#i just think kevin being one of those 'its so obvious u like me...but we cant be together' ppl is so funny

[dykekarkat]

au where neil is way more obvious about crushing on andrew except since kevin is always Right There everyone thinks its kevin Including kevin. which leads to a "ur a great guy neil and id totally blow u if the chance came up but im super heterosexual because sports blah blah blah" conversation and neil goes to the upper classmen later and is like "craziest thing happened today. kevin thought i was crushing on him??? where would he have even got that from??" cue realization.

[myveryownfanfiction]

Chapter 2

When I walked into the office the next morning, I looked in Andy’s office to see Jim, Pam, Kevin and Andy having some discussion. I decided to ignore it unless they called me in on it. I got to work right away, only being distracted when Robert walked in. 

“Good morning Robert.” I smiled at him as he passed my desk. He returned my smile and squeezed my shoulder as he passed. 

“Good morning (Y/N).” Robert turned back to me before going into the conference room. “You free after Dwight’s Sabre meeting?” I nodded. “Good. I’m going to meet with Andy and you right after.” 

“Sounds good.” I nodded again as I made a note of it. Robert smiled at me again before heading into the conference room. A few minutes later, the meeting in Andy’s office ended and everyone filtered out. It was a surprisingly quiet morning. Before we knew it, Dwight was calling us into the conference room for his meeting. I rolled my eyes at Dwight as he filtered us in and immediately moved to the back to sit next to Robert. “If I fall asleep, don’t bother waking me until it’s over.” I joked as I sat down. Robert chuckled. 

“Are Dwight’s meetings that bad?” Robert asked as he put his arm around the back of my chair. Seeing Dwight was about to start his meeting, I nodded. 

“You’re about to see.” I whispered. 

“This week we are rolling out the brand new Sabre tablet...the Pyramid.” Dwight held up a triangle shaped tablet. I sent Robert a confused look. 

“Not my idea.” he leaned closer so I could hear him. I giggled as I nodded my understanding. We looked back at Dwight to see him shaking his head. 

“Oh no no no. Without the battery pack and optional memory booster, it’s barely three pounds.” Dwight’s arms were clearly shaking as he held the tablet. 

“How much memory does it have without the booster?” Ryan spoke up. I leaned closer to Robert. 

“What is this? I know it isn’t your idea but did you really approve this idea?” I turned my head to see Robert’s reaction. He was watching Dwight with confusion clear on his face. 

“I don’t…” Robert turned towards me and gave me a shy smile. “I may have been drunk.” I quickly covered my mouth to hide my laugh. We sat listening to the end of Dwight’s meeting, sharing glances and trying to hide our laughter. Once it was finished, we waited for Andy outside his office and tried to get our laughter under control. The door opened as soon as we finished laughing. 

“Hi dad!” Andy said. I have him a confused look. In any other situation, I would be on the floor laughing but the look on Robert’s face kept sober. “Ah. Oh boy.” Robert brushed over the mistake and walked into the office. 

“Hello Andy.” He looked at Andy’s tie. “Excellent tie.” Erin peaked her head in. 

“Would you be requiring a cold beverage while you’re here?” She asked. Robert looked at Andy while he answered. 

“I’d love some coffee.” Erin nodded as she left the room, closing the door behind her. Robert looked over at me as we sat down in front of Andy’s desk. “I was looking over your projections and I think we can do better.” I bit my lip as I watched Andy crumble. 

“Are you factoring in the...whole national...economy...declining and all that?” Andy was clearly grasping at nothing. Robert gave him a strange look. 

“Are these projections for Andy personally or everyone?” I jumped in. Robert looked at me. 

“The entire office.” He turned his attention back to Andy. “Andy, do you know why I chose you?” 

“I think I can sum it up with what I think is your favorite ice cream flavor.” Andy paused while Robert looked at him. “Vanilla?” Robert chuckled. 

“Vanilla? No no no no. You’ll never guess in a million billion years.” He shook his head. I made a mental note to ask him what it was later. 

“You were saying you chose me.” Andy deflated. “There was a reason?” 

“Andy, can you inspire? Do you have that skill set?” Robert looked at Andy expectantly. Andy was saved by Erin walking back into the office. “Oh! Thank you. Uhm…” The cup Erin was holding was filled to the brim. 

“Oh, sorry.” Erin said as she looked around. 

“Put it on the desk Erin.” I whispered. She nodded as she set it down. Robert leaned down and sipped it. He drew back in shock. 

“That’s very cold.” I looked between Robert and Erin. At least that explained why she hadn’t brunt her hands. 

“Yeah. It’s old.” Erin smiled. I looked at her confused. I opened my mouth to say something but the words wouldn’t come out. 

“Why would I…?” Robert looked at me and then at Erin, confusion clear on his face. 

“I asked if you wanted a cold beverage and you said coffee.” Erin said, confusion clear in her voice. 

“Why don’t we get Robert a nice hot fresh cup and I’ll have this.” Andy cut in. Robert looked at Andy before sharing a look with me. We watched their exchange. When Erin left the office again, Robert turned back to Andy with a smirk. 

“You like her.” He stated. Andy looked at me and back to Robert. Clearly Andy was thinking the same thing as me. If it was that clear Andy liked Erin, how clear was it that I liked Robert?

“You know, we’ve both been into each other at different times and just never really synced up. Now we’re in this weird dance…” Andy attempted to explain himself. 

“I’m afraid you’ve lost my interest.” Robert cut him off, sending a look my way. He walked out of the office and I quickly followed. Andy came out behind me. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned towards Robert, Andy and I. “If the office superstore was supposed to put us little suppliers out of business, why are we still here?” I watched Robert, trying to figure out what he was doing. Kevin raised his hand. 

“This is where we go.” He said. I nodded and smiled at him. At least he had the guts to actually answer Robert. 

“Oh, you’d go someplace else.” Robert chuckled and looked around the room. “That’s not it. That’s not the answer.” It dawned on me what Robert was trying to do. 

“It’s an answer.” Kevin pushed. Robert looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He was clearly not used to being challenged. 

“It’s a wrong answer.” He stated. I bit my lip, knowing full well Kevin was going to keep going until Robert cut him off. 

“There are no wrong answers.” Kevin shot back. I flashed him a smile again and Kevin nodded in triumph. It was short lived though. 

“Take a look at where you are, where you once worked in a dying industry, you now work at its birth.” Robert said. He turned away from Kevin and I made a note to bring him something for his efforts the next day. “Those superstores are terrified of us. Anybody know why?” I held up my hand to Kevin and shook my head. He had done his best for the day. He didn’t need Robert going after him. 

“Wait,” Phyllis looked at Stanley. “They’re terrified?” Robert chuckled. 

“Let me tell you how I buy something these days. I know what I want, I go to the internet, I get the best price. Or I don’t know what I want and I go to a small store that can help me. The era of personal service is back. You are back. You’ll find that customers will pay our higher prices and then they will thank us, and we will say to them ‘you are welcome.’” Robert nodded at the office as they applauded him. He turned towards Andy and me. “Adnrew, I chose you for a reason. Lead these people. Show me the best numbers this place has ever seen. Last quarter we saw 4% growth. Double it.” My eyes widened. That was a lot to ask of the office.

“You got it.” Andy said. I stepped in. 

“Robert, I’m not sure…” Robert cut me off. 

“Double it.” He started to walk out of the office. I tailed him.

“Done.” Andy called after him. 

“Robert.” I stopped him just outside the office. 

“I’m not kidding (Y/N). I want it doubled.” He said as he leaned against the wall. I nodded. 

“I get that and trust me it’d be great if it happened. But it's going to take some time.” I shook my head. “I don’t know if we can double it this quarter. Eventually sure but not this quarter.” Robert drew closer to me. 

“Double.” He said as he put his hands on my shoulders. “I know the office can do it. Andy can inspire them to do it. If he fails, so be it. It’s on him. But they will at least look to him for incentive.” I closed my eyes and sighed. 

“Fine.” I shook my head. “What role do I play in this?” I opened my eyes and gazed at Robert. It was hard to keep my blush down when he was standing so close to me. 

“You don’t have one.” Robert said with a smile. “All you have to do is keep me informed. It’s the easiest job out of anyone in the office.” I nodded.

“I’ll keep you posted on what Andy does.” I sighed. Robert nodded. 

“I’ll be back later in the day.” He smiled. “I’ll see you then.” Robert leaned in and kissed my cheek before starting off towards the elevator. “Oh. By the way, would you like to get dinner tonight?” he leaned around the corner, a nervous smile on his face. I looked at him wide eyed. 

“That...that sounds lovely.” I gasped. Robert chuckled and nodded. 

“Great! I’ll text you the details later.” He sent another smile my way. “It is a little obvious (Y/N). I know you were wondering earlier.” He called back as he turned back towards the elevators and got in. I stood in place, shock filling my body. As I finally snapped out of it and started walking back into the office, a blush covered my cheeks. I walked in to see Andy sitting on Jim’s desk and everyone looking at him. 

“I was thinking about Robert. Man. What a boss.” Andy saw me walk to my desk in a daze. “Just throws down goals, you know? Anyway, how’s the sales doubling project going?” Jim sent me a look as well but I made a motion that meant I would tell him later. 

“Yeah, how are we supposed to do that.” Phyllis said, sending a look at me. “We can’t just press a magic button.” Andy nodded. 

“Of course not. There’s no magic button. You have to summon that.” He chuckled. 

“If we could just double our sales, we already would have. You’re not making any sense.” Stanley shot back. I snapped out of my daze and gazed around the room. Everyone was throwing looks at me. 

“He brings up two good points. Do you have any new leads? Any new territories you want us to look into?” Jim looked over at me. “Maybe have an in with a big client that we can get our foot in the door?” I pointed at Jim and started digging through Michael’s old accounts. If there was anything there we could get a start at an attempt to win back some old clients. 

“Dwight, anything?” Andy asked, watching me fly through the papers. 

“We could talk about how fast children grow up, and before you know it they’re out of the house.” Dwight said, clearly taking a shot at Jim. 

“You know what? We need to get our heads out of the box. If we did have something what would it look like? What would it be?” Andy said. I gave up on the pile of old clients and shook my head at Jim. He raised his hand again. “Tuna.” 

