#he's got the boys and a beautiful wife - why would he need/want marty along?

[doctorbrown]

DOCTOBER '24 ⸺ 「 1 / 31 * RED-LETTER DATE 」

“Hey Doc? I wanna ask you something.” 

Emmett doesn’t pop his head through the doorway to acknowledge his friend, too focused on topping off one of the mugs of hot chocolate with a generous helping of marshmallows, but he does shout, “Of course, Marty,” into the air. “You know you don’t have to ask. Let me bring Verne his cup and then you’ll have my undivided attention.”

Marty makes a vague noise that many years of friendship has taught Emmett means sure thing, Doc, and it takes him barely three minutes to drop off the hot chocolate to Verne, who smiled like it was Christmas morning when he saw the mountain of marshmallows floating at the top, and join Marty in the living room, carrying the tray with their own drinks. He passes one of them off to Marty who accepts with a smile and a nod and then takes a seat opposite him, fixing him with an expectant look.

“So, what did you want to ask me?”

Marty’s eyes immediately drift to the shelf, where Emmett and Clara’s small assortment of family photos sit, arranged in elegant wooden frames. In the centre is a black and white photo that has started to yellow around the edges, looking paradoxically fragile and yet able to withstand even the most rigorous tests of time, holding onto that frozen memory for all eternity. Emmett turns his head to follow Marty’s attention, his eyes alighting on the single photo he expects will be the topic of their conversation.

Ah. Out of all of them, there is only one Marty was never able to be present for.

For once, Emmett manages to look perfectly natural in a photograph, even dressed to the nines in a sharp suit. His smile stretches from ear-to-ear, making him look at least ten years younger, and though his face is angled away from the camera, his eyes are bright and alive, brimming with love and warmth. Marty could even imagine the photographer trying to get Emmett’s attention, demanding he look at him for the photo, only for every single word to go in one ear and straight out the other when Clara was standing beside him, smiling, the picture of radiance as she regards her husband with the same fond warmth. Her wedding dress was no more intricate than any of the outfits Marty had seen her wear during his few days in the Nineteenth Century, yet it seemed to be made for her and her alone, perfectly tailored and somehow able to put even the outfits of royalty to shame.

If Clara was the sun, Emmett was the moon that revolved around her. In that single moment, forever frozen in time, they were the only two people on Earth. 

“I had been wanting to ask for a while, but–”

“No, no, of course. You didn’t get the chance to see it, and I’m sorry for that, so I’d be happy to fill you in on the details.”

Marty curls his fingers around the warm mug, shuffling somewhat in his seat, and Emmett waits patiently, noting each one of Marty’s nervous habits as they arise. There are a hundred and one things Marty wants to say, Emmett can see them written across his body, written into every small movement, and, equal and opposite, there are a thousand things Emmett wants to say in return, things he makes an effort to hold back until Marty speaks first.

“I’m happy for you two, Doc–really, I am. Clara’s–well, Clara’s amazing. And I’ve never seen you so happy before. I was afraid that–” Marty shakes his head, his eyes focused on the photographs. “When I first saw the picture, I was…” He forces a laugh, but there’s no humour in it and Emmett would know that self-depreciatory tone anywhere. 

“It’s stupid, I know. I didn’t realise it at first, but I was jealous. Can you believe that, Doc? My best friend is happy, he’s got a family for Christ’s sake, and I was too busy at first being afraid that now you’re–you’re just gonna forget me because you’ve got Clara and the boys and the house and there wouldn’t be a place for me.”

Emmett’s eyes widen despite knowing the blow was coming and before he can open his mouth, allow the words that have been building up on his tongue to break free, Marty shakes his head and continues, reinforcing the wall and keeping the words at bay just a little longer.

“I know what you’re gonna say, Doc. I already said I know it’s stupid but I couldn’t help feeling that way. And I should have asked you about your wedding and everything a lot longer ago but I-I just couldn’t. And that’s fucking stupid, right? I want to know because I couldn’t be there for you and you’ve always been there for me.”

Marty’s words are a blade driven straight through his chest, each word twisting that razor-sharp blade a little more. He can’t help the pang of guilt he feels echoing in his ribcage, scraping against the bars of a prison he will not allow it to escape from, not now. This conversation was a long time coming–he’d almost expected it sooner rather than later, but he knew better than to push, knowing Marty would open up when he was ready–but no amount of anticipation could have prepared him for the blow that hearing it put to words would strike.

The Time Machine’s destruction had not been an accident. Everything had been carefully orchestrated to prevent any further corruption of the timestream, to spare himself the temptation–the broken heart–of trying to go back against all rational, scientific thought.

Ultimately, Marty couldn’t stay in the Nineteenth Century, not if he wanted to live a normal life, not if he wanted to be happy. And he couldn’t allow Marty to become another unsolved disappearance, leaving the McFlys to wonder and agonise over their youngest son who vanished from the face of the Earth without a trace.

Emmett may not have planned to stay, but even he couldn’t predict Clara’s intervention. 

Life had to go on, even under extreme or difficult circumstances. There was only one choice available, then.

Still, Emmett doesn’t hesitate.

“Marty, I could never forget you. Whether we’re in the same time period or separated across the timestream, you will always be my best friend. And I will never stop caring about you. I know things have been busy lately, both for you and for me, what with your college courses and the boys’ schooling and Clara’s acclimation to the Twentieth Century and making the necessary repairs on the house–” Emmett stops himself before he runs off the entire list of seemingly infinitely-growing projects on his list. 

“The point is, nothing is going to change that. And I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel neglected or unwanted at any point, because that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Marty nods, finally pulling his eyes away from the photo to take a good long look at his best friend. 

“I know, Doc. God, I know. You must think I’m an asshole.” 

“You’re not an asshole. Far from it.”

Marty actually smiles at that, swirling his hot chocolate carefully in the cup. “So… You’ll still tell me about your wedding day?”

“Of course I will, Marty.” Emmett pauses for a moment, a thoughtful expression working its way over his face. Then, he smiles, almost conspiratorially as he recalls something of particular note. “The minister certainly wasn’t pleased when we changed until death do us part to something a little more fitting–until the end of time—”

@bttfdoctober

[glenncoco4]

You Can Count On Me

A/N: Chapter 5

••••

She steps off the dirt path and onto the small dock. Her presence doesn’t even effect him, which is concerning. “I thought I’d find you here.”

He doesn’t have the energy to respond, his thoughts are swirling and the anxiety he’s been having about this situation is bubbling to the surface more and more each day, especially because of her. His cerulean blues stay focused on the ripples of the water surrounding his feet.

Kicking off her flip-flop, the brunette takes a seat next to him on the old dock, putting her bare feet in the cool pond water right along side his. She turns to look at him, wondering what’s going on inside his head and for a moment as the sun illuminates is silhouette, something inside her heart shifts. “Why’d you run off like that?” 

“I guess I just got a little bit overwhelmed by it all.”

“All of what?”

“The thought of going off to college and making something of myself.”

She huffs a laugh, shaking her head in disbelief.

Marty quickly whips his head around, affronted by his best friend’s reaction. “I’m glad you’re enjoying my misery.”

She scoots closer to him, encircling his forearm with her own arms. “No, Marty its not...I’m laughing because you obviously haven’t been paying attention to what I’ve been saying for the past 7 years.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Don’t you realize what you mean to your mom, to my parents...to me? Marty, you’ve already made something of yourself. You are the kindest, funniest and best person I know. You changed my life; you’ve changed so many people’s lives.”

“Really?”

A soft smile crosses her features at the childlike hope in his cerulean blues. “Hey, have I ever lied to you before?”

“No.”

“Exactly. And I never will.” She states matter of factly before leaning her head against his shoulder, soaking in the beautiful glow of the setting sun cascading across the water with the person who makes her feel so safe it’s kinda ridiculous. 

The tension in his body slowly ebbs away at his best friend’s words as the scent of lavender beautifully assaults his nose. Taking a deep calming breath, he leans his head against hers, knowing that whatever life throws at him, she’ll be there. He can count on that. “I know.”

••••

Stepping of the dirt trail and onto the old dock like she’s done so many times before, the brunette takes in the picture before her. There he is, clothes tattered, scars across his beautiful face, but he’s alive and that’s all that matters. 

He turns around already feeling her presence ease the tension away from his battered body. His sorrowful blue eyes meet those of sweetly intense brown and the shine that glistens in them. Shaking his head in defeat, he realizes how close he had come to never seeing her again. 

Kensi doesn’t give him a chance to say anything before she’s closing the distance between them, throwing her arms around him, she’s able to relax for the first time in four months. “You’re safe.”

His body clings to hers, hands grasping at her shirt feeling as though they can’t get close enough. That lavender scent that is so uniquely her fills his nostrils, immediately bringing him a sense of self. She’s here. He’s here. They’re here together and that’s all that matters. “Yeah, for now.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”

She pulls back, a cross between anger and hurt written across her features. “Don’t.”

“Sorry.” The blonde apologizes, regretting his words the moment they left his lips. 

Without thinking, her finger finds the red scrape on his cheek. “Are you okay?”

The feel of her skin against his brings back memories of that night a few months ago. He wants that again so bad. So bad he can almost taste it, but there’s something he has to take care of before he can even think about moving forward with her. “I’ll be better when I catch Lazik.”

“Woah. Woah. Woah. What do you mean when you catch Lazik?”

“I have to finish this, Kens.”

Seeing the determination set in his soulful blue eyes she knows there’s no stopping him, but she’ll be damned if he thinks she’s going to stand idly by. “No, we have to finish this.”

“I suppose I could use some backup.” He smirks, earning a playful nudge from his partner. 

••••

A resounding gasp fills the agents ears as the tech operator discovers who the third vehicle belongs to. “Car’s registered to Dale John Sully.”

Kensi tilts her head back against the head rest in exasperation when Eric confirms that her best friend’s undercover persona is indeed inside the warehouse, putting his life in even more danger than before. “Callen, that’s Marty’s alias.”

The team leader shakes is head wondering why he’s so surprised that the detective is indeed in another sticky situation. “Your boy just loves trouble, doesn’t he.”

She stares at the roof of the car for a minute, thinking about Callen’s words. “It’s funny, cuz when we were growing up, it was always the other way around.”

“Kens, I’m not so sure this is a good idea.” Marty looks around the backyard nervously as his best friend pulls out the power saw from her dad’s tool shed. 

“What are you talking about? It’s just a little tree house.”

“Yeah, but what’s your dad gonna say when he catches us with his power tools?”

The brunette begins to pull out the sawhorse before turning around to meet the 13 year old’s worried eyes.“He’s not gonna catch us and you’re not gonna tell him either.”

He feels a unfamiliar thud in his heart when the challenging spark in her mismatched orbs meet his.“Has anyone ever told you how cute you are when you’re homicidally angry?”

“In fact they have and he was never seen again.” 

Taking a deep breath, Kensi focuses on the here and now. Rescuing Marty’s ass, just so she can kill him herself for going in alone. “So what’s the plan?”

••••

The bald man turns to meet Dale’s eyes, a dark smirk playing at the corner of his lips. “You are surprised I have a wife?”

A shiver runs down his spine. “Everybody’s gotta have somebody, right?” The blonde answers as a sense of warmth and dread swarm through his body at the thought of his person, his somebody, his Kensi and how close they are to having at what he hopes will be forever. 

••••

Callen watches as the shaggy blonde, presses the muzzle of the gun forcefully against the dirty cops jaw. “Deeks, look, he’s not worth it.”

Marty ignores the team leader’s statement as his anger continues to take control of his body. “Ask me again. Ask it again!”

Kensi watches on as a side of her best friend that she’s never seen before takes over. Thinking of how he would deal with this situation if their roles reverse, she does the only thing that would certainly bring her out of her rage. “Marty. Marty, put it down.”

As soon as his name leaves her lips a calmness washes over him and it suddenly hits him that she was there to witness what just happened. He empty’s the camber of the gun handing it off to the guys before looking for the nearest way out. 

Seeing the frantic look of turmoil in her best friend’s eyes, Kensi places her hand against his chest, trying to bring him some sort of relief. 

He shakes his head, trying to school his features as much as he can and does the one thing that never seems to work when it comes to her, not that he would want it to. He walks away from her without a word. 

Finding a clear spot against the ally wall, Marty leans against the brick, sliding down until his ass his the hard concrete. He brings his knees up to his chest, burrowing his head into them as he finally lets his tears fall. The anger he’s been holding onto for so long, the pure shit that was this case and the most beautiful moment he’s ever experienced in his life all swimming around in his head. 

He’s not sure how long it is before the familiar sound of her footfalls hit his ears. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t acknowledge her presence.

“Hey, are you okay?” She chastises herself for asking such a stupid question. Of course he’s not okay. She’s seen him come out of some pretty deep covers, but this one seems to be affecting him more than any other. Kneeling down in front of him, her hands find his, trying to once again comfort him the way she always has. 

“I’d be better if everyone just left me alone.”

The bite in his voice tells her one thing, his walls are up and considering the emotional state he’s in right now, they won’t be coming down any time soon...even for her. She stands back up, shaking her head in frustration. “Understood.”

The sound of her footfalls getting further and further away finally draw him out of his “cage,” realizing that she’s not going to fight him right now even though she knows its what he needs. He can feel the strain in his throat as her silhouette gets smaller and smaller. “Kens...” He sighs in defeat as she quickly turns the corner. 

This day keeps getting shittier and shittier. 

••••

He brings his fist up to tap on the piece of wood once more, but just as he does it’s pulled open. A set of mesmerizingly mysterious eyes are suddenly staring back at him, leaving him at a loss for words. “I-“

“I thought you wanted to be alone.”

“I did, but...”

“But what?”

She’s upset, actually upset doesn’t seem to be the right word for what he sees staring back at him. Ever since they were kids he’s imagined this moment in so many different ways, this wasn’t really one of them. “I-I wanted to tell you that after that night we had...I never meant for it to happen.”

Kensi can feel her heart split into two at his words. The thought of this...them..of what they could be, it’s all suddenly gone. All the fight she thought was inside her has dissipated. She won’t let herself cry. She won’t. “O-oh, yeah, right. I-I understand.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, you were probably just in the heat of the moment and didn’t want to hurt my-“

Before she can finish her sentence, his lips are on hers, cutting her off. His hands come up, cradling her face, kissing her with such passion and reverence that it would put a Nicholas Sparks movie to shame. 

Their tongues duel as if its their last moments on earth and this is goodbye. It’s a few minutes later when they have to pull back, both panting as the rise and fall of their chests brush against each other. “What was that?” 

“It seems as though I’m not so good with the words, so I had to resort to other tactics.”

“Not that I didn’t enjoy those tactics, but you know you can tell me anything, Marty.”

“I know. I know. It’s just, laying it all there and saying the words out loud...to you, I-“

“Deeks, what is it?”

At the sound of his last name leaving her lips, he knows he better get to the point and stop being circuitous. It’s now or never. Chips on the table. All in. Taking one last calming breath, his hand finds itself back on her jaw, the feel of her skin against his sends a shock wave through his body. Conveying everything he possibly can in his eyes, he says what’s been sitting on the tip of his tongue and in some part of his head for 20 years now. “I’ve always wanted this one specific thing in life and I didn’t realize until recently what it was. I want you, Kens. I want you and me...I want us. You’re so much more than my best friend. You’re everything to me, Kensi and I’m so far past being in love with you.”

