gain cheap sympathy points, when his stillness and sadness and NOT overacting was literally the only way to have pulled Nick off without it being annoying.

This is a cake and eat it, well Lucifer is dead but I'm still here, and now I will act almost exactly the same, kind of dealio and I'm pissed and not standing by that self-comforting lie any more because every single step of the Lucifer journey so far since 11 we've placated ourselves with various phrases and concepts to make it okay to do all this but keeping Nick around is where the story breaks and so too does my patience for forgiving it.

*Cas employs his Anti Nick Shoulders* I deeply approve of these shoulders

Could they not give Nick, like, a sudoku book or something? He is just sitting here wallowing in having been Lucifer.

Omg Cas is getting to use this to actually talk about himself. I'm actually liking this. Cas self-reflection is a wonderful thing. Everyone can relate to Nick, even if they hate it. Every single person will file in here and talk about themselves to Nick at some point or another.

Nick's like "why am I heeere" and Mr Giant Teddy Bear is like "I know right?"

Wait is Nick's son called Teddy? That was unfortunate mind-melding with BL I just did. *shiver*

Also hilarious: a chosen flashback to Nick holding a teddybear beside the crib and I swear to all that is holy that Speight is deliberately implying after reading the line "Teddy" that Nick said yes to Lucifer on behalf of his wife Sarah and this bear.

I can SEE his face making a note here about what flashback to cut to.

His sparkling eyes are reflecting off this screen so much I'm getting glare from it.

*Mark P cries a lot* There are a few little leaps in this conversation to get to the point too quickly but overall this wasn't a bad scene... Perhaps because Cas carried it enough with his sinscerity that Nick wailing was at least balanced and the directing matched the intensity of it all. Speight really is good at making things work and this was pretty brutal which means that the overacting is compensated for, and Cas inserted enough genuine emotion from an empathetic character.

It's all hovering unspoken about family where Nick does it for his wife, even if he regrets it now and feels like he has become a monster and is wracked with a guilt Cas can heavily relate to as it drove his season 12 early actions intensely, and his child. Cas also did it for family, and they give this definition of family where it could be anyone beloved in the family, so that platonic overlap is there between Cas and Nick's motivations. But implicit is that Nick's wife was the one that made him say yes, and Cas stands over Nick in much the way that Lucifer stood over him in 5x01 when appearing as Sarah. Cas is/was the wife in the scenario in a weird way to Dean, for whom he chose to be possessed to save from Amara, aka the monster that had come into the house and would kill his beloved ones in their beds.

Promo scene! Aw AUBobby and his rusty FBI skills.

The coroner talking about a spree killer harks to Dean's issues balancing being a serial killer with a saviour, as I talked about pre-episode with the themes connected to Dean being possessed by Michael, and channelling all the worst of him. In this case, the torture AND the wantonly killing vampires

God damn Mary's red suit is awesome though.

"neck wounds" I thought Mikey healed those? I guess I can see residual scarring on this body so maybe healing vampires isn't as neat as healing people, because corruption...

"Why is an archangel hunting vampires in the first place" HAVE YOU MET DEAN? This is how he blows off steam when he gets a HANGNAIL. You think being possessed by Mikey will stop him?

"Huh" Sam says. "huh," I say, because they actually did some Smart Detective Work to come to that conclusion and perhaps this is just because BL needed the next lead but we've never actually seen them ask this specific question about people coming to identify mystery bodies to find the next lead ever. And perhaps because even if it happens off screen it's a dead end in all their other cases, but this was still something BL wrote that put a clever concept in Sam's head, and I am at the bottom of the barrel with them when I'm complimenting them for not making the characters act like complete idiots.

The other thing is, this cuts out an entire scene of them in a motel opening a laptop and googling surveillance footage, and I don't know if they have been banned from writing the everyone sits around and googles the monster scenes, at least since they made Crowley pop in and google a photo of the president in 12x08, and then Dabb openly mocked them for it in 12x23, but it's a pacing GODSEND to have the characters act intelligent and ask questions that solve problems instead of relying on the magical answer box to tell them where to go next.

See again: low low low expectations. Whether it's Speight clean up work or they've been told off, this is great stuff, and files off a lot of the edges that make their episodes wearing on a cosmic, soul level, that between the weird content, they're also just clunky and poorly paced.

Cas n Jack sceeeene.

It's Jack's desk! I'm so happy!!

I asked hypothetically the other day on a promo pic and I'm so happy to see Jack has his own lil desk in the library. He looks like a kid doing his homework

my heart is swelling

with all the table meta - it's another thing where they've changed stuff around to give Jack a space, a place he calls his own in this large weird Bunker. That table had to be dragged from one of the side offices or store rooms and set up for him because it's never b een there before, but now Jack has an alcove of the library he calls his own and he can sit there and do his research... And the alcoves give a sense of an enclosed room space, something comforting and like... library womb like.

The Bunker has adopted him :')

It's so weird seeing a character in this show who habitually doesn't wear a ton of layers around the Bunker - he's been in a t-shirt with nothing over it in both episodes, grey. He's young, open, honest, but hasn't found his way yet, hasn't got a tribal colour scheme. No plaid, and has only worn beige and blue in neutral Cas colours, his main father figure in a sort of aspirational sense, even if Cas is the dad who's always out on work and not there to raise his son.

Jack's identified as human in 13x23 but in a way he is a homunculous - the concept of what was originally believed to be how babies formed in a sort of medieval/rennaisance time (perhaps still is by BL) that the sperm was a tiny weeny complete person and they just got put in the womb with no other input from mommy and grew there. There's definitely a weird shade of homunculous implications in how Jack's parenthood is talked of, and of course he was then born as a fully formed man, which is a sort of transliteration of this nonsense belief, but the concept that he practically was a small adult Jack and then a big adult Jack and at no point an actual baby. Even in the womb in 12x17 we saw him turn and stare at the camera, betraying a sort of primal intelligence, the idea of a bored god waiting in the womb to be born, learning and acting from within.

And only now is he sort of set up to stop being a baby and start being a man when it comes to handling adult intellectual stuff and he's not learning from scratch but is treated like he has a more solid baseline for the world around him these days. He's learned enough to join society, but not enough to have carved his place yet. It's a very strange cusp of growth, and perhaps a good metaphor for being a teenager, in a way: that you realise you have been very stupid up to this point but now you are very smart and ready to be an adult (except, unfortunately, adult peoples will look back at this unformed humonculous version of themselves with the greasy hair and poorly understood radical political opinions and whatever, and be like, WOW, I was an idiot.)

Oh my god are BL really going to keep writing Good Cas Lines this episode? This stuff where Cas schools Jack gently and lovingly with knowledge Jack has been up all night reading then Cas is like yeah this is stuff angels know from angel sunday school but I'll be kind about it and validate what you just read... Like, the lesson is the act of the research, more than the knowledge. It's up to Jack not to feel stupid that he did all that work and Cas was like, yeah. I knew that. I'm an angel.

OH MY GOD Cas is actually having the chat I wanted with Jack about how he felt when he lost his grace

*shoves a fistful of popcorn in my mouth*

Jack all hurr blurr you don't understand I want to go run to my room and slam the door because I'm a teen and I have just discovered human tragedy and angst, NO ONE IN THE HISTORY OF EVER HAS SUFFERED AS I HAVE

and Cas is like, *ruffles his hair* it's okay little buddy, I too was a homunculous in season 9, which Lizzy has a weird deja vu feeling she wrote about but would not for the life of her know where to find that because it was probably buried in watching notes

"what did you have left?" "well I had Sam and Dean... but I had something else"

me: *clutches chest, gasps, hangs on tenterhooks*

Cas: "I had myself"

me: FLAILS WILDLY

Sorry, this isn't very meta, I've just written so much on the nature of grace and of Cas, and whether he has a soul or not still, but he is very much talking about the time when as a human he had a soul and was "himself" without his grace, and though he felt the loss of his POWER he didn't feel a loss of his CORE SELF, of who he is (which is an ongoing question they're all answering about themselves, with Jack Homunculous Winchester as the main example to channel the others through). It's really important to me that Cas has this core self, this certainty of who he is beyond his duty, his grace, everything that is forced on him by Heaven, but that this part of him who he may or may not know is his soul is there and filled with, well... Cas's nougat centre. Because Cas has been playing THAT game far longer than Jack has :P

"The basic me. As Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles"

Dean is reaching through Cas to mock him for us when we don't have him in the room to directly accuse Cas of having a harp, and I love that Cas loves Dean so much that he lets Dean drag him for having bells and whistles (which Cas will take literally) even though he's not here.

That's true love.

They share what is possibly the grossest smile ever and I am going to weep to see all this fondness for each other and for Dean being expressed. Like, ugh, families loving each other and being all wholesome and sweet. What is this garbage.

"You know, Sam and Dean... they weren't born with their expertise" yeah because they're not fuckin homunculi

Cas is basically equating Jack to going back to the start that they had, a do-over on his life, that he lived his first year as a magical all-powerful baby, but in a weird way, losing his grace makes him more settled, gives him a chance to understand himself without his power and learn that he still has a core self, a soul with all the good stuff in it, and to begin again and learn things the slow way, but a way in which he will grow more naturally and take the lessons that are needed to form the real edges to a character that turn into maturity.

"They've been at it since they were children"

and so have you. filed under: ow.

Literally no one on TFW had a normal safe happy childhood free of monsters metaphorical or otherwise.

Anyway Cas then reminds Jack that he has to do things slow to be as good as Sam n Dean, and moves on to it's important not who you were in your past - because this fuckin one and a bit year old already has a gritty past - but who you are and what you will do with the FUTURE. And Cas still wholeheartedly believes in Jack because of Jack once showing him a vision of the future that they might have - the happy ending, world without monsters, all that jazz that Dabb era is eyeing up hopefully.

Oooh Mikey's going to a partyyy.

That fuckin ring on his little finger. It's coded especially in media that he's either in a cult or gay. It's such a weird lil detail for Mikey to have added to the ensemble that I almost wonder if he smited a guy to borrow it wholecloth and took every detail. Though he's a fucking fashionista so maybe he can't resist adding a detail like this.

After all he wore dirty war-torn clothes for years in the AU, but even then had a sense of grandeur about it, an over-dramatic flair with the long coat that said that he dressed well, even for the scenario, and different, standing out from the rest of his minions.

Now he's here on paradise!earth, with all the tailors you could ask for, so he's going to dress like the lord of this planet it's begging for, in all the finery you can drape his fine sword in.

Sword does not approve of bowtie.

DEAAAN! HEY! I'VE MISSED YOU ILY

"GET OUT"

"I don't think so"

WOW, RUDE. There's rules about this, buddy!

"You can't!"

"oh but I can, because, see, I own you." It IS Michael who punches the mirror... I was certain it would be Dean, but it's Michael lashing out at his angry reflection, shattering the image of Dean. What a metaphor. In the Mark of Cain arc sometimes Dean looked at himself in shattered mirrors but it was a passive shattering. This is a statement from Michael that he can see Dean and he's shattering his entire self, refusing his right of consent - in a BL episode it's ironically hilarious so long as nothing else dub con happens, that this is the actually seriously applied good use of consent stuff. And Michael talking about owning Dean - it's that presumptiveness about others' consent that was Dean's biggest downfall in putting Gadreel in Sam, the cosmic karma lashing back out at Dean that he can't punt Michael out like Sam heroically punted Gadreel out, because Michael OWNS him. Dean is historically, cosmically, always for eons before his birth, been "the Michael Sword" - a true vessel with this guy's name inscribed on the hilt, and Michael has calmly taken full possession of his ultimate weapon, because well, why not.