“New leads, a new territory to look into, maybe an in with a big company that we could get our foot in the door…” Jim trailed off. Everyone was looking at me again. 

“Good sesh.” Andy said as he stood up. He tripped and I had to fight back a laugh. “That leg is asleep.” He started to limp towards his office. “Oh (Y/N). Meeting in five in my office.” I nodded as I went through the list of clients that Jim had pulled up on his computer. 

“Ok now tell us.” Dwight leaned over to join the little group that had gathered around my desk. I turned read as I looked at the group. Jim and Pam were looking at me like they knew what had gotten me so red. Dwight was looking at me like I would tell him I lost the assistant manager position and he had gotten it back. Angela was looking at me like I had grown another head, which wasn’t all that different from how she normally looked at me. Erin looked like it was story time which was kind of cute if I had to admit it. I looked at the camera and sighed. 

“Robert is testing Andy.” I said. “He wants the numbers for this quarter doubled. He seriously does. And this is his way of making Andy prove that he was right to make him manager.” 

“There should be a different way aside from making everyone else do the hard work.” Jim said. “Is there nothing you can do about it (Y/N)?” I shook my head. 

“Believe me. I tried. It was just short of following him out of the building and arguing with him.” I sighed, fighting the grin that was threatening to take over my face. “There is absolutely nothing that can be done about this. We just have to figure out some way that we can double our sales.” Everyone nodded before heading back to their desks. I bit my lip as I noticed Jim, Pam, and Dwight were still looking at me expectantly. “What?” I asked, looking at each of them in turn. 

“Don’t what us.” Pam said. “We saw the way that you came back in here. Robert said something to you.” I blushed and ducked my head. 

“What did he say?” Dwight asked. He leaned on his desk, clearly expecting something that involved the office. 

“Swear you won’t tell anyone.” I looked at the three of them. I knew there was a habit of the whole office finding out everyone’s secrets. I wasn’t taking any chances. Not this time. “Swear it.” 

“We swear.” The three chorused. 

“Now what did he tell you?” Pam leaned closer to me and stared with rapt attention. I smiled at her enthusiasm and knew that she would be asking me a million questions for the rest of the week. 

“Robert asked me to dinner.” I whispered. Pam’s jaw dropped and Jim ran a hand down his face. Dwight looked at me and shook his head before getting back to work. 

“What did you say?” Pam said quietly. I blushed. 

“I said yes.” I smiled as Pam’s smile grew. Jim shook his head. 

“Why would you do it?” Jim asked. Pam sent him a look. 

“Jim. Don’t say that.” Pam scolded him. 

“I did it because I like him.” I shot back. “And while many of you see him as a creep or odd or maybe even think he’s borderline crazy, I think that’s what makes him a good CEO and a good person. So say what you want Jim. I’m going to do what I think is right.” Jim sighed before shaking his head. 

“Fine. But don’t forget he is the CEO.” Jim said. “And that he is a fairly creepy guy. Even if he is a genius.” Pam squeezed my hand and smiled at me. 

“It’s going to go great. I just know it.” She said. “Tell me everything tomorrow.” I nodded and struggled a little to get back to work. Before long, Andy was calling everyone into the conference room. 

“Thanks for coming in guys.” Andy said as we all filled in. I took a spot next to Jim and Pam since Robert wasn’t there to amuse me. 

“You don’t have to thank us for coming in.” Phyllis said as she took a seat. “It’s our job.” 

“Well I never got thanks for coming into a meeting and I always wanted to be so I’m gonna thank people.” Andy sassed her. I sighed and rubbed my forehead at his actions. This was not going to end well. 

“What’s with the blanket?” I finally asked as everyone settled into their seats. Andy removed it with a flourish. 

“This is what’s under the blanket.” Andy said. I closed my eyes and sighed. I doubted that this is what Robert had in mind when he told Andy to inspire the office. 

“We don’t get it.” Oscar said. 

“These are incentives. It’s how we’re gonna double growth. Now, you’re probably all asking yourselves: ‘Well, how does this work?’” Andy was putting on a show and I did not want to see where it went. 

“Seems like a basic reward system where you give us points, and then we redeem those points for prizes.” Pam jumped in. 

“You’re exactly right and you get a point.” Andy smiled at her. I rolled my eyes and stood up. 

“And I’m out.” I said, moving towards the door. 

“How does one get a point?” I heard Meredith ask as I made my way to my desk. Shaking my head, I pulled out my phone. I sat down and looked at the contact I pulled up. Biting my lip, I pressed the dial button.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end answered. 

“Hi Michael.” I breathed out. I heard the smile on the other end of the line even though I could not see it. 

“(Y/N)!” Michael exclaimed. “What’s shaking?” I laughed and walked into the annex. 

“Can’t I just call my favorite manager?” I joked. Michael laughed.

“You can but that’s not what you do.” He said. I sighed. “What’s happening at the office?” I spent the next ten minutes filling him in. “Is that all?” Michael sighed. 

“Michael, I don’t know what to do.” I ran a hand down my face. “I’m being asked by the CEO to effectively spy on the rest of the office. On top of that, I’m going to go out with him.” I stood up and started pacing. “What do I do? How do I handle this?” 

“(Y/N), you need to breathe.” Michael said calmly. “You do what has been asked of you. But you do it on your terms. Give him what you think he should know. If you think all he should know is the basics, then tell him the basics. If you think he should know everything, then tell him everything.” I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. 

“And what about….” I sighed. “The other part?” Michael laughed. 

“(Y/N), you really expect me to give you advice on that?” He teased. “I married the woman everyone told me not to go after. Do you honestly think I am going to be the one to tell you not to go out with him?” I laughed. 

“I suppose you are right Michael.” I admitted. “Speaking of, how is Holly?” Michael sighed. 

“Her parents aren’t doing that great but she’s doing fairly well otherwise.” He said. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I said quietly. “How are you holding up?” 

“I’m good. A little bored spending all day at home with the kids.” Michael waited for the ball to drop. 

“Kids?” I exclaimed. “Michael, you’re a dad?” 

“Yeah. Best thing that ever happened to me.” He said. 

“That’s what she said.” I giggled. Michael’s laugh came over the line and I felt myself finally relax for the first time that day. “In all seriousness Michael, congrats.”

“Thanks (Y/N).” He said happily. 

“Well, I guess I’ll let you get back to the kids then. Thanks for all of your help Michael. It means an awful lot to me that you actually answered.” I said. 

“I’ll always pick up the phone for you (Y/N). You know that.” He said. “I’m always there for any of you. And I always will be.” 

“I know Michael.” I confirmed. 

“Tell you what, one day you bring that CEO of yours around and introduce me to him. We’ll see if he’s good enough for you.” Michael teased. 

“I’ll do that Michael. I’ll talk to you later.” I said, tears threatening to spill over. Michael said his goodbyes and hung up. I wiped away the tears and pulled up Robert’s contact. Michael was still looking out for me, even though he wasn’t in Scranton anymore. I went back into the main office and looked at everyone bustling around. 

“What’s going on?” I asked Pam. She was smiling and working on some drawings. 

“Andy said if we get five thousand points, he’ll get a tattoo on his ass.” She said before showing me a couple of drawings. My mouth fell open as I looked at the drawings. 

“How many points do you have now?” I asked. Pam looked at Jim. 

“Halfway there.” He said. Looking around the office, I nodded as I started to walk out of the office. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts. Finding the one I was looking for, I pressed call and waited for Robert to answer his phone. 

“Robert California.” I smiled at the way he answered his phone. 

“Hi Robert. It’s (Y/N).” I said. 

“(Y/N)! I was actually just going to call you. How are things at the office?” He asked. I bit my lip and made a split second decision about what to tell him. 

“Andy found an incentive.” I said. “He had the office halfway to the amount that they need to get him to get a tattoo on his butt.” Robert chuckled. 

“That’s how he’s doing it?” He asked. The absurdity of the act finally caught up to me. 

“Yeah. That’s what he’s doing.” I said. “It’s ridiculous but it’s working.” 

“That’s good.” Robert said. I heard cheering coming from the office. “What’s that noise?” 

“Hold on let me check.” I walked back into the office and nearly dropped my phone when I saw the points total. “Holy shit they did it. In one day. They’ve doubled sales and gotten enough points for Andy to have to get a tattoo.” Robert gasped on the other end of the line. 

“They seriously did it?” He asked, astonished. 

“They did it Robert.” I breathed. I looked around the office as everyone filed into the conference room. “They really did it.” 

“Were you going to go with them when Andy….” Robert trails off, leaving the question unasked. 

“I didn’t plan on it.” I said. “That wasn’t something I particularly wanted to see. Why do you ask?” I heard Robert chuckle on the other end. 

“Did you want to move our date up?” He asked. I rubbed my bottom lip. 

“Am I going to get out of work for the rest of the day? Or do I have to wait to finish my work some other time?” I asked. Robert chuckled and I had to turn towards my desk to hide the blush that was coloring my face. I started to gather my belongings and head out the door. 

“You are out of work for the rest of the day. But I will have to dock the pay.” Robert teased. I laughed and left a note for Pam on her desk. 

“That’s okay sir. I’ll just stay late tomorrow to make it back.” I teased him back. “Where are we going? This way I know where to meet you.” I had entered the elevator and was headed out to the parking lot. 

“About that…” Robert trailed off. 

“What do you…” I laughed as I walked outside and saw Robert leaning against his car with his phone pressed to his ear. Robert hung up and came over to me. “You do like the element of surprise.” I stood in front of him and shook my head. 

“Is that really so bad?” He asked, gently taking my belongings from me. I shook my head. 

“No. It’s not.” I made my way over to his car and opened the trunk. Robert smiled as he put my stuff in there and closed it. 

“I have to do an interview and then we can leave.” He said and I nodded before getting in the car. He walked off to join the camera crew and they started filming. I listened in while checking my messages from Pam. Apparently they changed the design last minute and gave Andy a dog that was dressed like him. “Why did I choose Andy to run the office? Because he’s all surface, uncomplicated. What you see is what you get. Could be a recipe for mediocrity, yes, but then again, it might just be why people fight for him.” I smiled at Robert’s comments about Andy. “There’s something about an underdog that really inspires,” he paused and I looked over at him. “The unexceptional.” The crew nodded to show that he was done and he walked back over to the car. Getting in, Robert looked at me. “What?” I smiled and shook my head. 