As his confession washes over her, everything stands still as her broken heart slowly mends itself together. This is so not what she was expecting tonight. “You-you love me?”

“I do.” His lips rise into a small smile. “I think the night we made love made me realize it even more.”

He watches as an unreadable look crosses her face as if she’s trying to size him up before turning around and walking further into her apartment. Seeing as though she doesn’t slam the door in his face, he follows her in, quickly shutting the door and becomes confused when he doesn’t see her sitting on the couch. 

The brunette follows his movements as he walks further into the living room before she makes her next move. Coming up behind him, she spins his body around and pushes him onto the couch. Straddling his lap, she presses her heat against his. His arms immediately wrapping around her waist loving the feel of her body against his as her movements quickly bringing his member to life. 

Slowly moving in, a soft blissful smile spreads to her face as her intense mismatched orbs dance with passion. “I’m in love with you, too.”

[ms-rampage]

Eden’s Gate: Aftermath Chapter 6 - The Man Who Sold The World

Warnings: Swearing, slight violence, some Kate and Wheaty cutensss, usage of drugs (Bliss)

Word count: 4.3k

Summary: In the penultimate chapter, Paige, Kate and Mandy finally meet face to face with Joseph Seed, but there will be bloodshed, and maybe a few sacrifices the family will have to make. 

Guest OCs: Just the usuals. 

Guest Characters: Archangel Raphael [Supernatural: mentioned], God/Chuck [mentioned], An Archangel? [read until the end]

Note: One more chapter!!! Then New Dawn begins.

*****

Another few weeks have passed, October is here and that means Fall in Montana is beautiful. The fallen leaves, the crispy cool breezes, orange, red and yellow leaves. Fall colors.

Pumpkins, hot chocolate, sweater season, blood shed, violence, and crazy fucking Cultists. 

The Winchester-Smith compound has never looked more alive. The trees on the property with their orange, and yellow leaves.

The threatening words of graffiti on the gates of the compound. Sinner. The Father. The Power of Yes. 

John Seed’s followers tried to retaliate, and avenged his death, but the Winchester family is always 10 steps ahead of them.

7:00 am. A letter arrived at their front door for the 3 females of the Winchester family that morning. From the man whom they’ve been looking for, The Father Joseph Seed himself.

Telling them to go to his church at 5:30 that evening. He didn’t say for what, or why, but they weren’t gonna let this opportunity slip.

“It’s clearly a trap” Kenny tells his wife.

“What if it isn’t?” she asks.

“Why would Joseph send you a letter telling you to go to his church?!?” Nate asks, as he pours coffee in a cup.

“I don’t know, but we’re going” Kate says.

“You two are pregnant!!” Kenny exclaims, “You aren’t going”.

“Okay! Then who else is gonna take our place?” Paige asks.

“I’ll take your place, Mandy and one of the guys can go” he replies. 

“Joseph asked us, and us only to go. We aren’t risking you two going, and probably getting killed” Kate tells him.

“What if he kills you guys?!” Mark asks.

“Remember the letter he left us? When we killed his brothers? He said that we were forgiven for all the shit we’ve done” Paige informs them.

“He could be lying!” Mark adds in.

“Joseph is telling the truth” Mandy steps in. 

They all turn around to face her, “How do you know?!?” Kenny asks.

“I spent 6 months with him. I can tell if he’s lying or not. Writing or speaking I can tell” she says.

Paige looks down at the letter, “So what do we do?!?”.

Mandy takes a deep breath, “When 5:30 comes we leave for church. Whatever happens, happens. This is where it all ends”.

They all stare at her in anticipation.

“I just got the chills when you said that” Mark mutters.

“Yeah for real” Adrian says, looking at her like she just gave him life changing news.

****

A few hours later. 

10:00 am, everyone had just eaten breakfast, Paige is feeding Cristina 2nd her morning bottle.

Kate just threw up, morning sickness and she hates it. 

She called Wheaty, and they’re gonna hang that afternoon. Not telling him about the letter from Joseph to meet at his church.

Kenny, Mark, Nate, Cody, Marty, Adrian and a few others finished putting up one of the 2 houses. Rachel is having a panic attack, knowing that Joseph knows she’s living with the Winchesters. Mandy sitting in her room, blinded by her thoughts. Wondering why Joseph wants the 3 of them to go to his church.

What could he possibly want?. What is the meaning, or purpose of this?. Is he gonna kill them? Does he want to make peace with them?. Is he gonna surrender himself? What is he gonna do?.

Paige is sitting on the front porch swing, holding Cristina while “Fade to Black” by Metallica plays on her bluetooth speaker. Humming along with the song, with Cristina falling asleep in her arms.

****

2 hours have gone by, 12:00pm.

“Things not what they used to be. Missing one inside of me. Deathly loss l, this can't be real. I cannot stand this hell I feel. Emptiness is filling me. To the point of agony. Growing darkness taking dawn. I was me, but now he's gone.”

Kenny steps outside, and sees this. A huge smile grows on his face. He takes a seat next to Paige on the swing, putting his arm around her. She leans closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. He places a kiss on her head, rests his cheek on her head. 

Lightly swing back and forth on the swing. Little moments like this they love. They don’t need to go out to fancy restaurants every weekend, or a weekend get away for the both of them. 

Cristina falls asleep in her mothers arms, letting out soft nasal snores, making Kenny snickers at this.

“You know I still don’t like the plan” he tells her. 

“I know you don’t” she responds. They sit in silence for a moment.

“If you could guess what Joseph wants. What would you guess?” he asks.

She sighs, “I don’t know. Maybe make peace with us, or make some sort of treaty between everyone in Hope County”.

“Your mom seems to know a lot about Joseph. Like how he thinks, or what possibly goes through his head.” he tells her.

“Yeah, my mom is really good at reading people, even if she’s not trying to. It’s like a power she has. Growing up I couldn’t even lie to her, and I’m really good at lying, but she knew. She always knew. Kate takes a lot after her, they both try to see the good in people even if they don’t deserve it. I take after my dad, he didn’t trust anyone outside the family. Like if he was still alive, and all this shit that happened, like Rachel turning on the Project, he wouldn't trust her either. Even if she had a change of heart, he wouldn’t trust her at all”.

Kenny zones out as she’s talking, still being able to hear every word she says. He places his hand on her 9 in half weeks pregnant belly. 

“You think your dad would’ve liked me?” he asks, looking up at the sky.

Paige looks up at him, looking into his blue orbs and smiles “If he knew I trusted you, then he would’ve trusted you as well”.

He looks down at her, and kisses her forehead. 

Paige sighs, “My mom-” she says before getting cut off by a soft “mom” from the infant in her arms.

Her and Kenny look at each other wide eyed, then down at Cristina who is half asleep.

She picks her up, having her stand on her lap.

��Say that again” she tells the 11 month old in her hands, “Say mom”.

“Say mama” she tells her again, “Say mama”.

“Say dadda” he jumps in.

Paige glares at him, “This is my moment”.

“Say mama” she tells her again slowly.

“Mama” Cristina mutters her first word, very softly that it sounds like a mumble.

Paige gasps loudly, her eyes widened “She just- she. She said mama. She said her first word!!!”. She gets up from the swing, and goes inside the house.

“Mom!!!” she calls out as she goes inside.

*****

Kate went on her date with Wheaty. She wanted to go hunting, but since she’s 7 in half weeks pregnant, they changed their date plans. They decided to go to the camping spot where they first met a few years back.

“It looks the same” she jokes.

“Camping spots usually never change” he replies. They sit near the water, on some boulders. 

“So how’s the pregnancy?” he asks.

She looks down at her belly, chuckling “I threw up this morning. I’m peeing a lot but my mom and sister said that's normal, other than that it’s going pretty good”. 

“Thought of any names?” he asks, putting his arm around her. 

She thinks about it for a brief moment, “If it’s a boy his name would be either Gabriel Joel Eddard, or Samuel Dean Rhaegar. For a girl Daenerys Arya Brienne, or Lyanna Pamela Cersei”.

“What is up with you and these Game of Thrones names?!” he laughs, kissing the side of her head. 

“They’re nice names!. It’ll give them character, plus Pamela isn’t a name from Game of Thrones, and neither is Samuel, Dean, Gabriel and Joel” she laughs. 

“Don’t be surprised if little Daenerys asks for a dragon, or 3 for her birthday, or an Iron Throne” he jokes. 

“And if she does I’ll be very happy about it, and I’ll get her a stuffed dragon. One of those giant plush ones that are like 5-6 feet tall”.

They talked, they laughed, they made out. They enjoyed their time together, holding her in his arms as they watched the lake. Watching the boats, and jet skies go by.

Even the subject of marriage and kids came up on their date. Even though they've started dating back in August but have known each other over 2 years. 

She starts reminiscing back when they first met. She still remembers that night very clearly. She still has the photos. 

"I still remember that day when we first met" she tells him.

A smile appears on his face, "Yeah me too". 

"I never had a crush on anyone until I met you" he tells her. She looks up at him. 

"Really?" she asks. He nods his head, she moves closer into his arms. Enjoying every single moment of it. 

Kate knows this might be the last time her and Wheaty ever hang out again. Their last date together, and they don’t know it.

Resting her head against his shoulder as they sit by the lake. His arms wrapped around her. 

"Also I wanted to give you this" he says, getting something out of his pants pocket. He pulls out a bracelet, similar to the ones he wears and puts it on her wrist. She smiles as he puts it on her, holding her hand in his. She looks up at him, and kisses him.

***

4:15 pm Kate is still on her date with Wheaty. Her sister and mother prepare themselves as they wait for her.

“Where is she?!” Paige asks, getting annoyed.

“We still have a whole hour” Mandy tells her, “She’ll be back. Soon hopefully”.

15 minutes later Kate pulls into the driveway. 

She enters the house, “It’s about time you show up” Paige tells her.

“Well sorry!” she responds sarcastically, “I had a date with Wheaty, and I wanted to see him before we’re killed!”.

“We’re not gonna get killed” Mandy steps in, “Because we’re not going”.

They all look over at her in confusion. Mandy was having 2nd thoughts about confronting Joseph, and she made the decision not to go to the church.

“What do you mean we’re not going?!?” Paige questions her, “You literally said a few seconds ago that we’re going. Implied it”.

“We’re not going. We’re not gonna give Joseph what he wants” she tells them. 

“Mom?!” Kate mutters in disbelief and confusion.

Paige scoffs, shaking her head “Mom, this is our only chance. To get rid of Joseph. Put an end to the Cult, and kill whoever is left”.  

Everyone, Paige, Kate, Kenny, Adrian, Martin, Cody, Mark, Nate, Barbara, Rachel, and everyone else in the house look at Mandy. About 30, plus, eyes staring back at her. 

“We’re not going” she tells them, “I don’t care what Joseph wants. We’re not going”.

Paige, scoffs at her mother, “Why?. Why the change of heart all of a sudden?!?”.

Mandy glares at her eldest child, and says “You wouldn’t understand”.

Kate stops her older sister from doing or saying anything else to their mom. 

She still plans to go and confront Joseph. All the damage, pain. suffering and bloodshed he had caused. It’ll all end that evening, nothing will stop Paige from ending The Father. 

5:20 rolls around, Kate and Mandy have no intentions of leaving for church. 

The youngest Winchester thinks they should go.

“Mom?” she asks.

“We’re not going Katella” she says, not looking up at her youngest daughter. 

Paige comes downstairs, and is immediately out the door, and goes to the Impala. 

“Paige?!?” Kate exclaims, going after her. Too late she’s already driving like a maniac off of the property. Leaving behind a cloud of dirt.

“Son of bitch!!” she mutters, “She’s going after Joseph”.

They grab the keys to the Monte Carlo, and drive after Paige who is probably already at the church.

**** 

Church of Eden’s Gate

Paige enters the compound, breaking down the front gate with the car. She stops the car, exits it. Pistol ready in her holster. A few peggies on the property staring at her. She ignores them, she’s there for Joseph. She’ll handle the hillbillies later.

“Joseph!!!” she shouts his name, echoing in the sky “Joseph!!!”. 

Approaching the church, the man himself Joseph Seed steps out. She stares at him intensely. He looks up at the sky, closes his eyes and says, “And the lamb broke the 5th seal, and I saw under the altar the souls of Martyrs. Slain because of the Word of God”.

Pointing to Paige, “You. You turned my sister. You poisoned her mind with your wretched words”.

She pulls her pistol out of its holster and aims at him, “I didn’t change her. She finally saw your monstrous ways. She changed on her own”.

“Lies” he hisses, “Your disgusting words against God, and his word”. 

She turns off the safety on her pistol, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right here. Right now”. Her voice filled with anger, and violent intentions. 

He walks around her, she follows his movements. Gun still aimed at him. 

“I told you. Your mother. I told you that we were living in a world on the brink. Where every slight. Every injustice. Where every choice reveals our sins”.

Paige narrows her eyes at him, her pistol still aimed at him, not lowering it once. 

“And where have those sins led us?, Where have those sins led you?”. 

The sound of tires screeching, breaks Paige’s concentration, she turns her head and sees her sister's car drive on the property.

Kate and Mandy get out. “Paige don’t!!!” Mandy exclaims, running towards her. 

She turns back to Joseph, and aims her gun at him again. 

“Paige what are you doing?!?!” Kate exclaims.

“What does it look like I’m doing??!” she replies sarcastically, “I’m ending it all”. 

Joseph stares at Mandy, “Paige, you can’t do this” she pleads.

“Uhh, sure I can” she replies back. Rolling her eyes. 

Mandy gets in between the gun and Joseph. “No, I mean you can’t kill him”.

Lowering her gun, glaring at her mother, “What are you talking about?!?”.

Before she could explain herself, Joseph speaks up. 

“Mandeline”, his voice so calm that it sends shivers up her spine. Giving her goosebumps. 

She closes her eyes, sadness and shame written all over her face. She turns to face him. Her eyes meeting his. He stares at her with so much intensity that you can almost feel the anger radiating off of him, and the fear radiating off of her. 

“You betrayed me, my family, my flock, and God. You dare to show yourself to me” he tells her, slowly approaching her. 

“Joseph, I’m sorry, but I had no choice. I couldn’t stand by and watch everything happen” she explains to him.

He points at her, “You turn my family into Martyrs. And I plan to do the same with yours”. He walks around them, and they see their friends Mary May, Nick Rye, Pastor Jerome, Grace Armstrong, Jess Black, Tracey Lader, Wheaty, and Tammy Barnes all under the influence of Bliss holding Kenny, Mark and Nate hostage. 

“Wheaty!!!!” Kate cries out, seeing her boyfriend drugged up with Bliss.

“Kenny?!?” Paige says under her breath, “How the fuck did you get to them!?!?!”. 

“Joseph let them go!!!!” Mandy yells.

He turns to her, and says, “Your friends, and family have been taken and torture, and it’s your fault. Countless people have been killed, and it is your fault. The world is on fire, and it’s your fault. Was it worth it?. Was it?”.

“You motherfucker” Paige mutters angrily, “Me killing you will fucking worth it, and I can promise you that”. 

The followers on the property gather behind the 3 Winchesters, blocking them from escaping. 

“Kenny what happened?!? Was it Rachel?!?” Paige asks.

“No!” he mutters. 

“The others are fine. They got us, Rachel took off when they showed up” Nate wheezes. 