UGH and then Michael takes control again by way of talking into the mirror and his reflection behaving normally because he's wrangled it back into control. A+ DIRECTION, SIR.

(Also because it's not Dean - maybe it's not so much a meta detail but the expectation might be that Dean would lash out at Michael BECAUSE he's angry and lashes out and smashes mirrors so many times, but he has no control to even move an arm to lash out... He's utterly trapped, just like Cas was tied to that chair.)

I love seeing Cas storming confidently around the Bunker running stuff while the others are out, being the one who is looking over Jack, taking the calls about their findings, and now dealing with Nick wandering in to angst some more. This is Cas at home and although it's still weird the AU peeps are ALL taking a day off coming into work after seeing how embedded they were in the hub, it's wonderful to see Cas here and without the AU peeps it is more cozy in the sense of being more like the home they privately kept.

Nick comes in like I WANT TO SOLVE MY COLD CASE THIS IS MY RANDOM DISTRACTION FROM THE PLOT

but then Cas puts his hand on his shoulder and he flicks back to Lucifer in an instant, trying to dissolve Cas in a panic from being touched. Cas is understandably completely and utterly freaked out.

And for all our talk of Rowena and Sam and their trauma from Lucifer, of course Cas has had a lot too even though I'm kinda eye-rolly about him talking about Nick as the face of all evil, of course this episode has been about his Lucifer trauma so far. It's really interesting to see Cas rattled by something because he is so solid most of the time - last episode he exuded "fuck you" from every pore for every moment except briefly when Jack was dragged into the room. But Nick has him on edge and now there's some Buckleming fuckery afoot with ongoing vessel issues, we're seeing the very strange visual of a Cas who is legit freaked out.

Anyway I really like how smooth this was, even with camera changes. Speight is really wringing excellence out of them, and the script, weirdly, and maybe because it's Nick so Eugenie is focused, is actually contemplative and full of interesting emotional conversations, which they often seem to blow off whatever the brief. Even with the dialogue hindrances, the real meaning and depth is being plumbed by the scenes as a whole.

So yeah, here is where I have to grudgingly say MarkP can play evil kinda well but also considering, again, FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN CAPITALIST PARTY? This is his calling, and he is a caracture of the man who plays the devil.

And this is something rather scary and sinister about what's going on with him which genuinely is played with some of that season 5 gravitas, which is super weird to see because I have got so used to him being a clown, even in his previous episode.

I have to say, due to that, I give Speight a lot of credit because he's really, really good at his job.

"What went through your head just now?" I ask that a lot, and thanks for the reaction gif, Eugenie.

I need very little prompting to assume you are writing Nick and Brad is writing the rest.

Nick is a fine line of guilty and confused, and hiding his intent, either because he doesn't know, or he DOES. It's good. Credit where credit's due.

"Some of his influence still within you" it's CRUEL to give that line to misha.

Kinda meta that there's a cockles joke from an old JIB or something about "influence" as jizz and 13x21 and all the jokes about Gabriel's grace.

But we're getting to a 9x11 parallel in the structure of the episode, but Cas is left behind with Nick rather than Sam, and Sam gets to be out there looking for his brother... And of course Dean within Michael experiences a shattering greater than the Mark of Cain did to him...

"Lucifer may have inflicted more damage on your psyche" yeah no shit we were warning you he would have the Hallucifers

Cas does the most terrified slow shoulder touch ever - there's a real right shoulder wrong shoulder thing going on. Last episode he clasped Jack on the correct (left) shoulder, and this time he tries to touch Nick on the right and nearly gets smote, and then this touch is on the same, as he discerns what's wrong with Nick, and I get a mirror of 11x11 where Lucifer did the wrong shoulder touch to Dean, and have him the only inkling something was up with Cas, that Dean shrugged off because, ow.

Anyway white man has angst. Nick has the Hallucifers and he has to find out who killed his family. He's got like his entire own TV show premise of nonsense going on here and it's going to be crammed in between everything else.

Bet you anything real monsters did it

"And then what

Dude's got nothing to live for

we're so over these murdered wife revenge arcs

The old flipperoo of it being terrifying for a monster when 3 scary hunters bust in weapons drawn. The vampire has a terrible apartment and she didn't even get a new car - it's like she went from one crappy life to the next and the only thing that changed was she was now a miserable vampire. I'm sympathetic to her for now :')

Oh look how surprising, this side of the story is being 2x03 still - aside from AUBobby snarking that vampires "never do" anything wrong, in the position of one who never learned a grey area because lower Winchester exposure, the vamps are feeding on animal blood, and mourning the loss of their nest. This is another Lenore. Of course we started the episode with them in the morgue finding vampire teeth on seemingly human victims, as in 2x03, and the killer is the deadliest hunter in the universe - the heavily Gordon themed side of Dean which has been symbolised by vampires the whole time from Lenore to Benny...

OH this is the girl from the cold open. So I assume she's going to explain how she got away. We have to assume the cold open was several days ago - long enough for her to lie low, Michael to ditch all the vamps, AND for them to be discovered again and moved to the morgue and then for this branch of TFW to come out here. Which explains that Michael must have already moved on and be ready for his party in the present day, which is a stretch of time enough to form his next plan.

"I-if you let me go!" yeah AUBobby lunges at her when he assumes the conversation is over, because he never dealt with this before, but looks over to Sam now, and then Mary does.

We cut away before we find out if Sam decided her fate, so that current silence on the subject may be left ominous or may explain a lot about Sam when we find out whether he had her killed and has turned ruthless, or is still soft Sammy who dealt with Lenore and knows how it goes.

Mikey, what are you up to?

He's tapping Dean's charm but with a hint more of Jensen's whiskey smoothness in his voice than Dean's coarseness, so this is legally defined as assault.

This is horrifying. GIVE IT BACK.

I'm calling the police. Michael has made off with Dean's entire seduction routine to trap this monster, and I am horrified.

Weirder still hearing him just casually called Michael. Brrrr.

Ooh she's a werewolf. Somehow I hadn't managed to work that out in the glimpse in the promo and thought she was a new monster type.

I guess Mikey is shopping around.

Wow she really has prominent teeth. I wonder if that's a sexy trait in werewolves.

He takes a drink as he menaces towards her - he's still got that calm drifting through kinda attitude that Michael had even in the AU when he was Christian Keyes, and he's starting to have fun, which is really really bad.

I don't think Michael has ever had fun in his life.

He's like the perfect little kid who does well in all his studies then sneaks off and drowns the family cat in the back of the garden as an outlet.

"Now. Summon your master."

Is this the elusive Werewolf Alpha who survived even season 6 because the show just Could Not Figure Out What To Do With Werewolves until season 9

Nick has an ENDLESS series of white shirts to indicate he's a sweet innocent dude now

because, you know we have a hard time dealing with that

Nick is ranting like a privileged white man

I mean his family is dead, I just struggle with Nick for obvious reasons

and as soon as his mannerisms cross a line, he loses me again

He's kinda weird with Cas as well because he knows Cas, kinda, and he has to be 100% on board with all the nonsense, so he's just A Bloke dropped in this life now but casually chatting to an angel. it's weird. "You know what a cold case is, Castiel?" liike, he knows Cas doesn't always know stuff but he is also just going off on one.

I think poor Cas has decided since the Nickifer moment that he needs to spend more time actively watching over Nick, and once more is trapped with a ranting annoying man

this is his curse.

"But you're not dead. You have a second chance."

"you don't understand"

Ah, teenagers, such a problem :P

but seriously, this is hilariously the third converastion this episode Cas has been in where he directly relates to the very specific weird metaphysical problem that Nick or Jack is going through because there's literally NOTHING that Cas hasn't already been through. He might yet make an excellent therapist just because of how many weird torments he's endured.

Cas speaking with fondness of Jimmy :') Such a feeling of Jimmy being a good man who went to Heaven, and for Cas, raised as an angel like this, being in Heaven with your soulmate is the ultimate happy ending for good devout people - in 4x20 when he's still in Claire he tells Jimmy he served well and will go to Heaven like it's a reward, and despite everything he still seems to default to that, especially for the comfort of knowing this about Jimmy of all people, because of how directly responsible Cas is for destroying their lives, and knowing that at least they got this is a WONDERFUL coping mechanism for angels to tell themselves it's all okay, when they get the correct vessel with the proper permissions and they're a good and pious person who prayed for it etc etc.

Cas and Lucifer remain the only angels we've ever seen actually court their vessel properly, although it's implied Anael did similar. Most others have hopped right in without securing full and informed consent. Er, not that Lucifer does, but at least he has full and informed bullshit trickery, which, um. Is a thing?

Nick how DARE you call Cas a "stone cold bodysnatcher" who's no better than Lucifer. Jimmy is gone and Cas has had this vessel remade for him like six times since then. It's the Jimmy Model Vessel mk.VI, as sculpted by God or the Empty.

*sobs about Cas saying what happened to Jimmy was his greatest regret*

SUCH GOOD CAS STUFF this episode

The alpha werewolf is a white guy in a suit, surprisingly.

Michael, also a white guy in a suit, sits opposite him, and they're pretentious about their cognac.

"She thinks you're a god" that's the second time that's happened. He kinda liked it when it was applied directly to him but not an accusation of BEING Chuck, just that that's how he comes across.

Oh good he's just the leader of the pack, not the Alpha.

Still wanna know who that is

His sales pitch is about their purity in wanting to kill to eat to live once again. I find it hard to believe a werewolf with snooty opinions about alcohol who wears a suit like that doesn't have some human sins, but it seems that Michael is judging them by their monstrousness first, and waving aside their other habits in favour of the big picture of how they live their lives.

"Fully tested" you fucking liar

He's talking around the truth... It's fascinating watching him threading the line of judging people for sinners without falling into that himself.

I do wonder how he knows about wine unless his previous vessel did... or he's taking from Dean's pop culture and deadpan bullshitting it. Sorry, I'm still stuck on that detail. Character stuff always entertains me so much more than plot :P

"Believe me, it's an absurd dream" He's passively observed at least like 3 attempts to enslave the human race for food just in the last few years. He knows.

Mikey, you can't go around promising that, they know it doesn't work. Dick Roman couldn't pull it off, and you don't have his business acumen.

"Why be the huntED when you can be the huntER"

ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN AAAAAH turning over EVERYTHING he works for

UUUUGH

Okay, Jack's wandered off and found his grandparents without a single warning and I am WOUNDED.

They seriously need to put more warning in for these things because ow ow ow ow ow

Oh my gooood he's named after Kelly's daaad

Look at these nice grandparents

"So you were like her intern" oh ne the intern jokes of last summer have come around and stabbed me

I repent

Oh NO nerdy little Kelly

this is awful

where is this episode coming from? I can't believe someone's managed to wrangle Buckleming into doing good stuff with everything so this is actually emotionally well-told

this is probably their best episode yet and i'm half an hour in

"We have a grandson!"

This is emotionally mauling me like an angry bear

"Jack kind of looks like her!"

*Jack attempts to speak from a lump the size of a planet in his throat*

*Lizzy types from within the bear's mouth, as it tries to stuff my down ITS throat*

NOUGAT GOT HIS HUG

Sam spared the vampire girl!!! YAY

She's called Lydia. You assholes literally used that name before for the Amazon Dean hooked up with

I can't believe Michael took the time to change his suit. He has a suit for business and a suit for meetings.

"the hunters" Oh that's cold. Dean, can you hear how he dismisses your FAMILY?