“Nothing.” I said. Robert gave me a look. “Ok just that was actually pretty good. I didn’t realize you chose him because the office would do anything for him just as much as he would do anything for them.” Robert smiled and started the car before pulling out of the parking lot.

“Sometimes people surprise you.” He said. Looking over at me, Robert paused. “And sometimes people make you think twice about what you are doing.” I played with the hem of my shirt. 

“I make you think twice?” I asked. Robert nodded and cocked his head. 

“In a good way.” He assured me. “You had me second guessing the whole double the figures speech I gave Andy the second I stepped into the elevator. And since that first day I’ve been thinking about how you should have become manager and not Andy. But the little stunt he pulled today, I’m not quite sure you would have been able to do that.” I laughed and shook my head. 

“No way would I let them design a tattoo and put it on my ass!” Robert laughed and I rolled up my sleeve. “I let my friends talk me into getting a group one when we graduated. It ended up terribly because we let the least artistic person in the group design it.” I showed Robert the tattoo on the inside of my arm by the elbow. 

“What is it supposed to be?” He asked as we pulled up to a stop light and he looked at my arm. 

“The eye of Horus.” I laughed. “Surrounded by a crown. Even though you wouldn’t tell at first glance.” Robert looked closer and nodded. 

“I can see it once you point it out.” He chuckled before taking off down the street again. 

“Which is exactly why I wouldn’t let anyone design a tattoo for me ever again.” I rolled down my sleeve and smiled at him. “Even Pam and she’s a great artist.” 

“Understandable.” Robert said as he pulled into the parking lot of an apartment building. “Is this ok?” I looked at him confused. “It’s my apartment. I thought we could maybe cook something up and have dinner in.” My gaze softened as I nodded. 

“That actually sounds like fun.” I said. Robert smiled as he got out and came around the car to open my door. I got out and followed him up to his apartment. “It’s nice.” I said when Robert led me through the tour. 

“It’s really not.” He said with a laugh. “But I’m glad you like it.” He finished the tour in the kitchen where we got to work right away. We kept each other entertained while cooking and at one point, Robert wrapped his arms around my waist as I stood at the stove. I turned my head to look at him and saw that he had the biggest smile on his face. 

“Hi.” I said as I returned his smile. “Can I help you?” Robert laughed and shook his head. 

“Nope.” He said, pulling me closer to him. I giggled as I quickly put down the spoon that I was using to stir the pot of sauce. “Just enjoying myself and the company.” 

“That’s good to hear.” I teased as I put my hands on top of his. “But can I go back to making sure the sauce doesn’t burn?” Robert loosened his hold on me and I moved closer to the stove again. I gently tugged him with me and settled back into him as we waited for the food to finish cooking. Not long after, we made our plates and went to sit at the table. Sitting down, we started to eat. Throughout the dinner we asked each other questions about our lives and things we didn’t already know. 

“I want to warn you, I’m in the middle of a divorce right now.” Robert said hesitantly. “She’s got the house right now and I would have taken you there if it wasn’t for her.” I nodded. 

“That’s fine.” I said, waving a hand at the comment about the house. “As long as I’m not breaking up something. I don’t mind.” Robert seemed to sag in relief before raising an eyebrow.

“What about you?” He asked. 

“In the middle of a divorce?” I laughed and shook my head. “Nope. Never even been married and definitely no significant other.” Robert cocked his head at me. 

“Well, I would have expected that someone like you would have…” Robert broke off and waved his hand. 

“Nah.” I shook my head again. “Tried that in college and it didn’t work out all that well. They were an ass. Decided it would happen when it happened after that.” Robert nodded and the dinner quieted down after that. Once we had cleared the table and cleaned up, we settled down to watch a little television. Robert put his arm over the back of the couch and I rested my head on his shoulder. It was late when Robert drove me back to the office to get my car. He helped me transfer my stuff from his trunk to mine before opening my door for me. 

“I had fun tonight (Y/N).” He said, stalling for time. I nodded and smiled at him. 

“I did too.” I said. “Best date I’ve ever had.” Robert smiled before reaching for my hand. I put my hand in his. Robert lifted it and kissed my knuckles. 

“So does that mean I get a second date?” He asked, lips still poised over my knuckles.

[nat-20s]

MEDIA THAT I RECOMMEND YOU CONSUME INSTEAD OF SUPERNATURAL FOR BOTH HEART AND HEALTH BROKEN DOWN BY TYPE OF MEDIA AND WHY YOU MIGHT LIKE IT IF AT ANY POINT YOU, LIKE MY POOR POOR SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD SELF, WERE INVESTED IN THIS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE FIRE OF A SHOW

with apologies to anyone on mobile who’s readmore function APPARENTLY doesn’t work

(I haven’t watched supernatural for at least five years and, given any sort of luck, I will never do so again, do not @ me)

hello babes. I am talking to you know bc I keep seeing supernatural, unironically, on my dash, and I think we can all do better. I see what’s happening and I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU3i_o5Xd4g

Supernatural is fudge stripes. You are Megan. We can fix this.

So a list of alternate things that I think are overall better written/characterized/just generally more enjoyable that might scratch some of those itches:

TV SHOWS

Good Omens

okay look if u were on tumblr last year u probably already watched this show but like. If u haven’t, it’s only six episodes babe and there’s a large enough fandom that u can go down a fanart hole for days on end

Basic summary: the antichrist has reached that lovely young age where he’s supposed to bring about the apocalypse. An angel and a demon who have decided that actually they like the world as is, thank you very much, try to stop the end times. They’re not very good at it though, which makes for a comedy of errors.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: theologic (mostly christian) exploration/parody/imagery without inherently being a religious show. Fighting off the apocalypse narrative, which I think pretty much always goes hard as hell, but that’s just me. There’s a gay angel who’s socially awkward. There’s a fun very British demon. Touches on the hierarchies of heaven and hell, with framing Heaven as a bureaucracy and blurs the differences between angels and demons.  Pining. Tenderness. A deep nostalgia for 80s music, though in this case it’s specifically queen, and who doesn’t love queen. Main character has a weirdly strong bond with his black vintage car.  Satan is (sort of) fought.

~~

Gravity Falls

sometimes...things that are kids shows...with a set story and a predetermined ending...are better

(also this isn’t relevant to any of what I’m talking about but I really appreciate that Gravity Falls specifically went against the thing that most begged me about ATLA aka that a 15 year old girl would be like yeah I’m into a 12 year old boy because the 12 year old boy has a crush on me and I apparently don’t get to really have a say in this. How does that make sense.)

Basic Summary: Twelve year old twins Dipper and Mabel go to stay with their Grunkle Stan for the summer in a small Oregon town called Gravity Falls. Turns out this town is filled with all sorts of strange phenomena that they often have to confront, work around, learn about, or befriend!

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: The core focus of the show is a close sibling duo, but like It’s obvious that the siblings actually like and love each other and while they have their spats it’s still incredibly clear that they deeply care about each other even with their differences LIKE SORRY SUPERNATURAL YOU CAN’T JUST TELL ME THAT SIBLINGS CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER AND THEN THEY SPEND ALL THEIR TIME FIGHTING AND LYING TO EACH OTHER AND GENERALLY ACTING LIKE THEY CAN’T STAND EACH OTHER’S COMPANY BUT THEN OOOHHH YOU CRY ON TOP OF THE HOOD OF A CAR EVERY THREE EPISODE AND SUDDENLY THEY’RE SOULMATES OR WHATEVER

Anyway. Yeah. GF has a solid sibling dynamic. Monster of the week that builds up to greater over-arching plot. A little bit of body horror, you know, for humor. Fair amount of meta humor playing with the tropes of the genre. A Good Ol Big Bad that tries to pit the siblings against each other. Have to fight the apocalypse (you’ll see this point on like a good half of these recs, I really like ‘what are we gonna do about Armageddon’ media). Interesting creature design. Planned, satisfying ending (which supernatural absolutely does not have, but I still think if it had ended with the season 5 finale like it uhh  pretty obviously was supposed to, that would sort of counted. Don’t revive shows that have clearly already told their stories kids.) Tie in media that gives you some fun extra stories when you miss the characters. (yes I read some of the supernatural novels when I was a c h i l d, yes I’m pretty sure there’s one or two of them still buried somewhere on my laptop, no I don’t wanna talk about it.) Older father figure (?) who owns a tbh kind of shitty shop. Both already in place and found family.

It’s a good show, and it’s two seasons. John Mulaney Voice: I dunno it’s 40 episodes

MINI REC ALERT! (mini recs are basically things that I’m not gonna go into detail about for whatever reason [probably either due to i’m not familiar enough with it OR I just don’t like. Have a bunch to say about it in regards to how it will scratch the itches presented to u by spn] but still seem like a Good Watch)

Mini Rec: Over The Garden Wall. Spooky Kids Media! Episodic! Miniseries so you can watch it in like 2 hours! Cool ass Animation! About two brothers encountering said spooky stuff! Big Bad tries to pit brothers against each other! Might haunt you for the rest of your life! Check it out!

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The Haunting of Bly Manor

I think about this show every goddamn day of my life. (Also not relevant but Greg Sestero makes a brief cameo in it and I was like hi greg my friend greg!)

Basic Summary: An girl named Dani, while staying in London, decides to take on an Au Pair job for two young children, an older brother named Miles (age 10) and the younger sister Flora (age 8) at the spoooooky and mysteeerious Bly Manor, and she gets far more than she bargained for.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Okay so supernatural doesn’t actually do this but I know I KNOW why we let ourselves be queerbaited in 2012. Four words for you: CENTRAL! GAY! TRAGIC! ROMANCE! You want some pining? Some tenderness? Some LOVE? Some dealing with internalized homophobia but no, like, actual violent onscreen homophobia? HAVE I GOT THE SHOW FOR YOU. If ur favorite episodes where the ones that make you sob (for me it was kevin’s death on god), I recommend this show. If you wished that supernatural literally ever had consequences or perma deaths or didn’t retcon major plot events like every five goddamn episodes so that there could be some exploration of like grief and trauma through the lens of/ higher stakes of horror, I recommend this show. If you really do stay up at night picturing a supernatural that wasn’t made by dumbass cishettie white men hack writers but was actually allowed to have Dean and Cas be in love over the course of the show so they could have like actual development and not the most homophobic gay reveal of all time, I recommend this show. Hell, if you just want a banger ghost story in general, I recommend this show.