“Paige?” Mandy mutters softly.

“Not now” she responds, “Joseph I swear you better-”

“Paige!” she yells, breaking her attention from him. 

“Mom!. Now's not the time” she tells her.

“You can’t kill him” she tells her almost in a whisper.

She looks at her, eyes furrow, “Yeah I can, he has our friends and family hostage!!”.

Mandy looks back at Joseph then back at Paige, “No I mean you can’t kill him”.

“What do you mean I can’t-” She stands in front of her once again, blocking the bullet from hitting Joseph.

“Raphael” she mutters, interrupting her. 

“Raphael?!?” Kate whispers, “The Archangel?!?”.

She nods her head, “Yes, I was told by Archangel Raphael that Joseph had to be protected, and I was the one to do it. That’s why you can’t kill him.”

Kate and Paige look at their mother in disbelief, and confusion.

“Because Chuck spoke to him” she whispers to them, “About the end. You can’t kill him because if you do everything, everyone will die. Cease to exist. The end of life as we know it”. They both glare at her with mixed emotions. 

“You knew this whole time?!?” Paige yells, “This whole time!!. If Joseph gets killed, hurt and harmed in any way. Chuck will drop a bomb on all of humanity?!?”.

“Why didn’t you tell us?!?!” Kate asks, betrayal in her voice.

“I couldn’t say anything. Raphael forbidden me from saying anything to anyone!!” she says.

Paige lowers her pistol, putting it back in her holster.

Shaking her head, “I can’t believe you. He could be playing him for all we know” she tells her.

“Let them go” she orders Joseph, pointing to Kenny, Mark and Nate. 

Joseph stares at her, “Are you deaf?!? I said let them go!!!” she orders him again.

Mandy holds her back, “Let me handle this”.

She turns to face Joseph, and pleads with him “Joseph please, let them go. We don’t want anymore bloodshed. Please let them go, and we’ll leave”.

“Wheaty too!” Kate shouts.

“You betrayed me. Betrayed God. I forgive you for what you’ve done to my family, but that I can’t forgive” he tells her, stepping close to her, “Your family will pay for what you have done”. 

The few followers grab Paige and Kate shoving them onto the ground, taking their guns and other weapons away.

“Don’t fucking touch me!!” Paige yells, struggling.

“Get off me!!” Kate shouts, fighting to be let go. 

“Joseph, it’s not their fault!!. It’s mine. Let them go, and you can deal with me” she pleads with him again.

He grabs her shoulders, “This is where it ends” he whispers to her. Tears stream down her face. 

“You peggie fuckers!!. Pieces of fucking shit!!” Paige mutters as a peggie pushes her face first into the ground. 

“Get the fuck off of her!!” Kenny yells at him.

Tears streaming down Mandy’s cheeks, if only she was honest with her family. If only she had told them the truth. All of this wouldn't have happened. Her family was gonna be killed because of her. Her own greed. 

“When are you gonna realize that every problem cannot be solved with a bullet?” he asks her. 

“It doesn’t have to end this way” she pleads with him. 

Two of his followers, grab her. Preventing her from stopping whatevers gonna happen. 

One of his Chosen has a sharp knife in hand. Almost like a miniature machete, holding it in front of her eldest child. 

“Really Joseph? You��re gonna kill two pregnant women!” Paige yells. Grabbing the Father’s attention.

He stops them, having Paige’s full attention. He looks at her with a questioning look on his face. 

“Yeah” she says, a smug look on her face “I’m pregnant. So is my sister. She’s carrying your little brother's kid. John”. 

He looks over at the youngest sister, and she nods her head. “It’s John’s kid, Joseph. You kill us, you kill your nephew/niece, but keep in mind we’ll never be family”. 

He looks up at the sky, backing away from them. His back to all of them. “Let them go” he says. They free the family of hunters, showing them all mercy. 

“Wheaty?!” Kate cries, trying to snap him out of it, “Wheaty please. It’s me, Kate”. 

She holds his face, cupping it, hoping to get him back into reality. All their friends drugged up, blind from reality. Paige grabs her arm, “Come on, we have to get out of here”. 

She resists, shaking her head “No, Wheaty please snap out of it. We have a child on the way” she cries. The Bliss has taken over his state of mind that he can’t comprehend anything.

Mark and Nate practically dragged Kate back into the car. Her, her mother and sister in the Impala, Kenny, Nate and Mark in the Monte Carlo. They all drive back to the compound.

*****

Little did they know they’re not the only ones that have had an issue with Joseph, and the Cult. The new Deputy has had their fair share of issues with the Seed family, and their followers.

Liberating their outposts and destroying their properties. Making the Seed family look like a family of psychopaths they need to be locked up. 

When Faith took off, she went to her gate and met with the Deputy. They put up a fight against her and they ended up killing her. 

Faith. Rachel would’ve been the adopted sister to the two sisters. Rachel Winchester would’ve been her name. 

****

They all arrive back at the compound. Kate in tears, Paige in shock.

The others come out, and see all their friends alive. Their children and wifes stand at the front porch. 

“Holy shit!!” Cody says relieved, “You’re all alive!!”.

They all nod, “Yeah, yeah we are” Mandy mutters. 

“Is Joseph alive?!?” Adrian asks. They all nod in disappointment, “Yeah, the fucker is still alive” Kate mutters angrily. 

“Where’s Rachel?” Kate asks them. The others shrug, “We don’t know, she fled the property when the peggies arrived”. 

“So now what?!” Mark asks, shrugging. 

Paige shakes her head “I don’t know, we’re gonna have to-”. 

As she’s speaking, it’s almost like God himself was making a huge entrance. Lighting up the entire sky. 

A bright white light blinds them all, covering their faces from the burning brightness. 

When the bright light clears, a giant mushroom-like cloud in the distance fills the sky. 

“Oh my god!!” Nate mutters in horror, “Oh my god!!”. 

A huge storm flies at them, causing the entire ground to shake violently. Making them stumble, and fall. The trees, and land go up in flames within seconds. Animals running to seek shelter. The whole sky orange, everything is a fiery orange red. 

“Shit! he was right!” Martin screams in horror, “He was right!”.

“Damn it Chuck!” Paige mumbles angrily with a hint of fear in her voice. 

Realization hitting hard, “Wheaty?, I have to get Wheaty!!” Kate yells.  

She gets stopped by her mother and brother in law, “Kate no!!”. 

“I have to go back for him!!” she cries, trying to get to her car. 

Paige tries to hold her back, “It’s too late for him!!. You’ll die if you go back!. Kenny! Adrian! Get the cars underground. Everyone else get the children, pets and go down to the bunker”. They get the cars underground to the bunker garage. They get all their kids, pets, and all go down to the bunker. 

Everyone settles underground. Fear, anger. So much emotion in one room. The distance rumbles of explosions going off, making it sound like the king of all thunderstorms is happening right above their heads. Paige looks around the main room of the bunker to see if everyone made it down. She counts everyone that was on the property. 

Herself, her daughter, Kate, Kenneth, her mother, Barbara, Mark, his wife and 2 kids, Nate, his wife and 3 kids. Cody and his wife, Martin and his fiancee, Adrian and his wife. 

“He was right” Kate mutters, playing with her bracelet, “Joseph Seed was right, and we didn’t see it coming. God, the Collapse, this sort of thing is right up our alley, and we didn’t believe him!!”.

Paige sighs in disappointment, “It’s not that we didn’t believe him. He didn't believe us, which is not surprising. It’s that he claimed that he spoke with Chuck, and for all we know. He couldn’t been played by him”.

Kate is about to say something when a fluttering sound, and a loud thud a few rooms away throws her off. 

“Did you hear that?!?” she asks the others. The others stay back while her and Paige go to investigate it. Kate then sees a single golden, brown feather on the floor.

“Hey, look a feather” she says, pointing at it. Paige, who doesn’t see it, looks at her in confusion. 

“Where?!?” she asks, looking around for it. They get to the source of the sound, and see a man with his back to them, kneeling on the floor. 

Paige pulls out her pistol, and aims at the intruder. 

They both see the same man, but Kate sees a little more. Tattered up golden, brown angelic wings. They approach the man, and stand in front of him. He lifts his head to look up at them, and they see the wounded, beaten up Archangel. 

“Gabriel?!?” Kate mutters. 

____

When the bombs fell

Not long after (The Angels fell)

[arashi-no-megami]

Andi Mack is back so here’s Tyrus fic #10 🎉🥴

TJ was rummaging through his locker, looking for his History book for his next class. He heard a familiar voice call out to him. As he turned around, he met face-to-face with Kira.

“Hey!” she smiled brightly.

“Hey, what’s up?” TJ smiled back.

“Are you doing anything on the 24th? There’s this amazing movie that’s coming out and I really wanna see it. You down?” Kira bounced up and down on her tiptoes.

“Uh, sure, let me check,” TJ opened his phone and checked his calendar.

“Ah, wait...I’m busy that day...” he said a little bit quieter than usual. That was the day of Bex and Bowie’s reception for the wedding they eventually decided to have. Which was literally less than a week away. Why would he go to Bex and Bowie’s wedding reception in the first place? Well, because Cyrus asked him to, of course. He tried to prepare his answer for the inevitable question incoming.

“Really? What are you doing?” Kira looked up at him. Just then, the bell rang. Whew.

“Uh, I’ll tell you later. I got to go to class.” TJ turned around and started walking away. Kira trotted after him and giggled.

“We’re in the same History class, genius. Now tell me what you’re doing,” she clutched her books to her chest and playfully bumped her shoulder into his.

“Uh, well...I’m going to a wedding reception that day.”

“Oh, wow! That sounds SO nice. Are you taking anyone?” Kira smiled somewhat mischievously. Now, this was the question TJ wasn’t prepared for. What would she do if he said Cyrus asked him already? What would happen if she knew he was going to a formal event with another boy, let alone Cyrus?

“Uhhh...”

“We could always see that movie another time. You’re allowed to bring a plus-one, right? Let’s go to the wedding reception together!” Kira beamed over at him. TJ stared blankly as he kept walking. He was silent. Kira knitted her eyebrows.

“Hello? What, are you already going with someone? Who?” Kira kept looking at the taller boy beside her. TJ had no idea what to say to her, so he just blurted out a ‘nobody’, and started to walk faster. He hated that word when he was referring to Cyrus. Cyrus was far from ‘nobody’. Kira skipped and caught up with TJ.

“Okay, great!! This will be so much fun!” Kira grinned. ‘Damn it, TJ,’ he thought to himself. He just didn’t know how to say no to this girl. His History classroom couldn’t be any farther away.

A couple days have passed and TJ didn’t know what to do. The reception was days away, and he couldn’t tell Kira that he was already going with someone else. He couldn’t tell her that that someone was Cyrus. He should have lied and said it was a family outing or something. The last thing he wanted was to have a repeat of the Costume Day incident. Well, it wasn’t like him and Kira were going as a couple. He could still bring her along as a friend, and still go with Cyrus...right? Did Cyrus even want to go with him in that way? TJ was deep in his thoughts when Cyrus himself seemed to have materialised in front of him.

“Hey, TJ,” Cyrus smiled up at him. It took TJ a second or two to return to reality and he smiled back at the brown-haired boy.

“Just wanted to ask, what time did you want to go to the reception?” Cyrus started. “My mom wanted to know if she should pick you up, or—“

“Uh, maybe like 5, or something. And tell your mom thanks, but I already have a ride,” TJ tried to sound as calm and collected as he could. “Uh, is it okay if I brought a friend?” TJ asked quickly. Cyrus blinked before he responded.

“Yeah, Bex said we could bring whoever we wanted. Who—“

“Great! I’ll, uh, catch you later. Gotta go,” TJ practically ran off. Cyrus watched TJ until he turned a corner and was out of sight. Cyrus didn’t want to think too much about it, but he had a good idea of who that ‘friend’ was.

TJ sat in the back seat of his parents’ car with his elbow on the armrest, staring out the window. TJ’s father was driving, and his mother was in the passenger seat. ‘Why did they both have to come?’ he wondered. They pulled up to the driveway of a house TJ’s been to a few times. A curly haired girl in a beautiful dress came bounding down the steps and eagerly approached the car. TJ’s father looked at his wife and they both smiled at each other.

“Aw, Timothy, your date is so adorable!” TJ’s mother cooed.

“I told you, she’s not my—“

TJ was interrupted by the sound of the car door opening and Kira greeting TJ and his parents. Ugh, this would be a long car ride.

After a grueling twenty minute ride to the reception venue, they finally made it. TJ’s parents were insufferable; asking Kira all sorts of questions about how she and TJ met, and how long they’ve known each other. It was painfully awkward, but at least it was over. TJ flung open the car door and said bye to his parents.

“Text one of us when you’re ready. Have fun, you two,” TJ’s dad grinned at the pair, and then drove off.

It had been 10 minutes since TJ had texted Cyrus that he was on his way. Cyrus was sitting at a table with Jonah, Buffy, Andi, Amber, and Marty. Buffy noticed Cyrus hunched over and staring at his phone.

“You good?” Buffy put a hand on Cyrus’ back.

“Uh, yeah. I’m just waiting for TJ to text me to tell me he’s here...” Cyrus suddenly stood up. “I think I’ll go walk around and see if he made it.”

Buffy turned around and looked at Andi with a slightly worried look on her face. Cyrus thought of texting TJ, but he didn’t want to come off as annoying, or anything. He just wandered about, scanning the faces of the people around him. Then, finally, he found the tall blond boy standing around the juice table. Cyrus began to walk towards him but something caused him to freeze in his tracks. Kira was there too. ‘Oh, right...’ Cyrus thought to himself. Cyrus decided to be cordial and started walking towards them again. He had barely made two steps before he saw something else that would make him stop walking. He saw Kira wrap her arm around TJ’s and shortly put her head on his shoulder before pulling him around to walk somewhere else. Suddenly, he was locked in eye contact with TJ from across the room. Cyrus felt his face grow hot with embarrassment, and he stormed away from the scene. TJ released himself from Kira’s grip and started to go after Cyrus. Kira also started to follow behind him until TJ made a sharp 180 turn and looked down at Kira, stopping her in her tracks.

“Kira, no. I need to talk to him. Alone,” TJ left Kira standing by herself and tried to find Cyrus.

TJ found Cyrus outside the building, sitting on a bench in front of a campfire. TJ sighed to himself before walking over and sitting down beside him.

“Hey,” TJ smiled softly at the boy beside him. Cyrus looked over at TJ and looked back at his shoes.

“Hey...” Cyrus replied quietly.

“Look, Cyrus, I...I’m sorry I brought Kira. I know I should have told you. She pretty much invited herself and I didn’t know how to tell her no...” TJ began to explain.

“You shouldn’t have to tell her no for my sake, TJ. If you wanted to go with her, who am I to stop you?” Cyrus continued looking down at his shoes.

“That’s the thing...I didn’t want to go with her, because you had asked me already.”

“It’s fine, TJ. I don’t want to come between you two. You look really happy.”

“I told you before, we’re not a couple. And we will never be. I...I’m sorry.” TJ looked down at his own shoes.

“I was probably deluding myself anyway,” Cyrus sighed and looked up at the dark sky. TJ looked back up at Cyrus and turned his body on the bench to face him.