Oh nooo he metatroned her. This was a traaaaaaap and she was bait

Aww Lydia :(

He smites like Lucifer killed demons with his mind

it's so scary

How can Cas be mad at Jack I just nearly cried at a Buckleming episode

anyway he and Jack are having the equivalent I am your dad and I set curfew, vs I am a grown up I can go out when I want argument for his teen son he's unfortunately not engaged with much.

"the only real family I have left"

Cas gets SO PISSED

I AM YOUR DAD, SON

But he pushes it down and asks if it helped because Cas is good and nice and loves Jack

Once Jack reveals that he looked like the weirdly photoshopped Kelly on a horse (oof) Cas gets mauled by the same Feels Bear and relents completely because he's legally not allowed to cry but he wants to

"I suppose there are worse ways to be human than to be kind," he says as speight exploits the fuck out of the bunker set, having them sit either side of the door between war and home, tables in the centre, them on the pillars flanking it. It's a wonderful image. I'd go into it more but I suddenly think I have no time at all

"So they're going to kill him," lil Hamlet of Nougat says all firmly, re: Michael

Cas switches gears from "this precious child" to "uuuh" immediately

"And if he doesn't leave?"

I can see Cas being that meme where everything is an action blur around his face to express deep horror as Jack keeps prodding worst case murdering Dean scenarios

Listen, when this little ball of damp feathers you call your son is joining in with the entire universe challenging you if you have the guts to see Dean killed for the greater good, you have a problem that EVERYONE can see

"Dean doesn't matter!"

*shock lines intensify*

"You're all so focused on trying to save Dean"

Yeah, he does the same for all of you.

This is the pier conversation from 11x14, but 1000x more intense.

Cas is like "?????????????? HOW DARE?"

Cas can not comprehend a world where Dean dies, but our lil Shakespearean hero is determined that it has to happen because he WILL kill Michael, it's been put on his shoulders and he WILL DO IT DAMMIT.

(later)

Cas did not have this in the parenting books

"Do you think he'd want it any other way?"

"no but i love him"

I can not BELIEVE Jack got a flounce off stage left and Cas is the one left shook

damn, kids are hard

Nick has also wandered off to meet some relatives.

Cas is the worst at keeping his chickens in the coop

what was he doing

lying on Dean's bed sniffing the pillow

Oh dear, but it's the neighbour who as this conversation goes on I'm starting to assume was the one who killed his family.

Is he gonna go all Lucifer on this guy?

Uhoh, bulletproof werewolves

man I am gonna miss my bus if anything else happens

Mary saves AUBobby <3

Hi Deanchael, come to torment this poor family

You know you coulda brought Cas because he knew you were here the whole time anyway

DEAN! HI!

That was a really cool move Dean.

"Sammy"

"It's me"

Unless it's NOT

"He just left"

"why"

"i don't know. I don't know!"

me too bud

Hey look Nick killed the guy with a hammer

What a surprise

Welp now I have to take my 3rd choice for bus to yoga but I finished and now I will be gone all weekend byeee love you yell about this later <3

#14x02 #season 14 spoilers #my stuff

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icanhearyouglaring · 6 years ago

Text

anything you can do, pt. 2

summary: There’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition between frenemies (a meet in the JL-AU) wally/artemis. b99-inspired. a/n: second part of a gift i’ve been preparing for @rachelisanerd. here is a link to pt. 1 also available on ao3

As luck would have it, Tigress doesn’t have to wait long to rub her lead in Flash’s face. The very next day, she gets to let her smug grin do the gloating as Aqualad goes over the mission plan to rescue some scientist from the Cult of Kobra. Flash pretends like he doesn’t notice her watching him, but the way his pen digs into the paper on the table in front of him tells her she is right where she wants to be: under his skin.

“Tigress.”

Tigress quits gloating (for now) and snaps her attention to Aqualad.

“Yes, Boss?”

“Stop calling me boss. You’ll keep watch at the south end of the base,” Aqualad says, pointing to a shack on the side of the mountain on screen. “You’ll be out of range for the mind link, but you’ll have eyes on the entire field from that position and we can’t have any surprises. As we will be under radio silence until we clear the mountain, you will not be able to contact us if there is trouble outside.”

“Got it, Boss,” Tigress says, nodding.

Aqualad internalizes his sigh and moves on.

“Finally, Flash, you will stay at the vantage point with Tigress. If something troubling arises, you run close enough to reestablish the mind link and let us know what’s happening outside. For the most part, we are not expecting any interference from beyond the confines of Kobra’s base, but we do not know when the Shadows are expected to make the trade for the doctor.”

“Quick question,” Nightwing says, raising his hand unnecessarily high. “Does Tigress get the point for spotting the Shadow or does Flash get the point for telling us about them, or do they both get points? No points?”

“Is this something that needs to be discussed right now?” Aqualad asks, not surprised in the slightest that it came up.

“There were a few complaints after the last mission so I thought it might be better to clear these things up before we go. I’m saving you a headache later,” Nightwing explains.

On Tigress’s left, Rocket snorts and whispers, “Someone’s a sore loser.”

Aqualad addresses everyone at the table. “We should hope that neither wins a point and the mission goes uninterrupted.”

“Like that’ll happen,” Superboy scoffs, leaning forward in his seat across from Aqualad. “I say Tigress should get the point.”

“No way,” Nightwing says, shaking his head. “Flash is the one doing the leg work, literally. He should get the point.”

Superboy snorts. “Spotting a Shadow takes more skill than being the human equivalent of a walkie talkie.”

Tigress doesn’t miss the way Miss Martian’s glowing eyes narrow at Superboy. She also doesn’t miss the way Superboy balks and sits back in his seat. Tigress briefly contemplates asking for a point for not missing a damn thing at this meeting.

“Hey! I thought we were friends,” Flash says, crossing his arms.

“Enough,” Aqualad says sternly. “Let us agree to play the point situation by ear and focus on the mission. If I see this bet getting in the way of the team’s performance, I will shut it down.”

That quiets the room, but it doesn’t mean the arguments stop. As Aqualad moves on to detail the logistics of the mission and the importance of maintaining a good relationship within the team, Miss Martian, using her alien-equivalent-of-a-walkie-talkie powers, lets everyone know their dutiful leader is less neutral than he appears.

Aqualad bet me a monitor duty shift they’d tie, Miss Martian says.

Wow, shut that gambling ring down, Zatanna says, hurt. All sub-bets are supposed to be placed with me.

We are not tying, Tigress says.

Flash agrees. Yeah, no ties. We’d have to do a sudden death round or something.

All in favor of sudden death being stealing the Batmobile? Nightwing suggests.

Abso-fucking-lutely not, Tigress says, before anyone can raise their mental hands in favor of sending her to hell.

Ditto, Flash says. Been there, done that, never want to do it again. The nightmares aren’t worth it.

“If anyone has any questions related to the mission, you can ask them on the Bioship,” Aqualad says, standing up (and snapping everyone’s attention back to him). “It’s time to go.”

-o-

“Oh, nice,” Flash says, leaning over to watch Tigress unpack her gear, “you brought the big bow.”

“Did anyone teach you how to be a lookout?” Tigress asks, organizing her equipment against the wall of the shack. “Were you absent the day they taught that you’re supposed to be quiet and actually look for things?”

Flash sighs melodramatically as he leans against the wall. “I have been looking, and according to the infrared scanner on my goggles, the only things around here are cute little woodland creatures and us.”

“Still failing at the whole quiet part,” Tigress notes, picking up a pair of binoculars and trying to do her job.

“Oh, come on, T. Humor me,” Flash says, zipping to and fro in the shack before plucking an arrow from her quiver and holding it towards her. “You and I are always getting stuck with the fringe jobs. You have to admit it gets boring after awhile.”

It does, but contrary to what he says, she doesn’t have to admit it.

“Did Nightwing smuggle you caffeine just to spite me?” Tigress asks, taking her eyes away from the trees to give Flash a look. “How can you be bored already? We’ve been here less than five minutes.”

“Well, you’ve been ignoring me the whole time,” Flash notes, tossing the arrow between his hands at too-high a speed.

Tigress rolls her eyes. “You know that arrow could fill this shack with smoke if you keep that up.”

“Noted.” Flash quickly places the arrow back where it belongs.

Tigress returns to scanning the treeline and sighs, “God, you’re like a puppy.”

“I am pretty cute, aren’t I?”

He is, but that is so not where she was going with that.

“You’re needy,” Tigress explains, checking another route for any movement. “You need constant attention. You have a ridiculous amount of energy. You eat so much.”

“Hey, I can’t help that last one,” Flash says, and Tigress has to imagine the pout on his face as her eyes catch some movement in a far clearing. Just a deer.

“Yeah, yeah, your metabolism, whatever. You’re still distracting.”

“Distractingly hands-shit–”

Tigress takes the time to put her binoculars down, turn, and investigate his curse. Her eyes widen as she catches him cowl-less and smiling at her.

Tigress’s breath catches in her throat for a half-second before she yells, “Don’t do that! We’re exposed out here!”

“Calm down. I was hearing feedback,” Flash pulls his cowl back over his face and adjusts his ear piece covers. “So much for being quiet...”

The tense silence between them is broken by the sound of an owl hooting in the distance, and it is only then that Tigress snaps back into the moment.

“We’re on a freakin mission. How could you take off your cowl just like that?” Tigress asks, scowling behind her mask as her foot bounces against the floor.

“It’s fine,” Flash shrugs and shakes his head. “It’s just us. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” Tigress counters, roughly turning back to her lookout duties. The binoculars refuse to remain still in her shaking hands. “There are a million reasons why it’s a big deal. It defeats the purpose of having secret identities. If someone sees your real face... First, they find your face, then they find your name, and then they find you. Or worse– they find the people you care about.”

Flash steps closer. “I know the reasons, T.”

“Then for such a smart guy, you are incredibly stupid. You won’t catch me flashing my face around anytime soon.”

Flash snorts. “Come on, Tigress, we both know that’s not your real face behind that mask.”

Tigress stills before she lowers her binoculars and turns to face him again. The smug look she’d expected to find isn’t there. Instead, she’s struck by the small, knowing smile he sends her.

“You knew?” Tigress slowly asks, her eyes locking with his.

Flash nods. “I had a feeling– and I recognized the glamour charm. Zatanna made one for Aqualad so he could come to Guardian’s bachelor party sans gills.”

Tigress fights the pressure building in her chest. Flash has managed to evolve from distraction to major life disruption. It was only a matter of time.

“If you tell anyone, I will use you for target practice,” Tigress says sharply, turning back to look through the binoculars and away from Flash.

“I won’t say a word. You can trust me. Scouts honor.”

Flash leans against the window frame and watches her. This goes on for a full minute, and with every passing second, Tigress finds herself wishing for the silence to end. Why couldn’t they just go back to picking at each other?

Tigress snaps, “Stop looking at me. Do your job.”

Flash sighs and walks over to the only other window in the shack. He lowers his goggles and does as she says, but the silence eats at them both.

Tigress puts her binoculars down and catches him looking at her again. “Seriously, it’s like I can hear you thinking about it. What do you want? A medal? World’s Greatest Detective?”

“No, I just have questions.”

“Will you drop it if I answer one?” Tigress offers.

Flash launches into a string of questions. “Are you actually that tall? Can these charms change height? Who chose this disguise: you or Zatanna? Do you ever take that thing off? And is your hair really that color? Or have all of those ginger jokes you’ve been hurling at me since we met come from personal experience?”

“I said one,” Tigress groans, even though she asked for it. She goes back to looking out the window before four quiet words slip past her lips. “I might be blonde.”

“Hmm,” Flash says, practically appearing at her side and appraising her mask-covered profile, “I can’t see it.”

“That’s the point,” Tigress says, narrowing her eyes at the blurs coming into focus in the distance. “Q&A over. We have trouble.”