As for what they actually have in common: horror setting/aesthetic without actually being all that scary most of the time. A strong sibling duo, though they’re not nearly as much of the focus of Bly Manor. Found family. Strong themes of grief. Questions of what turns someone into a monster (and done much better) An actual, much better noble sacrifice done out of love. Escalation of stakes until there’s a big final confrontation. Semi-big bad trying to tear this family apart. Found and pre-installed family. Sad orphans.

Watch this show. Vibe with me. Cry with me. Yell at me about Owen Sharma

MINI REC ALERT!

Haunting of Hill House- spiritual predecessor to Haunting of Bly Manor, though they’re not actually the same universe/story. However, it’s made by the same dude and has a shared aesthetic/sensibilities/some of the cast. This is only a mini rec bc I haven’t actually seen it, but I’ve heard good things and that it, while much more heavily leaning into family dynamics, has similar themes of exploring Grief and Trauma through ghooossstttsss.

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Community

Okay I know that this may seem like a Wild rec considering community is a school sitcom with basically Zero paranormal elements but just like. Hear me out. And no this isn’t just because I think it’s a realy good show and I want more people to watch it, though that is a factor. If I was just recommending comedies that I think are good and more people should watch regardless of them serving as a replacement for supernatural I would demand you all go watch Galavant and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I’m gonna demand it anyway. Everyone go watch Galavant and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Now back to your original program:

Basic Summary: A group of students at Greendale Community College form a Spanish study group, and things quickly go Off The Fucking Rails in the best way possible.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: All right I’m gonna be real honest this rec is for all of my (correct) bitches who’s favorite episodes of Supernatural were French Mistake, Changing Channels, and/or Mystery Spot. You think if Supernatural would’ve been fucking fantastic if it had been a committed comedy instead of a CW melodrama that occasionally landed some admittedly really fucking funny episodes/concepts, Community (and the movies on this list) will gently take you into its loving arms and give you everything you desire. It’s about the Meta comedy. It’s about the discussion, exploration, and subversion of common tropes within the format. It’s about the grand use of group/ found family dynamics in order to max both the goofs and the heart. It’s about fantastic callbacks. It’s about having one of the few “asshole with a heart of gold” leads I can actually stand because. You know. Growth. It’s about the INCREDIBLE genre and  pop culture parody. Which genre do they parody, you ask. All of them. They parody all the genres. The glee parody episode is a fucking masterpiece of television. If you don’t want to watch a show that features a Halloween party where everyone turns into zombies and the ABBA discography blasts in the background, you can stop reading right now, because I can guarantee you won’t be interested in a damn thing I have to say.

MINI REC ALERT: The X-Files. I’ve also never seen this but a: everything I’ve seen out of context has been fantastically weird and delightful b: it appears that there’s a general consensus that Scully and Mulder are one of the only valid straight couples so it’s probably pretty fun and c: let’s all be honest. Supernatural was already basically an x-files rip off, it had like half of their original writers swiped from the x-files crew, I’m pretty sure if you liked especially the first couple of seasons of supernatural, you’re gonna like the X-files.

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Subcategory: TV SHOWS ( A WHOLE TWO OF ‘EM, OR MORE LIKE ONE AND HALF IF YOU WANNA GET TECHNICAL) I’M SPECIFICALLY RECOMMENDING FOR THAT COCAINE HIT OF PURE UNADULTERATED UNCUT 2012 TUMBLR NOSTALGIA

BBC Merlin

Yes, I know the show ended in 2010. Yes, it still provides that 2012 Tumblr nostalgia. 2012 Tumblr is a feeling, not an actual time period.

I love this stupid show. I plan on rewatching it all over the month of January. I harbor a deep amount of fondness for it. It’s why every time I see literally any depiction of Merlin I get just so fucking excited, and why I’ve consumed as many ridiculous Arthurian adaptations as I have (side note: my two favorite other ridiculous Arthurian legend adaptation are Avalon High, a DEEPLY silly DCOM that is required viewing to level up friendship with me, and The Kid Who Would Be King, which is the only movie that I think truly understands the comedic potential of playing a King Arthur Adaptation mostly straight but everyone in it is 12. I’m not sure it intended to be as fucking funny as it was, but again, they’re all middle schoolers. I have never been more jealous of an actor than I was of the 22 year old that got to play a 16 year old dumbass Merlin who was sometimes also Patrick Stewart and did all of his magic with ridiculous hand gestures That should’ve been me that should’ve been me that should’ve been me. Also Sword in the Stone by TH White is pretty good, because Merlin knows germ theory in the fantasy 400’s and he just uses it to be petty mostly. Also listen to High Noon Over Camelot by The Mechanisms. Also Also I tend to prefer family friendly adaptations because they don’t have the uhhh. You know. Incest and sexual violence of the original legend. Love to Not have that shit!) Whether you watched it initially and are due for a rewatch, or you’re intrigued enough by the concept of the show to watch it for the first time, you should join me on this wild wild ride.

Basic Summary: You know who Guinevere, Arthur, and Merlin are, come on. BBC said let’s make em all YOUNG let’s make em SEXY let’s make em FAMILY FRIENDLY and let’s make magic REALLY SEEM LIKE A THINLY VEILED ALLEGORY FOR BEING GAY BUT TO THIS DAY IM NOT SURE IF THAT WAS INTENTIONAL OR NOT BUT IT SURE SEEMS LIKE IT WAS. @ THE BBC MERLIN CREATORS WHAT IS THE TRUTH BECAUSE THERE WAS SOME INTERVI-

Basic Summary but like a bit more helpful: A BABY version of Merlin (and by baby I mean like 20 year old.) is sent from his small town to the big city the Kingdom of Camelot to find his destiny. Staying with the town physician and friend of his mom’s, Gaius, he ends up as both his assistant and personal manservant to Prince Arthur. But in a kingdom where magic is punished with death and the prince seems hell bent on getting himself into situations that are going to kill him, the young sorcerer has his more than his share of work cut out for him.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Primo supremo queerbaiting. Like, yeah, okay, it’s queerbaiting, you know it’s queerbaiting, but you watch some of the scenes and ur like okay. I know why I let this bait me. Obviously with a modern show, I would expect more, I would expect better, I would raise my standards, but I gotta admit. Some of these scenes are fuckin compelling as hell, and the subtext is like barely sub. Monster of the week shenanigans. Some awful CGI creatures but like a charming awful. Like the kind of awful that tells you their very limited budget was more focused on cool swords than realistic creatures. Episodic stories build into a more overarching plot, with things getting darker in season 4/5. Shitty father that end up eating shit and while the son of said father is rightfully conflicted and upset over the death it’s cathartic and victorious as all hell for the audience. Multiple hot evil women, and I love hot evil women. There’s also nice hot women, which is a bonus. These women don’t all immediately stupidly die, so that’s a nice change. Also like a LOT of sarcastic humor and shenanigans if u like Sass Merlin is there for u personally name a more iconic line than “Oh I’m sorry, how long have you been training to be a prat, my lord?” AND THAT’S IN THE FIRST FUCKIN EPISODE brilliant amazing fantastic show stopping. Also you know those like dumb hijink episodes where like Dean was possessed by the spirit of a dog or some shit? You bet your bottom fuckin dollar BBC Merlin has those kinds of storylines. Also I know some people go to spn bc it had that HUGE fanbase and like BBC Merlin’s fanbase is still SURPRISINGLY poppin even though it’s been a decade since there was new content so like. Have fun!

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Doctor Who but Specifically the RTD Era

Look I’m not here to say that the first four seasons of reboot doctor who are the only good doctor who or inherently better than all the rest (though the RTD era is my favorite personally) BUT when ur seekin that sweet sweet superwholock frenzy nostalgia, this is the ‘who’ that is being referred to. Also like. Stan 9. We should all collectively stan the ninth doctor. Chris Eccleston, the Objectively Best Famous Chris, deserved better.

Basic Summary: An immortal alien that goes by “The Doctor” travels across time and space with a variety of different companions, often to try and save the day or fix a (sometimes self created) mess. It’s distilled campy sci-fi with a family friendly tone that has made me cry on several occasions.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Monster of the week that, you guessed it, builds into bigger overarching plot style narrative. Fighting off the apocalypse, but like every couple of weeks because worlds are in danger a LOT. A semi-tragic romance that made people go absolutely buck fuckin wild bc pining n shit. Wamen, but they aren’t fridged. (actually for real though none of the main women die and I just think that’s really fun and flirty even though I could go on a COMPLETELY SEPARATE rant about the injustice of one of the character’s ending YES season 4 is my favorite season and one of my favorite pieces of media ever and I am currently actively recommending it to you  YES im still fucking pissed over how it ended YES we exist) Specifically, a Wonderful and Very Excellent woman named Donna who goes on a spa trip that doesn’t end up going very well. That seems like a highly specific example, and it is, but it did happen in both shows. (Also, to anyone that continued watching SPN after like idk season 9 what happened to Donna? I always liked her and I know she became a recurring character so like DM whatever probably injustice was the end of her story line pls and thank you) I’m also extra specifically recommending for Supernatural Fans and also The World At Large:  Season Four of Reboot Who. I rewatched it last year and it still goes so fucking hard. Donna Noble is the best character in existence. In regards to the appeal for SPN, personally I think the best part of SPN was when people who are soulmates went on adventures and tried to save the day and it was a good mix of banter and sincerity AND GUESS WHAT’S BASICALLY THE ENTIRETY OF SEASON 4 OF DOCTOR WHO. It’s so good y’all I wish Everything was about soulmates going on adventures and trying to save the day.