“What? What do you mean?” Cyrus didn’t look at TJ. He was silent. TJ’s gaze was fixed on Cyrus’ expression until it traveled downwards and stopped on his hand that was resting on the bench in the space between them. TJ moved his hand slightly and ever so softly brushed it over Cyrus’.

“Cyrus...is there anything you want to tell me?” Cyrus’ felt a shock go through his body as he felt TJ’s fingers touch his own. He looked down at their hands and looked up at TJ almost with tears in his eyes. Cyrus took a deep breath, his heart almost beating out of his chest.

“Promise you won’t say anything until I’m done,” Cyrus pursed his lips and watched TJ nod his head.

“Well...” Cyrus had no idea how he was going to do this. He took another deep breath and decided he would just say whatever came to his mind. There would be no way that he would ever be prepared to come out to the boy he liked, so he might as well just wing it.

“In the past year I found out two important things about myself. One, I’m gay. Two, I have a bad habit of getting crushes on cute athletic green-eyed boys who turn out to be straight,” he pitifully chuckled to himself. “My first crush was, you guessed it, Jonah Beck. But that faded over time, and I found a new crush.” Cyrus looked over at TJ and the poor boy was staring at Cyrus with his mouth slightly hanging open. Cyrus continued. “I think I actually started to like you back when you got that muffin for me, and my feelings only got stronger as time went on. But I already knew you would never be interested in me in that way, so I just never thought about it. I just enjoyed every second I got to spend with you. But the thing is, I think I realised how serious it was when I started to see you hanging out with Kira. I know it’s selfish, because clearly you two are close, but I felt extremely sad and jealous. I can’t believe I’m actually admitting to this but...yeah. I saw you two always on the basketball court, always getting lunch together, and even on the swings in the park. I tried to convince myself that you and Kira were a thing, even if it wasn’t true. Then, maybe, that would get me to stop liking you. But—“

“Cyrus...I—“ TJ attempted.

“No, TJ, please, don’t. I’m not finished yet...I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I ended up liking you. I’m sorry that I got in between you and Kira’s friendship, or relationship, or whatever it is. I’m sorry that I just made our friendship weird. I’m sorry that—“

TJ, in one fluid motion, grabbed both sides of Cyrus’ face and pulled him closer until their lips crashed together. The kiss lasted no more than five seconds, but it was long enough to cause tears to come streaming out of Cyrus’ eyes. TJ’s eyes were still closed when he pulled away from Cyrus. He let out a shaky breath and opened his eyes. TJ immediately moved his thumbs and swiped the tears from Cyrus’ cheeks. TJ lightly chuckled.

“Can I talk now?” Cyrus stuttered out an incomprehensible noise, which TJ took as a ‘yes.’

“You...have nothing to be sorry about.”

Cyrus laughed with tears still streaming down his face. He rested his hands on top of TJ’s which were still cupped around his cheeks. TJ rested his forehead against Cyrus’, closed his eyes and smiled.

[agentelmo]

The X-Files MSR Analysis Series: Season 1 Episode 5

“Jersey Devil”

Previous episode analysis - 1x04 Conduit.

Ah yes, Jersey Devil.  The episode about two strange human beings driven by ancient, hereditary traits to survive - one a sexually-territorial male who stays hidden from the world, and his mate, who, guided by reproductive needs, leaves the safety of her ‘tribe’ in an attempt to procreate.  

Oh and there’s a couple neanderthals running around eating people, too.

What?

I love that the first line of my notes for this episode simply says: “Scully rocking the salmon and navy.”

She’s so beautiful in this episode - I mean, she’s beautiful in every episode - but she gets a few great wardrobe changes here and she looks so lovely.  Although the final outfit she dons is a zinger.  

My word. The 90′s, eh?

So we start with Scully arriving at the supposed basement office that clearly isn’t in the basement.  Seriously, watch how they they walk out of the office and straight into the bullpen.  

At first, I genuinely wondered if perhaps I’d not remember that they started in a normal office and get sent to the dungeons basement later (I last watched TXF over a decade ago guys, go easy on me) but a little Google research reveals that nope - this is simply a huge continuity error in this one episode.  Weird!

So anyway, Scully arrives, and to her amusement, finds Mulder catching up on some essential reading, perusing the latest issue of a fine gentleman’s literary publication.

You know... he was reading a dirty titty mag for filthy manslags. “Marty” will definitely be calling that super hot line, later.

Scully can barely contain herself.

I like the way Scully is totally chill with Mulder and his porn; she never gives him a hard time about it.  It’s an amusing aspect of Mulder’s character that’s mostly played for laughs - but the reality is he’s a man; he has needs and no one to satisfy them, (hands down ladies, no volunteers) despite the fact women do find him attractive.

I know, obvious statement is obvious.

But isn’t it true that one of the most unrealistic aspects of the X-Files is how celibate throughout the entire show he is?  I mean, just look at the guy.

....

Uhh... I’m sorry, what were we talking about again?

Oh yeah.

I don’t care who calls him Spooky, if there’s a single guy at my place of work who is witty and intelligent and looks like that, I’m trying my luck.  So where are all the single FBI ladies?  (I swear to God I didn’t Photoshop that picture, by the way.)

I just always found it intriguing that a guy with what appears to be a moderately high sex drive, barely ever has sex even though he quite easily could.  Remember season 6′s Dreamland I, Skinner’s secretary?  Yeah... ‘nuff said.  

I guess he just doesn’t have Morris Fletcher’s way with women?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he doesn’t get laid.  It plays nicely into my theory that while Scully is around, Mulder rarely ever looks at another woman seriously - there are the odd few that he is physically attracted to, like Dr. Bambi Berenbaum from season 3′s War of the Coprophages, but it’s only a perfunctory interest - we never see these characters again.  

The only women who ever pose a genuine threat to the MSR are Mulder’s old flames - so it’s Mulder briefly revisiting old feelings from a time before Scully.  Otherwise, since meeting Scully, he’s never become romantically attached to someone new.  Isn’t that interesting?

So why might he prefer to turn to porn?  Well, all I’ll say is this - do you remember that in Dreamland I, after falling asleep watching porn the night before, Morris Fletcher’s wife tells Mulder he was mumbling something about “Scully” in his sleep.  Yeah.  I’ll leave you to fill in the blanks with that one.

Aaaaaaaaaaanyway...  that was quite a tangent, wasn’t it.  Man, who knew there was so much to analyse in a few seconds of Mulder looking at a copy of Hankypanky?  Which, by the way, is the best name for a porn mag, ever.

It is relevant, I swear.  Mulder’s sexual needs figure into the plot of this episode in a very indirect way.

No, really.   

It’s really surprising to me just how much Scully smiles so far in season 1.  She was so carefree back then, eh?  Had no idea what she was in for.  At this moment in time, she’s just a normal FBI agent working some weird cases with her sexy crackpot partner.  

S1!Scully enjoys simple pleasures, like how in this scene she seems to get a kick out of bringing him a weird case that she knows will pique his interest.  She enjoys holding court - she’s the one with the information and she likes to tantalise him with it. The UST is simmering nicely.

I love the way her face tracks his, begging for his attention.  And he responds with a bit of casual, flirtatious innuendo - she loves this little game they play with each other as much as he does, look a her.  I wish she would get lucky, Mulder.  HINT HINT.

For some reason she seems especially radiant and lovely in this episode.  I already mentioned this, didn’t I.  But seriously, let’s all bask in the glow of how stunning she is - she’s like a cross between Princess Diana and a 50′s pin up.

Don’t you think?  Is it just me?

Ahem... so moving along, they head on over to Atlantic City to see what this weird man-eating case is all about, and run into an immediate roadblock when the local detective gets all territorial with his jurisdiction over the case.  

Put a pin in this scene in your mind - human behaviour is under the microscope in this episode, and this detective guy is demonstrating some classic traits that are discussed in more depth later.

I love that when she means business and wants Mulder to stop what he’s doing and listen to her, she calls him Agent Mulder.  

Oh please, don’t give me fanfic ideas, because I can’t write fanfic for the life of me, but someone, somewhere, must have written a fic where they call each other Agent Mulder and Agent Scully in bed, right?  Someone PM me that shit.

So they leave and Scully is still in flirty tete-a-tete mode as they venture outside.  

Fuck, that man has a beautiful smile.  He really needs to smile like that more often.  It makes me giddy that Scully can make him smile and laugh so easily, especially considering what they just went through together in Conduit.  They’re so good together even at this early stage, it makes my heart hurt that it takes them 7 years to get their shit together.

Also, Scully’s comment about the Jersey Devil is another, more flippant, example of how she low-key reads Mulder’s mind regarding his theories on a case.  She’s joking about the murderer being the Jersey Devil, but that’s exactly what he suspects.  

I really am enjoying watching all of the regular dynamics of their later relationship play out for the first time in season 1.  Its’s so much fun.

Mulder, you realise you’re flirting right now, don’t you?  Come on, now... 

Look at her smiling back at him as he attempts to seduce her with the fantasy of what sounds suspiciously like a date; where they grab a hotel together *insert raised eyebrow here* and then go take in the sights and sounds of Atlantic City.  

He’s messing with her, of course, he just wants to focus on the case, but he enjoys the back and fourth and know she enjoys it too.  They have an unspoken understanding, and, in moments like these, they really do exist in a world of their own together.  

Of course, he doesn’t at all expect what comes next.

I cannot express enough how much I love how Mulder completely deflates when he says “you got a date?”  

I also love that a date is his immediate assumption - he says it so quick it’s out of his mouth before he even thinks.  Is this something he’s been worried about coming between them at some point?  I’d say so. 

He is well aware that she is a beautiful, intelligent woman, so of course she was bound to inevitably do what beautiful, intelligent women do - go on dates - have a personal life.  He probably didn’t want to have to acknowledge, that at some point, their little bubble was going to burst.  His deflated response is probably a reaction to thinking that time is now.

So would it be fair to say that Mulder is a little bit threatened by the idea that Scully wants a life that would take her away from him and their their work together.  Yes, definitely.   But I do think he’s willing to admit that to himself? Definitely not.

Even after learning she’s not going on a date, he remains deflated.  Their sparky, fun, UST-laden tooing and froing has been snuffed out, and Mulder unceremoniously throws the keys over to her in defeat.  He knows it’s not fair of him to punish her for having a life, but he kinda does anyway, since he ditches her to investigate alone.

Poor S1!Scully is just starting to learn here, that Mulder can be an inconsiderate dick sometimes.  Or as she’ll put it later - a jerk.

It’s a flaw of his character, which I guess gives him some depth and makes him more real.  

But mostly, it just makes him a dick.  A beautiful dick, but a dick all the same. 

Wait, hang on... that didn’t come out right. 

Unfortunately for Scully, leaving her to make a 3 hour drive, alone, after he was the one to make her come all the way out here in the first place, is the least of his future transgressions.

So lets enjoy his suffering a bit more, shall we?  Just look at his face when he hears she can’t spend the weekend with him fart-arsing around Atlantic City looking for cannibal cave men.  

Dude… seriously, stop pretending - we know you don’t like it when the real world takes Dana Scully away from you. 

Now we come to a scene that, only with 9 years of hindsight, becomes equal parts devastating, bittersweet and omg-squee-shippy-tastic!

Let’s break it down.

So first, Scully with children.  She’s a natural at it - attentive, loving, affectionate.  The little hug she gives the boy at the end; I can’t even--she would have been such a great mother.

Would have been.  

That’s the kicker, isn’t it.  Poor S1!Scully is completely oblivious to the fate that awaits her.  Our foreknowledge of future events makes these scenes painfully bittersweet now.   Despite the fact she would have been wonderful at it, her one chance at motherhood slips away after only a single year with William.  She never had, and now never will have, the chance to truly be a mother and raise a child of her own.  

I’ll let that sit with you for a while.  

Edit:  Ahem, yeah so... this was written before My Struggle IV, obviously.  As insane and unexpected as it seems, Mulder and Scully do have another child together making this point pretty much moot.  But I’ll leave it in for, you know, historical record? lol! 

Feels like a ton of bricks in the pit of my stomach just writing it.  In my work I have counselled women who have had to come to terms with infertility, and what it means for them to be a childless.  It’s an incredibly harrowing thing to accept for many of them, feeling incomplete; less of a woman; their bodies betraying them; denying them something they feel is rightfully theirs - and sadly what society tells them is the greatest contribution they could ever offer to the world - a body that can create life.  It’s perhaps, with my experience of these women, that I now look at Scully in a way that I didn’t when I was a teenager; watching the X-Files the first time around.

It makes me appreciate her strength, and her selfless, unwavering, devotion to doing what she thinks is right, regardless of the cost to herself, in a whole new way.

But for S1!Scully, all this talk about motherhood amounts to is a distant thought that, one day, she’ll meet Mr. Right and will start a family of her own.  Just like most of us assume, and never question, until it doesn’t happen.

Told you this would be devastating.

All hell is breaking loose at this party with only her and her friend to herd the gorilla-masked kiddies (another oblique reference to primitive human behaviour), but she’s enjoying herself despite it all. 

Doesn’t it feel strange to see Scully with a close friend that isn’t Mulder?  To see that she once had some small semblance of a life outside of him.  It makes me really realise how much she gave up for him and for their work together.  What motivates a person to do something like that?  Just a passion for the work?

It’s also very unfamiliar to see that Scully once contemplated not becoming a mother.  That actually, she felt she wasn’t cut out for it.  Although perhaps this is merely a cover for how she really feels.  We know from season 5′s Christmas Carol, that Scully has a fear of getting close to people, and tells Emily’s adoption officer that she avoided attachments before her cancer because she was scared of the pain of losing those she loved.  We know this changes for her though, as Scully will be forced to painfully acknowledge, in that same episode, that she didn’t realise how much she wanted to be a mother until she couldn’t have it anymore.  

Which makes sense when you realise that this scene here, in Jersey Devil, was probably one of very few times Scully considers, and actually tests out, whether she wants a life outside of her FBI career, before discovering she cannot conceive.

Scully’s friend, El, hitting the nail on the head.  She would be a great mother, but she has to choose it.  She has to decide what’s more important to her - career or family.  It’s not something she’s seriously thought about until now.

Being told she doesn’t have a life definitely affects Scully too, she plays it off as a joke here, but we know her actions after this conversation betray her true feelings.  She starts to wonder if her work with Mulder is overtaking her life, and that she doesn’t have much else outside of her career.  It worries her enough into taking action to change things.

Ah and then it comes to this part of their conversation.  The part that gets our little shipper hearts pumping.

You know what’s funny about this scene now?  The fact they’re basically discussing finding a man to have a child with.  Scully easily dismisses the idea of dating and having children with Mulder, but the irony is that this is now foreshadowing... because that’s exactly what happens.

7 years from now.

That’s some epic retroactive foreshadowing, right there.

But sticking with the present moment, what might Scully’s reason be for calling Mulder a jerk?  Well what did he do to her earlier that day?  The way he flirted with the idea of them spending some off-duty hours together in Atlantic City and then got weird when she said she had plans and ditched her when she couldn’t do what he wanted.  That’s definitely a jerk move.

She quickly corrects herself, acknowledging that his behaviour earlier that day maybe doesn’t wholly represent who he is, but still, I enjoyed the fact she basically admits that his ditching her bothered her more than just being slightly inconvenienced.  Hmm, I wonder why... eh, Scully?