Flash straightens his stance. “Where?”

“Northeast quadrant. There’s movement in the trees, heading towards the east entrance. I can’t tell from here, but it looks like two people. You need to– no, wait, it’s too late for that. If Aqualad’s on schedule, they could be coming out of there any minute now.”

Tigress tucks her binoculars back into their pouch before she grabs her bow and plucks an arrow from her quiver.

She sends a quick look to Flash before she turns back to the trees and aims. “We have to stall the Shadows before they get to the mountain.”

Tigress lets the arrow fly and watches it arc through the air until it lands just to the right of where she last saw the Shadows. There is a three second period of silence before the arrow explodes. The sound echoes through the valley.

Now they all know they are not alone.

Tigress shoulders her quiver and latches her bow to her back before she turns back to Flash and says, “The Shadows should change course to investigate. We need to stall them.”

“On it,” Flash says, and before Tigress can blink, she’s in his arms and they’re zooming through the woods.

-o-

“Nice one, genius,” Tigress says, a bit breathlessly, as Flash puts her down at the edge of a clearing. “Half of my gear is back there.”

“You won’t need it,” is all the warning they get before they catch sight of the blades flying in their direction.

Too close.

Tigress starts to turn around to let her quiver take the hit, but Flash shoves her out of the way and most of the blades end up in the trees behind them.

“Ouch,” Flash says, pulling a shuriken out of his arm, “that stings.”

“You okay?” Tigress regains her footing and pulls her bow out in an instant.

Flash nods. “Just a scratch. I’ll be fine.”

“Where are they?” Tigress asks, scanning the treeline.

“One o’clock. Just one,” Flash answers, his goggles glowing. “The other one is still heading for the gate.”

Tigress launches her arrow at the center of the field and a cloud of white smoke fills the clearing.

“I’ll keep this one busy. You go after the other one,” Tigress orders. “You can’t let them reach the doctor!”

“I’ll be right back,” Flash calls out, jogging backwards into the forest. “Keep your comm on.”

“Got it.”

Tigress fires another arrow into the cloud of smoke, and this time, it sends the smoke into the air, leaving her target exposed. The figure at the edge of the clearing gets clearer as it runs right towards her. Tigress launches an arrow at the feet of the figure, but they jump in time to avoid the netting that releases from the tip. As they descend, they fire another barrage of shuriken at Tigress. Tigress rolls out of the way and pops up with her bow at the ready. She shoots at the ground between them and a sonic wave knocks her opponent off of her feet. Tigress moves in on her prey, slowly walking towards the fallen assassin. Hmm. The grinning cat mask in front of her confirms her hunch about her opponent, as if the sais and shuriken weren’t telling enough on their own.

“Don’t move, Cheshire,” Tigress says strongly as she aims her arrow at Cheshire’s mask. “It won’t end well for you if you do.”

Cheshire stands up as she appraises Tigress, and everything about her, from her fixed posture to the stagnant smile on her mask, sends a chill up Tigress’s spine. Her reputation may proceed her, but no one could have warned Tigress about the unnerving feeling of facing Cheshire in the flesh.

“Cute,” Cheshire says, easily twirling her sai in her hands. “Wish I had time to play, kitten, but I have bigger fish to fry.”

Tigress steels herself and narrows her gaze at her target. “Don’t move. Last warning.”

Cheshire keeps twirling her sai. “My partner says Aqualad’s out there. It’s been awhile since I’ve had some fun with him. I think it’s time for a rematch, don’t you?”

“I told you to stop moving,” Tigress says, releasing her arrow without hesitation.

There is strong satisfaction in watching someone try and dodge an arrow that releases a boxing glove before impact. Tigress has to work to tame her grin as the glove gets a good half of Cheshire’s mask and sends it flying into the dirt.

Cheshire’s face pinches as she bares her teeth at Tigress and charges, a mess of wild black hair and loose green fabric. Instead of the sai, or the sword, or the sudden screeching emanating from the valley, it’s the dark, determined eyes shining in the moonlight that have Tigress’s full attention.

It registers in slow motion, a feeling akin to an off-centered gear clicking back into place somewhere deep inside, and Tigress can’t do anything but lower her shot and let Cheshire tackle her to the ground as she realizes exactly who she’s fighting.

“Jade?” Tigress gasps, her mind snapping back into action as she instinctively blocks Cheshire’s incoming punch.

“What?” Cheshire–Jade– snarls, going in for another hit.

Tigress manages to free her legs out from underneath Cheshire and kick her back into the dirt.

“Jade,” Tigress repeats tightly before she sits up and asks, “is that you?”

“Who are you?” Jade says from the ground, breathing hard from the strength of the kick.

Tigress quickly takes off her mask and tosses it to the side. The million reasons to keep it on are outweighed by the million and one reasons to take it off for the woman in front of her.

“Jade, it’s me,” Artemis says, ripping the glamour charm from her neck and letting it fall to the ground beside her mask.

For a long moment, the only sounds in the clearing come from the wind rushing through the trees.

“Artemis.” Jade looks at her like she’s a ghost, and Artemis knows her own face must mirror her sister’s because for the longest time–

“I thought you were dead,” they say, breaking their stunned silence in unison.

Jade holds eye contact with Artemis as she stands and holds her side.

“Dad said–” Artemis’s voice fails her, as do her legs as they refuse to move. “Dad said you were dead.”

“He’d like that, wouldn’t he?” Jade says, stopping just a foot away from Artemis. “I can’t believe you’re here right now. I’ve been to your grave.”

Jade holds out a hand and Artemis takes it and it feels so wrong. Artemis stands and faces her sister, hoping with all her might that this is not some trick.

“I had to disappear,” Artemis chokes out, never having thought she’d have to explain herself to Jade. “He wanted me to replace you. I didn’t– I wouldn’t–”

“You couldn’t,” Jade says darkly.

“You– How–” Artemis’s question is cut off by the voice in her ear.

Miss M neutralized the Shadow before I got there. On my way back to Tigress.

“I have to go,” Jade says, looking back and forth between the mountain and Artemis.

Jade presses her hand against her ear as she starts walking backwards, towards the edge of the clearing. “On my way.”

Artemis takes a step forward. “Jade– you–”

Jade shakes her head, picks up her mask, and continues sinking back into the treeline.

“Don’t worry about Dad,” Jade says, quickly donning her mask. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Jade, wait!” Artemis calls out, echoing the last words she’d spoken to her sister so long ago. “Don’t go...”

Her heart sinks as Jade disappears into the trees and it takes every bit of strength she has to not collapse to the ground right then and there.

Jade is not dead. She didn’t know her actual life could feel like a bigger lie than the one she constructed for herself. She’s so consumed by the thought that she doesn’t even hear Flash stumble through the trees.

“T? What happened?” Flash asks, slowing to a stop beside her. “Did you get yours?”

Artemis doesn’t dare look him in the eye. Instead, she focuses on what she can see: the tear in his suit and the blood on his arm.

“Give me your arm,” Artemis instructs, mechanically pulling a wound dressing from her belt.

“It’s no big deal. I’m already healing.” Flash cranes his neck away from her as he extends his arm towards her. Artemis doesn’t need to look at his face to know his eyes are closed. “Where’s your Shadow?”

“Gone.” Artemis presses the dressing against his cut and applies pressure. “Cheshire uses poisoned blades. You might burn through it, Mr. Metabolism, but it’s going to take awhile for the wound to close.”

“Cheshire? Was that– uh, you know your glamour charm is off, right?” Flash trails off uncomfortably.

“You can look at me,” Artemis says, checking that the dressing will hold. “It’s fine. I don’t need it anymore.”

He keeps his eyes shut. “The reasons–”

Artemis cuts him off and looks up. “My reasons aren’t reasons anymore.”

Flash opens his eyes, takes a good long look at her, and frowns. “You’re shaking. What happened?”

“Oh,” Artemis says, looking at her hands, “I am. Yeah, that’s– uh, that’s probably the shock.”

“What happened? What do you need?”

Tigress, Flash. We have the doctor in the Bioship. Heading to the pick up location. Confirm your status, Aqualad’s voice buzzes in their comm lines.

“Zatanna,” Artemis whispers, crossing her arms as she tries to quell the shaking. She shuts her eyes tightly and tells herself to get it together, but she can’t. “No one else. I need Zatanna.”

Flash responds to Aqualad. “Not ready for pick up. Had a run in with Cheshire near the south entrance, but she got away. Heading back to the shack to collect our gear.”

Cheshire? Are you two okay?

“Yeah, we’re fine. Just a little cut up, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. You guys should get the doctor out of here in case she called for backup.”

Cut up? Cheshire uses blades laced with jellyfish poison. Did either of you get hit?

“Maybe once, maybe three times,” Flash says, drawing out his answer. “I’m starting to feel it. I would be grateful if Zatanna could pop in at the shack with one of her antidotes.”

Sure thing, Zatanna chimes in. I’ll wait for you there.

“Great, thanks,” Flash says. “The rest of you can get out of dodge. We’ll use the nearest Zeta-Beam to meet you at the Watchtower.”

Alright, Aqualad relents. Be careful. Kobra’s men are fanning out into the forest to secure their perimeter.

“Got it. Flash out.”

“Thanks,” Artemis says, opening her eyes. “Did you really just call off our ride?”

“You didn’t want the whole team around right now,” he explains, before he nods in the direction of the shack. “We should start walking.”

“Right,” Artemis says, nodding. After a second, she adds, “Are you okay? I only saw one cut.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It was just the one. Had to play it up for the boss.”

Artemis snorts lowly. “He doesn’t like it when we call him boss.”

“Then it’s a good thing he can’t hear us,” Flash says, tapping on his comm.

The forest is rocky, but not enough to slow them down. They follow a trail up the mountain, and though Flash tries to play off every little slip or sway, Artemis makes sure to stay within arms length of him, in case that poison is affecting him more than he cares to admit. Her slight worry subsides the minute he starts talking again.

“So,” Flash starts slowly, “now that I can see the blonde, I have to admit it. It works for you.”

“Thanks,” Artemis says shortly, walking past him to lead the way.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

“Nope,” she answers quickly, but the word leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

“O-kay,” Flash says, not pushing it further.

They walk in silence for awhile longer, giving Artemis ample time to regret her decision. Jade said she’d take care of their father and something tells her Jade’s definition of taking care of things hasn’t gotten any more tame with age. If anything, she wouldn’t be surprised if she found out tomorrow that Sportsmaster had been broken out of Iron Heights only to have his ass kicked right outside the prison gates. She’s not sure Jade’s reached the point of patricide, but what does she know, right?

When the shack comes into view, Artemis abruptly stops walking and turns around. Flash nearly walks straight into her, but stops about an inch away before he takes a step back. Artemis knows that the second she sees Zatanna, she will break down, so this has to happen now.

“Actually, yes, I want to talk about it.” Artemis says, exhaling loudly. “I need to– I should practice saying this.”

“Okay then, think of me as your practice dummy,” Flash says, jerking his thumb at the lightning bolt on his chest.

There’s a joke there, an easy one, but Artemis lets it go unsaid and gets straight to the point.

“Right, well,” Artemis stumbles over her words before she shrugs her shoulders back and says, “first off, my name is Artemis.”

Flash extends his hand towards her for a handshake and says, “Nice to meet you. I’m Wally.”

“Wally.” Artemis pauses. “Really?”

“Hey.”

“Okay, okay... uh, next thing. When I was seventeen, I– uh, faked my own death,” Artemis says, speeding up towards the end.

Flash stops shaking her hand as his grip tightens.

