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autisticandroids · 2 years

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directors commentary for goldfish

[the goal here is to provide a director’s commentary, a la the one i did for i fold in half so easily, though obviously less comprehensive. this commentary is for goldfish.]

ohohohoho this one will be fun. the thing about this fic is i was like... stretching my creative writing muscles more than i usually do, because normally i write within, i guess, really narrow parameters? like i have extremely limiting constraints on things like how characters react to situations, and in fact, what situations arrive because a lot of my conflict is character driven, because i need stuff to work in tandem with my interpretations. like, to me, ficwriting is less about creative writing and more just an extension of interpretation, you know? obviously this isn't always true, i've written a number of fanfictions which ask important creative questions like "what if this gross thing happened" and "what if horny," but like. on the balance, when i write it's mostly about interpretation. it's like, deductive reasoning as opposed to the inductive reasoning someone who might write a longer, plottier fic might use. like, i'm trying to work out fanfiction from first principles.

this is honestly mostly because creative writing is hard for me. it's not really one of my talents and it's not something that comes easily. i'm an interpreter at heart. i love to pull themes and meanings out of other things and show my work and such. i love pulling on a single thread and watching things unravel. i hate weaving the original tapestry to unravel because that's, like, hard.

anyway goldfish was an opportunity for me to indulge in character creation. the thing about lisa is that she does have some characterization in the show, but it's not a lot, and much more importantly, there's good reason for her to be different in goldfish. in the show she's got a ten year old son. parents, especially primary parents, really structure their lives around their kids, especially when they're that young. but goldfish is set like a decade later when ben would literally be off in college. lisa would have spent ben's more independent teen years unfurling a little, and would now be unfurling a lot. also importantly, lisa has experienced potentially personality altering trauma/brain damage from having her brain wiped, and the lingering memories cas didn't manage to get. i would expect that to change her at least some.

it was also fun to really write some cas and jack. like i haven't done a ton of that because a lot of the really solid cas and jack angst opportunities involve one of them being dead or absent. but in this case they can be together and still miserable <3. also the biggest motivation behind this fic in general was actually like. how bad it sucks that chuck kills jack instead of moriah getting any meaningful resolution. also stream the river by @davidfosterwallaceandgromit but that's kind of tangential.

The house is empty enough to make a woman stir crazy. Ben’s off at college, and the last few years Lisa has been making most of her money from her Youtube channel like a twenty first century Jane Fonda, so she only has students in her home studio once a week. She’s been going to the flea market every Saturday just to talk to people, and she finds herself actually looking forward to getting emails.

important to me that lisa makes gen x references. she's a gen xer.

So when the doorbell rings at eleven AM on a Tuesday in May, she’s not just curious, she’s thrilled.

oh another reason why i needed to reinvent lisa a little is that i needed her to be the kind of person who would let two strange men into her house even if they had weird vibes. and then she needed to not completely lose it when the vibes went from weird to rancid, or, at least, to not lose it so bad that the situation becomes unrecoverable. i needed her to be impulsive and open-minded, basically. so i wrote her that way.

In the distorted fisheye of her peephole, she sees two men. Maybe a man and a boy, she can’t get a good look at the second one because he’s behind the left shoulder of the first, his face in the most distorted part of the fisheye. But his forehead is baby-smooth, and his posture, the way he relates to the other one, suggests a certain skirt-clinging shyness. Neither of them appear to be carrying anything (or, the first one doesn’t; she can’t see the second one’s hands), and they’re not neighbors, as far as she knows. She can’t see any reason why they’d be at her door, but even if they’re Mormons or something, they’ll pass the time.

the thing about me is i'm not immune to jack hiding behind cas a little bit <3.

(They look a bit like Mormons, actually, or the first one does. He’s all dressed up like an accountant, with a big raincoat on. She’d call it a flasher coat if it was buttoned, but it isn’t, so it just makes him look like he’s following an office dress code. But it’s out of place in the seventy five degree spring sunshine, and besides, if this guy works a nine-to-five, what’s he doing here in the middle of his shift?)

i spent a lot of time thinking about like... how a normie would actually perceive cas and jack, in this fic. it's important to me to try and capture a truly outsider perspective - no insider knowledge leaking in and coloring things.

She opens the door and her mouth in the same motion, but finds she’s forgotten how to greet another person in a reasonable manner. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to - the man (and she can see now that his companion is a boy, maybe a few years younger than her Ben) speaks first.

“Lisa Braeden?” he asks, and his voice is odd. Gravelly. Something about it strikes her. Gives her goosebumps, actually. Maybe just because it’s weird, but… She shakes her head. If the voice reminds her of something, it’ll come to her eventually.

so she never actually MET cas but she WOULD have heard him and dean conspiring to wipe her brain while she was unconscious. chilling!

Much more unsettling is the fact that he knows her name. One of her girlfriends knocked doors for Hillary a few years back and said they’ve got these new apps that tell you the name of Democratic Party donors in each household, so probably it’s something like that, some kind of canvassing thing. At this point she’s hoping he’s a Mormon, actually. Because the other option is, well, you can’t upload videos of yourself to the internet wearing skintight clothes and doing yoga poses without acquiring a few of the less savory variety of fan. She’s never really had an incident, (she’s always thanked her advancing age for that - forty isn’t exactly over the hill but it’s definitely older in Youtube terms), but she knows girls who have, and it’s kept her on the lookout. But if he’s some kind of stalker, why would he bring his - son? Yeah, the kid has to be his son; looking at the two of them she can see it in their faces: the nose and lips and forehead, all identical, as well as the jawline and something about the eyes.

so i used to knock doors for bernie and they do in fact have a little app that tells you people's names. also it was very fun to use the straight woman definition of "girlfriend." anyway it's important to me that she perceive cas as a potential threat because again, he's a stranger. i know we know cas is a sugarplum, but she has no reason to see him as anything other than a random dude. a random dude who came to her house and knows her name.

“That’s me.” Her voice is flat. She leaves the barred screen door closed and locked, for the moment.

“May I come in?” The man looks… almost sad. Or maybe that’s just his face; his eyes are downturned at the corners in a way that makes her imagine he would look on the verge of tears even at a comedy show.

the thing about misha collins is he has tareme eyes in real life.

“How do you know my name?” She blurts, still not moving to open the barred screen.

“We- we have a mutual friend.” He looks down, now. Maybe he’s lying. His probability of being a stalker is rising by the minute, or so something hysterical in her is saying, but he doesn’t look threatening. Which is probably how a stalker would look, actually. But he looks… contrite. He’s not trying to charm her. Which is a good sign, probably. “We’ve never met, but… he asked me to do something terrible to you, once. And I did. You never found out, but I’ve… I’ve come to make amends.”

Well. Whatever that is, she’s pretty sure it’s not a stalker opener. She hears the click of the latch before she realizes she’s opening the screen. It swings open, and she and the man just sort of stand there, looking at each other. He steps back to avoid getting clipped by the door, and brushes against the kid behind him. The kid also steps back. She inclines her head, a wordless invitation to both of them, and watches him trail the man inside. He’s taller than his dad by a full inch and a half, but he’s such a bean pole that it only emphasizes how small he looks. Especially with the way he’s dressed: skinny jeans give his legs a rather baby deer look, and his windbreaker is a faux-letterman, navy blue with white stripes on the sleeves and collar, and like a letterman it’s cut to be baggy, so even though it clearly fits him like it’s meant to it makes him look swamped when paired with the jeans. Throw in his carefully combed mama’s boy hairdo and he’s got the seventeen going on seven thing down pat.

MORIAH OUTFIT MORIAH OUTFIT. anyway this is what we call tall jack agenda. alcal may be like an inch shorter than misha but To Me jack is the second tallest member of the household. i am not immune to doing stuff just 'cause it's cute. and again this is why lisa needed to be impulsive: why the fuck would you open the door for these dudes? or rather, i would, personally, i'm not a person who has a lot of fear of strangers and i'm extroverted and gregarious, but i'm also twenty five and have spent my life engaged with the kind of progressive politics where we deconstruct shit like stranger danger. lisa is a forty year old suburban mom who would have literally been in kindergarten during the satanic panic, and probably spent her whole childhood being told about pedophiles with candy vans, not to mention her whole adulthood being blasted with local news segments from stations with an "if it bleeds it leads" mindset genetically engineered to make well-off suburban white women like her feel hemmed in by danger. demographically, lisa is the kind of person who would probably call the cops in this situation, so figuring out why she doesn't is character building.

The two sit primly on her couch, mirror images of each other. The kid seems to watch his father, mimicking whatever he does, and what the father is doing is sitting knees together on her couch, hands folded in his lap, shoulders slightly hunched. She offers them water and both decline with the same polite no, thank you, but she bustles off to the kitchen anyway because her mouth is, as of seeing two strange men sitting on her nice burgundy leather couch, bone dry.

two of them. also lisa is channelling bilbo baggins here. there's guys in her house and it is ABSOLUTELY outside her parameters of normal and she's panicking a little, not really because they're a threat but because the whole situation is a little stressful.

While she’s in the kitchen, she notices the bottle of Merlot she’d left out when she’d decided to hit the mommy juice this morning. Can she even call it that anymore? She’s still technically a mother, but her kid doesn’t even live at home except in the summer these days. At this point it’s probably more honest to just call the habit “day drinking.” Or “functional alcoholism.” She snaps a reusable cork, the one with the little frog and lily pad sculpted on it, into the bottle, and stashes it under the counter.

the thing about lisa is that she's very lonely. and also she has brain damage that fucks her up in ways she is incapable of even noticing because of the brain damage.

Then she slides a hand into her purse and tries not to rattle her keyring as she retrieves it. There’s a lot of dangly bits on it: a set of cat shaped charms Ben had bought her when he was fifteen, a miniature flashlight which she still hadn’t removed despite the ubiquitous nature of the mobile phone light rendering it obsolete, and of course thirteen different keys of varying degrees of usefulness, but what she wants is the tiny canister of mace attached to the ring by a two inch chain.

Just in case.

fun fact i got into a long discussion with my feminist methodology professor like two years ago where we talked about how frequently she used to ask her female students and her male students to talk about their experiences of walking alone outside at night and the male students would be like "idk i just do it" and the female students would be like listing off the ten steps of their security routine that they would go through just to walk the hundred yards to their car. and then she (my professor) read more statistics and was like wait a minute. actually men and women experience stranger attacks at approximately equal rates. maybe i shouldn't use this as an example of structural misogyny anymore. anyway that security-conscious culture is part of a bigger ball of things that contribute to patriarchy AND white supremacy AND carceralism and and and. and actually, tangent but also not really, it has impacted lisa's life in specific ways because like. so there's the myth that women are extra vulnerable to attacks by outsiders. so therefore they need men to protect them. and anything those men do in the name of that protection, either to other people, or to the women they protect, becomes justifiable. which is what happened to lisa when she was with dean. like dean feels the need to protect lisa from monsters and the supernatural and in the course of that protection violence against lisa (and as an extension, ben) (insert dean hitting ben compilation here) becomes eminently justifiable. which is why the mindwipe happened. like obviously the mindwipe is ridiculous because it wouldn't be effective, but also even if it was, this ideology is still backing it up. (obviously dean is also using lisa and people like her to justify killing monsters as well, but that doesn't really touch her, personally).

She slips the whole rat’s nest into her back pocket, and tries to remember why she came into the kitchen in the first place. She finds herself staring at the back door. The real estate agent said it was good fire safety, having a door in the kitchen. It means you can get out if something goes wrong with the stove. Means you can run. She could just run, let the strangers take over the house and leave.

representation for girls with rat's nest keys <3. anyway again i think that lisa's sort of... frenetic flightiness is a result of the brain damage. like i think she experienced a blow to her executive functioning capacity when cas wiped her brain. but also she's like. a little tipsy right now. so.

When she returns to the living room, her guests appear to have quite literally not moved a muscle. She keeps trying to look at them out of the corner of her eye, to see if they still breathe when she can’t see them.

She takes a sip of her water.

“So, uh…” she starts. The man stares. His gaze isn’t hostile, but it is persistent, and she finds it makes her nervous. “What should I… call you?”

“My name is Castiel. This is my son, Jack.” So she’d been right. A small moment of self-congratulation distracts her from nervousness.

“Jack Kline.” The kid’s voice is expressionless. He extends a hand without getting up. It’s an awkward motion, clearly practiced and not quite understood. Fits with the rest of his behavior, the way he imitates his father. Maybe he’s got some kind of disorder. She shakes his hand.

my dad once referred to my obviously autistic chemistry teacher as having "some kind of social disorder" which is a way of normies (i say normies because my dad is Not neurotypical he just thinks of himself as normal) discussing and vaguely dehumanizing autistics that i was quite charmed by.

“You have a beautiful home.” The father seems to be staring at her cut glass chandelier. It had been quarter-price at Home Depot; the thing had a manufacturing error and one of the little chains had been shorter than the others. But it was fine. She’d just cracked out the set of needle nose pliers (padded and sold as “comfortable for smaller hands”) she’d bought herself after she’d dumped her last boyfriend six years ago and basically given up the whole “dating” thing, and used the built in wire cutters to trim the others down to match.

i'm very interested in lisa's independence and her drive for it. like obviously part of the reason she gave up dating was unremembered but still impactful trauma from 1) dean 2) matt's death and 3) having her brain wiped of All That. like i think that would kinda wreck a person's relationship with dating. and like, lisa's been a single mom for two decades at this point, she's gotte have a pretty impressive independent streak.