Now, things start to get a bit more interesting.  As I mentioned before, Scully played off the fact she has no life as a joke but she’s clearly conflicted on whether she’s okay with such a skewed work-life balance.  She’s now questioning if she needs to spend more time away from work and start to build a life for herself.  And then...as if the hands of fate reached in themselves...

A WILD DIVORCEE DAD APPEARS! 

DIVORCEE DAD USES “CREEPER SMILE”.

IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE???!

Seriously, why does she go on a date with this guy, he looks like a total creeper.  The way he’s like, hey, check me out being all fatherly with my I’m-single-and-ready-to-mingle smile.  Ugh.  Dana!

Back to Mulder now, working off a hot tip from a homeless HBO fan, he’s been hanging out like a hobo trying to catch a glimpse of this Jersey Devil.

Uh, I take it all back.  Maybe it was for the best Scully didn’t tag along on this one.  

Scully: What happened to ‘grabbing a hotel’, Mulder? Mulder: FBI cutbacks, Scully.  Wanna share my blanket? Scully: ...  

Can you imagine?  Them sitting together, in the cold, huddled under a tiny blanket...

Hmm... wait, I’m changing my mind again.

Mulder sees a dark, human-like figure in an alleyway, but is blocked from pursing it because he is stopped and arrested by the police, due to their mistaking him for a drunk.

Mulder redefining the meaning of the phrase “hot mess”.

So I’ve seen enough American TV shows to know that when you get arrested you get one call, right?  So Mulder’s one call - the one person he can rely on to help him out is.... *drum roll*

OMG! NO WAI!  Much unexpected! Very shock!

So much sass.  Mulder getting sassed by Scully is my favourite thing.  Like, ever.

Methinks she’s enjoying getting some sweet, sweet, revenge on him for ditching her, too.  Just a lil’ bit.

I love how he just smiles at the end, as if to say “alright, Scully. You win.”

Then, while shovelling his face with food, Mulder tries to convince Scully of what he saw in the alleyway.

Their usual back and forth ensues – Mulder puts forward a fantastic (albeit pretty on the nose) theory about what he saw in the alleyway.  Scully runs the gamut of reasons why it might not be what he thinks it is, making Mulder work for his theory.  Which is good on one hand, since it’s teaching him to be critical rather than willing to believe anything at the drop of a hat. 

But on the other hand, he’s actually right.  I think this dynamic would work better if he didn’t always guess pretty much exactly right all the freakin’ time.  I think Mulder needs to get it wrong a bit more often to 1. humble him a tiny bit and 2. not make it always seem like Scully’s scepticism is just getting in the way.

As it stands, the main purpose Scully’s sceptical, scientific, approach serves is keeping her and Mulder out of danger.  Without her pulling him back from the edge a lot of the time, I think he’d have got himself killed ages ago.  Which we’ll get a live demonstration of later in this episode.

Mulder then extends the invitation once more, for Scully to join the hunt, and for them to investigate the case together.  

Then the conversation turns veeeeeery interesting.

Scully catching Mulder off guard is another one of my favourite things.  His surprised head snap gives me Cheshire Cat face.  

She’s put her personal life above their work together twice now and, again, he does a piss poor job of hiding that he doesn’t like it.  

But notice something here.  When he thinks it’s another birthday party, he isn’t threatened.  He doesn’t ask her to cancel, he’s seemingly unaffected - disappointed no doubt - but notice how quickly his attitude changes when she clarifies that, this time, it is a date.

First up... wow, Mulder.  Can she cancel?  That was bold.

He can definitely sense she’s withdrawing, and he’s beginning to feel territorial about it.  As selfish as it might be, he wants their work and partnership to take precedence in her life, but she’s resisting. 

Although, it only seems to bother him when it’s a date, apparently.  HMMMMMM.  Sooo... a kid’s birthday party is less threatening than a date.  

I WONDER WHY.

Second... Ouch, Scully.

She’s clearly showing, once again, that her friend’s comment about not having a life got under her skin.   Why do I think this?  Well I’ve never thought of Scully as petty, but that below the belt comment about Mulder’s life was kinda petty.  I think in some small part she is resentful towards Mulder for the current state of her social life - she’s allowed herself to get swept up in his hurricane these past few months and is now a tiny bit sensitive to the assumption that she should drop everything to go Jersey Devil hunting with him.  

She’s trying to take back control and get out of this all-consuming bubble they’ve been living in.

Now the next scene is fucking gold.  Here’s where everything should hopefully fall into place.

Scully takes Mulder to meet her old university professor in Maryland.  Mulder is asking the Professor questions about the Jersey Devil and he explains to Mulder that the wild man myth is universal - almost every culture has one.  It represents an apparent symbolic fear of man’s dual nature as creators and destroyers of life.

Look at Mulder... Naww.. tell me more, teach!

The Professor starts to talk about how humans have hereditary traits which make us tribal and aggressively territorial, driven by selfish sexual and reproductive drives which makes cooperation beyond our perceived ‘tribe’ extremely challenging.

Now think about that for a second – what has been going on with Mulder and Scully since the beginning of this episode. 

First Mulder has been territorial with Scully; he wants her to himself – not to share her with the demands of a personal life.  He wants her to be as dedicated to the X-Files as him, but is finding it difficult to accept that she wants to go off and exist outside the bubble of their partnership - outside their “tribe”.  

He is also, on some subconscious level, driven sexually – because why the hell else would he petulantly accuse her of having a date the way he did?  He’s not threatened by her spending time with friends, but he is threatened by her spending time with other men.  Perhaps not consciously, but somewhere deep down, it bothers him that she would go on a date.  Both a kids party and a date result in her spending less time with him, so why does a date, specifically, sting more?

I do feel like I need to reiterate here, that I don’t think Mulder is in love with Scully at this point.  But he’s very attached to her, and seemingly, he doesn’t like to share.

Then we have Scully – who has spent a great deal of time this episode discussing her thoughts on becoming a mother, and deciding if she wants to prioritise finding a man and having a family over her career.  She then accepts a date with a man based on these discussions – so here, Scully is being driven by her reproductive needs.  

She is also driven sexually too though, I mean, we know she thinks of Mulder as being “cute”.  So she has definitely acknowledged a sexual attraction to him - and well, who wouldn’t.  

But also the shy smile she flashes the creeper divorcee dad suggests she finds him attractive too - she’s not wanting to start dating for the singular purpose of getting preggo, of course not.  Like Marty and his Hankypanky mags, she has needs too.

Now, pop your head into Mulder’s kitchen for a sec guys, c’mon just a sec.

FORESHADOWING!

Well, maybe... that damn alien invasion is gonna happen some day. Right, Chris Carter?!  RIGHT?!

The scene then transitions into referring to the Jersey Devil directly rather than a meta commentary on Mulder and Scully themselves, and I love that it was Scully’s intention for her old professor to talk some sense into Mulder, but instead Mulder gets the guy to admit that what he’s suggesting, about the Jersey Devil being a pre-historic human, is feasible in the realm of extreme possibility.  

Scully, ever the scientist, can’t argue with that one.

As much as she wishes she could.

Later that evening, Mulder sits in the basement-not-basement office looking subdued, staring at evidence photos, twiddling his thumbs... bored.  He really is useless without Scully.

Beautiful, beautiful Scully, on the other hand, is on her date looking OH SO NINETIES.  But still, lovely.

And OH MY GOD.  Divorcee dad is boring as fuck.

No one wants to hear how you fantasise about running people over with your car on a first date, Rob.

Now we could get meta-meta, and suggest that I myself, writing this analysis, am getting quite territorial over the MSR relationship and am threatened by this dude, and that’s why I mock him to pieces.  But honestly, there’s just something about him that feels super disingenuous and needy... he screams “please replace my wife and be my son’s surrogate mother” to me.  

I mean, they’re not even 30 minutes into their first date and the guy is asking Scully to go on family days out with his kid to the beach.  Fuck off, mate... how about you woo me a bit first, yeah?  Let me decide if I like you before saddling me with mothering your kid.  Geez.

Then he drops a real clanger... which, well - to be fair - isn’t that big a deal to S1!Scully.  But, knowing what’s to come, this comment is just unforgivable.

What a douche.

So let’s check in on Mulder again, what’s he up to during this torture.

Look at this lost puppy, slumped in his chair, staring at the clock.  I bet he’s checked that clock every five minutes since 7:30.

Mulder... it’s only been 25 minutes.  Get it together, man.

You can’t tell me he isn’t feeling shitty, thinking about her being out on a date.  Why else would he be moping in his office, and staring at the clock on the wall?  GETTING EXACTLY ZERO WORK DONE.  I’m getting Chinga vibes, here.

I don’t think he even really understands why, but he hates this.  He wants her there - he’s used to her presence now and he’s bizarrely at a loss without her there to focus him.

He then gets a call from the Park Ranger who tells him a body, that is possibly the pre-historic human they’ve been looking for, has turned up in the woods, and that it has been sent to the coroner’s office.

This gives Mulder the excuse he didn’t know he was waiting for to call Scully and try, once again, to pull her back into the bubble.

Look at how bored shitless she is.  She’s waiting for you to rescue her.  GO MULDER GO!

#SorryNotSorry

The next day Mulder and Scully go back to Atlantic City to inspect the body, but it’s not there to inspect.  Mulder theorises that the male neanderthal might have had a female mate, and they go back to the location where Mulder spotted her previously to see if they can find her again.

As they search, Mulder muses about what this neanderthal woman might be like.  He questions whether she’s that different from Scully and himself.  

Which is exactly the point of this episode - the fact that the two of them are also driven by ancient hereditary instincts.  The same way the neanderthal woman and her mate were.  Mulder and Scully’s personal life subplot reflect how the modern world has changed how we act on these instincts; but that ultimately we all want the same things.   Mulder wonders out-loud whether she feels emotion, or does she just live on instinct - spending her days looking for food.  To which, Scully replies...

I don’t know why, but I love that Scully knows how to make Mulder laugh.

Then just when we were starting to enjoy their being together, working as one again, Mulder goes and rushes off without Scully.

She calls to him several times, and he ignores her and then parkours his way to freedom.

Mulder and Scully: SYNCHRONISED PARKOUR MASTERS!  Although Scully does it in heels, so she wins.

Mulder is cornered by the neanderthal woman, which he should have seen coming, really, these guys do hunt and eat people, right?

She knocks him down and looms over him.  He basically looks like a 16 year-old boy who has never touched a girl before.  It’s kind of adorable seeing him pinned to the floor by a naked woman with a look of terror on his face.

Be gentle with me, please.

Never mind.

Scully arrives, just in time, to save Mulder.  Get used to that, Scully.

They then head out into the forest, to find neanderthal lady before Detective ThisTownAin’tBigEnoughForBothOfUs hunts her down with his SWAT team and kills her.

Sadly, that’s exactly what happens.  They gun her down before Mulder and Scully are able to intervene.

Mulder is devastated.  In no small part due to the fact that she’s a woman, alone, vulnerable - hunted.  She ticks all the boxes to mess with Mulder’s head and trigger his need to rescue.

Mulder seems quite emotional as he asks the detective why he killed her.  The answer he gets doesn’t give him any relief, in fact, I think it only leads him to despair more.  Searching the detectives eyes, not quite believing what he’s hearing.

Scully can see Mulder is on the edge; becoming too emotionally involved.  So she does what only she can.  

She steps in and speaks to him in their private language - where with just a look and a touch, she can bring him back to himself.  

I love this aspect of their bond.  It’s so subtle, but loaded with a quiet intimacy that’s always just below the surface.  These two work best when they are in this bubble together - just the two of them.  Every now and then, with just a small gesture, they forget everyone else and withdraw into their own private world.  

A week later, back in the FBI not-really-basement, Scully, is telling Mulder about the autopsy results of the neanderthal woman, and gets frustrated as Mulder excitedly prepares to meet a colleague at the Smithsonian - throwing himself further into his work.

Clearly still feeling conflicted about how to balance her work life against her personal life, she tries to convince Mulder that, he too, needs to do some work in that area.  But what she’s not understanding is that this is what Mulder does for himself - his work.  When he said before that he has a life, this is what he meant.  To him, this is living - it’s the life he chose and he’s not ashamed or embarrassed about it.

Mulder is a career non-conformist.  He doesn’t work by the rules and he doesn’t live his life by the rules either.

It’s at this point Scully gets a call from creeper divorcee dad, offering her a night out at a Cirque du Soleil show.  

Her complete and utter lack of interest in taking him up on his offer finally makes it click for her why Mulder would reject her offer of a day off, or to go get a beer.

Mulder has absolutely no interest in doing those things.  They hold no value for him, and no enjoyment, in exactly the same way that she realises she has absolutely no interest in dating this guy, or going to see Cirque du Soleil with him and his freakin’ kid.  Geez, man... stop it with the family days out.  Someone buy this man a copy of Dating for Dummies.

This epiphany affects Scully deeply, as I think she realises in that moment that working with Mulder and being an FBI agent is the life that brings her the most fulfilment and excitement too.  She never did want to date in the first place, it was a comment from her friend that made her question whether or not the way she lived her life was “okay”. 

Now it seems she’s decided it is.  She doesn’t care about conforming to what is expected of her anymore.

Reminds me of something Gibson Praise says about Scully in season 5′s The End.  

I think she reaffirmed for herself, this attitude of not caring what people think, in this very episode.  To be who she is, do what she wants and not give a flying monkey what anyone says.

So rolling it back a bit - when Scully gets the call from her divorcee date, Mulder answers the phone, and I’d say he is definitely aware of who it is by the way he walks out of the office without waiting for Scully.

He assumes she will not be coming with him because, well, she has a life now, right?  She has more going on than just work and he has every reason to believe she would rather be doing other things with her time, especially after that speech she just gave begging him to take some time off.  He thinks he’s got the message loud and clear - that she doesn’t feel the same way about their work as he does, and that this is how things are gonna be from now on.

It’s also a bit petulant of him, isn’t it?  The way he storms off after giving her the phone perfectly illustrates that.  Not to mention his dejected walk over to the requisition desk after he leaves the office.  The way he sounds so defeated as he asks for a car.

So despite trying to be “okay” with it, Mulder is still feeling threatened by this guy encroaching on their partnership – I’m sure of it.  The reason I feel so sure is that when Scully approaches him at the requisition desk, he straight away asks who it was on the phone.  

Why is he interested? If he isn’t bothered then why ask?  Mulder hasn’t shown any interest in her private life before.  For the most part, these two never discuss their personal lives.  At least, not at this stage.

Is the tension in this conversation not entirely palpable?  He really doesn’t like it, does he.  I still don’t think he has even realised why he doesn’t like it.  The guy is an Oxford educated psychologist and profiler – if he looked at himself for 5 seconds he’d know why – which is probably why he doesn’t. 

We don’t see this side to Mulder often, as the series progresses we tend to see this kind of thing more from Scully.  To be fair, it’s usually because women fawning over Mulder just seem to keep popping up all over the place.

But I love seeing this.  More jealous!Mulder, please.  I’m dying to see season 11 for the Mulder vs. Skinner fight that is apparently over Scully.  Not to mention it supposedly involving Skinner’s long harboured feelings for her.  Fuck yes, please.  Can we get some jealous!Mulder up in that, Mr. Carter?   

“You gonna have dinner with him again?”

WHY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MULDER? HUH?

You notice how he perks up slightly after hearing she’s not going to see the guy again?  You really need to hear the audio to notice it - but his voice changes. 