“You what?” he asks, eyes wide.

Artemis pulls her hand away as she hurriedly shrugs and explains, “Well, it was either that or kill someone.”

“What?” Flash repeats, waving his hands at her.

“This is why I need practice,” Artemis says, wincing as she throws her hands in the air. “Forget it. Let me start from the beginning. My name is Artemis. My dad is a bad guy. Literally. He’s Sportsmaster. My mom is an ex-con. She was Huntress. I had a sister. I have a sister. That’s Cheshire.”

“Okay,” Flash says, holding a hand to his head as he paces back and forth. “Okay, okay, okay.”

“Stop that.” Artemis swats at him. “It’s really complicated, okay?”

“Okay!” Flash yelps, unintentionally throwing water on the grease fire that is this conversation.

“Stop saying okay!”

“I don’t know what else to say!”

“Stop yelling!”

“You stop yelling!”

“Both of you: piz ti!” Zatanna whisper-shouts at them from the door of the shack. “You’re going to get us caught. Now get in here.”

Zatanna waits to unzip their lips until she’s done applying antidote to Flash’s wound and Artemis is finished packing her gear, much to their silent and much-mimed protest. After Artemis’s first three weak words (Cheshire is Jade), Zatanna looks at them both and promptly throws their plan into the wind. Instead of taking them to the nearest Zeta Point, she opens a portal, pushes them through, and they end up sitting in a line on the couch in the living room of Artemis’s apartment.

Artemis places her pack on the coffee table before she stands up and turns to face her supposed best friend.

“What the hell, Zee?” Artemis says, waving at her sparsely furnished living room. “Why’d you bring us here?”

Flash’s “Is this your place?” goes largely ignored as Zatanna stands up and grabs Artemis by the shoulders.

“Jade is Cheshire?” Zatanna asks, her bright eyes boring into Artemis’s.

“Yeah,” Artemis exhales.

The jitters she’d been feeling since seeing Jade fade, giving way to an aching emptiness in the pit of her heart.

“Cheshire is Jade,” Artemis repeats, her voice wobbling.

Zatanna’s eyes steel as Artemis’s eyes fill with tears. As she engulfs Artemis in a hug, Zatanna slowly leads them toward her bedroom door.

“Stay here,” Zatanna says, as Artemis buries her face in Zatanna’s shoulder. Zatanna is the only reason she’s still upright.

Artemis kicks the bedroom door shut behind, hoping it will muffle the pained sob that claws its way past her lips. That one and the next one and the next one.

-o-

Artemis’s swollen eyes open painfully slow, giving her time to use her other senses to gather her surroundings. The faint smell of coffee in the air coaxes her into full consciousness, partly because she craves it and partly because Zatanna is still snoring next to her and she doesn’t remember setting the timer on the coffeemaker before falling asleep. She slips out of bed, careful to not wake Zatanna, who’d so gracefully taken on the role of human tissue dispenser for the night.

Artemis tiptoes her way to the door, opens and closes it without so much as a click, and heads towards the light emanating from the kitchen. She stands in the doorway for a moment, taking in the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the sight of Wally pouring himself a cup.

“You’re still here?” Artemis asks, stepping into the kitchen.

“Oh, yeah,” Wally says, twisting around to face her. “No one told me to leave and I fell asleep. That is a really comfortable couch. You want a cup?”

“Yeah, thanks. I didn’t think we’d be so long. Oh shit,” Artemis groans, rubbing her palm against her temple. “Aqualad–”

“Taken care of,” Wally interjects as he pulls another mug from her cabinet. “I told him we’d debrief later. Took a little creative license with the reason why.”

Artemis takes a seat on the barstool by the kitchen counter. “What’d you tell him?”

Wally laughs to himself as he fills her mug and holds it out to her. “You had bad clams for lunch.”

“Thanks,” Artemis says, rolling her eyes and taking the mug in her hands, “if only. Is it weird I wish that were the reason?”

“Nah,” Wally says, shrugging as he leans against the countertop across from Artemis.

“What a night,” she mutters into her mug before taking a sip.

“It wasn’t all bad.”

Artemis snorts. “Easy for you to say.”

Wally places his mug on the countertop and “Look at it this way: we rescued the doctor. No major injuries. Mission accomplished.”

Artemis leans forward, rests her head on her hand, and flatly asks, “What else you got, Mr. Brightside?”

“You have a sister again, and well, I don’t know about you, but I made a new friend,” Wally says, smiling as he takes a sip of coffee.

Can’t argue with that, Artemis thinks, pursing her lips as she watches him. He’s made himself comfortable here, rifling through her cabinets with his cowl down and taking a nap on her truly exquisite couch. She likes that he likes the couch, for some reason. The thought makes her sit up straight and take a long swig of her coffee. The coffee is watery, not at all as strong as she’d like it, but it’s still nice. She cradles the mug in between her hands as she speaks again.

“So, Zatanna shut us up before I could finish practicing,” she starts, looking up from her mug resolutely. “Do you think we could try again?”

Wally nods and puts down his mug. “I’m all ears.”

Artemis exhales softly before she starts over. “The abridged version is that my mom, Huntress, got sent to Lockhaven and my sister, Jade, started to tag along with my dad on his jobs. Jade was a natural at it. That kind of life suited her, obviously.”

“One night, my dad came home without her. He said Jade had made a mistake and gotten herself killed for it.” Artemis snorts, restlessly tapping her fingers against her mug. “I should’ve known that was a lie. Jade never made mistakes. I should’ve known.”

“Dad started training me after that. I had to be better than Jade, but I couldn’t– that wasn’t me,” Artemis says, her mind flipping through the harsh memories of early training days and late night crime sprees.

“I ran into Zatanna during a stakeout, and when she asked me what I was doing on top of the museum, I literally couldn’t stop myself from telling her the truth. She cast a spell on me,” Artemis says quickly before she stops tapping her fingers, looks to the bedroom door, and softens her expression. “We’ve been friends ever since.”

“Uh-huh,” Wally says, entirely for Artemis’s benefit, as his level of actual understanding could be qualified as so-so, tops.

“When I was seventeen, my dad started to suspect I was throwing fights and trying to get him caught. And, well, I was, but I didn’t want him to know that. It wasn’t pretty when he confronted me about it. After that, he said I had to get my act together or I’d end up just like Jade.”

Artemis watches Wally’s eyebrows pinch, a subtle movement made plain by the pure amount of effort he’s putting into keeping a straight face.

“When I told Zatanna about what he’d said, we came up with a plan, she made me the glamour charm, and everything kind of spiraled out of control from there. I set up a fake job to ruin. With a little acting and a lot of magic, we convinced him I was dead and that was the end of it. If Artemis was dead, he wouldn’t come after me. I wouldn’t have to claim him. I wouldn’t have to worry about people doubting me as a hero.”

“When I look back at it, I see there were several, less-severe solutions to my problem, but Zee and I were scared and under no adult supervision so we went straight for the nuclear option,” Artemis laughs humorlessly. “After we did it, I visited my mom and told her the truth. She still had a year left in Lockhaven, but she– she supported my decision. I think she only did it because Jade was dead. I lived with Zatanna until she joined the League, and then I got my own offer. Dream come true, really. I had to tell Batman the truth, and Black Canary knows, and Green Arrow knows, but besides them and my mom, no one else knew before today.”

Artemis crosses her arms and nods, mostly to herself, as she says, “That’s it.”

“Of all the reasons you’d have a glamour charm, I never would have guessed it being what you just said,” Wally says, exhaling softly. “I really thought you were just Nightwinging to the extreme.”

Artemis can’t help but snort. “Does Nightwing know you’ve adjectivized his name?”

Wally smiles. “Not yet. Should I tell him soon?”

“I don’t know. He might think you’re treading into his territory,” Artemis warns, unfolding her arms to grab her mug once more.

Wally rolls his eyes. “Pfft, he doesn’t have a monopoly on wordsmithing.”

They share a light look as they take sips from their mugs and ease back into the heavier half of the conversation before them.

“Hey, uh, Artemis?” Wally asks, placing his coffee mug down on the countertop.

Artemis looks up from her mug. “Yeah?”

Wally leans against the countertop and looks her in the eyes. Even in the low lighting, she can make out the faint freckles spanning the edges of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

“You don’t have to worry about people doubting you. You’re, uh, one of us. Have been for awhile. You’re– I mean, the numbers don’t lie. You’re a great hero and–” Wally takes a breath. “Look, what I’m trying to say is this: if you decide to tell the League, the only thing that’ll change for us is your name, and your face, and your hair. But who you are will be the same. That’s all that matters.”

“Thanks,” slips out before Artemis can put more words together to express how much she really means it.

Wally smiles. “And, if your dad does find out, he’s going to have to fight a whole lot of people before he gets to you.”

Artemis smiles as she leans in to take another sip of her coffee. “Well, what do you know? Flash and substance.”

Wally laughs into his mug.

Artemis’s nose wrinkles as she nears the end of her drink. “And sub-par coffee making skills. I’ll make the next pot so you can see what real coffee tastes like.”

“Everything’s a competition with you, isn’t it?”

-o-

No one asks any questions when Flash and Zatanna return to the Watchtower that morning with a blonder, darker Tigress. They don’t have time to ask, really, because Tigress takes off her mask and explains it all the same way she did to Flash (albeit a bit more coherently). When Nightwing tries to break the tension by asking who won the point for the mission, Flash makes a show of lamenting the result and calling it a tie.

-o-

TBC...

#young justice #artemis crock #wally west #spitfire #my writing

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warharbinger-blog · 6 years ago

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❝ I wish I could say that I am a LIGHT that never goes out, but I flicker from time to time. ❞

REMUS LUPIN. 20. PISCES. FORMER GRYFFINDOR. HE/THEY. DEMI-MAN. ORDER. HALFBLOOD. WORLD’S WORST DRUG DEALER.

CHARACTER INSPO: ( he doesn’t need much because he’s remus fucking lupin but ): lucas sinclair ( stranger things ), dizzee kipling ( the get down ), monty green ( the 100 - that show can ROT but! ), malcolm ducasse ( jessica jones ), william hill ( this is us ) if captain holt and terry jeffords from B99 had a kid – it would be remus.

LINKS: pinterest

BIO:

The story of Remus Lupin is one known by many people – his friends, his family, but what people don’t know is what’s in between the cracks. The man in the monster, the boy who he was and the person he’s grown up to be.

There was a time when Remus felt more boy than burden, though he can hardly remember it now and his family cannot either, there was a time. The Lupins were a happy family, they had moderate means, they weren’t the highest class in Wizarding Society but they weren’t the lowest and they made up for that in love – as cliche as it might sound. Remus had one foot in the muggle world, and loved it, Hope would take him on adventures ( having been an adventurer herself ), teaching him about feminism & muggle politics but be back in time to make dinner for when Lyall came back from work. For five years, that’s how it went, an easy, happy cycle that Remus grew up knowing as home. It was home, and his parents were so in love that Remus could only sit back to admire their own admiration for each other. They thought that they’d go on like this until Remus was in Hogwarts, and they’d talk about it for hours on end.

The night Remus was attacked was the night everything turned upside down. Remus’ life might’ve been saved, but ever since then he’s wondered: was it worth it? Was he worth it?