“Thank you.” The hard shapes of her keys dig into her behind as she sits, but the crackly, sticky sounds of the white leather armchair (it’s mainly for guests and doesn’t get a ton of traffic; her and Ben tend to sit on the couch, which is butter-soft from years of use) cover any jangling. He nods absently.

suburban moms will say the word "behind." also. cas and jack sitting where lisa and ben usually sit :3 :3 :3.

“Is it just you and your son here these days?” he asks, head tilted.

“Well, actually, it’s really just me these days, Ben’s off…” she realizes, too late, what she’s saying to a strange man in her living room. “Ben’s off at work so much,” she lies, and it isn’t smooth, but maybe it’s convincing to someone who isn’t her, “it barely feels like he lives here anymore. Today’s the only day of the week he’s home before eight pm. He- he comes early so we can have family dinner with my new boyfriend… Don.”

The father nods.

“And what does Ben do for a living?” He sounds like he’s reading off a script. Maybe the kid got it from his dad.

“He works construction,” she says, and it’s easy. She has the picture so clearly in her head, even though Ben’s in school for screenwriting. “He puts up siding on houses, mostly. What about Jack? Is he in high school?”

the construction job and naming the fake boyfriend don are both obviously about dean. like obviously she has all these memories of dean that are blocked from her conscious mind but they impact stuff like her imagination. so even though she can't Remember the image of dean putting siding on houses, she still remembers it.

That gets a blank look for a moment, but it passes quickly.

“Yes, Jack is- Jack’s in high school. He gets, uh, very good grades.” Yeah this guy is definitely just kind of stiff and awkward. She glances at the kid. He hasn’t said a word. She realizes he actually hasn’t spoken unless prompted this entire time.

oh soulless jack.... it's important to me that he's just kind of empty. a doll of his former self.

“Okay, Mr. Kline,” she turns back to the father. His eyes widen slightly when she says it, and he flinches back almost imperceptibly. But he shakes his head and recovers, smiling slightly. She guesses he doesn't like the formality, or just isn't used to it. Another tick against him actually having an office job. “Would you mind, um, telling me why it is that you’re here? And who our mutual friend is?”

i really enjoyed like. writing lisa making assumptions (like calling cas mr. kline) which are reasonable with the information she has, but incorrect. also, real time footage of cas Processing being called that.

Mr. Kline opens his mouth, then closes it. He blinks.

“It may be easier if I simply…” He leans forward, looming over her, approaching quickly enough that she can’t do anything but lean back and squeeze her eyes shut.

She doesn’t even feel his fingers touch her forehead.

Lisa must have fallen asleep over her computer. She’s uncomfortable, all twisted up and a little cold and definitely not in bed. Her teeth feel unbrushed, and she has the tell-tale headache that says she didn’t drink enough water last night. She groans and brings her hands to her eyes, instinctively shielding them from what she knows is going to be too-bright light. She rubs at her eyes, and blinks them open.

She shrieks.

There’s a man- she somehow fell asleep in the armchair and there’s a man standing over her and-

Mr. Kline.

She remembers exactly what happened today, even if she’s not totally sure how she ended up asleep, and instinct kicks in. She whips the keyring out of her back pocket so fast that she hears a tearing sound. The keys must have caught on the seat of her sweatpants, but it doesn’t matter, she already had the little canister of mace in hand and is letting loose on Kline.

god i spent so long trying to pad out the time between the setup and payoff of the mace cannister (for example, that was my ulterior motive for the paragraph about the pliers), but i'm still not happy with it really.

And he’s just standing there. Pepper spray is dripping from his chin, and she’s still pumping at the nozzle, and he’s just sort of squinting at her in seeming confusion. He hasn’t even closed his eyes.

man i had a lot of fun with this joke. personally it still gets a sensible chuckle whenever i think about it. polite angel immune to pepperspray what will he do.

“Ms. Braeden, what are you doing?”

At this point, there’s enough mace in the air that she coughs. And somehow, the coughs change and shift, and then she’s laughing, and she knows it’s hysterical, but she can’t stop, and even if she could she keeps coughing, too. And every time she looks up he’s still just sort of staring at her.

asthma experiencer voice what would it mean to laugh without coughing. i have never done this. they're the same thing to me.

“Well,” her voice is hoarse, “I was trying to pepper spray you, because you’re some kind of stalker or a rapist or something, but I guess that didn’t work, and now my living room is full of pepper spray and you’re still here.”

“I see. I’ve made you uncomfortable.” He gives her a polite nod, and then takes a couple steps backwards until the backs of his shins are against her sofa, as if everything is normal, as if he isn’t dripping mace onto her white carpet. It’s probably gonna leave orange stains. The kid’s still on the sofa, he looks like he hasn’t even moved.

i think pepper spray is slightly orange in large enough quantities? don't quote me on that

She gives another half-crazed giggle. Her knees just sort of buckle of their own volition, and she ends up back in the armchair with a sticky crunch of stiff leather.

Seeming to take a cue from this, he sits down as well, which draws a fresh bubble of laughter from somewhere down in her gut.

“You know, actually, it’s fine,” she says. It’s breathless, and she doesn’t know why she’s saying it. She waves a hand. “It’s all fine. I don’t mind.” She’s not sure what she’s giving him permission to do, but he seems reassured. There are a few beats of silence, broken up only by a slight rustling sound. She realizes the kid is tugging on the edge of his dad’s coat, or, no, he’s just holding it, crumpling and uncrumpling the fabric in his hand.

he is stimming.

“How are you… feeling?” Kline says, and stares at her with knit brows.

“Me? I’m fine. There’s a strange man in my living room who is immune to pepper spray, but I’m fine.” She closes her eyes for a moment.

“But… are you dizzy? Are you confused? Do you feel that your mind is as it should be?” He sounds so earnest and concerned it’s really kind of hard to stay freaked out, but she does her best.

“What the hell kind of question- what did you do?” Her voice should be rising with panic, probably, but it’s just resigned.

“Do you know who Dean Winchester is?” and suddenly Kline’s stare is piercing.

“Dean? My ex? We broke up more than a decade ago. What does he have to do with anything? I haven’t seen or even thought about him since- since-”

She can’t breathe again, and this time it isn’t the mace in the air. Something’s wrong. She can’t- she can’t reconcile Dean- it’s all- something’s wrong. Because he was- he was a hunter . He killed demons. He saved the world. She used to keep a shotgun loaded with rock salt in the kitchen cabinet in case she needed to defend herself, but then- then when she had moved out of that house she had found it and she hadn’t known where it came from. She had taken it to the pawn shop because she didn’t want Ben to grow up around guns, she knew they were dangerous to have with a growing boy in the house, and she’d sold it, and the owner had asked what was the deal with those weird rounds, and she’d said I don’t know. Because she didn’t. She used to know. And then she didn’t. And she can’t- why hadn’t she put up warding sigils around this house when she’d moved in? Dean had shown her how. Told her she needed protection. From things that go bump in the night. But she just hadn’t put them up. It hadn’t occurred to her. No Devil’s Trap under the welcome mat. No holy water by the door. No inlaid silver on the handle. Why didn’t she-

Kline’s hand is on her shoulder. It’s stiff, and strange, but she’s thankful for it. It forces her into the present. He’s staring into her eyes.

“You remember.” There’s a gravity to his tone, like what he's saying should make sense to her.

“I-” she searches for the right verb, the right concept for what’s happened to her, but she doesn’t know. Maybe there isn’t a right word. Maybe it’s not something knowable.

She focuses on Kline’s face. It’s lined, with deep eye-bags. She can see the pores on his nose. The skin of his eyelids is slightly shiny, a sleep-deprived greasiness. There’s a small drop of liquid just below his cheekbone. Pepper spray.

She stills.

“You’re a demon.” She’s not scared, or rather, she is, but at this point there is nothing she can do. If this man is here to kill her, there is nothing she can do to stop him. Not really even anything she could do to make it harder. “Or a vampire. Or something.”

Kline pulls back. Grimaces a little.

“Or something. I’m a fr- I knew him. Dean.”

oooooh yes babygirl update your relationship status in real time.

“Why am I- do you know why I- why the- why?” She hopes desperately that he knows what she’s asking, because if- if an or something showed up at her house the same day as- as this, then surely he has to at least know. It happened after he touched her and collapsed. That’s- that can’t be a coincidence.

Kline’s grimace deepens, and he looks away from her.

“Your memory has been tampered with.” He takes a breath. Glances at the kid. “I tampered with it, years ago. Because Dean asked me to.” He stops, sighs, looks her in the eye. “I came here to undo it. Because it was wrong.”

cas is doing a lot of things here. like, he is forcing himself to apologize for himself, and as a symbol of his new policy of applying critical thinking to the things dean has asked him to do, and as a way of going against dean symbolically to prove himself to jack because it's partly his fault that jack was in a situation to be in danger from dean in the first place. but he is also trying to set an example for jack.

“Oh,” she says, because there doesn’t seem anything else to say.

“And I want to tell you that I am sorry. I’m sorry for what I did. To you and- and to others. There’s nothing I can do to truly reverse the effects of my actions. But I can reverse the memory removal. I have reversed it. This is the one thing I can do.” Kline is staring at her, but his hand is wandering. She can see it reach behind him to squeeze his son’s shoulder. The kid doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He’s still holding the hem of Kline’s coat. Like Ben used to hang onto her when he was-

the thing about the mindwipe is it's literally like the only awful thing dean ever had cas do that's fixable.

Ben.

Dean. Dean and Ben. Dean had been so good with Ben. Ben had known Dean.

“My son.” Her voice is cold, and she’s glad it came out that way, because there was maybe a 50/50 chance of it coming out shaky instead. Kline flinches. He catches the kid’s hand in his own.

cas voice my son too <3.

“Yes. I took his memories as well.”

She finds herself standing. Taking a wobbly step.

“How dare you. You come into my house after- Give them back. Fix him.”

Kline grimaces.

“I am not… sure that ‘fixing’ is the right term. The damage has already been done, and cannot be undone. I removed your memories as an adult, and processing their return was still… difficult. Returning your child’s memories may have deleterious effects.”

Her blood runs cold. She knows he can see it on her face, and he winces.

“If you want me to return his memories, I will. You may also be able to simply… jog them, by discussing Dean. He’s your child.” His hand find’s the kid’s hair, making a fist in the long, sandy-brown locks. “It’s your choice.”

“I’ll… I’ll wait.” She needs to think. “What kind of ‘deleterious effects’?”

“I’m not sure,” says Kline. “None of my kind had ever removed the memories of a human on this scale before I took yours.” He’s looking away.

“None- what? I mean, why not?” It was the first question that popped into her mind, but she feels immediately ridiculous for letting it pop out of her mouth.

“There was no reason. None of us had ever… involved ourselves so heavily in human affairs. We were meant to serve G- a higher cause, not man.”

cas is really trying not to have the angel talk right now, not least because losing his faith in dean has really made the near extinction of angels, and the fact that cas has participated in the destruction of a lot of his siblings, a fresh new pain for him. like cas and jack are really truly all alone without the winchesters, and part of that is because cas bought into dean for so long.

“But you…” She catches herself before she says it, but Kline grimaces.

“Serve man?” The words hang in the air uncomfortably for a moment, and she can’t stop herself from wincing. Kline’s eyes are closed. “I did. I used to- to serve Dean. I thought it was righteous. I thought even when- even when I didn’t agree I thought he knew better. But Dean- Jack… lost something. And then he- Dean- there came a moment when I realized…” Kline trails off. He’s looking down at the kid, now. Finger-combing his hair with both hands.

A single tear rolls down Kline’s cheek as the kid stares off into space.

crucial to me for cas and jack to do the lal and data i will feel it for both of us thing. as i've said. jack can't experience the hurt of what dean did (yet) so cas will process it for him.

Lisa feels a shiver pass over her body.

Ben wasn’t even able to talk about it after, when Dean shoved him. Lisa doesn’t think she’s ever been that angry before or since. She wasn’t generally a breakup kind of gal, most of her relationships had just sort of coolly fizzled away. But with Dean…

She sees it, in Kline’s face. In the way he touches Jack, half grounding, half possessive. Like Jack has survived some calamity. Like Kline can’t believe he’s really there. Like he might not be, if things had gone differently.

The first sentence that pops into her head when she finishes up with her dot-connecting is You know, I’m actually not surprised that Dean was gay the whole time, but she manages by the grace of God not to let it come out of her mouth. She doesn’t want Kline to think she’s homophobic or anything.

gay dean truthing NEVER sleeps. if anybody noticed it would've been lisa. anyway i like to break up a solemn moment with a bit of levity. i love that lisa is afraid of being homophobic <3.

Instead, she stays silent a moment.

“I see.”

He nods, and his face crumples.

She realizes that he must have taken it as a statement of judgment. She would have, in his place.

the thing about cas is that he did fail where lisa succeeded. like, in the end, lisa was not willing to let dean harm her son. cas was.

“No, no.” She shakes her head to emphasize the point, aggressively enough to send her hair flying everywhere. “I mean, you- you and I- we are-” she leans forward. Takes his hand.

His eyes widen.

“I don’t understand,” he says, and the tone of conviction he uses makes the phrase slightly ridiculous.

We’re the same, she wants to say. We could have been. Instead, she glances at the kid. At Jack, with his quiet obedience and empty stare.

“Don’t fix Ben. Don’t- don’t bring his memories back. He doesn’t need to remember. And I don’t-” I don’t want him to know. To know that someone who loved him could do that to him. She isn’t sure whether she means laying a hand on him or taking his memories. I don't want it to break him.

this is a little dramatic but the thing about lisa is she is CURRENTLY LOOKING AT another kid dean traumatized. who is (seemingly) about ben's age. who dean was a stepdad two. cut the woman some slack.