OKAY TV SHOWS DONE TIME FOR M O V I E S which I don’t have nearly as many recs for but uhh here goes

What We Do In The Shadows/ Shaun of the Dead

I’m lumping these two together bc my reasons for recommending them are largely the same, and I would call them tonally similar enough that if you like one you’ll probably like the other

Basic Summary (Shaun of The Dead): Uh-oh! London’s had a break out of some of that good ol’ zombieism. Shaun and friends decide to hunker down in a local bar, but they have to get there first. Will they survive? Will they fuck up some zom zoms? Who’s to say?

Basic Summary (What We Do In The Shadows): Some vampire roommates dick around. I think there’s technically, like, a plot, but it’s really just about some vampires Doin Their Thing. Vibin.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: This is kind of similar to the Community recommendation, in that supernatural had the opportunity to be one of those things that was both a parody of a genre but also just a really good example of the genre. WWDITS and SotD are both those things for vampire and zombly movies, respectively. Have the aesthetic and some of the themes of a horror but is not actually all that scary. Horror Comedy is a god tier genre and I don’t know why it’s not more widespread. Fun monsters/cast of characters in general, so at least one person in it is probably going to make you go “oh gender” ya know? With SotD you have the fantasy power trip that comes with like any piece of media that involves hunting monsters. With WWDITS I go “yep that’s how bisexuals dress” and I Will Not Clarify which character I’m talking about.

MINI REC ALERT: All of Taika Watiti’s filmography. Thor:Ragnarok is one of like 3 marvel movies that I consider genuinely fucking fantastic completely independent of the MCU and my own tendency to be like “hurr bdurr I love. Superheros”. For the one that is most tonally like Supernatural But Significantly Better and Written By Someone Competent I think I would say try out Hunt For The Wilderpeople. It’s got a reluctant curmudgeonly father figure and I KNOW some of you motherfuckers were so invested in spn when you were like 16 bc you had daddy issues. This is a callout post for my friend [REDACTED], who I should text to watch Hunt for the Wilderpeople, actually.  

MINI REC ALERT X2!!!: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’ve never seen it but it has both Winona Ryder AND Keanu Reaves so like. Goth bi rights.

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Happy Death Day (and Happy Death Day 2 U)

happy death day was one of those movies that I saw the trailer, went “eh”, heard other people say it was great, watched, and went holy fuck this slaps. Not nearly as much of a slasher film as the trailers implied if im remembering the trailer correctly

Basic Summary: Our main character Tree keeps waking up on the day she was murdered. The day resets every time that she dies. That’s right, it’s a time loop storey babey!!!!!!!!!!!

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: If you were anything like me you were foolishly lulled into supernatural for way longer than you should’ve been on the promise that the characters would idk like grow and change and become better and learn lessons and some of that would be through the power of receiving love and kindness. You know. Like how good writers would do it especially if their main characters are kind of dicks that really should make some changes. Well, Happy Death Day fucking delivers on that promise in SPADES. It’s about growth! It’s about change! It’s about making the active decision to become a better person and putting effort into doing so! There’s heavy themes of like grief and trauma and acknowledging them and facing them head on in order to move on and the negative consequences of refusing to do so and just trying avoid it until it goes away. There’s a romance that makes my dumb little self do the pleading face emoji. Tree is also one of the only good asshole with a heart of gold characters. I also think media is improved by having at least one character that is a Good Good Boy (note: Good Good Boy character does not have to be a man.) and Happy Death Day has Carter. Oh on that note: Tree Voice: I’ve only had character for (the same repeating over and over) a day but if anything happens to him I’ll kill everyone here and then myself. Also the movie is funny so like hell yeah.

that’s all I got for relevant movies right now

BOOK RECS

jk i’m illiterate. Everyone should feel free to go ahead and add their own suggestions for this section The best I can do is uhhhh I think y’all would probably like Mira Grant’s novels, particularly the Newsflesh stories, bc sibling dynamics. Also the book The Haunting of Hill House is really good. Ballad of Black Tom slaps? There’s of course the Good Omens novel that the show was based on. I’m about to recommend some podcasts after this section which will include to Welcome to Nightvale because of course it will and the tie in novels for that slap, especially It Devours!, and I’m pretty sure they work as stories even if you know nothing about the podcast. Also also I think you should read “The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet” by Becky Chambers It’s not thematically similar to supernatural at all but it’s one of my all time favorite sci fi novels and only like four people have read it which is a goddamn TRAVESTY.

Anyway yeah that’s it that’s all there is. Onto the medium that is like books but I can fold laundry or cook while consuming their narratives.

PODCAST RECS

Okay so this is getting uhhh wicked long so I’m gonna limit myself to only three full blown recs and a

mini rec

Alice Isn’t Dead

Fuck me running this show is so good. Literally hands down my all time favorite (and scariest!) horror podcast. Mamma mia, that’s a good fuckin story. The Book version is also good and has fewer Weird events but some further character development so I recommend them both.

Basic Summary: After her wife Alice disappears mysteriously, Keisha takes up a job as a long haul trucker, traveling all across America in order to find her, but ends up finding so much. Pursued by a deadly creature she calls The Thistle Man, the stakes of her journey are raised.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: okay so I have a lost of bullet points of things that appealed to me specifically about supernatural and how no other shows covers all of them which sucks bc it means I basically Yearn for a show that’s supernatural but good. Alice isn’t Dead, however, hits the most of these bullet points AND is so fucking good. It has monster hunting. It has stopping a cataclysmic event BUT also discussion of the cyclical nature of events such as these and how the fight never truly ends but you can make some fucking progress nonetheless. It has a central gay romance that’s actually a central gay romance. It’s the ONLY show on this list that really hits that the weird and dark underside of americana vibe but specifically the americana of not like suburbs and shit but that eerie haunted feeling you get when you’re hours into a late night drive on open roads with no civilization around and an expansive sky and it just Seems like something should be watching you. Have you ever been out for a walk at midnight and encountered a deer and you looked into each other’s eyes and it felt like it was telling you a message that you couldn’t possibly hope to parse? Have you ever felt an incredible sense of deja vu eating in a restaurant you couldn’t have possibly been in before, because you’ve been to a thousand diners a thousand times just like one, and there’s an incredibly sense of homogeneity even though you’re 2000 miles away from anyone and anything that could possibly know you? Have you ever traveled to an area that seems to be stuck in a bubble of time, the only thing that shows any evidence of having aged past 2006 being yourself, and you wonder how your cell phone even works around here? THAT’S the spooky americana I’m fuckin talking about! Messed up road trips! Too much goddamn space! America is scary because it’s big and Filled With Things but also Not Enough Things! Fuck yeah!!!!! That time bubble fuckin EXISTS in Wyoming the most recent song on the radio I heard was fuckin Hey Soul Sister!

Also has a thing where like are there even good guys and bad guys in a conflict or is it all just one umbrella nightmare that you’re trying to stand against in anyway possible (u kno..like how the overarching structures of both heaven and hell were kinda fucked in spn? No spoilers but similar shit be happenin in Alice Isn’t Dead). Exploration of what makes someone into a monster, like how do you go down that path? Also this is the only show on this whole damn list that southern gothic music really suits it so points for that.

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The Magnus Archives

You know I had to do it to ‘em.

Basic Summary: Jonathan Sims has just become the Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, a “research” “facility” that looks into paranormal/esoteric/unexplained phenomena.

John Mulaney Voice, Again: Nobody knows what the archivist is going to do next, least of all the archivist. He’s never been in an archives before, he’s just as confused as you are.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Oh fuck this document is over 5k long I said I wasn’t gonna do this hhhhh so lipton lightning round: Slowburn Gay Romance but Actually Canon, Monster Hunting but Hey What Even Is A Monster Anyway, Acts Somewhat like a Loosely Connected Horror Anthology until it DOESNT, Little Things Build to Bigger Narrative, Characters Be Goin Through It (On God These People Need Therapy), Trying to Prevent/Fix The Apocalypse (X2!!!), Smug Asshole Big Bad,  Horror as a Metaphor For Various Shit, Basically if you thought that the Men of Letter concept slapped and you think it should’ve been the whole damn show including being Deeply British you would probably really fuckin like TMA. Also if ur like the ideal piece of media is a horror tragedy but also like it’s a wacky sitcom but also also fuck cops. U will like tma.

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Welcome to Nightvale

IF ANY 2012 TUMBLR FANDOM DESERVES TO MAKE A MASSIVE COMEBACK AND BE EVERYWHERE AGAIN AND ABSOLUTELY FLOOD MY DASH IT’S WELCOME TO NIGHTVALE WHY DID WE ABANDON THE SHOW THAT TREATED US THE MOST KINDLY DID YOU KNOW THAT EPISODES 108-110 ARE THE BEST FUCKING BUILT UP NARRATIVE REVEAL THAT I HAVE WITNESSED IN MY LIFE DID YOU KNOW THAT IT CONTINUED TO BE REALLY FUCKING GOOD AFTER MOST PEOPLE STOPPED LISTENING DID YOU KNOW CECIL AND CARLOS ARE MARRIED AND THEY HAVE A DOG AND A TODDLER NOW BECAUSE OF ALL THE GAY PODCAST PROTAGONISTS CECIL GERSHWIN PALMER LOVE OF MY LIFE ELDRITCHIAN CHEERLEADER AND CERTIFIED BIMBO KEEPS FUCKIN WINNIN BABY. DID YOU KNOW THAT CECIL THINKS PEANUT BUTTER IS A ROCK.