Ohhh burn.  Guess he didn’t like being told he doesn’t have a life, either, eh?

Every now and then Mulder lets slip the odd bitter comment, it’s something he’s doing right up until My Struggle I – revealing his true feelings through backhanded, sarcastic comments rather than outright saying what he feels.

You tell him, Scully.

Phew and that’s Jersey Devil done.  Another freakin’ long one!  I’m almost certain the next episode will be far shorter... much less MSR to work with.  This episode was chock full of it. Next up... 1x06  - Shadows.

[samanthasroberts]

7 Dumb Back To The Future Products You Won’t Believe Existed

A good 80 percent of Cracked’s content is devoted to peeling back the kaleidoscopic layers of WTF-ness contained within Back To The Future, but this article isn’t about that. Nope, this is about an even more ridiculous topic: the many confounding ways people tried to squeeze big bucks out of the Back To The Future flicks.

This ordinary tale of a time-travelling eccentric and his pet teenager has spawned such baffling shit as …

#7. The Back To The Future Cartoon Was A Fucking Crazy Parade

As we’ve mentioned before on the site, Doc Brown’s character-concluding decision to father children with a historically dead woman and blast through time in a screeching lightning train was reckless at best. And so it’s only natural that the 1991 Back To The Future TV show would follow the horrific mishaps of this family, sandwiched with live-action science demonstrations by Christopher Lloyd and an oddly mute Bill Nye.

They’re like the Penn and Teller of mad science.

But despite its audience of the young and curious, an average episode of Back To The Future: The Animated Series played out like Rick And Morty episodes Adult Swim rejected for being too bleak. Don’t believe us? The pilot for the series starts with Doc’s younger son Verne stealing the time machine and traveling to the Civil War … followed by Doc finding a photo revealing that little Verne died for the Confederate Army.

“But hey, it says here that the Alabama chapter of the KKK is named in his honor.”

Doc eventually prevents this by creating a truce between Verne’s Confederate pals and the Union, and the gang happily flies home like they didn’t just irrevocably alter the outcome of a Civil War battle. That’s basically the story of the series, as Doc, Marty, and Doc’s kids manhandle historical moments while Doc’s wife Clara waits back home with sandwiches.

In the third goddamn episode, Doc brings his kids to the very moment the dinosaurs are wiped out by a meteor, saving the group by hastily stopping the comet and changing the future into a lizard-ruled wasteland. (One of said lizards looks like Biff, implying that a Tannen once fucked a dinosaur.)

This means that Doc is forced to go back and kill the dinosaurs himself, re-altering his actions so that the meteor gets back on a collision course with Earth … but not before one of his kids befriends a scared pterodactyl. So how does Doc handle this unfortunate attachment? Obviously, the rest of the series would involve the group goofing around with their adopted dino friend. I mean, otherwise, he’d have to …

… tear his son from the sobbing grasp of a doomed animal …

… stuff him into the time machine and fly away …

This also serves as the official series finale for The Flintstones.

… and watch as the comet tears through the atmosphere and vaporizes the boy’s dinosaur pal. That’s seriously what happens in the special “watch all the dinosaurs die” episode of this nightmare series. Happy Saturday morning, assholes!

#6. A Japanese Video Game Made BTTF 2 Into Crazy-Ass Anime

Anyone who played the early Back To The Future Nintendo games knows that whoever made them clearly didn’t bother to see the movies. Either that, or Back To The Future Part III cut a scene in which Marty ingests a crazy amount of peyote and starts seeing mutant cow men everywhere.

Presumably named “Beef Tannen.”

The Japan-only Back To The Future Part II Super Famicom game, on the other hand, tried to follow the plot of movie … and somehow ended up being even weirder. You control Marty, who spends the entire time on his hoverboard — because, realistically speaking, if you owned a hoverboard, why the fuck would you ever not be flying around on it?

The game starts on a grimly prescient note, with trigger-happy 2015 cops shooting at Marty for no apparent reason.

When we reach the alternate 1985, Marty goes around fighting disoriented crackheads, mistaking their agonized gasps for taunting chicken noises. Marty then discovers his murdered father’s tombstone, and he … seems pretty copacetic with this development, all things considered.

Doc, on the other hand, turns into an angry pink Gollum.

If you’ve ever wanted to see these iconic moments reimagined as demented Sailor Moon episodes, you’re in luck. When Marty discovers the 1950s girlie mag instead of the sports almanac, the mere sight of boobs gives him a stroke.

Which is weird, because this is after meeting his mother’s gargantuan dystopian breasts. Marty’s perma-smirk in that scene is somehow even creepier than when he was standing at his dead dad’s grave.

Also, why are they in the Technodrome?

By the time Biff seemingly vampire-bites the almanac away from Marty and gets covered in a sea of 16-bit horseshit, you’ll probably never see Back To The Future the same way ever again.

“I won’t close my mouth. I deserve this.”

And speaking of which …

#5. A Hot Wheels Biff Car … Complete With Manure

There aren’t a ton of Back To The Future toys, but the ones that do exist are mostly DeLorean-based. There’s a DeLorean Lego set, a remote-control DeLorean, and even a Power-Wheels-esque DeLorean for ’80s kids whose parents wanted them to explore their confused Oedipal feelings outside the house.

Sadly, this kid was easily taken out by Libyan terrorists.

So it’s only natural that the DeLorean be adopted by stalwart toy car company Hot Wheels. Recently, the company decided to expand their Back To The Future line to include not only Doc’s DeLorean …

Oh, sorry. Doc’s “Time Machine of Indeterminate Brand.”

And Marty’s sweet 4×4 …

“Complete with two coats of wax and Fat Biff’s tears!”

And even Biff Tannen’s Ford Super Deluxe Converti– oh, shit.

You can get a non-poopy version for an extra $300.

Yes, they produced a beautiful classic automobile overflowing with rancid manure, as seen in that scene and that other scene and that variation of the scene. It looks like an amusing Internet Photoshop job, but it’s a real toy which you could go buy right now … or, you know, make at home yourself with a toy car and some laxatives.

Couldn’t Hot Wheels have mass-produced Doc’s hover-train? Or one of those kickass police cars from 2015? Nope. Instead, we get the shit-encrusted rapemobile. Think of all the ways kids could play with this. “Oh no, Biff’s car got covered in manure … again …” Assuming your kid even knows what Back To The Future is, how are they supposed to integrate Biff’s car with their other Hot Wheels products?

“Yes! The race is delayed due to track turds!”

#4. ZZ Top Turns All The Characters Into Ogling Creeps

Along with “The Power of Love,” Huey Lewis and the News wrote “Back In Time,” the surprisingly engaged recounting of the events of Back To The Future from Marty’s perspective. Sadly, we were less lucky with ZZ Top’s “Doubleback,” a jabbering spray of temporally-themed rhymes in no way related to the third film.

The one band you’d think you could trust to hitch their beer-drinking, hell-raising wagon to Wake-Up Juice, but noooooo.

Now, “Doubleback” is a fucking abomination, an artistic charley horse clearly farted out 12 minutes from the studio call time. But then there’s the music video, which superimposes the band into random clips from the movie in such a disjointed, cookie cutter way that it comes alive like a serial killer’s scrapbook.

GOOF: ZZ Top were only teenagers in 1885, so they shouldn’t have beards yet.

It’s everyone’s third-favorite time travel movie, perpetually interrupted with the looming presence of three guys who look like the personification of bathroom assault. By the end, they’re literally sticking their faces over the action so that we don’t forget to be bummed out by their existence.

We’re all for them supplanting Marty’s mom in this scene to make it less creepy, though.

But the weird stuff begins when this monochromatic onslaught changes the movie’s finale to include a pimped-out ride randomly rolling into Marty’s standoff with Mad Dog Tannen …

… and releasing three jean-short bombshells of various ’90s fabric patterns and foxy accessories, to which the movie’s characters react with stock disbelief appropriated from the original scene.

OK, we have to admit that these guys clean up nicely when they shave.

That’s right — Doc reacting to Marty’s fakeout death is the same expression as his boner face. Or maybe he’s wondering how a Cadillac Sedanette went back in time without a bunch of nonsense sticking out of its hood. Either way: boner.

#3. Pizza Hut’s Back To The Future Ads Are Rather Sad In Retrospect

Having the ability to engorge on a puck of meat and cheese has been every child’s dream since Marty’s mom hydrated a Pizza Hut pizza in Back To The Future II.

The most fantastic concept here is a 2015 pizza without a gimmicky crust.

So delicious. At least, if you ignore the fact that eating a waterlogged dough slice sounds like a fucking nightmare, and that the Pizza Hut of this future solely makes the equivalent of microwave meals. In fairness, the brand’s own advertising campaign had a slightly different take on their role in the future:

Their kinder, gentler take on Robocop was probably their lamest (and most inaccurate) prediction of all.

According to one 1989 commercial, the Pizza Huts of 2015 are built like techno mosques. It makes sense in the context of the ad, which begins with two unknown ruffians taking the DeLorean out for a spin, presumably after swiping the keys from Doc Brown’s ransacked corpse.

To save you 15 minutes on IMDb: It’s Mikey from Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.

The ne’er-do-wells zoom to 2015, where, to the sad grumbles of their stomachs, they find the streets barren of any pizza eateries, as Domino’s has long been converted into a hardware chain. Luckily, there’s still one place in business, and it’s the all-hail Pizza Hut temple.

The Noid was executed after a show trial in ’94.

It’s unclear why a restaurant that makes cookie-sized products needs multiple neon spires, but it probably has to do with the announcer’s assertion that, even in the future, Pizza Hut is the “only one place to get a great pizza.” The fact that Pizza Hut was envisioning an all-exclusive Demolition Man scenario with their brand is made that much more heartbreaking by the company’s actual 2015 situation:

Also depressing: the current state of journalism, since no one realized this graphic should be a pie chart.

Turns out that all the movie projector pizza boxes and eye-tracking tablet menus in the world can’t get us to that Utopian Italian palace where dressing like it’s the ’80s is still hip and (according to another tie-in ad) absolutely everyone wears futuristic solar shades.

The nuclear fallout has melted all of our eyes by now.

#2. Doc Brown Teamed Up With Doogie Howser For Earth Day

Back in 1990, people were really committed to saving the environment … as long as the extent of that commitment was appearing in some kind of extravagant TV special instead of cutting back on fossil fuels. Regardless, this newly-discovered sense of eco-awareness led to one of the craziest moments in pop culture: The Earth Day Special.

The special starred a slew of wacky creatures, like the Muppets and Danny DeVito and E.T., who looks to have been living in a filthy alley since the events of his film.

He’ll touch you with his “magic finger” for $5 and some Reese’s Pieces.

Since this was the year that Back To The Future Part III came out, Doc Brown naturally joined the cross-promotional fray. Who better to promote environmental activism than a guy who hoards large quantities of plutonium in a garage in a residential neighborhood?

The loose plot of the special is about the personification of Mother Earth dying. Doc Brown shows up in his DeLorean and offers his assistance to the doctor in charge of healing Mrs. Earth — who, because this was 1990, is Doogie Fucking Howser.

“Not even Edward James Olmos’ mustache could revive her.” “We’re doomed.”

Doc whips out his suitcase TV and shows them footage of how screwed over the Earth is, which is kind of a dick move, considering how she’s right over there. It doesn’t help that the clips are seemingly stock footage pretentiously edited together by first-year film students.

“What are those ladies doing with that cup …?” “Whoops, wrong year.”

As always, Doc ends up finding the solution: science! Not any specific science but, like, the act of reading and shit. Look, it was 6 a.m. and someone wanted to finish that goddamn children’s TV show script already.

#1. The Back To The Future Novelization Gets Dark

Movie novelizations are generally terrible, but the one for Back To The Future takes it to a whole new level. It’s the Back To The Future of bad literary cash-ins.

“What do you mean it’s not about a kid with a camera who farts fireworks?” — the author, probably

The book opens with a vivid description of a dead family getting bent out of shape by the detonation of a nuclear bomb, which turns out to be a scene from a film Marty is watching. This never comes up again in the book — because the author is too busy thinking up even crazier, tangentially BTTF-related shit. For instance, we get a scene featuring the Libyan terrorists casually hanging out in a shitty motel, which answers the question you always had: Yes, one of them is a psychotic former fashion model.

You can only be told to look “sexy like tiger” so many times before something inside snaps.

And she doesn’t mind offing Doc Brown because he … “looks Jewish.”

Doc goes commando in his jumpsuits in this version.

Even when it’s a scene we recognize from the movie, the author’s prose manages to make everything seem a tiny bit seedier:

Not that “Let’s hire your attempted rapist as our live-in manservant” is any less creepy.

The novel also features the most disturbing context for the phrase “giggled naughtily” in all of fiction:

A parent’s naughty giggling is typically reason #1 Protective Services gives when taking away their child.

The whole book is so bizarre and creepy that it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that it was imported from the shitty alternate 1985. And we’re only scratching the surface here. A whole other book could be written just pointing out all the fucked up moments, page by page. Did we say “could”? We meant “someone on the Internet did exactly that.”

Source: http://allofbeer.com/7-dumb-back-to-the-future-products-you-wont-believe-existed/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/7-dumb-back-to-the-future-products-you-wont-believe-existed/

[adambstingus]

7 Dumb Back To The Future Products You Won’t Believe Existed

A good 80 percent of Cracked’s content is devoted to peeling back the kaleidoscopic layers of WTF-ness contained within Back To The Future, but this article isn’t about that. Nope, this is about an even more ridiculous topic: the many confounding ways people tried to squeeze big bucks out of the Back To The Future flicks.

This ordinary tale of a time-travelling eccentric and his pet teenager has spawned such baffling shit as …

#7. The Back To The Future Cartoon Was A Fucking Crazy Parade

As we’ve mentioned before on the site, Doc Brown’s character-concluding decision to father children with a historically dead woman and blast through time in a screeching lightning train was reckless at best. And so it’s only natural that the 1991 Back To The Future TV show would follow the horrific mishaps of this family, sandwiched with live-action science demonstrations by Christopher Lloyd and an oddly mute Bill Nye.

They’re like the Penn and Teller of mad science.

But despite its audience of the young and curious, an average episode of Back To The Future: The Animated Series played out like Rick And Morty episodes Adult Swim rejected for being too bleak. Don’t believe us? The pilot for the series starts with Doc’s younger son Verne stealing the time machine and traveling to the Civil War … followed by Doc finding a photo revealing that little Verne died for the Confederate Army.

“But hey, it says here that the Alabama chapter of the KKK is named in his honor.”

Doc eventually prevents this by creating a truce between Verne’s Confederate pals and the Union, and the gang happily flies home like they didn’t just irrevocably alter the outcome of a Civil War battle. That’s basically the story of the series, as Doc, Marty, and Doc’s kids manhandle historical moments while Doc’s wife Clara waits back home with sandwiches.

In the third goddamn episode, Doc brings his kids to the very moment the dinosaurs are wiped out by a meteor, saving the group by hastily stopping the comet and changing the future into a lizard-ruled wasteland. (One of said lizards looks like Biff, implying that a Tannen once fucked a dinosaur.)