“Alright,” Kline says, snapping back to himself, “but if you change your mind-”

“I’ll contact you,” she says, but she already knows she won’t. She makes up her mind to lose his number, if he even gives it to her. If he even has one to give.

She doesn’t ever want that for Ben.

that being jack's current state.

#spn #asks #angelfishofthelord

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 4 years

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(Accidental 150 Follower Special) IOTA’s Top 10 Best (and By That, I Mean Personal Favorite) Episodes of Miraculous Ladybug

Alright, I already covered what I considered to be the worst Miraculous Ladybug episodes in two parts, and now it’s time to talk about the what I consider to be the best Miraculous Ladybug episodes before I talk about... him...

I’m only putting one rule in place for this list. I'm going to try and list episodes with good qualities other than “cool-looking Akuma and awesome fight scenes”, and focus on other details like character moments and story.

Other than that, let’s get started.

These are the Top 10 Best Episodes of Miraculous Ladybug (in my personal opinion because your opinion is also valid)

#10: Mr. Pigeon

While Marinette works on sketching a design for a hat for a fashion contest where the winning design will be worn by Adrien (a rare example where the “Marinette does a thing to impress Adrien” plot actually works), a birdwatcher who loves feeding pigeons in the park is told off by the only police officer in Paris, causing him to get akumatized into the titular Mr. Pigeon, who has control over all of the pigeons in the city.

And by God, does this episode have fun with the concept.

In addition to constantly mimicking pigeon cries, Mr. Pigeon's movements are just so entertaining to watch, only aided by the creative ways he controls the flocks of pigeons.

I'm not kidding when at one point, Mr. Pigeon traps Ladybug and Cat Noir in a cage, and threatens to have his pigeons crap on them unless they hand over their Miraculous. Yeah.

This is one of the episodes that really set the standards for how outlandish the Akumas in Miraculous Ladybug could get. It kind of reminds me of an episode of the original Ultraman, where the SSSP has to find a way to move an incredibly heavy monster using increasingly abnormal strategies, like inflating it with air so it'll float like a balloon. It's clear it isn't taking itself too seriously, so the audience shouldn't either.

Admittedly, Cat Noir's feather allergy feels shoehorned in, and is only included to increase conflict, and you would think it would come up when Mayura, a bird-themed supervillain appears in the third season. But then again, that's just a minor nitpick.

It's just a really fun episode, and I wish we could see Ladybug and Cat Noir fight Mr. Pigeon again that isn't used for a cheap gag.

#9: The Puppeteer

After being told by her mom that she can't have a Ladybug doll made by Marinette, young Manon is Akumatized into the Puppeteer. But obviously, you can't have our heroes beating up a five-year-old, so instead, the Puppeteer has the power to exact control over past Akuma victims as long as she has the doll made by Marinette. So Ladybug and Cat Noir have to face off against Lady Wifi, the Evillustrator, and Rogercop, before the Puppeteer gets her hands on the dolls Marinette made of the two heroes and take control of them as well.

It's still kind of funny to think about the fact that of all the Akumas to become a huge threat to Ladybug and Cat Noir, it's a little girl throwing a temper tantrum. And like with “Mr. Pigeon”, the episode has a lot of fun with the concept, best reflected in the voice acting. You can tell that Carrie Keranen is having so much fun this episode with the stuff she says as Lady Wifi.

The fact that someone who was actually a major threat to the heroes with how she was able to easily outsmart them and also came really close to getting their Miraculous is now acting like a little kid using phrases like “super duper sorry” is even more hilarious.

I'm still a little confused as why of all the past villains, it's Evillustrator and Rogercop that get to come back, and I wish they had gotten more to say, but it's still a treat to see Ladybug and Cat Noir fighting four villains at once, especially since this was before “Heroes Day”.

#8: Sapotis

Hawkmoth akumatizes Alya's little sisters into Sapotis (supposedly based off a folktale, but I can't find anything about it online), who have the power to multiply and easily overwhelm Ladybug and Cat Noir, forcing Ladybug to recruit Alya to become a third hero, Rena Rouge.

I've been a little negative about Alya in the past, but this episode gives her some major character growth. One of the biggest problems I had with her character in Season 1 is how often she tried to figure out Ladybug's identity... despite claiming to be a huge superhero fan, who should know why superheroes keep their identities a secret. Thankfully, this episode mostly puts an end to this idea.

The episode opens with Marinette giving Alya some reasons why Ladybug would keep her identity a secret, and it actually plays into the episode.

Putting aside the stupid Rent-A-Miraculous system introduced in this episode, the idea of keeping secrets and how necessary they can be sometimes is reflected after the battle where Alya is hesitant at first to give up her Miraculous, but eventually concedes and keeps her identity a secret from Marinette (who ironically knows, but that's not important).

Even without that, this episode still has a lot of action with the three heroes fighting their way through an army of Sapotis, with plenty of banter during said action. Hell, at one point, Cat Noir says “gotta catch 'em all”. I don't have a joke here, that's just brilliant.

Out of all the introductory hero episodes, this one easily sticks out among most of them.

(Don’t worry, I’m going to talk about Rena Rouge’s character design in a later post.)

#7: Guitar Villain

I said before in an earlier post that Jagged Stone is one of my favorite characters in Miraculous Ladybug, so it's obvious that the episode where he gets akumatized would be on this list.

After a disagreement with his manager about trying to mimic the popular singer XY (who ironically lacks a Y chromosome), Jagged is akumatized into Guitar Villain, a rock star with a pet dragon who forces everyone to listen to his Awesome Solo (yes, he names his attacks too) to dance uncontrollably.

Honestly, there's not much I can really say about this episode. It's Ladybug and Cat Noir fighting a rock star who flies around on a goddamn dragon. That's one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Even the way they defeat him (which I won’t give away) is a fun jab at rock stars.

Admittedly, the episode does border on grouchy old man territory sometimes by complaining about how bad today's music is with the way they portray XY as a whiny and egotistical coward, but after watching “Silencer”, you'll be glad everyone hates him.

Overall, it's a rockingly awesome episode.

#6: The Dark Owl

Mr. Damocles, the principal of Marinette and Adrien's school, is akumatized into the Dark Owl, a corrupted version of his favorite comic book superhero (who would later turn out to be real in the New York special, but I don't want to acknowledge that), who uses his high-tech gadgets to trap Ladybug and Cat Noir, putting them in one of their toughest binds yet.

I'm a huge fan of the Adam West Batman show, so you could probably guess why it's on this list. This episode really feels like an episode of that show with how goofy and over the top everything is. Obviously, this episode has a few Batman references thrown in (even an Incredibles reference at one point), and they're all hilarious.

I just love how complex Dark Owl's traps for Ladybug and Cat Noir are, and the fact that he actually manages to outsmart them at one point. Like seriously, have you ever heard of a death trap that involves drowning someone in whipped cream? That’s totally something you’d see the Joker setting up.

I don't really want to give away the ending (which is why this part is so short), because I think it's a really clever resolution that you should check out for yourself.

#5: Gorizilla

Hawkmoth akumatizes Adrien's bodyguard into Gorizilla, whose sole purpose is to protect Adrien. His motivation? To see if Adrien is actually Cat Noir or not. So Adrien has to avoid this gigantic gorilla's wrath with Marinette, all while trying to catch a movie his late mother was in.

See this? This is Adrienette done right. This is the kind of interaction I like when it comes to romance. Marinette and Adrien spend a few scenes with each other avoiding Adrien's crazy fanbase, and Marinette doesn't stammer half of her words. Even when she interacts with Adrien as Ladybug, she still remains confident, and Adrien trusts her judgment when it looks like he might fall. I don't just want Marinette and Adrien to cuddle with each other or declare their love for each other when they get their memories wiped. I want them to interact like human beings before they actually start a relationship, and this episode is a good example of it.

Adrien also gets some good focus with the way he views his relationship with his parents, as does Gabriel with his relationship with his son. Granted, he's taking a pretty huge gamble trying to kill Adrien to see if he's Cat Noir or not as opposed to just... taking off his ring while he sleeps. Can we at least admit he's trying?

I feel they could have done more with the King Kong homage (guess who I'm talking about?), but I can understand there wasn't enough time to focus on that. It's still an important episode to watch for plot and character growth that will barely be acknowledged in later episodes.

#4: Sandboy

tHe SaNdBoY hAs ChEcKeD iN. nOw NiGhTmArEs CaN bEgIn.

Now that we got that obvious joke out of the way, let's talk about one of the most creative episodes of the show.

Tikki and Plagg, Marinette and Adrien's Kwamis (the magical beings that power their Miraculous) take part in a ritual with the other Kwamis inside Master Fu's Miracle Box to contact Nooroo, Hawkmoth's Kwami, on his birthday and get an idea of where he is. Unfortunately, Hawkmoth chooses to akumatize someone during the ritual, leaving Marinette and Adrien helpless to fight back against Sandboy, an Akuma with the power to make their worst fears come true.

I said before in my worst list when talking about “Ladybug” that there was too much going on for one episode, what with Marinette's expulsion, the attempted Scarletmoth attack, and the fake Ladybug plotlines generally being rushed through. This episode is basically the opposite of that (ironically, they're both the penultimate episodes of their respective seasons).

The Kwami ritual and the Akuma attack are perfectly staged together so one affects the other. Not only do the Kwamis have to risk aborting their ritual to reach Nooroo in order to fight the Akuma, but Marinette and Adrien have to deal without fighting off Sandboy's nightmares on their own. Both plots balance each other out into a well-crafted story.

This is also one of the only episodes in the show where the Akuma of the week isn't the man focus. Here, we don't even see what happens to get the kid akumatized into Sandboy, and instead, Gabriel senses someone with negative emotions and akumatizes the kid offscreen. This works, because it doesn't distract from the main plot too much.

Even Marinette and Adrien's worst fears beautifully contrast each other, with both managing to be unsettling in different ways, even if they both have different tones. While Adrien's worst fear is being imprisoned in his own room (the fear only made worse with Plagg's absence), Marinette's worst fear is... the real star of the episode. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think you all know who I'm talking about.

You can tell the animators had a field day with animating Nightmare Adrien. Just look at the way he moves around and the faces he makes. It manages to be terrifying and hilarious at the same time. Bryce Papenbrook's performance only makes it better, cementing this as the highlight of the episode.

This episode also does a good job at foreshadowing the main plot for Season 3 with Hawkmoth finding out about the other Kwamis and by extension, more Miraculous.

It's got plot, comedy, good action, and Nightmare Adrien, so how can you turn this episode down?

And no, I'm not talking about Nightmare Ladybug, mainly because I'm tired of all the evil doppelgangers from the worst list.

#3: Startrain

Yes, believe it or not, I managed to find a Season 3 episode that wasn't complete garbage, and spoiler alert, this isn't the only one.

Marinette and Adrien's class goes on a field trip to London by taking the train, until the driver is akumatized into Startrain, who wants to escape to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism... SPACE! So Ladybug and Cat Noir have to defeat Startrain while also finding a way to bring everyone on the train back home.

I like how this episode plays with the usual Akuma of the week formula. Unlike every other Akuma they've fought, Cat Noir points out that if they beat Startrain, everyone will die, so they have to be more strategic in their approach. They don't even fight Startrain for most of the episode, as they have to make their way to the front of the train to confront the Akuma. The action in this episode is very creative and really takes advantage of zero gravity, only aided by the design of the futuristic train the episode takes place in.

The new hero introduced, Pegasus (AKA Max, another student in Marinette and Adrien's class), is also really cool, being very intelligent and helping out the heroes progress through the train even before he gets the Horse Miraculous. It makes sense that his intelligence would be used rather than just his powers in this situation.

There are even some good character moments too. For once, Master Fu does something smart and loans the Horse Miraculous (which has the power of teleportation) to Marinette so she can still go on the class trip, trusting her and actually letting her have a life. It was also nice to see Alya stick up for Marinette by keeping Lila from interrupting her nap with Adrien.

This episode is basically like a refreshing glass of water to enjoy during the garbage fire that was Season 3.

(I’m going to talk about Pegasus’ character design later on too, don’t worry)

#2: Silencer

Lukanette shippers, ASSEMBLE!

Music producer Bob Roth and his son XY hold a contest for young artists to show off their skills, and Kitty Section, a band composed of several recurring characters, decides to enter, with Marinette helping to design their costumes. But as soon as they submit their video, they find out that XY copied their style, naturally pissing the band off.

Marinette and the lead guitarist of Kitty Section, Luka, confront Bob Roth and XY, who threaten to ruin their careers by claiming that they ripped off XY. Seeing Marinette getting threatened is more than enough for Hawkmoth to akumatize Luka into Silencer, who naturally has the power to silence and mimic the voices of others.

I talked about Luka and his relationship with Marinette in an earlier post (specifically the one where Astruc claimed that the fandom growing to like Luka counted as character development), and I said that this was one of the few good episodes this season because of their interactions. This episode basically made me realize how much Luka cares for Marinette, and the episode gives plenty of time to show the two spending time together and growing closer. It's basically everything “Oni-Chan” should have been about, giving some depth to Luka and not portraying him as a crazy person like they did with Kagami in that episode.

Silencer is also one of the more creatively designed villains this season, and has a really creative approach to achieving his goals. While the ability to steal and imitate someone's voice seems mundane compared to control over the weather, or making nightmares come to life, it's used very effectively. Silencer basically tricks the police into arresting Bob Roth while imitating the mayor's voice, and he threatens to make his life a living hell by using the connections to the voices he's stolen. Even with the hand puppet gesture, it's still unsettling to have Silencer speak in all these voices, and it would make for a really interesting horror movie.