Basic Summary: Welcome to the sleepy desert town of Ņ̶̏ight V̶͚̰̮͗̔̊̊ale! Community radio how host Cé̵̟͚͕̗̞̙͂͑̽̄́c��̤̼̞͈̪͓̍̽̋̚̕͜il Pǎ̵̧̨̢͚̻̈̂̄̇͐̇̊̀̆ͅl̶͚͎͕͉͖̬͓͑́̐̒̍̿̈́͢͜͝ͅm̸̧͙̟̖̠̳̬͋́͋́͌̚̚ͅȩ̙̖͎̖͂́̒͐͜͞r̢̢̛̰̻̮̺̩͙̼̈́͋̀͘ is here to k̠̠̰̦͙̯̥̎̄̆͌̎̀̿̔̌̚ê̷̢̬̥̞̩̯̘͒̽̈̓͐̂̔̍e̶̡̝̗̺̫̪̜͆̓̿̈͌͌̆͒͞ͅp̵̹̗̬̼̠̬͙̏͐͐̉̅͊͊́͟͞ͅͅ ỷ̛͙̞̦̦͖̑̉̌̎͞͡͡͝ͅo̧̧̥͎̻̥̲͇͋́́̔̈͌͞ǔ̸̬̯̫͇̦̮͕̤̲̯̽̔̀̔͆͋̈́͘̚ up to date all the local happenings, including w̸̢̢̢̧̡̡͍͖̻̳̹̼̼̰̬̭̱͔̲͙͍̰̠̥̺̝͖̺̖̼̮̼̞̳̞̜͉̤̯͇̖̳͖̠̙̺̲̤͇͈͚͓̮̭̱̭̩͚̟̥̬̟̻̝̼̖͚̘͐̆̅̂̃̈́͆͊̉̏͒́̈́̋͗͑̄̉́̐̌́̿̌͛̾̎̊̾̃̈́̉̔̍̐͛̕͘̚͜͜͠͠é̵̢̡̧̨̨̡̧̨̡̛̹̥̥̞̮̯͙͈̻̝͓͖͙̦̰͍̖̜̲̰̞͎͈̭̯̳͕̗͓͈̭̫̼̯̪̞̯̰̲̘̭͎̪̱̗̝̝̞̤̱͉͙̯͎̬͎̙̜̗͉̩̦͕̪̳͇͙̺̙̰̠͚͎̜̠͔̬͎̺̣͕̜̊̓̃̐̂́͂̎̐̾̔̽̀̉́̍̊̂̿̎͂͐̎̐̄̍̔̋̐̃͗̈́͂̀̒̊̎͘͘̕̚̕͜͝͝͝͠ͅͅa̸̡̧̡̡̨̡̨̛̛͙̣̘̳͎͖̥̝̟̱̩̥͙͉̝̲̙̮̩̩̹̱͔͎̥̹̻̜͚̭̬̳͚̤̙̖̯͎̱̫̞̪̻͖̱̞͔̭̻̺͚͚̯̬͓͓̳͇̳̦͓̞͈̮̤̭̣͉̲̞͚̘͗̆̃͌̅̍͊̓̈̇̌̒͊͑̊̏̊͌̈̓̿͗̒̏̒͊͒̏̃̎̒̀̅̾̍̀͘͘͜͝͠ͅt̵̢̡̨̧̧̛̛̛̯̤͓̘̻̤͓̪̰͔̪̝̫͎̻͔͈͎͔͙͕͈̰͓͍̀̏͒̆͋̈́̈́͂̔͋͆͂̅͗̍̆̍̆̔̑͊̏̈͒́̽͊́̿͂́̓͛̽͐͌̌̐̈̇̃̓̆̍̅̃̔̚̕͜͝͝͝ͅͅh̸̨̨̡̢̢̡̢̧̡̧̢̡̨̡̭̜̬̬̙͕̗̙̻̯̠̘͙̻̥͉͚̼̗͚͇͉̰͍̥͉̗͎̬̫͖͉͔̼̮̯̞̫̬̟̻͉̖̙̥̫͖̬͚̟̜̭͇͎̭̘̝̲̤͕͎̰̭̗̯̮̤̙̙̯͍̞̭͚͔͎̞̹̲̟͉̩̭̖̱̠͍̺͈̟̩̋̆̈́͆̍̆̄̏͜ͅͅȇ̸̢̢̨̨̧̛̜͍̺͎̬̪͙̻̝̣͓͈̺̩̳̟̲̠̣͈͎͎͈͉̙̪͖̳̺͇̹̊̍͊͑̿͊̌͛̿̓͊̾̀͂͛̉͆̾̽͆̈̏͛̊͛̍̈́̇͋̔͂̑͐̂̿͊̽͑͘̚͘͝͝͠͝ͅͅŕ̵̨̡̨̨̢̧̡̧̨̘̟͙̦̲̲̪̦̙̼̠̳͚̞̦̞͖͚͇̳͖̲̭͕̜̫̳̖̙͖͉͎̘̘̤̠͈̬͕̝̻͚̥͍͕̠̥͙̙̪̖̯͍̘̘̲̣̹̜̪̲̭̟̮̫̖̤̰͔̩̩͉̲͚̟̝̦̬̪̘̬̮̱͔̻̦̼̃̐̂͋̐̅̋͒̉͛́̅̈́̒̒͆̑̆͊̒͒̀̍̈́̍͌̍̏̔͋͌̒̍̌͛̓̈̂̐̕͘͘͜͜͝͝͝ͅͅͅ ̶̢̡̨̛̠͇̹̯͕͍̻̟̼̼̗̩̱̗̙̱̥̜̬̫̜͎͉̺̣͓̟̯̱͖̣̞̠̝̥͍̲̳̙̠͔̹̘̲̲̻̖̈́̊͋͜͜ą̵̡̧̟͕̬̳̜͈͈̳̝̜̣̬͔͈͈͎͉͍̯̟̞̺͎̝͇̰̥͖̬̯͙̤̬̼̲̦̯̭͓̠̺̳̱̰̮̎͋͆̈́͌͆̎̉̓̇̐͋͋́̃̉̈̄̏̓̉̿̅̒̉̒̉͂͛̄̀̇̒͊͛́͊̎́͆̌̆́̌͂̈́̽̋͛͗̑̊̀́̍͊̌͆͊͐͆̅̒̊̉̾̄͛̑̕͘͘͘͘͝͝͝͝͠͠͝n̸̡̛̛̛̛̛̙͎̬̦̠̼͓͈̝̾̍͑͛̅̒̾́̌̍͛̇̋̇̓̏͛̔͛̈́͆̿̌͐̿͊̿́͒̍̃̀̈͐̐̆͐̉̒̂̉̀̅̇̾͋̍͒̋̈̌̿͒͐̍́͗̀̌̌̚̕̕̕͘̚͘͘̚͜͠͝͝͝d̴̡̢̢̛̛̛̺̠̳̬͎̞̲̣̲̱̳̪̹͉̝̠̱̗̙̫̠̹̼̙̝͉̲̟̮̙̙̮̻̹͈̦̙̞͚̜̙̖̞͓̙̭͉̃̽̌̅̔̾̈́̒̽͑́̒͋̓̈́͆͋̽̒̃̽̋̐͌͂̍͑́̽̋̍͗̋͗͂̅̽̈̈̾͐̄̃̕̕͜͠͠͝͠͝ͅͅ ̵̡̡̢̛̛̗͚͍̺͇̲̳̯͓̰͍̙̮̙̜̟̞̣̼͕̝͔͙̺̫͈͈̠̻̘̱͍̦̭͔͈̤̺̗̮͕̦̞̘͍̯̻̝͓̤̳̫͔̩͉̬̈́͋̈́̐͒́̔́́̿̓̆͐̎͆̇͒̄̈̿̓̑̾̏̔̿͊̌͆͒̒͊̓̅̓́̔̅̀̀̀̃̿̂̑͂͆̅̎̾̏̓̂̈́͛͌̇̾͌͐̈̂̆͐̅̓̍̓̃̆͗̃͛̏̒̌̀̅͊́̽̐̆̿́̌͘͘̚̕͘̕̕͜͜͜͠͝͠͝͠t̷̢̥͓̄͗̾̄̅̚͜r̵̨̡̨̧̧̢̛̛̛̛̛͍͙͚̥̱̞̜̦̜̼̺͉̠̬͎̰̻̜̼̫̤͓͖͖̤͇̞̥̖̈́͊̆̓͊̑̑̋̒̈́̔̆͆́̐͛͑͊͋̇̈́̓̑̍̏͐͛̽̋̎͑̃̈́͒̇̂̇̌͂̀̍̊̇̓̋̈́̌̏̕͘̚̕̚͝͝͠ǎ̴̡͓͓̯̘̥̱̱͖̦̺͓̘͉͖̞̟̦͈̜̥̰̘̞͈̦̠̼̯̙̭̼͚̟̖̲̠̝̜̐̅͆̏̈́̍́͂̃̾͑̓͋̽̄̾́̾̆̾͒͋̎͂̈́͘̕̕̚͜ͅͅf̷̢̡̡̧̢̨̡̧̢̢̧̡̧̫͖̖͇̲̫̮͕͉͓̩̪̳̹̩͎̖̟̤̤̲̟̪̫̻̻̖̟̦͉̼͎͖̭͍͖͎̖̳̳͙̜͉̝̘̺̖͚̙͉͕͙̯͖̞͚̮̲̻͉͙̺̭͓͎̤͙̦̦̺̯͕̜̰͍̳̙̦͉̪̥́͋̓̅̀͋͐̀̄̊̆̉̒̐͒̀̏̈̇̊̉̆̐̏̾̀̀̓͛͆̍̾͗͌̀̄̔͒̀̍̈́͆̔̒̑̏̍̏͆́̾̐̂͋̂̔̂́̓̓̌͌̉͛́̒̐̽̏́̑͊́̌̆̂̑͋̇̈́͌̑̿̅͗̚̕͘̕̚͜͠͝͝͠͠f̴̨̨̛̹͌̂̓͌͛̀͑̾̓̍͗̽͆̉̊͗̇́̍͌̊͐̔̈́̊̇͆̄̃̑̕̕͘͘͘͠͝͝͝͠i̴̧̡̢̢̧̢̨̨̧̧̧̛̛͎̗̳̦̘̙͓̦̙͔̜̼̘͇͇̺̭͉̠̩̟̤̥̘͙̤̩͔̪̱̻͈̪̼̼̞̠͎̟̹͕̻̭̤̪̲͕̟̺̻̻͖͕͚̣͇̖̰̝̩͈̤͕͇͕̝͙̙̪͔̗̫͇͎̙̲̲͖̗̘͉̲̣̤͎̔̐̆͒̄̈́̀̎̃̃̅͆̌̈́̽̈́̅̈́̑̄̇͒͐̀̐̀̒̍̀̓͌͗̓̽́͗̓̎͂͛̅̑̔̀͛̈́̽̾̃̊͊͆̄̍͑̍̆̌̾͗̄̊̽̉̅̆̀̎̀͑̿̎̋̄̆̃͐̾̏͛͒̍̋̅͘̕̚̕̕͜͜͝͝͝͝͠ͅͅc̷̛̛͚̝̻̣̞̓́̃́̀̃̓͗͌̂͛́̒̊͑̓͆̇̈́͑̏̆̀͌̑͂͂̄͌̉̔̋́̎͒̿͗͒͛̇͛̿̎̍̕̕̕͝͝͝͝͝ ̴̓́͌͘��̢̧̢̡̨̢̡̨̡̢̢̛̺̘̹̯̤̩̘̯͔̞̟̬̠̣̟̻̥̜̤͔̥͕̠̥̞͎̗̩̱̮͉͔͎̲̯̱̙̜̥̳̮͔̦̣͖͔̜͉̗̪̳̹̦̤͇̣̙͕̯̫̖̝̼̹͍̠͎͓̗͎̦͓̲̯̱̠̰͇̮̹͔̝͉͙̹̜̹͈̹̥͖̣̳̲͖̈́̈́̀͌̄͂̌̾́̍̔̊̓̿͋͂͋̈́̋́́̒̓̀̒̃͂̀͑̐͛̆̆͒̈́̅̿͊͌̍͗̌̌͆̂͌́̉̏̒̓͊̾̒̓̋̽͐̏̾̕͜͠͝ͅͅr̸̨̢̛̪̞̬͓͔̥̤̣͔̭̥̙͉̦̗̠̳̩͙̂̈́͑͑̿̋̓̀͋͆̋̕͝͝ë̴̢̡̨̬͈͉̖̞͔͎͓͖̼̘̬͕̰͈̥͈̝̩͎͉͉̫̜͚͕̤͔̟̯͓͎̟͙̜̭̩̗̮͎̗̤͇̝̩͎̜̺̯͕͇̝͎̯͙̖͙̮̗̮̘́̑͑͛̂̅̄̌̽̓̒̾̿͆̏̏͐͛̾̂̃͑͆̅̄̿͋̅͂̈́̽͋͒̎͐̒̓͆̌̉͑͊́̀̈̾͛̋͑̋̎̈̀̽̀͊̏͘͝͝͝͝͠͝ͅp̴̧̧̡̢̢̢̛̛̛͚̟͓̖̭̪̻̪̲̬̥̙̥̰̼̹͎͕̪̞̮̺̰̬̘̫̤͉̦͙̮̖̙̹̻͔̖̮̲̞̣̻̜̠͇̬͚̱̦̼̲̮̀̂͌̍̈̒̍̋̌̏͐̓͛̉̂̈̀͑̈́͊͗͋͗́̂̎̎̃͆͒̅̑̇́̈͐̾̀̔̒̉͑͒̅̓̈́̋͋̀̍̄̿̌̀̉͆̇̔̈́͗̋̄̓̇͗̎̉̆͊̒͗̚̕͘͘̕̕̚͜͜͝͝͠͠͠͠͠ͅͅͅơ̶̢̡̧̨̡̛̛͔̦̼̰̠̯̰̟̲̣̜͙̲͙̪̱̱͕̺̪͈͉̺̻̙̥̲̩̲̩͔̠͚̩͓̞̠̯̟̫̣̗̦̰͉͚͙̺͎̼͖̥̙͈̯̲̝̞͎̻͕̮͔̰̖͔̭͙̩̼͔̫̹̘͓͔̜̘͍̍̅̄͋͑̋̍̊̉̄̈̽̈͐̀͌͐̆͊͂̐̋̃̎͆͛̐̀̂̿̈́͂́̈̌͐̇̀̒͋͑͐́͌̐̇̊͆̀͂͋̏́͋͆̏͗͂͑̂̓̽͘͘̚̕̕̕̕̚͘͜͜͠͝͝ͅͅͅr̴̨̨̨̧̨̛̘͕͈͔͙̠̬̯̩̗̰̗̬̦͈̗̝̣͓͓̟͕͙͈̠̘̻͓̭̝̘̦̦͓̭̘͙̻̙̼̩̰̝͈̱̝̱̬͉͙̣̖̮̲͈̙̱̩̣͕̦̰̮͔͈͓̙̮͍̳̟̠̞͎̱̣̰͕̩̝̲̝͐́́̍̈͐͋̐̑̌͋̓̈́̈͗̿̈̈́͗̑̚͜͜͜͜͜͝ͅͅţ̴̢̨̧͇͉͎̣̬̣̝̗̬̹͇̮̞̈́̐̌̇̈́̌͊̐̅̂̌̂͒͌́̈͌̂̊͗̍̿͑͋̎̓͂̀̎̎͒̾̏̒͌̃̄͋̌̾̍̈́̐̏͑̊̍͑͆̉̓́̆̌̾̓͊̊̈̑͘̚̕͘͘̕͝͝͝͝͝s̴̢̢̡̛̬̹͚̻͉̦̦̣̦̠̜͕̤̳͓͙̟̬͕̘̦̿͗̉̏̒͆̓̄͊͌͛͂͑̒̃͛͘͜͝͝!