This means that Doc is forced to go back and kill the dinosaurs himself, re-altering his actions so that the meteor gets back on a collision course with Earth … but not before one of his kids befriends a scared pterodactyl. So how does Doc handle this unfortunate attachment? Obviously, the rest of the series would involve the group goofing around with their adopted dino friend. I mean, otherwise, he’d have to …

… tear his son from the sobbing grasp of a doomed animal …

… stuff him into the time machine and fly away …

This also serves as the official series finale for The Flintstones.

… and watch as the comet tears through the atmosphere and vaporizes the boy’s dinosaur pal. That’s seriously what happens in the special “watch all the dinosaurs die” episode of this nightmare series. Happy Saturday morning, assholes!

#6. A Japanese Video Game Made BTTF 2 Into Crazy-Ass Anime

Anyone who played the early Back To The Future Nintendo games knows that whoever made them clearly didn’t bother to see the movies. Either that, or Back To The Future Part III cut a scene in which Marty ingests a crazy amount of peyote and starts seeing mutant cow men everywhere.

Presumably named “Beef Tannen.”

The Japan-only Back To The Future Part II Super Famicom game, on the other hand, tried to follow the plot of movie … and somehow ended up being even weirder. You control Marty, who spends the entire time on his hoverboard — because, realistically speaking, if you owned a hoverboard, why the fuck would you ever not be flying around on it?

The game starts on a grimly prescient note, with trigger-happy 2015 cops shooting at Marty for no apparent reason.

When we reach the alternate 1985, Marty goes around fighting disoriented crackheads, mistaking their agonized gasps for taunting chicken noises. Marty then discovers his murdered father’s tombstone, and he … seems pretty copacetic with this development, all things considered.

Doc, on the other hand, turns into an angry pink Gollum.

If you’ve ever wanted to see these iconic moments reimagined as demented Sailor Moon episodes, you’re in luck. When Marty discovers the 1950s girlie mag instead of the sports almanac, the mere sight of boobs gives him a stroke.

Which is weird, because this is after meeting his mother’s gargantuan dystopian breasts. Marty’s perma-smirk in that scene is somehow even creepier than when he was standing at his dead dad’s grave.

Also, why are they in the Technodrome?

By the time Biff seemingly vampire-bites the almanac away from Marty and gets covered in a sea of 16-bit horseshit, you’ll probably never see Back To The Future the same way ever again.

“I won’t close my mouth. I deserve this.”

And speaking of which …

#5. A Hot Wheels Biff Car … Complete With Manure

There aren’t a ton of Back To The Future toys, but the ones that do exist are mostly DeLorean-based. There’s a DeLorean Lego set, a remote-control DeLorean, and even a Power-Wheels-esque DeLorean for ’80s kids whose parents wanted them to explore their confused Oedipal feelings outside the house.

Sadly, this kid was easily taken out by Libyan terrorists.

So it’s only natural that the DeLorean be adopted by stalwart toy car company Hot Wheels. Recently, the company decided to expand their Back To The Future line to include not only Doc’s DeLorean …

Oh, sorry. Doc’s “Time Machine of Indeterminate Brand.”

And Marty’s sweet 4×4 …

“Complete with two coats of wax and Fat Biff’s tears!”

And even Biff Tannen’s Ford Super Deluxe Converti– oh, shit.

You can get a non-poopy version for an extra $300.

Yes, they produced a beautiful classic automobile overflowing with rancid manure, as seen in that scene and that other scene and that variation of the scene. It looks like an amusing Internet Photoshop job, but it’s a real toy which you could go buy right now … or, you know, make at home yourself with a toy car and some laxatives.

Couldn’t Hot Wheels have mass-produced Doc’s hover-train? Or one of those kickass police cars from 2015? Nope. Instead, we get the shit-encrusted rapemobile. Think of all the ways kids could play with this. “Oh no, Biff’s car got covered in manure … again …” Assuming your kid even knows what Back To The Future is, how are they supposed to integrate Biff’s car with their other Hot Wheels products?

“Yes! The race is delayed due to track turds!”

#4. ZZ Top Turns All The Characters Into Ogling Creeps

Along with “The Power of Love,” Huey Lewis and the News wrote “Back In Time,” the surprisingly engaged recounting of the events of Back To The Future from Marty’s perspective. Sadly, we were less lucky with ZZ Top’s “Doubleback,” a jabbering spray of temporally-themed rhymes in no way related to the third film.

The one band you’d think you could trust to hitch their beer-drinking, hell-raising wagon to Wake-Up Juice, but noooooo.

Now, “Doubleback” is a fucking abomination, an artistic charley horse clearly farted out 12 minutes from the studio call time. But then there’s the music video, which superimposes the band into random clips from the movie in such a disjointed, cookie cutter way that it comes alive like a serial killer’s scrapbook.

GOOF: ZZ Top were only teenagers in 1885, so they shouldn’t have beards yet.

It’s everyone’s third-favorite time travel movie, perpetually interrupted with the looming presence of three guys who look like the personification of bathroom assault. By the end, they’re literally sticking their faces over the action so that we don’t forget to be bummed out by their existence.

We’re all for them supplanting Marty’s mom in this scene to make it less creepy, though.

But the weird stuff begins when this monochromatic onslaught changes the movie’s finale to include a pimped-out ride randomly rolling into Marty’s standoff with Mad Dog Tannen …

… and releasing three jean-short bombshells of various ’90s fabric patterns and foxy accessories, to which the movie’s characters react with stock disbelief appropriated from the original scene.

OK, we have to admit that these guys clean up nicely when they shave.

That’s right — Doc reacting to Marty’s fakeout death is the same expression as his boner face. Or maybe he’s wondering how a Cadillac Sedanette went back in time without a bunch of nonsense sticking out of its hood. Either way: boner.

#3. Pizza Hut’s Back To The Future Ads Are Rather Sad In Retrospect

Having the ability to engorge on a puck of meat and cheese has been every child’s dream since Marty’s mom hydrated a Pizza Hut pizza in Back To The Future II.

The most fantastic concept here is a 2015 pizza without a gimmicky crust.

So delicious. At least, if you ignore the fact that eating a waterlogged dough slice sounds like a fucking nightmare, and that the Pizza Hut of this future solely makes the equivalent of microwave meals. In fairness, the brand’s own advertising campaign had a slightly different take on their role in the future:

Their kinder, gentler take on Robocop was probably their lamest (and most inaccurate) prediction of all.

According to one 1989 commercial, the Pizza Huts of 2015 are built like techno mosques. It makes sense in the context of the ad, which begins with two unknown ruffians taking the DeLorean out for a spin, presumably after swiping the keys from Doc Brown’s ransacked corpse.

To save you 15 minutes on IMDb: It’s Mikey from Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.

The ne’er-do-wells zoom to 2015, where, to the sad grumbles of their stomachs, they find the streets barren of any pizza eateries, as Domino’s has long been converted into a hardware chain. Luckily, there’s still one place in business, and it’s the all-hail Pizza Hut temple.

The Noid was executed after a show trial in ’94.

It’s unclear why a restaurant that makes cookie-sized products needs multiple neon spires, but it probably has to do with the announcer’s assertion that, even in the future, Pizza Hut is the “only one place to get a great pizza.” The fact that Pizza Hut was envisioning an all-exclusive Demolition Man scenario with their brand is made that much more heartbreaking by the company’s actual 2015 situation:

Also depressing: the current state of journalism, since no one realized this graphic should be a pie chart.

Turns out that all the movie projector pizza boxes and eye-tracking tablet menus in the world can’t get us to that Utopian Italian palace where dressing like it’s the ’80s is still hip and (according to another tie-in ad) absolutely everyone wears futuristic solar shades.

The nuclear fallout has melted all of our eyes by now.

#2. Doc Brown Teamed Up With Doogie Howser For Earth Day

Back in 1990, people were really committed to saving the environment … as long as the extent of that commitment was appearing in some kind of extravagant TV special instead of cutting back on fossil fuels. Regardless, this newly-discovered sense of eco-awareness led to one of the craziest moments in pop culture: The Earth Day Special.

The special starred a slew of wacky creatures, like the Muppets and Danny DeVito and E.T., who looks to have been living in a filthy alley since the events of his film.

He’ll touch you with his “magic finger” for $5 and some Reese’s Pieces.

Since this was the year that Back To The Future Part III came out, Doc Brown naturally joined the cross-promotional fray. Who better to promote environmental activism than a guy who hoards large quantities of plutonium in a garage in a residential neighborhood?

The loose plot of the special is about the personification of Mother Earth dying. Doc Brown shows up in his DeLorean and offers his assistance to the doctor in charge of healing Mrs. Earth — who, because this was 1990, is Doogie Fucking Howser.

“Not even Edward James Olmos’ mustache could revive her.” “We’re doomed.”

Doc whips out his suitcase TV and shows them footage of how screwed over the Earth is, which is kind of a dick move, considering how she’s right over there. It doesn’t help that the clips are seemingly stock footage pretentiously edited together by first-year film students.

“What are those ladies doing with that cup …?” “Whoops, wrong year.”

As always, Doc ends up finding the solution: science! Not any specific science but, like, the act of reading and shit. Look, it was 6 a.m. and someone wanted to finish that goddamn children’s TV show script already.

#1. The Back To The Future Novelization Gets Dark

Movie novelizations are generally terrible, but the one for Back To The Future takes it to a whole new level. It’s the Back To The Future of bad literary cash-ins.

“What do you mean it’s not about a kid with a camera who farts fireworks?” — the author, probably

The book opens with a vivid description of a dead family getting bent out of shape by the detonation of a nuclear bomb, which turns out to be a scene from a film Marty is watching. This never comes up again in the book — because the author is too busy thinking up even crazier, tangentially BTTF-related shit. For instance, we get a scene featuring the Libyan terrorists casually hanging out in a shitty motel, which answers the question you always had: Yes, one of them is a psychotic former fashion model.

You can only be told to look “sexy like tiger” so many times before something inside snaps.

And she doesn’t mind offing Doc Brown because he … “looks Jewish.”

Doc goes commando in his jumpsuits in this version.

Even when it’s a scene we recognize from the movie, the author’s prose manages to make everything seem a tiny bit seedier:

Not that “Let’s hire your attempted rapist as our live-in manservant” is any less creepy.

The novel also features the most disturbing context for the phrase “giggled naughtily” in all of fiction:

A parent’s naughty giggling is typically reason #1 Protective Services gives when taking away their child.

The whole book is so bizarre and creepy that it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that it was imported from the shitty alternate 1985. And we’re only scratching the surface here. A whole other book could be written just pointing out all the fucked up moments, page by page. Did we say “could”? We meant “someone on the Internet did exactly that.”

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/7-dumb-back-to-the-future-products-you-wont-believe-existed/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/181924707857

[allofbeercom]

7 Dumb Back To The Future Products You Won’t Believe Existed

A good 80 percent of Cracked’s content is devoted to peeling back the kaleidoscopic layers of WTF-ness contained within Back To The Future, but this article isn’t about that. Nope, this is about an even more ridiculous topic: the many confounding ways people tried to squeeze big bucks out of the Back To The Future flicks.

This ordinary tale of a time-travelling eccentric and his pet teenager has spawned such baffling shit as …

#7. The Back To The Future Cartoon Was A Fucking Crazy Parade

As we’ve mentioned before on the site, Doc Brown’s character-concluding decision to father children with a historically dead woman and blast through time in a screeching lightning train was reckless at best. And so it’s only natural that the 1991 Back To The Future TV show would follow the horrific mishaps of this family, sandwiched with live-action science demonstrations by Christopher Lloyd and an oddly mute Bill Nye.

They’re like the Penn and Teller of mad science.

But despite its audience of the young and curious, an average episode of Back To The Future: The Animated Series played out like Rick And Morty episodes Adult Swim rejected for being too bleak. Don’t believe us? The pilot for the series starts with Doc’s younger son Verne stealing the time machine and traveling to the Civil War … followed by Doc finding a photo revealing that little Verne died for the Confederate Army.

“But hey, it says here that the Alabama chapter of the KKK is named in his honor.”

Doc eventually prevents this by creating a truce between Verne’s Confederate pals and the Union, and the gang happily flies home like they didn’t just irrevocably alter the outcome of a Civil War battle. That’s basically the story of the series, as Doc, Marty, and Doc’s kids manhandle historical moments while Doc’s wife Clara waits back home with sandwiches.

In the third goddamn episode, Doc brings his kids to the very moment the dinosaurs are wiped out by a meteor, saving the group by hastily stopping the comet and changing the future into a lizard-ruled wasteland. (One of said lizards looks like Biff, implying that a Tannen once fucked a dinosaur.)

This means that Doc is forced to go back and kill the dinosaurs himself, re-altering his actions so that the meteor gets back on a collision course with Earth … but not before one of his kids befriends a scared pterodactyl. So how does Doc handle this unfortunate attachment? Obviously, the rest of the series would involve the group goofing around with their adopted dino friend. I mean, otherwise, he’d have to …

… tear his son from the sobbing grasp of a doomed animal …

… stuff him into the time machine and fly away …

This also serves as the official series finale for The Flintstones.

… and watch as the comet tears through the atmosphere and vaporizes the boy’s dinosaur pal. That’s seriously what happens in the special “watch all the dinosaurs die” episode of this nightmare series. Happy Saturday morning, assholes!

#6. A Japanese Video Game Made BTTF 2 Into Crazy-Ass Anime

Anyone who played the early Back To The Future Nintendo games knows that whoever made them clearly didn’t bother to see the movies. Either that, or Back To The Future Part III cut a scene in which Marty ingests a crazy amount of peyote and starts seeing mutant cow men everywhere.

Presumably named “Beef Tannen.”

The Japan-only Back To The Future Part II Super Famicom game, on the other hand, tried to follow the plot of movie … and somehow ended up being even weirder. You control Marty, who spends the entire time on his hoverboard — because, realistically speaking, if you owned a hoverboard, why the fuck would you ever not be flying around on it?

The game starts on a grimly prescient note, with trigger-happy 2015 cops shooting at Marty for no apparent reason.

When we reach the alternate 1985, Marty goes around fighting disoriented crackheads, mistaking their agonized gasps for taunting chicken noises. Marty then discovers his murdered father’s tombstone, and he … seems pretty copacetic with this development, all things considered.

Doc, on the other hand, turns into an angry pink Gollum.

If you’ve ever wanted to see these iconic moments reimagined as demented Sailor Moon episodes, you’re in luck. When Marty discovers the 1950s girlie mag instead of the sports almanac, the mere sight of boobs gives him a stroke.

Which is weird, because this is after meeting his mother’s gargantuan dystopian breasts. Marty’s perma-smirk in that scene is somehow even creepier than when he was standing at his dead dad’s grave.

Also, why are they in the Technodrome?

By the time Biff seemingly vampire-bites the almanac away from Marty and gets covered in a sea of 16-bit horseshit, you’ll probably never see Back To The Future the same way ever again.

“I won’t close my mouth. I deserve this.”

And speaking of which …

#5. A Hot Wheels Biff Car … Complete With Manure

There aren’t a ton of Back To The Future toys, but the ones that do exist are mostly DeLorean-based. There’s a DeLorean Lego set, a remote-control DeLorean, and even a Power-Wheels-esque DeLorean for ’80s kids whose parents wanted them to explore their confused Oedipal feelings outside the house.

Sadly, this kid was easily taken out by Libyan terrorists.