Even Ladybug and Cat Noir's interactions are back to their Season 1 levels of enjoyment. Even though Silencer took her voice, Ladybug just makes so many expressions that do a great job at describing her feelings, which naturally plays off Cat Noir's motormouth tendencies. Whenever Cat Noir jokes about Ladybug's condition, he is rightfully called out on it and is reprimanded in some way, my favorite being when Ladybug uses her yo-yo to hit Cat Noir on the head to shut him up. Even putting aside that, they still work well together this episode and really feel like equals. I also love their silent fist bump when Bob Roth is exposed.

Again, the episode still takes the time to go on about how unoriginal today's musicians are, and how they lack artistic creativity and all that crap. Look, given how ham-fisted the writing in this show can get, are you surprised the commentary isn't subtle?

Even putting aside how much this episode made me appreciate Lukanette, it still has a lot of great moments that aren't even related to the ship itself, which is a real testament to how this show can perfectly balance romance and story when it's done right. Now if only the show could try this much with Adrienette, then people wouldn't hate the main pairing of the show this much.

#1: The Collector

Taking place immediately after the Season 1 finale, Marinette meets Master Fu and discusses the book she found depicting past Miraculous users. Marinette theorizes that since the book was in the Agreste mansion, Gabriel could be Hawkmoth. And to the surprise of absolutely no one, she's right, and in order to draw off suspicion, Gabriel akumatizes himself into the Collector.

This episode has several good writing decisions for both sides, and the choices the characters make feel natural. Gabriel akumatizing himself is such a smart move, and so is what Marinette and Master Fu do with the book at the end. This episode does a great job setting up future plot threads and establishes Master Fu's character and the mystery associated with him.

The Collector is a visually stunning villain, and his powers are really creative, leading to a great fight with Ladybug and Cat Noir, who use a great strategy to outsmart him. I also love how over the top he is in order to make the heroes believe that he's working for Hawkmoth, all with a devious smile on his face.

This was also the episode that really got me into Miraculous Ladybug as a whole. I checked out the first season on a whim after it was mentioned in a Pan Pizza video, but it was during the hiatus between seasons, and I hadn't really started using Tumblr yet, so it mostly stayed off my radar. When Season 2 started however, I really got invested in the story, and the way this episode turned out was a big reason why. I wondered what it would be like when Adrien finds out his own father is Hawkmoth, and how the story would play out after the reveal.

Despite what it led up to, I still consider “The Collector” to be my favorite episode of Miraculous Ladybug.

Well, now that I talked about that, not it's time to talk about what I consider to be the worst episode of Miraculous Ladybug, “Felix”. God help me...

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yukiwrites · 5 years

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Byleth, Focusing

Thanks for the support as always, @xpegasusuniverse! I was emotional while writing this, I hope you like it! ;o;)

Summary: The enemy had come unnanounced, taking everything Byleth ever had in his life -- his father, Jeralt. Shaken by grief, Byleth’s resolve in hunting down his and Sothis’ sworn enemies keeps him going as he reads through his father’s diary and discovers the truth about the Stone within his heart...

Commission info HERE and HERE!

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Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15

Byleth himself carried Jeralt's body back to the monastery.

No stretchers. No help from his fellow mercenaries. No.

He would carry his Father.

One last time.

... For the first time.

Long had Jeralt carried Byleth -- the burdens of a lifetime; secrets buried deep within the mind, away from any prying eyes, protected at the cost of a nomad life... And the only thing Byleth could do in return was make sure to bury his father beside his Mother.

The raindrops fell heavily on the Professor's shoulders, the water seeping into his very bones, chilling the soul. Sothis' apologies had died down with the passing of the hours, her voice sounding farther and farther away as it did.

Was he shutting her out or was she giving him space? Byleth couldn't say for certain.

He could barely feel a thing under his cold fingertips, the memories of loss spiralling in and out of his mind, mingling with Sothis'.

Byleth squeezed his eyes shut as he knelt by the muddy grave, uncaring of any spectators who'd come to give their farewells to Jeralt.

His tears were warm -- a painful reminder of his status as a living being, as opposed to the frozen feeling of his limbs. "That darkness... It was familiar." He clenched his fist, his hoarse voice deafened by the heavy rain around him.

Sothis flinched inside his mind, materializing beside him. "You don't mean-"

Byleth nodded minimally, anger so deeply carved into his expression one would never be able to call him 'Ashen Demon' again for his eyes shone in a fierce blue. "You told me not to take on a millennia-old fight, but the fight came to me instead."

Sothis opened and closed her mouth. She couldn't even tell him that the path of vengeance was wrong -- as she was aware that many would -- because she, too, fell victim of those who abandoned the light from aboveground. So had her children. History had to be rewritten to push the villains into oblivion, yet there they were again, intent on making everyone's lives a living hell.

"I'll fight." Byleth could feel Sothis' conflict, but he himself was resolute. "They'll pay." He clutched his chest, almost as though he could dig his hand into it and touch Sothis' core directly.

The goddess simply lowered her head somberly, placing one ethereal hand on Byleth's shoulder. "Let us both fight together." Her voice echoed as the rain fell through her.

I may not be much with these limited powers, she thought melancholy, however, I may have an idea to enhance them in you instead...

Byleth let out a bitter smile, knitting his brow together so as to keep himself from sobbing. "You weren't at fault... I'm sorry I said all of that," he said in a small voice, barely over a whisper. Rain thundered about, muffling his words to all but the one who dwelled in his mind. "But... thank you, my friend."

Honestly, Byleth didn't remember how or when he went back to his room that night. The next few days blended together as though the simple passing of time was enough to make him dizzy, his mind struggling to process the loss.

The only interaction he had -- and needed -- was Sothis' voice and comforting embrace in their shared mindscape. As a mother, her grief was fundamentally different from Byleth's, who had lost a parent, but they both could find solace in one another's pains and coping mechanisms.

Once Byleth felt well enough to stand, he headed straight to Jeralt's room, not caring to seek out anyone in his path -- actively or inadvertently ignoring anyone who got remotely close to his chosen route.

Opening the door to Jeralt's study all at once was a mistake -- Byleth was slapped in the face with his father's scent, making him clench his jaw and hesitate more than a few moments to take the first step inside. One would think that with the little amount of time Jeralt spent in his room wouldn't be enough to left such significant impression, but that clearly wasn't the case.

Jeralt was in every nook and cranny of that battered room. He was a neat man, so the furniture was kept clean and tidy, as were his personal objects.

Byleth's chin trembled as he stepped inside, forcing him to take a moment to recompose himself by leaning on a nearby bookshelf.

Sothis patted his head mentally, taking it upon herself to look around in Byleth's stead. "Over there- are you well enough to move? That book way over there, hidden at the highest corner of the shelf- can you see it? Mayhap it contains something?"

"I see it." Byleth blinked slowly, looking up to the book Sothis was pointing to. He unceremoniously stepped on an expensive-looking chair to reach it, not bothering to look for a stool.

The moment he touched the old-looking book, something threatened to fall out of it, triggering Byleth's reflex of catching it before it did.

It was a ring.

His Mother's ring.

"Oh..." Byleth croaked out, gripping at the delicate ornament before stuffing it into his pocket. Sothis simply waited in silence for Byleth to compose himself, leaning her ethereal head on his shoulder.

Sniffling, the Professor managed to push down the lump in his throat enough to speak. "This- looks to be Dad's diary. I saw him writing on it from time to time when I was a kid."

"His handwriting is prettier than his face would suggest," Sothis blurted out as Byleth opened the book. "Why, those entries right at the beginning- they’re well before your birth! The courting of your mother, his love for her..." She said fondly, reaching out to the yellowed pages as though she could touch them. "What a beautiful love it must've been."

Byleth couldn't even nod, the rush of emotions he felt as he read the loving way his father talked about his mother taking everything he had. He slid down to sit on the floor, crossing his legs so he could read it and take it all in.

"This part here... Horsebow Moon, year 1159... It's the year of your birth!" Sothis urged Byleth to turn the pages faster. "There must be some clue here-"

Byleth frowned as he quickly read the passages, Sothis' voice echoing the words inside his mind. "Rhea..."

"Your father had been wary of her from day one, that much is true. So his suspicions hailed from an even farther past..."

For all that was written in the diary, apart from Rhea's odd behavior, it simply looked as though she placed the Crest Stone into Byleth's heart to save him from a certain death -- something Sothis knew her daughter would do, at least back in the day.

Was that truly the only reason? Would that Rhea, the child who was the most attached to Herself, give away Sothis' own heart to a random child from one of the Knights?

... Sothis wanted to say, without hesitation, that she would. She desperately wanted to say that the selfless duckling that always followed her around would simply be just as nice as that.

But she hesitated. She didn't have the confidence to say it, not after reading the diary and remembering how Rhea behaved while she was donning the alias of Seiros.

Byleth, on the other hand, seemed convinced, if not pleased, with the simple conclusion -- at least for the time being. As he got up from the floor, Sothis' mouth moved before she could control it.

"Where are you going? Aren't you going to read the rest?"

"Mhm," Byleth nodded, stuffing the book into the inner pocket of his coat. "I'll keep this for the time being, but I figured Hanneman and Manuela should know of this development... I did say I'd keep them posted on my conversation with Dad, after all."

"You foolish child. You know there's no need to honor that promise right now. Let yourself grieve."

Byleth shook his head as he looked around his father's study one last time before stepping out of it. "This IS my way to grieve." He closed the door with a soft click, leaning his head on the hard wood for a good moment. "Besides, if I go back to my room right now, I'll probably just head straight to Rhea and ask her all about this. I need Hanneman and Manuela to hold me back." He barked a bitter laugh, stealing a stifled giggle from Sothis, as well as a good-natured slap on his back.

She looked down as Byleth started walking. "For the record, I do not think you should talk to her, either."

"I know." Byleth nodded. He had felt his mindmate's hesitation back then, which also spurred his urge in going to talk with Rhea. But he wouldn't. He would listen to his friend's pleas this time around -- he had caused her enough grief already.

Sothis pressed her lips into a thin line, torn between smiling fondly and frowning deeply. Moved by her friend's attentiveness and selflessness in the situation he was in at the moment, she couldn't help but feel rather selfish. Was she protecting her child from an uncertain future? There was no way to know Rhea's true intentions without talking to her directly, but if the answer was too much for Byleth to handle...

Maybe Sothis was trying to protect the both of them -- the friend she could only make after she died and the child that outlived her. The goddess curled back into the corners of Byleth's mind as he reached Hanneman's office.

The door was open, so there was no need to announce oneself. Hanneman got up from his seat so fast he winced. "Byleth!" He gasped loudly. "Should you be up and about? I wouldn't want you to fall sick at such grievous time..."

Hurried steps sounded from the corridor before they reached the door. Manuela appeared from out of it, quickly running to hold Byleth's shoulders. "So it really was you I caught a glimpse of...!" She pressed her lips into a thin line, never knowing what to say in these kinds of situations. "I am so, so very sorry for your loss, dear Professor."

"Likewise." Hanneman nodded beside his fellow professor, stealing a smile from Byleth's tired lips.

"Thanks, you two. I actually came here to talk about what I found out regarding the Crest Stone-"

"Oh, my!" Manuela slapped Hanneman's shoulder. "Quick, old man, close that door!"

"Right!" Slightly offended from being ordered around, but still complying, Hanneman ran to the entrance to seal it shut. "You shouldn't force yourself, Professor-"

"It was Rhea." He said as he pulled the diary from his pocket. "She put the Stone within my heart."

The temperature in the room dropped rapidly.

"As we theorized, then..." Hanneman frowned, uncharacteristically calm about such a breakthrough. "To think the Children of the Goddess held such immense and frightening power..."

Manuela tilted her head from Hanneman to the book in Byleth's hand, ultimately taking it. "Did your father...?"

"Know about it? No. Write it down? Kind of." Byleth bobbed his head to the sides. "From what he wrote, Rhea had a direct hand in my survival after apparently being born dead. Since we know what lies inside my chest, we can only conclude..."

"... that it was her, yes. But for what purpose?" Hanneman peeked at the diary from over Manuela's shoulder. "Surely not out of the goodness of her heart? Hah!" He sneered, and Byleth felt a pang of pain in his heart -- surely hailing from Sothis herself.

"... Sothis doesn't want me to confront Rhea about this, so I won't go. Although I do think that would be the fastest-"

"Absolutely not!" Manuela and Hanneman said at the same time. "If she has the power to put that thing inside of you, surely she can just as easily take it out should you go against her! Don't let your grief fuel your recklessness, Byleth." Manuela placed the book back in Byleth's hand, purposely not handing it to Hanneman's prying eyes.

The older man hesitated, but decided against asking to read the diary for himself. He wasn't entirely tactless, after all. "I agree with Manuela. Let us first sit down and put all the facts before us..."

#byleth #sothis #hanneman #manuela fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #my writings #yuki's commissions #spoilers

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keeroo92 · 5 years

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Savior, Bloodstain, Hellfire, Shadow Ch30 (V x Reader)

Chapter 30 Family Ties

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“Nero is your son, dipshit!” Dante stares at him, grinning happily as he delivers the metaphysical sucker punch excitedly.

The world grinds to a halt and for a solid thirty seconds, V’s mind is completely blank. He is numb, his body rigid and mouth agape as static fills his short-circuited brain. Even Griffon is rendered speechless from the sheer shock of Dante’s words. He can’t think, can’t breathe as he feverishly gathers his wits at long last. Emotion returns simultaneously with conscious thought, a tsunami of feeling he was not at all prepared to endure.

Disbelief.

Dante’s lying, that’s impossible. I would’ve known somehow, would have felt it in some way. I’ve spent so much time around Nero, I would have seen some likeness or similarity but there’s nothing!

Denial.