The guilt that Lyall felt propelled him to forget about what his family actually needed and instead, what he needed to forgive himself for what he had done to his son. It was then Remus knew he would have to take care of his family just as much as they would now have to take care of him. No matter how many days of the month would be normal, young Remus would wake up after that full moon torn apart, hurting, crying, confused, and the guilt that he felt was something he could only learn from his father. Hope, like her name, tried to keep the family alive and normal but Lyall refused to let things go back to normal until his son was back to normal. The truth was, even if there was cure, Remus John Lupin was irreversibly changed – there was a whole part of the Wizarding World he came to know at a young age that was not magical in a positive way. Sometimes, Remus still thinks ignorance might’ve been bliss, or maybe if they had put him down like the animal he was his family would’ve learned to move on but his father never did. Lyall could also never accept that Remus was what he was and would continue to be that. The Lupins, a once beautiful household with a life like clockwork were broken – and Remus knew it was all his fault.

Hogwarts, while a nice reprieve, gave Remus a sense of fear and he was determined, absolutely determined to keep to himself. He would not be an affliction onto other children, he would not burden them, he would not form relationships only for them to be embarrassed & repulsed by what he was. But he didn’t seem to have a choice – James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew chose him and never let him go. His brothers, his family, his soulmates, he never knew he’d be able to feel such love for other people who weren’t blood. It was with that love that he got that he started to return, it was then people found that Remus had a sense of humor but an even greater capacity to love – everyone but himself. When his best friends became animagi for him, he cried, he cried because he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to be so alone. That people cared enough about him to do also transform themselves into animals so they could be with him. To this day he doesn’t understand it & is convinced he never will, but it doesn’t make him any less grateful. Without them, he knew he’d be much more miserable than he was, without them, he feared he’d be nothing but a problem his father made him out to be. That he’d be nothing but a monster. They, along with the friends he’s made are his humanity and it’s why the in this war he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to win because he can’t lose them. He’ll lose himself, his mind, his soul, before he loses the people he loves.

LIL NOTES

WORLDS worst drug dealer, it started because he bakes an amazing pot brownie & other baked goods. People told him he could sell it and he made connections with a lot of people within the Wizarding world and otherwise that have ailments in which his weed brownies give them relief? So Remus just felt bad charging people, The person he gets his weed from loves his brownies so much, he gives Remus weed JUST so he can make them for him and his business. Plus, the person likes Remus and the brownies help his Grandma. If anything, he’s happy to be lending his existence and his skills to helping people in a real way -- he knows the Order is important work too but this brings genuine joy to people’s faces, something invaluable in the middle of a war. He’s a big intellectual stoner but uses it the most during the before and the aftermath of transformations.

Remus is real fucking petty. He can be real passive aggressive. Intensely self loathing. Those are what I would say his worst traits are. If Twitter was a thing, he’d be getting into so many fucking fights and definitely the subtweeting petty arsehole friend. If you confront him about it, he’ll be calm and direct, sometimes, or he’ll feel STUPID for being called out because he knows whoever is right and storms out dramatically.

The women and femmes in his life are the most important -- in regards to his gender, he’s always felt really traditionally feminine in a lot of ways and really loves leaning into those gender roles & stereotypes. He’ll come over to your house to tidy, he’ll make you a cuppa and some baked goods ( baking was something his mother taught him to do and she passed down an outrageously big cookbook to him ). When he lives with people, he’ll clean up a storm, he’s very much one to sit down and talk about feelings even though he’s shit at sharing his own. Remus will never be able to understand his gender though, because he doesn’t have the tools and sees himself as so much monster that it’s a lot to unpack. In modern times had he survived, Remus would’ve put himself in fucking therapy after the second war to be a better husband and father. In fact, he would’ve been a proud stay at home dad who could give some of those Real Housewives a run for their money when it came to drama and pettiness. Ugh, SCENARIOS MAN.

Cheeky and sarcastic AF.

I’m sure there are people within the Order, at least higher up, that know that he’s a werewolf like I can’t imagine they don’t? Dumbledore has sent him on missions with other werewolves, sure, but he’s not accepted and though Remus is willing to do just about anything for Dumbeldore -- he couldn’t stay away from his friends that long and has been focusing on being a soldier more than anything and taking as many dangerous missions as he can because when he’s not suffering™ through transformations he’s a quite useful soldier.

I’m sure I’ll add more but!!!! that’s it!! so far!!!

#vine vc: im still a pieceof GARBAGE #maraudrs:intro

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leonoraflint · 6 years ago

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❧ there is a hole in my walls where your hands went through ❧

❝ In the wrong light, anyone can look like a darkness. ❞ CONOR LESLIE? No, that’s actually LEONORA “LO” FLINT. Only TWENTY FOUR years old, this RAVENCLAW alumnus works as a PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR and is sided with the DOUBLE AGENTS. SHE identifies as a CIS WOMAN and is a PUREBLOOD who is known to be WRY, UNTRUSTING, and ABRASIVE but also PRAGMATIC, PERCEPTIVE, and FAITHFUL.

leonora “lo” flint is both flint and rowle, and there is duality in her bones

the truth is this: lo does not like bullies.

bullies are cowards at heart, and she does not lionise bravery, but she has always derided those who put others down for their own enjoyment — there is nothing superior in having to tear others down and claw your way to the top over their bodies

it’s for this reason that she’s never been notably pro or anti purists: she’s always been scornful towards those who were cruel and vindictive towards those based on their blood status, but she’s always been that to anyone with that sort of behaviour, and always called them out for the way they were doing things, not the why

she is not a purist, but the truth is complicated

case in point: she loves her family, and has a complicated relationship with them. purism is in their bones, runs through their family tree, and she grows up with it on all sides. it touches her particular unit less, but not extremely — eirianwen rowle and sabina flint are the most open-minded set in their families, but when they earn that title from being the only ones of the flints willing to take in the gryffindor, it’s a low bar. on every side, there is blood purity, and supremacy is the backdrop to lo’s life.

death tw // nowadays, on the flint side, sabina’s siblings are all death eaters — marcus, the eldest, was involved in minerva’s death; diana, the youngest, was involved in harry’s; and octavian, diana’s twin, is one of the right hands of the death eaters; and on eirianwen’s side, wes is a death eater, tactical like octavian, and not much older than lo herself. // end tw

pregnancy tw // being the fucking extra purebloods they are, lo had to be both rowle and flint. blood is everything to these nutcases, and so wes’ father was the sperm donor and sabina carried the child. a younger lo got a certain satisfaction from knowing that, even if the other kids were brave enough to say something about her mothers, they couldn’t say anything about her blood, the currency that so many of them were taught to trade in. it’s not something that’s ever really affected her, except now, with her membership with the death eaters, being not only family but also blood has certainly helped her case // end tw

the thing with telling everyone off is that there is a certain ambiguity about it, a distance created between beliefs and perception, and it makes you a canvas, allowing for people to assume their own truths, their own expectations. there is a certain freedom in that.

she’s a private investigator, and that’s actually a lot of why she ends up as a double agent

some of it’s experience, sure — she’s picked up certain skills throughout her career, like how to move through crowds, how to listen without people noticing, how to shrug on and off personas and keep your selfhood tucked away — but some of it is the effect of the experience. she’s always had a knack for finding things, for seeing things, for thinking things through and using unorthodox methods, but she does not like bullies, and sometimes... well, in her job, you can see all ends of people, all the edges of humanity, and sometimes chase something for months on end without answers, and the truth is, it’s made her a bit jaded. tired, too.

jaded, on most people, looks like not believing anything can make a difference: with lo, it looks like believing in the worst in people, and, bizarrely, it’s what motivated her to help.

she looks at it like this: if people are as bad as she thinks, then the people fighting against the awful things need all the help they can get, because they’re already at a disadvantage. and maybe it’s a hopeless fight. maybe it’s something that lo shouldn’t bother with, because she knows her family, and to do so would absolutely be to risk her own life.

but lo has never liked bullies.

her relatives and names are, in theory, enough, but leonora flint does not take chances, and she also very actively, within their private familial circles, shifts more solidly towards her flint aunt and uncles, citing things like throwing in her lot with the favoured side, because marcus’ heir is going to be disinherited, and she says — why not decidedly make a stance now?

wes is an interesting figure. he is her cousin, closest in age to her on the rowle side, and she loves him, she does. he’s her half-brother technically, he’s her cousin in truth, he’s sharp and clever in ways she appreciates, cruel and dangerous in ways she doesn’t, and it does not matter if he has always been a constant in her life, because she knows him, and she knows if she slips up, if he gets suspicious, if he catches her... she’s dead, and she won’t even know it’s coming, because he’s clever enough to bide his time and play the long game, like a chess master setting up his board for his masterstroke play.

the truth is, there’s no winning. either she is caught, and she dies, likely at the hands of one of her many relatives (marcus or diana are likely to do it themselves... octavian or wes, however, might just plan it mercilessly, and get someone else to execute their will, and there is something worse in that), or she succeeds, she holds out until the war is over, until they’ve won, the order has won, and then she is alone: a double agent, not trusted by some of the order, and with no family left, because she has betrayed them, and the flints and rowles have their differences, but neither are forgiving.

she’s always been a bit sarcastic and acerbic to the surface, but she’s warm when you know her

the rowles are Welsh™ and they got terrible welsh names but thankfully they did not pass it on to their children (lo and wes got off a lot better than genie—iphigenia, honestly—or the branch that married into anothe rpureblood family with extremely cornish names), but to this day, lo prefers felinfoel if she’s ever at a pub, and ended up learning cymraeg amongst her other languages of study in her youth

has actually done some physical fight training since becoming a private investigator, but she doesn’t particularly publicise it (being able to throw a punch, however, is a useful skill)

not particularly an animal person

has a pinterest HERE

easily fed up w men

not very trusting at all, even before being a double agent, which has made it even harder than usual to express her emotions, especially about what she’s doing

so she buries it down a bit

particularly wrt her thoughts about betraying her fam, esp wes (the others are like, A Generation Older, but he’s around her age so), bc like... there’s literally nobody she would feel comfortable bringing it up with

very seriously considered how this could all easily lead to her potential death lmao

wes vs lo!! let’s go!!

character parallels: jessica drew (marvel); rosa diaz (b99); baz grimm (carry on); magenta (sky high); zoë nightshade (pjo); lola drake (the drake chronicles)

it’s 5:45 am what the fuck ok i’mma post this and try hit the hay <3 hopefully it makes sense!!!

#iidyintro #me writing @ 4am: calm down u pretentious edgy fuck #5am my god

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verdigrisprowl · 7 years ago

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May 19 Bevel’s Movie Night -

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Pilot/The Tagger/The Slump/M.E. Time, Steven Universe: Lion 2: The Movie/Beach Party/Rose’s Room/Coach Steven

Prowl continues to like Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

He managed to get into an argument with a Predacon Queen. (Considering that he’s gotten into an argument with god himself, that’s actually not too surprising out of Prowl.)