So it’s only natural that the DeLorean be adopted by stalwart toy car company Hot Wheels. Recently, the company decided to expand their Back To The Future line to include not only Doc’s DeLorean …

Oh, sorry. Doc’s “Time Machine of Indeterminate Brand.”

And Marty’s sweet 4×4 …

“Complete with two coats of wax and Fat Biff’s tears!”

And even Biff Tannen’s Ford Super Deluxe Converti– oh, shit.

You can get a non-poopy version for an extra $300.

Yes, they produced a beautiful classic automobile overflowing with rancid manure, as seen in that scene and that other scene and that variation of the scene. It looks like an amusing Internet Photoshop job, but it’s a real toy which you could go buy right now … or, you know, make at home yourself with a toy car and some laxatives.

Couldn’t Hot Wheels have mass-produced Doc’s hover-train? Or one of those kickass police cars from 2015? Nope. Instead, we get the shit-encrusted rapemobile. Think of all the ways kids could play with this. “Oh no, Biff’s car got covered in manure … again …” Assuming your kid even knows what Back To The Future is, how are they supposed to integrate Biff’s car with their other Hot Wheels products?

“Yes! The race is delayed due to track turds!”

#4. ZZ Top Turns All The Characters Into Ogling Creeps

Along with “The Power of Love,” Huey Lewis and the News wrote “Back In Time,” the surprisingly engaged recounting of the events of Back To The Future from Marty’s perspective. Sadly, we were less lucky with ZZ Top’s “Doubleback,” a jabbering spray of temporally-themed rhymes in no way related to the third film.

The one band you’d think you could trust to hitch their beer-drinking, hell-raising wagon to Wake-Up Juice, but noooooo.

Now, “Doubleback” is a fucking abomination, an artistic charley horse clearly farted out 12 minutes from the studio call time. But then there’s the music video, which superimposes the band into random clips from the movie in such a disjointed, cookie cutter way that it comes alive like a serial killer’s scrapbook.

GOOF: ZZ Top were only teenagers in 1885, so they shouldn’t have beards yet.

It’s everyone’s third-favorite time travel movie, perpetually interrupted with the looming presence of three guys who look like the personification of bathroom assault. By the end, they’re literally sticking their faces over the action so that we don’t forget to be bummed out by their existence.

We’re all for them supplanting Marty’s mom in this scene to make it less creepy, though.

But the weird stuff begins when this monochromatic onslaught changes the movie’s finale to include a pimped-out ride randomly rolling into Marty’s standoff with Mad Dog Tannen …

… and releasing three jean-short bombshells of various ’90s fabric patterns and foxy accessories, to which the movie’s characters react with stock disbelief appropriated from the original scene.

OK, we have to admit that these guys clean up nicely when they shave.

That’s right — Doc reacting to Marty’s fakeout death is the same expression as his boner face. Or maybe he’s wondering how a Cadillac Sedanette went back in time without a bunch of nonsense sticking out of its hood. Either way: boner.

#3. Pizza Hut’s Back To The Future Ads Are Rather Sad In Retrospect

Having the ability to engorge on a puck of meat and cheese has been every child’s dream since Marty’s mom hydrated a Pizza Hut pizza in Back To The Future II.

The most fantastic concept here is a 2015 pizza without a gimmicky crust.

So delicious. At least, if you ignore the fact that eating a waterlogged dough slice sounds like a fucking nightmare, and that the Pizza Hut of this future solely makes the equivalent of microwave meals. In fairness, the brand’s own advertising campaign had a slightly different take on their role in the future:

Their kinder, gentler take on Robocop was probably their lamest (and most inaccurate) prediction of all.

According to one 1989 commercial, the Pizza Huts of 2015 are built like techno mosques. It makes sense in the context of the ad, which begins with two unknown ruffians taking the DeLorean out for a spin, presumably after swiping the keys from Doc Brown’s ransacked corpse.

To save you 15 minutes on IMDb: It’s Mikey from Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.

The ne’er-do-wells zoom to 2015, where, to the sad grumbles of their stomachs, they find the streets barren of any pizza eateries, as Domino’s has long been converted into a hardware chain. Luckily, there’s still one place in business, and it’s the all-hail Pizza Hut temple.

The Noid was executed after a show trial in ’94.

It’s unclear why a restaurant that makes cookie-sized products needs multiple neon spires, but it probably has to do with the announcer’s assertion that, even in the future, Pizza Hut is the “only one place to get a great pizza.” The fact that Pizza Hut was envisioning an all-exclusive Demolition Man scenario with their brand is made that much more heartbreaking by the company’s actual 2015 situation:

Also depressing: the current state of journalism, since no one realized this graphic should be a pie chart.

Turns out that all the movie projector pizza boxes and eye-tracking tablet menus in the world can’t get us to that Utopian Italian palace where dressing like it’s the ’80s is still hip and (according to another tie-in ad) absolutely everyone wears futuristic solar shades.

The nuclear fallout has melted all of our eyes by now.

#2. Doc Brown Teamed Up With Doogie Howser For Earth Day

Back in 1990, people were really committed to saving the environment … as long as the extent of that commitment was appearing in some kind of extravagant TV special instead of cutting back on fossil fuels. Regardless, this newly-discovered sense of eco-awareness led to one of the craziest moments in pop culture: The Earth Day Special.

The special starred a slew of wacky creatures, like the Muppets and Danny DeVito and E.T., who looks to have been living in a filthy alley since the events of his film.

He’ll touch you with his “magic finger” for $5 and some Reese’s Pieces.

Since this was the year that Back To The Future Part III came out, Doc Brown naturally joined the cross-promotional fray. Who better to promote environmental activism than a guy who hoards large quantities of plutonium in a garage in a residential neighborhood?

The loose plot of the special is about the personification of Mother Earth dying. Doc Brown shows up in his DeLorean and offers his assistance to the doctor in charge of healing Mrs. Earth — who, because this was 1990, is Doogie Fucking Howser.

“Not even Edward James Olmos’ mustache could revive her.” “We’re doomed.”

Doc whips out his suitcase TV and shows them footage of how screwed over the Earth is, which is kind of a dick move, considering how she’s right over there. It doesn’t help that the clips are seemingly stock footage pretentiously edited together by first-year film students.

“What are those ladies doing with that cup …?” “Whoops, wrong year.”

As always, Doc ends up finding the solution: science! Not any specific science but, like, the act of reading and shit. Look, it was 6 a.m. and someone wanted to finish that goddamn children’s TV show script already.

#1. The Back To The Future Novelization Gets Dark

Movie novelizations are generally terrible, but the one for Back To The Future takes it to a whole new level. It’s the Back To The Future of bad literary cash-ins.

“What do you mean it’s not about a kid with a camera who farts fireworks?” — the author, probably

The book opens with a vivid description of a dead family getting bent out of shape by the detonation of a nuclear bomb, which turns out to be a scene from a film Marty is watching. This never comes up again in the book — because the author is too busy thinking up even crazier, tangentially BTTF-related shit. For instance, we get a scene featuring the Libyan terrorists casually hanging out in a shitty motel, which answers the question you always had: Yes, one of them is a psychotic former fashion model.

You can only be told to look “sexy like tiger” so many times before something inside snaps.

And she doesn’t mind offing Doc Brown because he … “looks Jewish.”

Doc goes commando in his jumpsuits in this version.

Even when it’s a scene we recognize from the movie, the author’s prose manages to make everything seem a tiny bit seedier:

Not that “Let’s hire your attempted rapist as our live-in manservant” is any less creepy.

The novel also features the most disturbing context for the phrase “giggled naughtily” in all of fiction:

A parent’s naughty giggling is typically reason #1 Protective Services gives when taking away their child.

The whole book is so bizarre and creepy that it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that it was imported from the shitty alternate 1985. And we’re only scratching the surface here. A whole other book could be written just pointing out all the fucked up moments, page by page. Did we say “could”? We meant “someone on the Internet did exactly that.”

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/7-dumb-back-to-the-future-products-you-wont-believe-existed/

[glenncoco4]

What Happens Next?

A/N: Here it is, the last chapter. Thank you for sticking with me. Hope you like it and also, I love Mama B as much as the next person but this is just where my head went with the story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

July 2014

She’s balancing between two armrests with Finn in one arm and Koa in the other. They’re screaming in terror and she’s doing everything she can to protect her babies but she’s not sure she has the strength to stay in this position forever.

Looking up, she sees him walk into the room, brow furrowed at what’s going on. “Um, baby, whatcha doing?”

She looks down, chocolate orbs locking two sets of hazel eyes. They together turn towards the blonde with wide eyes. “The floor is lava!”

Koa stretches out her little hands towards the blonde lawyer. “Daddy, hurry, before the lava monster gets you!”

Marty’s eyes go wide as his little girl screams for his safety, but it’s too late. “Ahhhh, help!” Slowly he starts ‘falling’ down as if he’s being engulfed by the lava. “Kensi, I love youuuu…..”

She laughs as her husband’s last words hit her ears. “Marty! Baby!”

Slowly he rises back up, roaring as if he’s now the lava monster come to life.

Sitting the kids down on the couch,  Kensi stands in front of them to protect them from who was once her husband. “Finn, Koa, I love you both so much, always remember that.” Placing a kiss to the top of each of their heads, she turns back around, takes a deep breath and lunges for the ‘lava monster.’

Marty falls to the ground with a loud thud, before he knows it, her lips are on his. “Come back to me, baby.”

His eyes flutter as her lips continue their attack. Boy if he was in an actual altered state this would do the trick to bring him out. “I should turn into a lava monster more often.”

A blush rises to her cheeks along with a shy smile. She stands up, reaching her hand out to help him up.

When the couple stands, their ears are met with the high pitched squeals that wake them up every morning more often than not. “Mommy, you did it! You saved daddy!”

Marty wraps his arm around her waist, placing a kiss to her temple. “As always.”

Just then, they’re interrupted by the ringing of the house phone.

“I’ll get it.” She places another kiss to his lips before walking towards the kitchen, smiling as she hears the distinct yelps of the kids as they jump on their daddy.

Picking up the phone, she greets the person on the other end of the line. “Hello?”

As she walks back into the living room, her eyes find his cerulean blues. “Yes, he does. May I ask who’s calling?”

He watches as her features immediately shift to that of shock. “Who is it?”

“Roberta. She’s getting out of rehab and needs a place to stay.”

He takes the phone from her, confused and socked all the same time. “Yes, this is Martin Deeks.”

She sits and watches as the crease in between his brows get narrower and narrower. “Can’t she find someone else?” He runs his fingers through his golden locks as the person says something. “Okay, fine, I’ll be there tomorrow.”

Sensing that they’re gonna need to be alone for this talk, Kensi turns towards Finn and Koa who are now playing a game of tag. “Hey, guys, why don’t you take Monty out back and play with him.”

“Yeah!” They both yell as they run toward the back of the house, furry companion in tow.

Once the door shuts, the brunette takes a seat next to her husband on the couch, his face buried in his hands. She rubs her hand up and down his back, trying to comfort him. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He turns his head, unable to hide the tears in his eyes.

“Oh, baby.” The sadness in his eyes breaks her heart, she leans back into the cushion, pulling him with her.

His head finds her chest, his arm finding its place around her stomach as he tries to dampen down the anxiety that is slowly making its way back to him after so long. “I just-all this time and now she wants to see me only because she needs something.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to just leave her there to rot. I want to walk up to her and ask her why, why did she leave and never look back. Why did she turn her back on me when all I was trying to do was protect her?”

“So ask her.”

He pulls back, weariness in his soulful blue eyes.

“Baby, this is your chance to finally get the closure you need.”

Releasing a sigh, he nods his head. “You’re right.”

A serious look crosses her face as she intertwines their fingers, her thumb rubbing back and forth across his. “And no matter what happens, I’ll be right beside you, I’ll even kick her ass if I have to.”

“You’d do that for me?”

She presses her lips to his with a smile, an openness in her eyes that only he gets to see. “I’d do anything for you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you."

XXXX

She threads her fingers through his as they make their way towards the entrance of the Rehabilitation Center, hoping to give him the strength he needs to get through this.

Surprisingly enough the woman is already outside, sitting on the bench, cigarette in hand. “Martin?”

“Hey.” He flashes the blonde a barely there smile.

“It’s been so long.”

“I’ll say.” He feels the reassuring squeeze of his wife’s hand, a calm washing over him. “Roberta, this is my wife Kensi.”

Not sure whether she should offer her hand to the older woman or not the agent decides on a smile instead. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Damn, Martin, she’s way out of your league.” The older woman huffs a laugh as she flicks the cigarette butt onto the pavement and extinguishes it with the heel of her shoe.

He shares a look with his wife, knowing this was too good to be true. “Listen, before we go any further I need to say something.”

Roberta lets out a heavy sigh, shaking her head. “I knew this was coming. Look can’t we just forget about it and move on.”

At her words, Kensi can’t help but step in. Her husband is the greatest person she’s ever known, his heart is so full of love and compassion. He does’t deserve this. “Move on, are you serious right now?”

“Listen, honey, this does’t concern you.”

“Honey?” She begins to step forward only to be stopped by Marty’s grip.

“Baby, I got it.” He looks from the woman that healed his heart to the woman that broke it. “First of all, don’t you dare speak to my wife like that ever again.” Letting out a laugh when something finally becomes clear to him. “You know, I thought maybe we’d come here, have a nice talk and could rebuild our relationship, but you’re not worth it. I’ve made something of myself. I have a beautiful family, a great job where I get to help make this world a better place and it’s all in spite of you. So goodbye, Roberta, I hope you can find yourself a life.”

He turns around, pulling Kensi along with him. Though it may not have been the closure he had been expecting, he feels the little boy that was abandoned finally set free.

XXXX

The waves crash against the shore bringing the cool ocean breeze along with it and his wife curling further into his body as they watch the sun dip towards the horizon. He places a kiss to the top of her head, getting a wiff of the lavender from her shampoo. “I needed this today.”

Tilting her head back, her eyes meet his, a smile crossing her face as his lips descend upon hers. “13 years is a long time, you sure you’re not getting tired of me?”

“Never enough time with you.”

Their eyes stay locked, both dancing with so many emotions. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“You know back in college I used to dream about her finding me one day. She would just show up out of the blue, tell me that she was sorry for leaving and how proud she was of me…maybe she’d show up to graduation or at my doorstep one day. But she never came and I felt so alone…so useless, until one night everything was suddenly different.”

“What changed?”

He looks out towards the Pacific thinking about the first time they were here. A smile spreads to his face before he turns back to her, his palm finding her cheek as his thumb moves back and forth across her olive toned skin. “I went to a party with some buddies of mine, locked eyes with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met and in that moment I knew I had a purpose, that I mattered to someone.”

She tilts her head at his words. “You know maybe we should’ve brought some wine with all this cheese you’re serving.” 

The playful spark in her eyes is one of things he loves most about her. His lips find hers in a passionate kiss, sending the pair into an emotional frenzy.

A few minutes later air becomes scarce forcing them to pull back. Their eyes dance with fire, knowing it’s only a preview of what’s to come later tonight. Placing one more kiss to his lips, Kensi then rests her head back against his chest as the sun continues to turn the sky different shades. “Marty?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“We love you…Finn, Koa and I will always love you. You’re what makes our world go round and nothing’s gonna change that.”

The emotion in her words hits him full force. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that right now.” His lips find her head once again, finding solstice in her embrace. “I love you.”

Their spot.