I could never, not even Vergil could have done such a thing, to leave a woman behind to raise his child alone. Even he wasn’t that monstrous… right?

Fury.

How dare Dante even say such madness! He has no right! Nero’s more likely his son than mine, with his tendencies! Yet again, I take the blame for his misconduct! Some things never change.

Confusion.

What is he hoping to gain from this absurdity? He can’t possibly believe Nero’s my… son. I don’t understand his motives; this makes no sense!

Doubt.

Unless it’s true; then it makes perfect sense. What if he’s right, what if I am… what if Vergil was… what if it’s true?

He mentally compares Nero’s face with his own, his original face. There are definite similarities, but he adamantly refuses to acknowledge the truth to himself even as his heart proclaims it’s agreement with Dante in a powerful surge of familial recognition.

I’ve already failed in so many ways, so many times. Fatherhood is not one of them.

You sure about that, Shakespeare?

Absolutely.

Would it be so terrible if it were true?

Most definitely.

Why?

Because… I wasn’t there. Nero grew up without parents, just as Dante and I did after the attack. He’s endured so much pain and suffering, to know that I was partially to blame for it…

You mean Vergil was to blame.

I… don’t know. It’s complicated, you know that.

Griffon sends him the equivalent of an eye roll, a short purr following soon after as Shadow voices her agreement with the sentiment. The enigmatic golem stays silent, but he can sense its amusement. Or was that anger?

It’s pretty simple, actually. You’re only half of Vergil, so you can only really be responsible for half the shitty things that dick did.

Griffon mentally preens, pleased with his assessment and giving off an aura of “so there” in V’s conflicted mind.

“Hey, buddy! You there? Hello?” Dante’s insistent voice juts in suddenly, his hands waving before V’s unfocused eyes in an attempt to bring him back from his hiding place in his mind. His emerald eyes meet his brother’s pale gaze and he forces himself to remain expressionless.

“You’re wrong. Nero is not my son,” his flat voice responds finally. Dante rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

“Yes, he is, and you know it,” the younger Sparda twin insists. V harshly subdues his urge to childishly respond with a no, the familiar structure of their spats already taking shape as Dante lets his emotions rule him and V refuses to rise to the bait. Dante huffs in frustration as he doesn’t respond, his calm façade ironclad.

I think he’s right.

Another purr sounds Shadow’s agreement, and this time Nightmare deigns to respond with a long rumble of assent.

Then you’re all as foolish as he is.

“It is impossible,” V tells his brother quietly.

“It is NOT impossible, you idiot! Just LOOK at him and you can see it!” Dante shouts, his arms waving in a gesture of emphasis as he loses his patience at last with a snarl of irritation.

______________________________________________________________

As V and Dante distance themselves from you and Nero, the young man chuckles again and shakes his head.

“I can’t believe you actually punched him, that was amazing,” he comments dryly. You smirk and try to ignore the painful throbbing in your knuckles where they struck the man in red, the area already red and irritated. It had been necessary; calling you cute was crossing the line. And then he’d had the nerve to compare you to a puppy!

How dare he.

“How’s V holding up? He doesn’t look too good,” Nero interjects, your thoughts shattering like glass under gunfire. You can’t help but sigh before answering, trying to find the right words to describe the poet’s decline. You look at the floor, vision sweeping across the strange texture as you speak.

“He’s hanging on, but I can’t tell if what we’re doing is going to help in the end. It’s honestly a crapshoot, but it’s all we’ve got, so…” you shrug, melancholy acceptance settling over your eyes as Nero scratches the back of his neck thoughtfully. He grimaces, obviously troubled.

“I can’t imagine… if it was Kyrie, I… I don’t know how you keep going sometimes, Y/N,” he murmurs with a sympathetic smile. You nod, grateful for his friendship as always.

“It is NOT impossible, you idiot! Just LOOK at him and you can see it!” Dante suddenly shouts across the area, his arms gesticulating wildly as he argues with V. The poet is rigid, unmoving and silently facing away from you and Nero. Dante’s features are twisted with his frustration and a tinge of anger and you instantly start running over to the two men in alarm.

You can hear V’s soft mumble as you skid to a stop a few feet away.

“It cannot be… more likely he’s yours,” he utters robotically. When his face finally comes into view, his expression is flat, whatever he’s feeling hidden so deeply within that even you can’t discern it. His emerald eyes are locked on something directly ahead of him, his fingers grasping his cane tightly as he resolutely conceals his feelings. You shift your gaze to Dante, your confusion and worry blatantly obvious in your pleading eyes. The gruff man looks completely at the end of his rope, his brows drawn together and lips a firm line of annoyance.

“Dante… what the hell?” you manage to ask him. He puts his hands on his hips and stares upward with a heavy sigh, closing his eyes to think before he speaks.

That alone sets off alarm bells in your mind. You barely know Dante, but he doesn’t use caution or forethought often.

This must be serious.

Dante’s eyes meet yours briefly; a glance of apology before he addresses the lean poet. You follow his gaze, watching V’s face carefully for any flicker of emotion.

“Either you tell them, or I will, but this is too important to hold back,” he informs the obsidian haired wall of motionless restraint. His emerald eyes blink once, twice before he focuses on his brother’s irritated face with a look of dawning apprehension. He licks his lips, opening his mouth to speak but no words come out. His knuckles are white in his death grip on his cane, his jaw clenching as he forces a single syllable out.

“Don’t,” he gasps desperately. You wrap your hands over his on his cane, trying to reach him underneath the ocean of new knowledge as Nero trots up to join the strange conversation.

“You guys okay?” Nero asks with a scratch at the back of his neck. His eyes can’t seem to decide who he should be looking at, shifting between each of his three friends in concern as he takes in the strained expressions. Dante crosses his arms, his signature Sparda stubbornness coloring his tone with resolve.

“You have five seconds, brother,” he growls, tapping his foot to keep count.

One.

V’s eyes widen in panic, his eyes darting around seeking an escape route. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows nervously, sweat breaking out on his face.

Two.

You rub the poet’s back soothingly, offering him your support as best you can. He flinches at your first touch defensively, the circumstances overwhelming his senses.

Three.

His eyes are dilated so widely you can’t see the green ring around his pupils. He’s shaking slightly as his eyes settle on Nero.

Four.

Nero meets his eyes unflinchingly, his uneasy worry prevalent in his expressive features. The poet’s eyes light up as if he’s seeing Nero for the first time and some facet of the young man seems to hit him with the same force as one of Griffon’s lightning strikes.

Five.

“So, what’s it gonna be?” Dante demands. V closes his eyes and grits his teeth before turning to face his brother, steely-eyed.

“Abundance of stupidity,” he recites, turning back to face Nero before he continues with all the caution you’d expect from someone diffusing a bomb.

“Dante believes that Vergil fathered you, Nero,” he announces hesitantly, reluctance dripping from every word. Nero’s lips pop open, eyes shifting to match the circular shape his mouth makes. He staggers as the words sink in and he turns to Dante.

“What the hell? Where do you get off, making jokes like that?” the young warrior chokes out.

Your own confusion rolls through you as you struggle to figure out whether there is truth in Dante’s assessment. From what little you know of Vergil, it’s possible but extremely unlikely. Plus, Nero has so much in common with Dante it’s almost like he’s the older man’s twin.

So it’s not true, right?

Right?

“Let me explain,” Dante pipes up, and all three of you turn to glare at him. He raises his hands in a gesture of submission, guarding his face from any possible attacks.

“Please do,” Nero growls, his hands balled up at his sides but remaining low.

The red leather of Dante’s coat ripples as he lowers his hands with a sheepish grin, realizing that no one is planning on throwing any punches.

Yet.

“I knew you were a Sparda the first time we met, Nero. The hair is a dead giveaway. Wasn’t sure how we were related, but the Yamato bonding with you like it did convinced me you were family. Now, as much as I mess around, I don’t actually sleep around. The few people I do sleep with are still friends, I know for a fact I have no children. Plus, the timeline didn’t fit at all; I wasn’t seeing anyone around the time you were born,” Dante begins carefully, mainly addressing Nero as his voice grows steadier with each word.

You glance at V to see him glaring at the floor behind his hair, stubbornly refusing to listen to Dante’s rationale. You stroke his back again even as you listen and wrestle with your own feelings on the subject, shoving them away until there’s a calm moment to face them.

I can deal with my own issues later.

“So, you were either a long lost brother or a cousin or something, or Vergil… you know. I don’t know of any aunts or uncles in the family, and dear old dad died when we were just kids. And, according to V, there was a lady in Vergil’s life around that time. So, uh, welcome to the family?” Dante concludes lamely with an apologetic grin.

Holy shit.

Dante’s right.

Holy shit.

Nero’s face shifts rapidly, cycling through several possible reactions before settling on bewildered acceptance. A weight lifts from your shoulders as your friend smiles lightly at the man you love, his hand scratching his neck again in his signature move of discomfort. Dante relaxes slightly too as Nero lets out a long breath and chuckles.

“Well, damn… that’s uh… wow,” he begins, his shock stealing his words. A look of realization crosses his face suddenly and he looks back at Dante. “That makes you my uncle, huh?”

Dante barks out a laugh and jokingly reaches out to shake his nephew’s hand. “Good to meet ya, kid,” he glibly states. Nero cracks a smirk of his own as he takes his uncle’s hand; they look so alike that it becomes glaringly obvious to you that they’re related.

How could none of us have known? How could V have not figured it out?

“Kyrie’s going to flip,” Nero adds, and V’s shoulders shake under your hand. For a heartbeat you think he’s laughing, but then he turns away and lets out a shaky breath, a single silent tear rolling down his cheek as he tries to hide it. You shoot a glance at the two other men and they take the hint easily, walking away and leaving you alone with V.

______________________________________________________________

No, no, no… it can’t be true.

Can it?

A single tear falls from his eye as he distantly watches Nero and Dante shake hands, their faces arranged into the same smirk of amusement he recognizes from when it would all too rarely cross Vergil’s face.

There’s no point denying it anymore. Nero’s your son. Which also means Y/N is banging the father of one of her best friends!

V sends Griffon an image of himself plucking every last feather from his body, using them to make a new pillow, and the blue bird instantly fades away as their connection weakens. He hears Dante’s banter with Nero echoing somewhere nearby, the use of familial nicknames driving home their newly redefined relationship. A surge of envy pulses through him at the ease with which they connect as they walk away, still chatting amiably.

“V… are you alright?” your soft voice asks.

He takes a deep breath, grappling his jealousy into submission and burying it.

What does she think of all this? I have a son. Nero is my son…

Even to think the words sends a frenetic shiver up his limbs, like insects crawling on his skin. He resists the urge to brush at his flesh, meeting your eyes to answer you instead.

“I… I am coming to terms. Are you alright?” he probes you. You look away and anxiety tugs at him harshly, imagining all the ways his previous self’s action may have disturbed you. All the reasons you have to walk away and never look back. Sorrow hitches his breath in his throat as his heart reminds him what it feels like to be alone.

“I’m not sure. It’s definitely weird, and it makes me sick to imagine you with someone else. But it wasn’t you, was it? It was Vergil. Whoever he was, you aren’t that person anymore,” you thoughtfully reply, continuing after a pause. “Do you remember his mother well? Nero might like to hear about her, he doesn’t remember anything.”

Unbidden and half-forgotten images rise to taunt him with his foolishness. A flash of red fabric, a half-hidden smile. The brevity of his time with her.

V forces his memory elsewhere as he remembers the sounds she had made, the feeling of it. Vergil’s thrilled fascination as he experienced what so many people were motivated by throughout their lives.

“I remember enough to be ashamed,” V faintly comments. You nod and take his hand, pulling it from his cane where it had been clenched for far too long. You massage his palm gently and bring his knuckles to your lips for a kiss and your tenderness makes him ache with appreciation. He smiles lovingly down at you and you wrap your arms around him in a comforting hug. With your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and his nose in your hair to enjoy the scent he so adores… all his worries dissipate like fog in sunlight.

“I’ll tell him what is appropriate,” he murmurs, and he can feel you giggle in his arms.

“How very fatherly of you,” you tease him with a sly smirk, turning your face to meet his in a soft kiss.

______________________________________________________________

June 15th, 1:13 pm

The group finally sets off again, progressing through a series of massive caverns downward to face Urizen at last. Going together had been wise – each area holds an enormous number of demons, swarms that V isn’t sure he would have been able to clear alone. He can feel himself growing weaker by the minute and his irritation mounts every time he is forced to let his brother and his son do most of the work. It becomes a vicious cycle; he notices his weakness, can’t help but focus on it for a moment, and ends up repressing his self-loathing in order to move forward. In turn, this makes him weaker still, assuming your theory is correct. Coming to that realization makes him feel guilty, and then he represses his guilt, once again making himself weaker as a consequence of his own idiocy.

After yet another fight during which he felt close to useless, the group leaps down yet another hole and lands to see the path forward illuminated with a faint orange glow, throwing the brutally huge spikes curving overheard into stark relief.

“Looks like we’ve still got a long way to go,” Dante remarks ruefully. All four of you step forward together just as the surface underfoot disintegrates.

V reacts instantly, his arm twitching as Griffon materializes in a tornado of black shards. Luckily, he already had your hand in his when the area collapsed, and he easily grips you tighter as Griffon wraps his talons over his still-extended arm overhead.

His wings heave powerfully, keeping the two of you from being impaled on the sharp rocks below, yet despite his best efforts Griffon tires quickly.

“I can't carry you anymore! I gotta put you down! I gotta put you down...” the demonic bird gasps out, panting as he does his best to lessen the fall before he drops you and V the last dozen feet to land unglamorously. Griffon himself collapses on the rocky floor, his chest moving rapidly as V pulls him back within his body to rest.