Bevel ((i'm ready whenever y'all are Jazz [[ i'm ready ]] VProwl ((ready)) Jazz [[ god i love this show ]] [[ how many episodes are we watching?? ]] VProwl ((same)) Bevel ((i could rewatch this show a million times Bevel ((i'm gonna skip the tagger unless y'all don't mind watching it again in stream? VProwl ((i don't mind)) Jazz [[ i love it pls don't skip ]] Bevel ((then i will not Jazz [[ i forgot about charles' ridiculous crush on rosa ]] ItsyBitsySpyers *Soundwave jerks awake. Is this the police show again? He should pay attention. Find out more about how these things are supposed to work.* Omicron ((*peers in and waves*)) Bevel ((heya, icy-mun Omicron ((hiiii 😊)) ItsyBitsySpyers ((WHO CAPTIONED THIS WHY ARE THE NAMES LOWERCASE)) Jazz [[ these captions 😕///// ]] Bevel ((someone very lazy? Jazz [[ but they captialize chubby Cheeks ]] ItsyBitsySpyers [[Congratulations. He killed a statue.]] Bevel It was a very dangerous statue. ItsyBitsySpyers *Streeeeetch and settle. He rubs his helm with his own feeler.* VProwl *arrives late. considering how streams have been going this month, is expecting something else horrible that he's barely going to be able to tol— OH HEY IT'S BROOKLYN NINE-NINE.* Omicron ((you have no idea how tempting to poof icy in her human form right now)) VProwl *dammit he missed the start.* Bevel *it is! she remembers he liked it last time she showed some* ItsyBitsySpyers *Pings Prowl.* Jazz [[ i think steve rogers would enjoy b99 ]] Bevel ((there's at least a couple of crossover fics Omicron *Icy falls in, sits up, pretends nothing happened.* Bevel *waves to Icy* VProwl *pings back. belatedly. he's a little distracted by the show.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Startles slightly. And by slightly I mean he aims the feeler at Icy and powers it up for a second.* *...He'll just. Put that back on his lap.* VProwl *startles because Soundwave startles.* ItsyBitsySpyers [[He apologizes.]] VProwl S'fine. Omicron *Predacon is checking over her frame as if making sure all limbs are in place. Sits up, missed the fleeler, yep, nothing happened* hi. ItsyBitsySpyers [[...Why does he want them all to wear - what are those weapons called. Nooses?]] Bevel He called it a tie. VProwl If they're colorful it's for fashion, not strangulation. Omicron ugh, cloths. annoying things in general ......why is he in colorful ice cream? ItsyBitsySpyers [[It is dangerous fashion. ... Why do enforcers need to care about fashion.]] VProwl You'll see. ItsyBitsySpyers *Wait, so this is a thing Prowl knows too? He stares for a second before looking back to the screen.* VProwl *he's seen this episode before.* *shoulders tremble. GREATLY appreciates how Holt handled that.* Jazz [[ my mom called me away and i missed the gay reveal AND the speedo reveal, damn ]] Omicron *Icy stretches out where she can, looking around and wondered if there was someone willing to give scritches....* VProwl *points at the screen. that's why the fashion matters.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Slow nod.* Bevel ((hello, ika, i don't recognize your name, who do you play? ItsyBitsySpyers [[He used to insist that his deployers color coordinate with his paint, for similar reasons.]] *Soft huff.* [[Obviously no longer the case.]] ika Hey Bevel ((yes hey, who are you on tumblr? ika ? I am just here I wanna watch the show Bevel ((ah, ok, this is an IC event for RP purposes. The room should have been locked. VProwl ((this is a roleplay stream)) Omicron *Ice queen peers at soundwave and prowl.... and then eyes Bevel* Bevel *peers back* VProwl ... I've looked into "numerology" before. It's not what it sounds like. It's actually rather disappointing. Although I appreciate the rigorous mathematics that go into it. ItsyBitsySpyers *Soundwave senses someone staring at him and looks over at Ice Queen for a second.*

[[...What IS it? Numerology.]] Omicron *leans over to Bevel, sniffing....and predacon head in the lap* Bevel Hi! *pets Icy on the top of the head carefully* VProwl It's fortune telling based on numbers. Omicron *starts to deeply purring as the pet/scritches start* ItsyBitsySpyers [[...So it is pretending to do what you actually do?]] VProwl More or le— *looks at Soundwave. you think he can predict the future?* Omicron *purr* ItsyBitsySpyers *Not in THOSE terms, but.* ItsyBitsySpyers [[...What?]] VProwl *... leans on Soundwave. pingpingping.* Bevel But the punishment for drawing stuff is not very bad is it? ItsyBitsySpyers *...He's confused about what suddenly caused this, but he will settle into the lean, ping affection back, and keep watching.* [[If it were, Buzzsaw would spend more time in the cells.]] Bevel ...oh yeah, that is true. VProwl No, but he has an ally in high places and can still destroy Peralta's career. ItsyBitsySpyers [[And so would whoever spent those days writing Prowl Is Right. Even if he is.]] Bevel ...yeah. VProwl *is today Interuniversal Stroke Prowl's Ego day?* Bevel *pointedly not looking at Prowl or Soundwave* Omicron *growls at screen* Bevel This guy is rude. Omicron ((I hope he does the right thing....)) ItsyBitsySpyers [[He still thinks this deputy commissioner should be punished for abuse of power. Harshly.]] VProwl The property defacer should be punished and the deputy commissioner should be punished even more. Bevel Yay! Omicron haha ((that's when I was born)) VProwl *Prowl loves this show. It's so optimistic.* Omicron I agree with prowl *belatedly, also she knows she's horrible saying that* Bevel ...*wants to see Robocop now* VProwl I can't believe they left Hot Fuzz off the list. ItsyBitsySpyers [[The twins tell him Robocop is quite interesting.]] *Taps thigh.* [[Was the Hot Fuzz film created yet?]] Bevel I like Rosa. What is Hot Fuzz about? ItsyBitsySpyers *And doesn't see anything wrong with agreeing with Prowl. But, y'know. Biased.* VProwl Yes, five years before this. Omicron *Icy tilts head....any more scritches or does she have to risk the others?* Bevel *nah, she's been pretty consistent about scritching Icy* ItsyBitsySpyers [[...Wart?]] VProwl A very professional city cop is sent to a very sloppy rural district. Omicron *okay, Icy's purring* ((woot! Thunder!)) ItsyBitsySpyers *Checks the datanet for "wart".* *...Oh. Strange flesh growths. Okay. Organics being disgusting organics. Nothing new there.* Omicron ((Duude that thunder clap was a good six seconds)) ItsyBitsySpyers ((!!! be safe!)) Omicron ((I'm not going for my walk)) ItsyBitsySpyers [[This will not end well at all.]] Omicron pffft ItsyBitsySpyers [[A talented youngling.]] Omicron are all autobot offices like this? ItsyBitsySpyers [[Hah.]] VProwl *the premise of this episode has always been incredibly bizarre to Prowl. trying to recruit new police officers? recruiting people? into a job they didn't already have?* Are all Autobot offices like what? But I'm inclined to say no, not at all. ItsyBitsySpyers *What's wrong with wanting a different job.* VProwl *nothing, but "the ability to choose different jobs, much less recruit someone into a different job" and "Prowl working in the police" have never been two conditions that have existed simultaneously.* Bevel Oh no, poor Terry. VProwl *until the last five months. but they've gotten nowhere close to recruiting.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Very true.*

*Perhaps they should get a civilian to do it. You know. Once they've gotten the house in order. Ish.* VProwl *who on all of Cybertron has ever had experience RECRUITING someone for DIFFERENT JOBS?* Omicron *lifts head and staaaaaaaaares* ItsyBitsySpyers *Oh, he doesn't know... mechs who decided to throw a wrench in the social works and refuse to perform the tasks they were assigned. Maybe a few who ran off to join a war against such things.* VProwl *no see you're referring to terrorist soldiers convincing other people to be terrorist soldiers. that's not /job recruitment./* ItsyBitsySpyers *Everyone has to start somewhere.* VProwl *"you should hate the thing you do" ≠ "you would love doing this thing over here"* Bevel ((me as a cop Omicron *confused....okay wants to get scritches* VProwl *and that moment right there is one of the many reasons Prowl appreciates Holt* Bevel *pets Icy some more* Omicron *Puuuurrrrrrrrrrssssss* ItsyBitsySpyers *Sounds like Buzzsaw. So much.* Omicron *PUUURRRR* VProwl *ooh. murder mystery date night.* ItsyBitsySpyers ((i'm dying lmfao)) Bevel ((omfg prowl no ItsyBitsySpyers *Slowly looks over at Bevel to see if she's cringing.* Bevel *...she may have flinched* ItsyBitsySpyers *Tiny tremble.* Omicron *purring bad?* Bevel *purring is fine, she scritches Icy some more* VProwl ... I'd like to learn to do that. On—to be clear, on Cybertronians, not humans. Omicron .... *eyes prowl* ItsyBitsySpyers [[Where is it taught?]] Omicron I would rather not... VProwl Nowhere, right now. ((im jake)) ItsyBitsySpyers [[Do you have anyone who knows?]] Bevel We have a forensics officer on our planet? Omicron ......is it bad I would rather eat someone rather then take them apart? ItsyBitsySpyers [[Ravage would say not.]] VProwl We've currently got a couple of... fffreelance medical examiners, I guess you could call them. And some doctors who have performed the duties before but aren't currently trained. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Perhaps the one Bevel spoke of could be of use? To you.]] VProwl No, Iacon presently has enough to meet our needs. ItsyBitsySpyers [[No, no. To -you.- ]] VProwl They're... *sigh* Not the best trained I've ever seen, but— Oh. What? Me? I run the CSF, I don't have time to be trained in miscellaneous forensic investigative fields. Bevel Maybe they could help train some of the bots in your universe? ItsyBitsySpyers *A light huff.* [[You will have at least one Monday free.]] Bevel Or that! VProwl I can't learn to do full autopsies on a /Monday./ ItsyBitsySpyers [[You can watch one.]] VProwl I've watched thousands. Omicron what about a different world that runs on a different time? Bevel Oh yeah, there are a bunch of those. VProwl If I'm going to one of those, it'd better be to use that excess time to deal with the cases I already have on hand. ItsyBitsySpyers *Soundwave lifts a hand. He'll let this be as it is for now.* [[As you wish. But he does think you should learn what you can when you can. If only /because/ you can. ]] VProwl ... That philosophy seems... irresponsibly self-indulgent. ItsyBitsySpyers [[He's never been called that before.]] VProwl Well. Maybe if you'd taken another vacation day or two. ItsyBitsySpyers *STARE.* Bevel *claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle* ItsyBitsySpyers [[That is not an argument likely to convince him to spend more time on the one coming up.]] Omicron *snorts* you both could get an insecticon cleaning VProwl Sorry. I'm joking. Take a longer vacation. ItsyBitsySpyers *Oh no.* VProwl *tenses at the suggestion.* ... What? *he doesn't understand the suggestion but it involves Insecticons and therefore it's not good.* Bevel What is an Insecticon cleaning? ItsyBitsySpyers [[He prefers to be responsible for his own cleaning.]] Omicron I have worker insectocons, they're about human sized. But they love to make things and people shiny. Bevel ...that is a cool sword. VProwl Absolutely NOT. Omicron Workers are harmless, you have not seen them using all limbs to skate with scrubbers over the floor *snorts, but looks fond* VProwl *freezes* No. Omicron okay *tilts head to get scritches again?* Bevel I think I like cleaning myself. *scritches* VProwl *tiny bugs crawling all over and under his armor.* Omicron They only clean someone now with permission. Bevel That is good. Getting cleaned without permission is really annoying. ItsyBitsySpyers *Doesn't want to ping too soon but doesn't want to seem inattentive... perhaps a casual redirection?*

@P: [[You didn't have to apologize for joking. He was not upset.]] Bevel This is not going very well at all. Omicron no but the youngling is trying VProwl @S «If it's discouraged you even more than you already were from taking a proper vacation, then it's doing you harm and should be apologized for.» ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[It did not. He was merely pointing that out. He already decided on his vacation length last week.]] VProwl @S «... Don't let it discourage you from taking longer vacation sin the future.» ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[He will consider it if this one is n--]] *Flinch* VProwl *winces* ItsyBitsySpyers *Whatever that stone is, he doesn't like it.* Omicron *rumbles* ItsyBitsySpyers *What was he thinking.*