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Honestly, probably bc Nightvale and Alice are by the Same Dudes, a lot of these points are the same as Alice Isn’t Dead, but it’s less scawy and more funney. Also hits the “horror, but make it kind of a sitcom” vibes. Doesn’t have the same road trip vibes, but DOES capture the exact weirdness of South Western USA, so I’m still giving it “fucked up americana” credit. If you’ve never been to New Mexico ur like this is an exaggeration clearly no desert town is subject to like ACTUAL cosmic horror and unexplainable sights but I’m telling you New Mexico is just Like That. (I highly recommend visiting the land of enchantment if you ever get the oppurtunity it is a deeply odd and wonderfully unsettling experience.) Look man it’s gay it’s a horror comedy cecil has a wonderfully soothing voice and it hates capitalism so fucking much like oh my god so much what more could you want.

MINI REC ALERT: Wolf 359! I have nothing deep to say about this I just like it and my gut tells me that y’all would enjoy it too I know there isnt much for physical descriptions in the show but I know in my heart that the main character is so so pretty and so so stupid. I KNOW yall like some himbos that experience character growth.

Okay since It’s my party and I’ll speak if I want to rapid fire list of podcasts I just like and want more people to listen to even though I’m behind on like all of them shhhhh: The Penumbra Podcast, BomBARDed, Dungeons and Daddies, Stellar Firma, Wonderful!

SONG RECS

okay these aren’t like replacement recs or anything they’re just really good and I almost certainly would have put them on some sort of supernatural playlist in 2013 but I don’t, like, have a good playlist for them now so I’m subjecting y’all to them also they all have the youtube link for ease of access

Woah There Kimmy-  Felix Hagan & the Family

Devil’s Backbone- The Civil Wars

Blood On My Name- The Brothers Bright

Awake O Sleeper- The Brothers Bright

The Bottom of the River- Delta Rae

Old Number 7- The Devil Makes Three

The Bullet- The Devil Makes Three

In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company- The Dead South

Bartholomew- The Silent Comedy

Pomegranate Seeds- Julian Moon

Curses- The Crane Wives

Tongues & Teeth -The Crane Wives

OKAY THAT’S IT! THAT’S ALL FOLKS! FUCK!

[wanderingcas]

☆ for @cottondean, as a part of her benefits on my Patreon! thank you so much for your support:’) ☆ prompt: a college au where big, tough (*cough* softie) football player!Dean calls entomology major!Cas to come get a spider out of his kitchen because his roommate is gone

. . . 

There’s a certain part of the quad that Castiel loves to sit. It’s a small field of grass with two large oak trees, far away from the busy shuffling of students walking from class to class. It’s the only patch of nature he can seem to find within a five-mile radius in the bustling city. 

Before he buries his head into the textbook for his Insect Behavior lecture, he takes a moment to tilt his head back against the tree and squint up at the sun, shattered by the hundreds of leaves fluttering in the gentle wind. He takes a large breath and sighs. It’s the calmest part of his day. The only peace he can find with his back-to-back classes, labs, homework, and it’s just lovely to be able to sit and—

His phone buzzes obnoxiously in his jeans pocket. He opens an eye and glares at it. Closes his eyes and tries to find his peace again. The phone vibrates again, this time louder and more insistent. 

With a sigh, he fishes out his phone and flips it open. 

Hey, this is Cas, right? It’s Dean Winchester, we were in Biology lab together last semester. Okay this is a weird thing to text, but you like bugs and everything, right? Well I don’t, and there’s this spider and it’s HUGE like this might be a freaking tarantula and can you kill it? Kevin usually does but he’s out of town.

Castiel stares at the block of text. Another text message comes in: 

Kevin’s my roommate. I should have mentioned that 

He’s pushing the button to respond when another text buzzes in his palm: 

OMG it’s on my cookies!! Wtf!! 

“What the fuck indeed,” Castiel agrees in a low tone. He clicks the call button and holds the phone to his ear.

“Oh hey,” comes Dean’s deceptively breezy voice over the receiver.

“Dean?” Castiel asks. “Are you okay? Your texts seemed very… distressed.”

“Me? Distressed? No way. You can ignore that. I took care of it. I just—” Dean abruptly makes a very high-pitched noise. 

“The spider is still there, isn’t it?” Castiel asks.

“It’s staring at me, Cas. I think it can smell fear.” 

“Oh my god.” Castiel pinches the bridge of his nose. “I can be at your apartment in five minutes. Do you still live in the same room?”

“Yes,” Dean whispers. 

Castiel stands and shoulders his backpack. “Why are you whispering?”

“Did you not hear me when I said this is a devil spider?” 

Castiel sighs as he begins to walk to the Circle Apartments across campus. “Well, just make sure not to make any sudden movements, or it may think you’re prey to hunt.” 

“Oh my god, Cas, why the fuck would you tell me—”

“I’m kidding,” Castiel sighs. “I’ll be there soon.” 

Another text comes in as he ends the call. Charlie’s quick text flashes across the screen.

U @ the tree?

Castiel texts back, No. Going to help a friend.

ooOOO who??

Castiel glances around before typing out, Fall semester hot lab partner. 

Rolling his eyes at the caps locked letters he gets back from Charlie, he shuts his phone. Telling only his best friend Charlie about his crush on Dean Winchester is already one person too many. 