“Damn, just a little longer. Come on... we must... go...” V pants as he pulls himself to his feet once again. You rise beside him, dusting off your clothes halfheartedly and helping V do the same. Taking his hand in yours, you set out slowly, making sure he can keep up.

He once again dwells on his own weakness, restarting the cycle of torment with a vengeance as he scolds himself for not preventing the fall entirely. Griffon’s exhausted caw pipes up within him, even his thoughts echoing his weariness.

You really aren’t doing yourself any favors, Shakespeare.

I’m aware.

He grits his teeth as his feathery friend points out his stupidity. It’s hard enough trying to break the cycle without his “help”. Not to mention pushing through the slight twinges of pain every time he tries to stifle his emotions…

Here, maybe this’ll help?

Griffon sends him a series of images; the look of frenzied victory on your face after you killed your first Empusa with a frying pan, the feel of your fingers stroking his hair as he leaned over to allow your touch, the warmth and friendship within the first hug he had ever received.

The weakness fades slightly, allowing him a brief respite from his hunched over posture. He pauses to stretch, his lower back complaining at the mistreatment.

“V? Are you alright?” your worried voice inquires as he halts suddenly.

I can’t let her see my weakness.

Are you seriously that dumb? You aren’t weak; you’re dying. And if you don’t let yourself feel this shit, we’re all gonna die too! You don’t wanna murder us, do ya pal?

Not yet…

Griffon quiets, but V can still sense his concern and his frustration in the back of his mind through their bond. Echoes of the sentiment filter through from Shadow and Nightmare too, and he lets out a small sigh of surrender.

…fine.

“I’m weakening quickly now, Y/N. I’m… scared.” V tells you slowly, the last word almost a whisper as he forces it through his reluctant lips with a grimace.

You frown tightly at his words, gently tugging him to sit on a nearby ledge. It takes him longer than he likes to limp his way over, but once he’s seated, you take his hand and study it thoroughly. He follows your troubled gaze to see his skin, once perfectly smooth under his dark tattoos, now wrinkled and cracked like the floor of a desert. He frowns deeply, not having noticed the progression of his… condition.

His heart aches painfully as your fingers caress the damaged flesh and you let out a deep sigh.

“I’m scared too, my poet. In fact, I’m terrified,” you begin, looking deep into his eyes. “I’m terrified that I’m going to lose you, that I’ll lose… this.”

You hold up your joined hands and he nods his understanding. He pulls your hand to his lips, planting a light kiss on your palm. A pit forms in his stomach with your words, a weight descending upon his shoulders to join so many others.

He can see now that he has an unhealthy tendency to take on responsibility when he shouldn’t. His mother’s death, his father’s disappearance, all manner of unspeakable things he did during his time as Nelo Angelo. Nero and his mother. And of course, the release of Urizen and formation of the Qlipoth. His list of misdeeds is long and growing, the weight on his shoulders steadily increasing until he’s crushed by it. Even as he objectively recognizes the flaw, he struggles to overcome it.

I doubt I’d even be able to identify the habit if not for Y/N.

Your words echo in his mind. “You are not Vergil. You are V. Just because you came from him doesn’t mean you have to share his fate.”

“Is there anything that helps? Any patterns you’ve noticed?” you probe him quietly, almost desperately. His lips twist upwards as Griffon sends him an image of your smile.

“Griffon has been sending me memories occasionally. Images of my better moments,” he responds thoughtfully, “They seem to help, at least a little. It’s… far too easy to slip back into despair.”

Your eyebrows furrow as you respond, “Tell Griffon he needs to send you more good stuff anytime you start getting mopey.”

Aye aye, Captain Nurse! I don’t want to die either.

“He agrees. None of them want to die either,” V answers back for the blue demon with a smirk. He’d have to keep that nickname in mind; it had potential.

Your hand clenches around his at his words; perhaps you hadn’t realized that the three demonic creatures would die with him?

An image of your hair sparkling in sunlight.

Thank you, Griffon.

The feeling of snide dismissal; a rude salute. He coughs out a laugh.

“V… when I face… when I face Urizen. You need to have Griffon send you everything he’s got. Any memory, no matter how small. Have him start cataloguing them, testing them to see what gets the best response. You need to maximize everything as much as possible at that moment,” you instruct him hesitantly.

He mentally cringes as Griffon whoops with laughter, his excitement to browse V’s most innermost feelings clear within his mind. Shadow growls at the obnoxious bird and he settles somewhat, but his glee still seeps through.

“He’s… excited to begin,” V translates. You beam with approval and stand, holding a hand out to help him rise alongside you. He doesn’t drop it as you trek onward into the darkened passage ahead.

#dmc5 v #dmc5 #dmcv #dmc #fanfic #my writing #v x reader #v x you #reader insert #SBHS #vitale #devil may cry

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 6 years

Text

ASM v5 #12/813 Thoughts

SPOILERS!

I kind of liked this issue more than the last one, not because the last one was bad but just because I’m a continuity junkie and this was chock to the brim with continuity.

Lets get some negatives out the way.

- Spidey claims he’s needed Jonah to bail him out of situations a lot. Which MIGHT be true from a certain POV in his Peter Parker identity but not true as far as his Spider-Man persona is concerned.

- Frederick Foswell being one of Jonah’s best friends is...questionable. We’ve never to my recollection ever been given that impression before although it does make a certain amount of sense considering Foswell gave his life to save Jonah and Jonah gave him a second chance just cos when he got out of jail in the Ditko run. But if they were that close you’d imagine that Jonah would’ve been much more upset about it and why would he or anyone blame Spider-Man? I mean MAYBE in so far as Peter might’ve prevented Foswell’s death but Foswell GAVE his life to save Jonah and JJJ was well aware of that.

- Spider-Man talks about his relationship with Jonah in terms of second chances and I don’t buy it exactly. Not in regards to Peter wouldn’t necessarily give Jonah a second chance and forgive him but in terms of it being framed as part of the reason he unveiled his identity to him at all. I’m not saying Peter couldn’t forgive or learn to live with Jonah after all the things Jonah did to him (especially in Civil War 2006) but its just that the problem was how untrustworthy he was. It was a irresponsible risk to Peter’s family and friends to have ever unveiled his identity to Jonah. And in fact, though perhaps unintentional on his part, Slott kind of proved that as Jonah was the security leak that led Norman to re-learning Peter’s secret. Granted Norman shouldn’t have needed that but that’s not the point.

- The mentioning that Jonah and Marla bonded over trying to kill Spider-Man is funny but doesn’t really ring true for Marla’s personality

- It is not unbelievable but nevertheless contrived Spidey to presume the Spider Slayers would still obey Jonah, for the controller to be right there and for that plan to actually work!

- Unless I’m majorly forgetting anything we’ve NEVER heard of Foswell’s relative Tessa. That fact combined with the angle that the story takes, that Jonah was a hero for hounding Spidey but betrayed his values in befriending him, heavily implies that Tessa is the mastermind behind this and unless this story was meant for 5 year olds (which it clearly is not) that resolution would be pathetically obvious. At least Scooby Doo mysteries gave you two possible suspects 9/10!

- The Kingpin subplot to discredit Spider-Man in the eyes of fellow heroes continues to be iffy. After all shouldn’t they KNOW Spider-Man is obviously not in bed with Kingpin, especially the ones who know his secret identity? I sort of get why Kingpin himself might think it’d work given how he may not be privy to Spider-Man’s personal relationships with other heroes but like...he’s been on the Avengers and FF and he and Daredevil have fought over DD wanting to reinstitute the Kingpin to power. It doesn’t really add up for any of those guys to believe Kingpin’s spin.

- Peter claims Gargan was always a bad guy when viewing his transformation into Scorpion. This isn’t really true, Gargan was a lowly private eye and far from the most charming of people but he wasn’t a crook or a killer before becoming the Scorpion

Pros

- ALL the continuity references and how they are weaved together organically. This isn’t Slott continuity porn nonsense, this ingrains an organic reason to make references and uses them to explore Jonah’s character and his relationship with Spider-Man.

- Acknowledging Zeb Wells definitive origin story from Tangled Web#20 is particularly appreciated as it was a far superior rendition of Jonah’s father than the retcon from BND we’re now forever stuck with. Reconciling that conflict was a job well done by whoever thought it up, be they Spencer or someone else.

- The art again is light and fun and a great fit for the story.

- The concept that someone would feel Jonah a traitor for u-turning on his Spider-Man crusade is actually quite ingenious. I think we as fans get so used to Jonah being proven wrong or most of the characters (who aren’t villains) in the series not sharing his views on Spider-Man we forget that real people in the Marvel Universe mostly believed his lies and backed him.

- Maybe this should be a con from a craftsmanship POV but I actually really liked the recap page. Not the text recap before the story began, I mean the in-story recap that pulled panels from last issue to catch up the readers. Technically it was unnecessary hence I said it maybe should be a con, but for me it was a fun throwback to old school recap pages and personally I think they’re superior to the text recaps we get these days as they better immerse you in the story itself.

- The Kingpin’s ploy to further discredit Spider-Man with the Jonah dinner was real. I honestly presumed that that was a ploy by whoever was behind this scheme but it’s genuine so it’s a nice continuation of the Kingpin subplot brewing since the FCBD issue in 2018.

- Again...all the humour just lands, especially the stuff wherein Spider-Man is the guy on Jonah’s shoulder snarkily observing the realities of Jonah’s life as he gushes over it

- Scorpion is back. I have a soft spot for Gargan and seeing him back is just another nice spin (albeit not that novel) by Spencer on the classic rogues

- In the 1994 Spider-Man cartoon I hold near and dear it was established that Jonah’s wife Joan was murdered by a masked gunman. I was surprised to see that same (mostly) backstory repeated here. IIRC it was ONLY mentioned in the 1994 cartoon and possibly in the Drowned in Thunder novel from 2007 which the author admits took some inspiration from the 1994 show. However in researching the fact I learned it had actually been established in the Marvel Holiday Special 2004! THAT...is a deepcut reference! Either Spencer read even obscure things like that or he used the Marvel wiki like I did and either way I commend him. Bringing this fact to light for the first time in the main monthly series is wonderful as it really helps explain Jonah’s hatred of masked vigilantes like Spider-Man!

- Loved the idea that this was a take-off of A Christmas Carol (though again I’m sad I read this so long after December) and the Muppet version (i.e. the best version) reference!

Another superb issue!

P.S. this is the first ASM issue to acknowledge Stan’s death.

R.I.P. the man

#Spider-Man #j. jonah jameson #Marvel #marvel comics #nick spencer #frederick foswell #scorpion #mac gargan #peter parker #amazing spider-man #Steve Ditko

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stephicness · 7 years

Note

Pardon, im not very well at deciphering a person's personality and I have been craving to write Ravus, it's just so hard to really figure out how he is though?? I happen to really enjoy how you interpret him and was wondering if there's any tips you have for writing him? Mercí beaucoup. Also, have a lovely day/night~ ♡

lsersljk It’s super flattering that you’re asking me for tips on how to write for him. qUq~ He’s such a fun character, and definitely one that should be shared with the world. Because who doesn’t like a grumpy butthead with a tragic end? *throws sparkles*

But HM… Let me see how I can break him down for you. :D Alot of rambling and notes, but I’mma break it down into four categories: Body Language, Though Process, Outer Persona, and Speech Pattern. Read Below, for I rambled on quite a bit!

Body Language

I like talking about body language first off because of how much personality there is in just So Ravus, as we know, is kind of an asshole in game. He appears, basically tells the empire that he’ll take care of Lunafreya, bullies Noctis, and then splats and dies before turning into a goo boy.

On the outer surface, he comes off as a very stoic man for the most part. Never smiles, tries to show-off this harden facade that makes him seem hard to read and almost bland compared to some of the other characters. But think of it this way – it’s almost physically impossible to be that emotionally desolate. There’s gotta be something underneath the surface with him, right?

So with Ravus, alot of my writing comes from being able to describe the inner personality through subtle facial expressions or descriptions of his thought process. He might just be staring into space, but he’s got something going on in his mind regardless. Usually with his face, he’s usually got a frown on him or one of those resting bitch-faces, so he’ll almost always look pissed off about something. I also don’t imagine him to really using many arm gestures when he speaks or conveys his feelings. He’s kind of a stoic stick, to be honest. But I imagine that it’s mostly because that MT arm of his is harder to use, but also, if you think about it, a person’s body language conveys the most emotion. Thus, I picture Ravus really regulating how his mannerisms are. So when you do plan on applying some sort of emotion in his body language, pick it carefully! Because the smallest gesture of him holding someone’s hand or reaching out to them is more powerful than words when it comes to Ravus’s mannerisms.

Thought Processes

So like I mentioned before, alot of his personality shines through not particularly what he says or how he says it, but more rather what he thinks in amidst the situations he finds himself faced in. As we learn with the game, Ravus often finds himself torn between his ally, Niflheim, and those of Lucis, whom he still harbors alot of hostility for. He’s a man with firm beliefs, or so he thought, so alot of his struggle comes from trying to hide his true intentions from Niflheim, but also in trying to find a reason to aid Lunafreya in her endeavors in helping Noctis. His mind is full of alot of things, but often it’s clouded with a sense of hatred and spite towards Lucis as well as the Empire that destroyed his family and home.

His thought process is one that is often intricate and more detailed, I imagine, with alot of his conflict showing in a self vs self method. Despite him trying to be resolute in his actions and beliefs, there’s something that usually lingers in the back of his mind that ultimately grants him the chance to be sympathetic to some characters as we see in the game. With Lunafreya, he’s very adamant in her continuing her duty to Noctis as he tries to protect her, but he is there to help comfort her as she weeps. With Noctis even, he appears hostile in his approach to Noctis, but he truly did have the intention of wanting to help the prince and return his father’s glaive to him at some point.