@P: [[If this one is not of sufficient length after all.]] VProwl @S «I think you have a rather skewed view of what makes a sufficient length.» *points at the screen.* Moriarty. ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[He 'retired' for two years. It was... dull.]] *Points at the screen as well.* [[And glitches.]] Bevel Nope. VProwl @S «There's a difference between retirement and vacation.» It's probably generating a world too large for the program. ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[Very little. Only the intent to return to work. Which, as it turns out, he did after all.]] Omicron hmm ItsyBitsySpyers ((it's a faaaaaaaaake)) VProwl ((lsdkfjlg)) Bevel ((lol VProwl @S «How would you know? You've never had a two year vacation.» ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[He has heard stories.]] VProwl @S «You need something to adequately fill the time. Which is why I tried to recommend some shows. ... Apparently that was offensive.» Omicron *gives bevel a nudge and nuzzle in thanks for all the pets and scritches around her horns* ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[It is not. He apologizes for causing you to think so. He values your recommendations.]] VProwl @S «You accused me of trying to get rid of you.» ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[He apologizes for that as well. It was uncalled for.]] *Small attention draw toward screen* VProwl *what do they mean, fuse—* Bevel ...WHOA ItsyBitsySpyers *Leans back* Bevel *Bevel loves her* ItsyBitsySpyers *Oh no.* VProwl *oh. ew. ugh. no. bluh. yuck. ick. ack. egh. eugh.* Omicron *impressed* ItsyBitsySpyers *And it's smashing things.* Omicron ....oh my VProwl *well. it'd been a good night.* Bevel ((me and cro VProwl ((i realize that pearl is an alien, but)) Bevel ((lesbian culture VProwl ((*points* pearl is too gay to understand this)) ItsyBitsySpyers *Leans forward again.* [[Singing?]] Bevel *oh cool singing* Omicron *hums* ItsyBitsySpyers [[...If she is making these words up on the spot, she is very g-- ah, dancing too.]] [[And somewhat sensible, as well.]] VProwl *well, the spontaneous singing is weird. maybe it's a cultural thing?* Bevel *giggles* VProwl *but otherwise—he likes pearl even more now.* ItsyBitsySpyers [[That's not how four wheel drive works.]] Bevel It should be. VProwl *shudders* ItsyBitsySpyers *Sincerely hopes this has a good ending.* Bevel Aw no, she is mean. VProwl *focuses on Pearl. Very hard, on Pearl, and nobody and nothing except for Pearl.* Bevel ...Pearl 😔 Omicron *tilts her head* VProwl *Go Pr— Pearl. beat the combiner that's deva—destroying the beach.* *projecting? who?* Bevel That. Was. AWESOME! VProwl *... shoulders slump in relief.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Tiny applause clip.* Omicron *chirps!* ItsyBitsySpyers *......................Checks his records of earlier documentaries for something.* Bevel Did you see how she outsmarted Sugilite? ItsyBitsySpyers *A love song about music? Also listening and recording that.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Aha. He was right. Which poses an interesting question - but not one he will ask around the others just yet. Patience, patience.* [[Excellent song.]] Omicron *nods, predacon streaches out again* Bevel Tonight was fun. I am glad I showed this stuff. ItsyBitsySpyers [[He appreciates that you did.]] *There were things he was interested in, and he's pretty sure Prowl needed that last one.* VProwl *soundwave is very wrong* *watching pearl win was +7 points but watching sugilite happen was -15 points* ItsyBitsySpyers *He can be, from time to time. He's not the better bot at math like that, after all.* Omicron *Ice Queen glances over at prowl, head tilting* VProwl ... How many of them do that? *she may observe that Prowl continues to look very normal.* Bevel The fusions? VProwl Yes. Bevel Um, well, Opal was really quiet and we have not seen anyone else. Pearl said her and Garnet fusing would have been less like Sugilite so maybe whoever they are is less mean. Omicron .... *pings prowl for the first time, crosshing her forelegs and giving Bevel a lick out of habit* VProwl "Opal"? ItsyBitsySpyers [[Wait. Opal?]] VProwl *who in the world is pinging him?* Bevel Amethyst and Pearl fused! VProwl @I «... Yes? Prowl here.» Bevel I think you were away, Prowl. VProwl ... So all of them. ItsyBitsySpyers [[They did?]] *Pause.* [[Did they dance, too?]] *No. Damn it. Wrong priorities.* Bevel No dancing, but she sang a little! She also killed a buncha birds with a bow and arrow. I can give you the record? VProwl No. Bevel ...oh, ok, Prowl. Should I tell you if they fuse again? Omicron @P ::are you afraid of insecticons? *yes blunt* I had considered taking a worker with me one of these times. But I can leave them behind.:: VProwl @I «Of course not.» *he said, like a liar.* ItsyBitsySpyers ((TAKE OFF THAT PROWL MASK, SWERVE)) Bevel ((lol ((get the paddy wagon VProwl ((ouo)) Omicron @P ::.....I dont think thats true. *teeeemped but shes a mature queen now, vents and snorts* alright. If you are....what's the word...:: Omicron @P ::Adversed? I can keep them on the Dreaded wings. but the workers are truly harmless for what its worth.:: VProwl @I «Then I think that you are impertinent and rude. Do not presume to tell me my own opinions.» Omicron @P :: I'm also a pirate and a predacon queen on top of those.:: *well, that's what she gets for attempting to be nice, snorts cold steam and starts to get up* VProwl @I «I don't know whether you're offering your job titles in an attempt to support or protest my assessment. I also don't really care. Is that all that you wanted, then—to ask me about my feelings and then inform me I'm wrong about them?» Omicron *pauses and swings head around to stare* *opens jaws, then growls* VProwl @I «I'll take that as a yes.» *ends the comm.* Bevel *blinks in confusion at Icy suddenly getting up and--whoa whoa growling, she scrambles up to stand* ItsyBitsySpyers *Slowly lifts a feeler. He has no idea what's going on - Prowl's comms are something he doesn't touch, out of unusual respect - but he will shoot or strangle if necessary.* Omicron Alright Prowl, I said I didn't bereave you not that I was forcing moods on you. and I was trying to make an offer not to add stress to these present evenings. My hatchlings are one thing. VProwl *without looking away from the screen, slowly leans over and tries to push the feeler back down. Don't get into a fight to defend a hologram.* ItsyBitsySpyers *It's a principle-of-the-thing thing. But he'll let it be pushed down. For now.* VProwl Oh, you've decided to involve the whole room in a private discussion. Hm. Omicron I may not be the best at terms, I realize for primus sake *lifts head and starts to turn, pauses and growls and -growls- as she realizes she forgot the coms* Omicron For primus fragging piece of *lapses into predacon but somethings about stupid comms and not ever really working them right comes out as she starts to get up, something...she hates internal coms and...may not always able to work hers* VProwl *politely ignores.* Omicron ((Icy = internal comms are frustrating sometimes. <<;;;;)) Bevel *reaches out to pat Icy on the neck in an attempt to calm her down while she looks worriedly between her and Prowl* I think it is time to call it a night. VProwl Sorry to have disturbed the peace. *will also politely not mention that he wasn't the one who switched to audible conversation.* ItsyBitsySpyers This message has been removed. Bevel It is ok, no one disturbed anything. VProwl ((*edits post*)) Bevel ((totally did yep VProwl ((why delete post u inspired the switch to peace. take credit for writing better cop dialogue than me)) ((*holds cro on high*)) Bevel ((yess good Omicron *rumbling growling still, keeps from lashing her tail and lifts head up, trying really hard to stay calm. Stops growling. and with as much grace as she can dips head to Bevel, Prowl and Soundwave* thank you for the evening, and it was nice to see you two as well. *She's trying to be mature queen* ItsyBitsySpyers ((*is afraid of heights, tries to wiggle down*))

*Soundwave stiffly nods his helm as well. He's still partially in prepare-to-battle mode.* Bevel *applies a little more pressure to the spot where she's touching Icy's neck and then nods and smiles* You are welcome. VProwl ((... *puts cro down and Will Smiths at instead*)) Omicron I'm not going to eat anyone Bevel. Apparently I had another....moment. I'll leave ItsyBitsySpyers ((*accepts this*)) ((the will smith i mean)) Bevel I know. *one of her favorite people is a literal cannibal and she doesn't worry about him eating anyone... at movie nights, she doesn't know what Ravage does when he's not at movies 99.99999% of the time* ItsyBitsySpyers *Great and terrible things.* Omicron *looks at Soundwave, she had not ment harm, puts extra feeling into that before* @P :: For what its worth comms are hard. And I'm sorry for offending.:: *she moves away now, there, Icy Adult-ed* VProwl *ping of acknowledgment.* Omicron *Icy hopes into her bridge* ((*still wants to listen though*)) ItsyBitsySpyers *...This looks fun.* Bevel ((of course, 😸 VProwl *well. he might shortly need an excuse to stop coming.* Bevel *nooooo* VProwl *doesn't think "exhausted from constant reminders of having his mind broken into and trashed" is an adequate excuse.* Bevel *it is, though Bevel would try to find things that wouldn't remind Prowl of terrible things if she knew* VProwl *ah but that would involve saying something* *maybe he should pull some more double shifts. that'll help him feel better.* Bevel *well, as long as he enjoys himself* ItsyBitsySpyers *Nudges Prowl's knee and sends coordinates to the other Cybertron with a curious marker. Does Prowl want to go home? Three rough things in a night, and all...* VProwl @S «... What's there?» ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[If you would prefer it, both of us. Or only you.]] VProwl @S «No, what's the place? Where are we going?» ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[Ah. He has no idea. Buildings, one or more roads. Perhaps a working streetlight, if the grid hasn't malfunctioned.]] [[Space for a dr... a walk, even.]] [[Or a drive. He has practiced.]] VProwl @S «............ Why there, then?» ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[Because Bevel thinks it is time to call this location a night, he enjoys your company, and he thought you might not care to be here after that... whatever happened.]] @P: [[And it is not crowded.]] VProwl @S «But why THERE? Why do you want to go to a random street corner instead of one of our places? Or SOME kind of destination.» ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[He doubts he can go to your place, you will be at Dancitron soon enough, and he thought it might be pleasing to enjoy peace, quiet, and the existence of a living planet. If you would rather go to either of his living spaces, however, he does not mind.]] VProwl @S «......... Okay.» *he lives and works on that living planet, but, sure, he'll try it out, he guesses.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Well, Prowl already said he wouldn't come with Soundwave where he's going on vacation, so...*

@P: [[If you do not find it as relaxing as him, we can go somewhere else. He will have plenty of time to be at a spot of his own choosing soon enough.]]

*Soundwave lightly bunts Prowl's shoulder with his crest before rising.*

@P: [[Pahvo, by the way.]] VProwl *rises with him* @S «You found the coordinates? It survived the war intact?» ItsyBitsySpyers *Soundwave nods his helm toward Bevel.*

[[He must thank you for telling him of your discovery, Bevel.]] *An answer and an expression of gratitude all at once. Multitasking!* Bevel *huh? oh, oh right, she beams* VProwl *ah. of course. the one who found the records to begin with.* Bevel I wanted to make sure it was still safe and I know you do to. ItsyBitsySpyers *Suddenly not looking at either of them. My, what an interesting wall across the way.*

[[He was curious.]] VProwl *who you tryna fool* *go enjoy your pacific telepath trees* ItsyBitsySpyers *Soon, soon.* Bevel Uh-huh. Good night, Soundwave. Good night, Prowl. *drops back down onto her couch* ItsyBitsySpyers [[Hmph. Goodnight.]]

*Looks at Prowl. Shall they, then? Meet him there?* VProwl *as long as he's hotspotting off Soundwave's projector, he plans on just following him through the bridge.* ItsyBitsySpyers *In that case, he'll open one and start through it.* VProwl *follows*

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