With Ravus, it’s important to think about how he goes about his approach in thinking because, despite him wanting to believe in one thing, he’s got a realist personality as he thinks. In an ideal world, he could have forgiven Niflheim and Lucis for what they did and move on, but in a realistic one, he couldn’t. Niflheim had their power over Tenebrae and the Fleuret’s lifestyle, and so he chose the realistic option in siding with Niflheim. His logic always has reason and always is well though-out, but it often isn’t the choice he wants to make. So I suggest playing with this idea of duty versus desire when it comes to Ravus, because Ravus is more inclined to pick his duty over his indulgences.

Outer Persona

It might not seem like there’s not much of a difference between an outer persona and a person’s body language, but the way I differentiate it is that your Outer Persona is what you choose to show people in terms of your being rather than what your body shows in terms of portrayal. Kind of like personality over physique, and Ravus’s personality is alot more vibrant than it initially appears versus his physical portrayal.

With Ravus, the way I go about his outer persona is that I like to portray him as an almost cocky figure – the kind of guy that you’d look at at a first glance and go ‘Wow… He looks like a prick.’ Because let’s be real, he give off an aura alone that makes you know that he’s not someone you should be messing with. A sharp gaze that’s almost always a scowl, punctuated words that kind of almost sound demeaning, and a kind of stature that just makes you feel genuinely uncomfortable around him because of how imposing he appears to be. The way Ravus handles himself is kind of like Mr. Darcy, if you’re familiar with Pride & Prejudice. He’s a dick, but with a softer side. Eventually, at least.

Speaking of Ravus being a dick, he gives off that personality even more so when he confronts Noctis and the others. Despite his words being eloquent and poetic, he essentially tells Noctis that he’s a punk-ass kid who doesn’t know what he’s getting to. He calls Gladiolus useless and basically says ‘Fight me, bro’ to prove how weak Gladiolus is. Hell, he even told Noctis outright that if Ravus were to kill him or if Noctis were to die, then PSSH. Shit happens. Ravus legitimately is a butthead towards others in terms of his outer persona, mostly to portray this feeling of pride and authority over others. After all, he is the commander. He does not serve; he commands!

But nevertheless, he’s also got a softer side that he shows to a rare few, as we see with his conversation with Lunafreya. He’s got that super prideful aura around him still, and is kind of cold in his words as well. But as I mentioned before, his actions speak louder than words, and his outer aura can change to a more sympathetic one. He still gives off that air of command to him, outwardly telling Lunafreya (not consoling her, necessarily) that she needs to work past her fears and trust herself enough to help Noctis like she wants to do. He still remains stern and kind of hard on her, but he still shows enough compassion in his body language to show a difference in his outer persona.

And then he goes back to being a poetic martyr against Iedolas. He really doesn’t let his emotional guard down for anything, and it really shows in his portrayal. That is, until he meets ‘Noctis’ before his death. But you can see why he always has such a barrier up around him.

Speech Pattern

People have mentioned before how Ravus’s speech pattern is really hard to write, and it is for me too even! I’ll admit, I have a bit of a rough time, especially when I write for both Ravus and Ignis since I use similar speech patterns for both. But the major difference between the two, I feel, is how EXTREMELY formal Ravus’s dialogue is.

Think of him as if he’s some sort of Shakespearan thespian when he speaks. He’s the kind of guy who would go ‘Nay, I prithee thee’ if he really wanted to, but since he’s in modern times (kinda), he probably tones it down a bit more. But he’s still extremely eloquent with a high vocabulary that, honestly, I doubt he really knows at the same time. To me, I find Ravus to be one of those guys who uses big words mostly to confuse people rather than to retain an air of eloquence to him. I mean, instead of telling Verstael that his idea to kill Lunafreya for the ring was a bad idea, he said ‘A moot point.’ Who the hell uses that word? He basically just said ‘That’s a questionable choice.’ More people would understand that phrasing more than they would the word ‘moot.’

But if you’re looking to simplify without having to literally delve into an entire language dynamic of Shakespeare, there’s one character that I use alot as a reference when writing for Ravus’s dialogue.

Have you heard of the character Solas from Dragon Age? What I found cool about Solas’s dialogue is that the writers for Solas had deliberately wrote in iambic pentameter for most of his dialogue. This means that it’s very rhymic, almost in sync to a person’s heartbeat. (Da DUM, Da DUM, as Wikipedia described). It’s very paced, drawn out with extra phrases to match this kind of beat in his wording, and I think it’s super neat. And with the added vocabulary, it really reminds me of Ravus’s method of speaking, though not as soft as Solas’s tone.

Think of it kind of like this way too. A regular person would probably say ‘I need to go to my room.’ Ravus would probably fill his sentence out a bit more, and with a more refined vocabulary. ‘I shall retire to my room, for sleep awaits us all.’ Like writing a poem, since, of course, Ravus has quite some poetic dialogue. Kind of like a song or, again, the iambic pentameter. (’I SHALL retire TO my room, FOR sleep AWAITS us all.’ Not as fluctuated, but it gives a bit of an idea of sentence structure.)

Also, I don’t imagine Ravus really using contractions that often. He seems to speak with more of a ‘CANNOT’ than a ‘CAN’T,’ so unfortunately, none of that Y’ALL’D’VE for him.

I hope that covered alot of things that might be useful in writing Ravus! I rambled quite a bit, but nevertheless, I hope at least a little bit of it helps. c:

#asks #dear anon #stephic writings #theories #character analysis #final fantasy xv #ffxv #ravus nox fleuret #ravus #tutorial #i guess...?#it's more of me rambling and all #but i still hope it helps!#because we could always use more delightful ravus writings in the world!#C:

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elizabethrobertajones · 8 years

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12x13 watching notes

I’m posting this but you can pretty much watch my soul depart my body while reading so idk how entertaining it is to read because I got bored, not angry :P

Expectations? Well apparently the subplot is Dagon, who has been apparently by IMDB last time I checked cast as an asian actress, so she's going to die and that's going to be enraging (and it's Buckleming so she'll probably die of stupid, in a weird ass way) and she's hanging with Kelly and Lucifer's baby so THAT's going to be a disaster, so the subplot is already making my brain itch.

The main plot, on the other hand, I am ready to mock gleefully whichever way it comes and expect better than average Buckleming-ing because it's the MacLeods and they like them and put in extra effort. It's going to be like the true Dabb vs cars test - can he wrangle Buckleming to fix the plot hole that's existed basically the entire time I've been in fandom or will it remain hilariously open despite all this revisiting of the past and fixing, like, everything, that's been going on... Are they a law unto themselves or can they fall in line and deliver one of these Dabb-era canon reworkings that address what the fans want to see (aka, no stupid plotholes)? The plothole is SO egrarious they aaalmost pointed it out themselves in 9x21, commenting about how it was bad to keep Gavin from his proper death, but we have never seen COSMIC CONSEQUENCES from it, which are sort of a thing right now...

Though 9x21 has a whole little scene mocking fans, so idk how Buckleming feel but being nice to us is probably their last priority these days and they really do not fit in with all the other writers who are making love to the show :P

Recappy of 9x21 which I watched, like, the day before yesterday, so we're good. I do wonder if Sam and Dean not knowing the exposition of who Gavin is and what happened to him is the plothole already erasing their memories of 6x04.

Like, Crowley has to explain because even HE doesn't remember that incident, he just knows this about Gavin's ship??

Or will the recappy carry on with 6x04...

The good news is we get Sam delivering the line about Coooosmic Consequeeences again IN the recap. This automatically improves my mood.

Nah, on to "What the hell is a prince of hell" exposition without showing Gavin asking Crowley if he was one and Crowley cheekily handing him the title before regretting it and telling him not to ever mention it again, because one or the other of the 3 remaining Princes of Hell may have come for him :P

Poor Cas delivering clearly understandable exposition while bleeding into the Plaid Sofa - if the Princes keep being a thing then we're gonna see that a lot.

Oh thank fuck for Davy Perez and his clearly understandable one line exposition - Ramiel also mentioned the bun in the oven and his sister Dagon in one sentence and spared us clumsy Buckleming recapping of cobbling together a whole montage about this from various hints in the episode.

Listen I've done my rewatch up to where I joined in with fandom so I have now survived the recap of every single Buckleming episode while wryly commenting on it or watching fandom snark about it, and that's probably one of their best because it's so concise I would not have credited them

*random generic ghost death after an incredbly long time watching this lady's bedtime routine* After 12 seasons I'm pretty numb to these deaths, which makes all the suspense kind of time wasting unless it's really well done or contains really obvious hints about the plot - ah well, it wasn't offensive and minimally gross on this show's scale, so :P

Can't believe Dean doesn't sign off with "thanks babe" when talking to Cas. It would be so easy I'm actually confused when it doesn't happen.

He's out of focus but is he wearing a brand new purple shirt? Also have we seen Jensen wearing this at cons? The colour scheme is vaguely familiar but I may just be getting used to Dean wearing purple. Sam keeps swinging between blue and red (they're in the same scheme as last episode, purple and blue, here) and red and blue are the conflict colours - Dean's plaid has been suggesting unification and resolution especially given the colours he wore to talk God and Amara out of it. Purple is the natural extension of that where everything's mixed... or it's totally other symbolism of purple, but I like contrasting him and Sam, and Sam HAS been wearing red and blue at random, seeming a lot more scattered. And he's not talking to Mary.

Anyway the pattern of the plaid looks weirdly flat and 2-tone to me which is probably a commentary on the writing skills of the duo :P

Mary and Ketch are in this episode. It's starting to seem really cluttered but hey I guess they're busy working on something? Could be a random lead in to next episode.

Could be classic Buckleming Clutter.

I should stop judging but I would be worried about fitting in a ghost hunt and Crowley, Rowena and Gavin chatting, never mind throwing in a side plot, never mind not just doing basic exposition about what Kelly's up to but making it complicated with another set of main characters >.>

I do like seeing Mary though so

Poor Cas being the only one not in the episode

Yeah Mary's wearing red and blue striped plaid. Her ring is tucked into her shirt, and she's having fun killing monsters and testing the BMoL's toys with Ketch, who has been a John parallel at the very least for his completely uncompromising approach to monsters. Now it seems he's training her up, testing her to kill monsters (which in this underground carpark vibe place but a ton of dead monsters around her and the implication it's training, makes me think of 8x17 and Cas being trained to kill Dean - is Mary being made to harden up against monsters even more - including family like Cas.

I'm sure this will go very well for her.

We cut to this because Dean mentioned how maybe Mary would want to work with them. He says they haven't seen her in a while, suggesting that a great deal of time has passed since 12x12 IF that was the last time they saw each other.

(I guess we have a huuuge fan fic gap now so Dean n Cas have probably been together for a few weeks at least)

I suppose all these time skips this part of the season are because there's a baby situation going on and they want to escalate it...

I almost commented on Ketch's suit but realised I was about to compare it to Joan Watson because I did watch Elementary at some undisclosed point during these notes so far :P

His stop watch thing seems like a gimmick playing off last episode though. Mary and timing - she refused to give up the colt while Ramiel had a stopwatch countdown. Now Ketch is timing her. She feels she's on borrowed time...

I'm sure this will go well for her.

Blatant Dean reference is blatant when Mary claims she's hanging out watching pay per view and using the magic fingers. Filed under: ... do Buckleming realise how suggestive that was always meant to sound when Dean said it? Why is Mary telling Dean this. Sam always looks horrified when he catches Dean using magic fingers. THE GIFS OF HIM DOING IT.

Oh well. Buckleming.

And then Mary says she's still resting up from the Ramiel thing. Honestly, my BFF might be shipping Mary and Cas to my despair but think about Sam and Dean - their mom and BFF are constantly not around and complaining about no leads on the case, just, like, resting up...

"You're an excellent liar, Mary" It is a family thing.

Has Ketch REALLY, REALLY never been told, put 2 and 2 together or otherwise had it made clear to him that Sam and Dean don't know Mary is working with them? Sure Sam and Dean saw them help in 12x09 but there's something different between calling for help and accepting the proposal and they KNOW they'd be suspicious to work with them after Toni

(Poor Toni, character assassinated in 2 episodes by Buckleming, who are now explaining her away as a rogue operative because they made her go past a point of no return and now she's been ditched from the story... Imagine if that happened happened and she was still allowed to be around without the very well-justified reason she's now the face of the BMoL torturing Sam and Dean and can't be allowed near them. And we thought from 12x01 she had a ton of potential to be interesting and nuanced and all... Argh)

Anyway this makes it very clear they're untrustworthy to work with because of the way they have to be all unsubtle about Ketch thinking that Toni went too far when SHE thinks HE's the psycho.

"So... drink?" Oh, they're dating now I guess

Huh, Crowley. Randomly. Whyyy.

I mean, why didn't they give him an episode to be all weird and sketchy about having Lucifer in his basement while dealing with his family nonsense without SHOWING him having Lucifer in his basement? 12x12 was slick but obviously did not have time to focus on that... Following it with what should be a Crowley-related fluff family episode about Gavin being useless and dorky (I assume. I watched 9x21 too recently and I'm helplessly attached to the doofus again) and Crowley, well, we could have shown him, like Mary being sketchy about the BMoL or Cas in season 6 being sketchy about working with Crowley, just kind of... itchy about time and what he can do and generally having a load of tells something's up... Keep Lucifer out of the episode entirely and focus on Crowley's emotional state to sort of retroactively add the emotional stuff that had to be left out for time and drama last time.

Like, 12x12 was so full on, you need a REST episode after which you think Gavin's return would be perfect MacLeod fluff, and we keep Lucifer away

But nah he's here so suddenly we have to see him and see Crowley interacting with him, and all that subtle menace and whatever from the end of 12x12 evaporates because we're just leaping right in. We shouldn't have seen Crowley until whatever brings him to hang out with the rest of the MacLeods later in the episode (as I'm pretty sure we saw them doing in a promo)

Ugh. :P

Maybe I'm just being picky but I did NOT want to see Lucifer again immediately, and Crowley keeping that secret, and sure WE know he has Lucifer in his basement but no one else does so now we know Crowley's secret, tell it like he has one! Don't show us more!! LESS IS MORE

Also whenever Crowley lectures Lucifer it just reeks of hubris like this is going to blow up in Crowley's face and now it feels like it's going to Buckleming up in his face instead of the more subtle way it could have gone.

Since they're now explaining how Crowley stole a Lucifer for himself.

Maybe Rowena knows he has him but in that case you think they'd use 12x11 to hint there's more Dean doesn't remember or shouldn't remember, OR have Rowena tease him on screen that she knows stuff he'd die to know if only he knew he had to know it :P

Oh, nope, he just sabotaged it somehow. Even Rowena doesn't know.

I know I have a lot of headaches pretty much permanently but there's one that shows up in a little line just above my eye that I'm sure is tuned only to the frequency of Buckleming episodes and only shows up when I watch one.

I'm burning a candle to ward off evil spirits.

Didn't work

Just keysmashed at Mittens and went to go get another cup of tea. Buckleming... Pls. we're 5 minutes into the episode.

I mean in the interest of explaining random things that fans might complain about, explaining why Lucifer is Nick again is... I suppose... an effort...

I SUPPOSE it interests Crowley to collect everything remotely useful connected to Lucifer.

His diary for the week after Swan Song is packed.

I mean we always knew he was snooping around doing various behind the scenes things, but aside from anything else that's too much ass-pulling by saying Crowley did this Crowley did that 6-7 years ago in a row.

Not sure I can look directly at the rest of anything else that happened in the last minute of screen time :P

Lucifer snarks about how stupid this all is. Including also pointing out something that was bugging me that I wasn't going to mention, that Crowley isn't even keeping Lucifer down in Hell where he can be SOMEWHAT contained, but he's got him surface level in his usual dingy rooms.

That comment is just inserting an eye roll :P

Dean is suspicious about Mary's motives for being busy, while Sam is eager to explain it away, which I'm not even sure is flipping their positions about it or not, because Dean has been grumpy about Mary not wanting to hang out with them, but Sam was explaining THAT away too, so he mostly seems to be reacting to what Dean says in defence of Mary, which I guess may be making him less critical of her actions as he's getting to them through the filter of Dean complaining about her staying away or being weird. But of the 2 of them (while Cas has a few more reasons to be suspicious than her sons as of 12x12) Sam has more reason to seem suspicious of her because he was the one asking Mary how she was and asking Mary what SHE got them into last time.

Maybe they're both sort of suspicious but beither wants to commit.

Oh god we don't have to watch a guy die while he's peeing do we?

oh good >.> He's just going to die randomly in this creepy bathroom

Does he have no preservation instinct

Did Sam just say something about ADHD ghosts? Or was it something else and my hearing is messed up? It honestly barely makes sense in context because he was talking about how there's just a ton of haunted stuff at museums but obviously most of them don't seem to be aggressively haunted like this. (And I think it's a nice detail to assume that there's a lot of potential ghost activity at museums given they're ancient artefact-collecting places and those are the exact sort of things that might have a spirit attached.

maybe he said ancient ghosts.

Maybe I will assume he did even if it turns out to be "ADHD" when someone finds the captions for it because that makes more sense >.>

*Dean messes with some priceless artefact weapons and we cringe as he drops them and wonder if this is a metaphor for Buckleming handling canon*

Okay one small good thing: Dean remembers the detail about Gavin's ship.

Whether this is because Crowley told them or Bobby told them, I have no fucking clue but 6x04 only exists if Gavin is slam dunked back into his watery grave, so. Probably Crowley.

Anyway yay Dean's photographic memory.

I actually had to go check with Mittens and demand spoilers if this ever gets addressed and fucking hell Crowley thinks the Winchesters actually killed the Nephilim already what the fuck what the fuck WHAT THE FUCK

Fortunately on that note it's dinner time and I'm putting 7x20 on.

Oh my god Crowley thinks the Winchesters killed the Nephilim??? THEY WERE ARRESTED MOMENTS LATER

HOW DO YOU FUCK UP SO BADLY YOU PUT PLOTHOLES IN YOUR OWN WRITING FROM LITERALLY THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE FOR THIS SHOW?

Does he think Cas did it??

he maaagically knows EVERYTHING ELSE THAT HAPPENS EVER INCLUDING ANY PLOTHOLE FROM 10 YEARS AGO THEY WANT TO FILL

HOW

Why did Crowley have this conversation in the same room as Lucifer and not even try to hide what he was talking about from him?

unrelated side note: why did Crowley think Sam and Dean killed the baby?

Why did Lucifer say "Oh my dad" now the entire fandom has to stop making that joke ironically

maybe if I don't comment on this plotline at all it doesn't happen

Anyway! Sam and Dean stay at the museum overnight for some reason. Guess they really like the movies. Anyway they smuggled a Rowena in with them. I should probably just stop asking questions at this point.

Sam has also decided to stop wearing his jacket and is distractingly beefy and this is not coming lightly from me, a person who has never really objectified Sam ever except for maybe a little in season 7 when he has that hair and sideburns combo

I clearly need something to distract me here :P

Also the last scene involved a lingering close up of a lady's chest. In a coat, but still. Dodgy camerawork to accompany everything else.

*Sam casually manhandles Rowena and pfft I don't wanna ship it but yikes it's a messed up brilliant ship for Sam*

Dean has already kind of decided Rowena is OK, but Sam still has some serious issues and is also apparently grabby with her and well, 10x19 is still a thing, and... just gimme witch Sam already

Oh yep there's Dagon. Now don't die. Already killed the angel in the black vessel, so this is all going well >.>

Blah blah usual line about demons being more sympathetic than angels and Lucifer is just misunderstood. Dagon's pretty cool but she is just reciting pretty much word for word other lines about Lucifer or angels or demons that other characters have already said in more dramatic and weighty episodes.

She does seem more sympathetic about the whole Lucifer's baby thing than anyone else so far.

Also how did random angels track Kelly when Cas couldn't

Also how did Dagon track her etc

The wide shot reveals the absolutely standard boots for female characters on TV which I started noticing and getting bemused about in Person of Interest and then I realised badasses like Parker wore them in Leverage, and now I can't stop seeing the everywhere on Action Female Characters I guess because there's a certain amount of high heel where you can kick butt and still run around. They still seem really unpractical compared to wearing non-heeled shoes but I suppose they're the limit for actresses who have to wear them all day. Eh.

Anyway Dagon seems nice and they have the same taste in boots so I guess they can be BFFs now.

Oh my god we're past the midway point of the episode and finally we get to the promo scene which seemed like it had been at the start of the episode.

Nice to see this is getting the appropriate amount of emotional weight.

At least Dean's wearing his Cas plaid/plaid that looks like the sofa/TFW plaid

Sam is back in red.

GAVIIIIIIIN

I like how they said Crowley was sick to get him here... Crowley is kinda fucked over but not in that way.

Also what a gullible cookie to believe Crowley might get sick.

he doesn't know aaanything

"That's my ship!" "should've been"

YEAH GAVIN GET ON THAT SHIP

He's so sweet. "Oooh! There's Mr MacCallum(?)'s hook! Had no hand, ye see."

I feel weirdly proud of him

Oh wow I'm Rowena in this scene

Boooooring he had a girlfriend

I mean I still love and support him but I am disappointed because 9x21 had that ambiguous guy who seemed to feel right at home in Gavin's one-bed room and assumed they were hooking up with Abaddon

oh well maybe Gavin thought he was single again what with the going to America thing/things had been complicated because of this guy and they were going to America together and Gavin retroactively was already feeling reeeeeally guilty about it before this all came back to - heh - haunt him. Maybe that's why he thought he was going to Hell - he was fucking off to America with his boyfriend after dumping Fiona because he was worried to take her with him for justifiable reasons about ship safety.

SNOW

I think there was some earlier in the dark but it was boring and dark

Also hi I never see snow :P

Mr Ketch still pestering Mary for a drink. He's really into her. Goes and brings up her kids though "It might be best if you were to... disengage from them, for a bit." - dude, that's all she's done all season

Oh look and her ring's back out in plain sight. (She's also wearing a grey plaid - totally drained of colour - "nothing comes before my family"

Oh he's REALLY hitting on her now, telling her she's the best hunter he's ever seen and she might play at being mummy, but blah blah blatant Mark of Cain Dean parallels about blade in her hand blood in the air that's the real you

"The best you"

And yeah all that same paralleling about how it scares her to be a killer etc that Dean goes through

As well as the "you play at - " phrasing that was so horrible levelled at Cas in 9x22 about playing at being one of the angels.

This random museum lady has a ring on her necklace. She hasn't really done enough to be a Mary mirror?

Maybe things will change. At least for now she's just misplaced part of her exhibit because ghosts :P

Pretty sure we saw the ghost go after the white lady but honestly knowing this show I'm kind of worried for her friend

Welp it's still chasing her

Ooh yay Winchesters saved her

No time for character development. Too much going on. Gavin is already confronting his dead girlfriend

I guess this is how Gavin gets talked to go on the ship, so he can protect her >.>

They're blatantly just saying they can't burn the locket to justify sending Gavin back

I didn't watch 7x19 because I didn't want to put myself through it, but it does include a ghost having both bones and an item he's connected to aside from that he uses to move around, so I guess it's pre-existing Buckleming canon and I'm glad I remembered that without havig to relive the episode

"You don't intend to tamper with the flow of time, do ye?" Do they hear the dialogue they write? :P Gavin... literally... is here... tampering with the flow of time... Sam and Dean are just sticking up for the exact thing they've always said about putting Gavin back where Abaddon found him.

I guess Rowena is protesting because she likes him, but still... She might have found a better way to say it

Awww no Gavin is alone someone please give him a hug

Well Rowena did earlier

more hugs for Gavin... at this point all I want out of the episode. I'm still watching FOR Gavin

Hey Crowley. Popping up out of the blue with no explanation to defend Gavin some more.

This is kind of anvil heavy about someone from the past deciding to go back because they don't fit in and there are loved ones back there which is all horribly grim Mary-related stuff >.>

Though she doesn't have a "past" to return to, just Heaven, and we've had periodic opportunities for her to go back throughout the season so idk if it's maintaining the threat until the last minute like the way Dean suffered in season 11 with the temptation of Amara/the Empty that she represented, or just foreshadowing. Outside of Buckleming episodes I feel Dabb era is kind of more nuanced, but we'll see...

*stares at the emotional beats in this scene some more* honestly that could have been worse. Crowley was probably way too over-emotional about it considering he resented that he didn't want Gavin to die in 9x21... Not sure that making him cry was particularly kind to him although maybe he's learned to stop hissing in horror at feelings and never really got better, just manages it more... Anyway, his attachment to Gavin is completely hypothetical since he's ditched him in the future without a glance back except for sulking about feelings some more. Idk maybe he's been keeping a better eye on him than he has on with Winchesters or he'd fuckin' know that they were still desperately looking for Kelly.

I suppose Cas has been shouldering that one more than the Winchesters, and he'd not chat to Crowley about it all.

Hrm.

Anyway, trite emotional scene and then they take Gavin off and just leave Rowena? Even Baby looks embarassed to be in this episode. Rowena didn't even come to see Gavin off??

I'm glad their weird Latin spellbook helpfully has just the ingredients of the spell helpfully also listed in English just in case you were curious what they were/didn't remember them from last time

Eehehe the jar of angel feathers

Henry Winchester nostalgia

"and Abaddon" I'm amazed the sad music didn't record scratch

Also they're not even using the door.

"Oh this is a tough one" Aw Dean don't get too over emotional :S

*Sam notices a fly or something in the background while Dean looks all sappy about a love story*

Ugh I'll let Gavin have that. It makes no sense whatsoever how she appeared like that but okay :P They wanted to show us that I guess instead of just zapping Gavin back. Over-tell everything!!

Anyway I guess "Dabb vs cars" is now to be tagged with a strong sense of pride :P

Although also some disappointment he still has to deal with Buckleming

Also so this episode is still going on

They rewrote history

MARY

She brought food!

Terrifyingly coded food because Mom Beer and the betrayal burgers which date back to Cas in season 6

Dean is dramatic

Also they've changed clothes so this may be up to 3 months later

Oh dear, I think she's about to tell them she's hooked up with Mr Ketch in a Buckleming episode

You know my terror of them fucking this up is actually making it seem like this conversation is going better than it could have. I've only been annoyed with like two details of charactersation/silly dialogue choices so far :P

Dean's just done the despairing blink realising that family is waaaaaay more complicated than just saying they're family

Which he already knew but he has to go through it with Mary because this has been about tearing down all his notions about her and it doesn't work unless he's at least a LITTLE bit betrayed by her.

Rowena and Crowley... okay that wasn't the end of the episode.

Yay Rowena I guess :P I can't believe anyone still remembered 10x23 - we were sort of mostly pretending it didn't happen. (Also blaming Crowley for everything, not Sam even though he's the one who started it) - but Rowena remembered >.> And she rights the wrongs done against her. Always.

*random spooky end*

#12x13 #season 12 spoilers #my stuff #buckleming appropriate wank for ts #I kind of just want to go to bed now :P

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