Castiel remembers Dean’s apartment’s location from the night they studied for the Biology lab final together. They had sat on Dean’s bed, listening to Led Zeppelin while Castiel quizzed Dean (being an Entomology major, he knew most of the material from his AP Bio classes in high school, so didn’t need to study as much). He still remembers the tint of blush in Dean’s cheeks whenever Castiel praised Dean for his correct answers. 

“You’re actually making me think I can get this stuff,” Dean had said. “I always thought I was too dumb to get this science crap. Not a ton of time to focus on academics, with the football scholarship and all.”

“Of course you can get it,” Castiel said. “You’re far from stupid, Dean.” 

When Dean had grinned widely at that, Castiel had decided that he’d love to put a thousand more smiles on his handsome face.

Castiel shakes his head as he climbs the stairs to Dean’s apartment door. He lost his chance with Dean months ago; he needs to remember that.

He’s barely rapping his knuckles against the door before it bursts open. Dean yanks him inside. “Hurry, it disappeared! I think it went under the stove!” 

Castiel stumbles into the narrow hallway, catching himself with a hand against the wall. He stares at Dean, who is dressed in nothing but gym shorts and a thin white t-shirt, oven mitts on his hands and a colander on his head.

“What in the hell are you wearing?” Castiel asks.

“Defensive gear,” Dean replies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

Castiel blinks. “Um—” 

Dean grabs Castiel’s arm and pulls him toward the kitchen. “C’mon, dude, it’s getting away!” 

“Dean, it’s not going to hurt you,” Castiel says as he trips after him. “Most spiders in this region don’t even bite.”

“Yeah, most, but knowing my luck this one will.” Dean pushes Castiel forward, hiding behind his back. “Okay, now, go do your… bug whispering.”

“My chosen major does not mean I whisper to bugs,” Castiel says.

“You know what I mean. Go, like… beat it into submission.”

Castiel sighs. He carefully walks across the linoleum kitchen floor, careful not to step on the small creature in case it decides to run under his feet. He spots the spider climbing its way up the side of the stove. 

“Hey, little one,” Castiel says softly. Based on the lack of distinct marks on its brown body, it’s likely a harmless cellar spider. Holding out his hand, he stops the spider’s trek with his fingers, cupping it in his palm. He ignores Dean’s horrified gasp behind him.

“You’ve had a busy afternoon,” Castiel murmurs to the small spider in his hands. He stands and turns toward Dean. “Can you open a window?”

Dean scrunches his face into a frown. “But it’ll just come right back in.”

“It’s warm outside. It’s likely that it’ll simply go look for food.” 

“Ugh. Fine.” Dean tentatively steps past Castiel and opens the balcony screen door. “Put it out here, I guess.” 

Castiel walks out onto the porch and carefully deposits the spider onto the railing. “Good luck,” he says as it scurries away. 

“You’re safe now,” he tells Dean tonelessly as he walks back into the kitchen, sliding the balcony door closed. 

Dean sighs and pulls off the oven mitts. “Thanks. I hate those things.”

“May I suggest that you may have arachnophobia?” Castiel asks. 

“How can you not with those things?” Dean dramatizes a shudder. “They’re nasty.”

Castiel shrugs. “I think they’re quite beautiful.”

Dean gives him a strange look. Huffs a laugh. “You know, I forgot how quirky you are.” 

“It has been a few months since our class concluded.” 

“Yeah. I guess.” 

Castiel pointedly does not mention, or think about, the awkward moment that made them stop speaking again after the end of the semester. 

Dean waves a hand. “Well, anyway, thanks man. For helping me out, and all.” 

The moment that Dean had leaned toward him on the bed, only inches between them, his eyes closing—

How fear made Castiel quickly jump off the bed, avoiding the kiss at all. 

“It’s no problem,” Castiel says quickly, shutting off his line of thinking. He avoids looking at Dean’s lips. “I should probably get back to studying.”  

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Dean rubs at the back of his head. His hair is sticking up wildly after taking the colander off his head. “You know, I’m in another Biology class, actually.”

Castiel’s eyebrows raise. “Oh really?”

“Yeah.” Dean grins. “Kinda was inspired by you, actually. You made me like that last class, so I thought… why not another one?”

Castiel feels something in his chest lighten. He smiles. “Oh, that’s—that’s good.” 

They both stand awkwardly, staring at their feet. “You know—” Dean says as Castiel begins, “I should—”

Dean smiles. Castiel hides a laugh behind his hand. “You go,” he says. 

“I was just gonna say, uh—” Dean waves a hand toward the living room. “I was actually about to study, too, if you, well… want company?” He quickly adds, “I can make you dinner for helping with the spider, too.”

Castiel says, “I do remember your cooking being delicious.” 

Dean’s face lights up with a grin. “So you’ll stay?” 

“Yes. Besides, if any insects come flocking at the smell of food, I will need to be here to protect you.” 

Dean rolls his eyes and aims an oven mitt at Castiel’s head. Castiel ducks, this time letting his laugh resound throughout the kitchen. 

They barely get any studying done; Castiel doesn’t mind. He’s perfectly content sitting in Dean’s sunny living room, watching Dean animatedly show Castiel each of his records and ramble off facts over the booming bass. Castiel complains about his classes, propped against the counter with a glass of wine in hand, as Dean cooks pasta. 

They watch Casablanca on the couch; it was Dean’s mom’s favorite movie, and coincidentally, Castiel’s. Not that they make it far; they’re in each other’s arms, kissing and ripping off each other’s shirts like their lives depend on it, barely five minutes into the movie. 

Castiel is lying contentedly on Dean’s bare chest and listening to his heartbeat when he murmurs, “I hope more spiders come into your kitchen.” 

He feels Dean kiss the top of his head. “Y’know what? Me too.”

. . . 

☆my patreon☆ ☆my ko-fi☆

[chil2de]

hihi this is for my 🥰 anonie you may scroll if u are not them :) or read idk it’s up to you haha

whenever i try responding to your ask tumblr just crashes and decides to not exist, so here’s this instead!! i pulled up google docs and read ur ask line by line and responded that way <3

pls stop ur making me blush HSBFFHBSD

i don’t mind either way baby! if you wanna spam my inbox or if you wanna chat in dms, that’s completely up to you (: i’m totally okay with either i promise, so don’t worry ab it. oh, and! i have a tiktok, though i religiously detest tiktok and absolutely purely hate it and wish for it to burn to the ground, the jjk fandom is extremey funny on there. and the cosplays— AHEM. idk if you’d prefer to talk to me on there so that way your url on tumblr is still unknown to me? even if you want it anyway, just gimme a shout and say its you or sumn. if you don’t have it thats okay <3 but incase you want it, it’s @y_uutaswife and i have the same pfp :)

LMFAO PLEASE this is such a summary of me i hate it- it’s so accurate too? i don’t wanna go up to them… want them to go up to me, but i also don’t because, well, then what…? what do i say LMFAO

and i know right? so sad he didn’t get mentioned more / had more animated scenes. i won’t lie i flew to yuuta like a moth, ever since we got those crumbs of him in the anime i sat there respectfully waiting.. seriously, i’m unsure why but i’ve never felt so invested and compelled by a character in such little time. and even now when i rewatched jujutsu kaisen last week to polish up some of my characters, i sat there like an absolute bumbling idiot just replaying his scenes :( he just looks so cute and soft but i can’t wait for his actual design bc that was him before.

i tried making a schedule once but it just didn’t work so i’m glad i broke out of it. but plssss <3 thank you🥺 no honestly this brought me so much relief and pure serotonin. i think i’ve reread your ask ab 5 times already because you’re genuinely such an angel and it makes my heart wanna explode out of my chest <333 we need more people like you i wish everyone was so mindful and kind hearted like you dear anonie

BUT BESTIE WHEN YOU SAID TEENAGE KEVIN FROM BEN 10- STOP. LMFAO i am so so sorry i could not stop the ugly cackle that ripped out from me, the neighbours must think there’s a witch residing next door

i won’t lie i couldn’t stand watching ben 10 whenever it came up on cartoon network orsmth i just switched the channel and said no maams, not today

i love how times were so simpler as you said it was just you know wholesome fluff wanting to hold hands, etc- but now when we got men like yuuta? toji? OOF

i’ve been watching anime for a little over 3 years now so i’d love to give you some recommendations whenever you do have the time but we once again stan the same characters😭 literally down to a t BAHAHA

flaming hot piping ball of angry ginger aka chuuya nakihara is hands down one of the best characters in bsd <3 i like dazai, i guess, but he’s got the same type of personality as gojo and i think i would honestly get fed up being as an intj, it’s just a no from me

todoroki is one of my all time favs <33 he’s the second anime crush i had, first being levi (of course, i mean. why wouldn't he be?)

before tumblr and gintama i actually wrote a whole fic on ao3 for todoroki, which i think was my first public piece anyway? it’s kind of funny how the reason i got into writing was purely because i got fed up of sifting through ao3 and i went “alright. if no one’s gonna do it, i will.”

ALSO MAAMS YOU’RE FROM ENGLAND TOO???? i know this may not be extremely obvious because i tend to keep my works neutral (i tend to write in the standardised american way save for the main words like, ‘favourite’ ‘colour’ etc because i don’t want people reading things in a british accent… even though mine isn’t very noticeable, it’s just very standard, not chavvy or essex etc, it’s honestly a pet peeve. thats why i use pants, mom, grocery store) and we have freaking nothing, as you already know!! there’s a hmv near me and i was SO excited to see their anime collection just to see it was chock full of mainstreams like one piece, naruto, dbz 😐

but i managed to snatch an aot poster for £3!! and it’s really big too! it’s bigger than a1 so it’s a chunky boy

i don’t plan on wearing the merch outside because i’m just self conscious like that, i don’t hate human interaction and i’m not socially inept but i’d rather not answer mundane questions from people who don’t watch anime… also my waterstones is always sold out 😭 they almost never have any good manga and whenever they do it’s in the middle of the series, like book 7 or something..

yeah they totally have a statue of him! they’re doing a jjk exhibit in general. and at the train station they have cutouts of the characters, they might be to size too? ‘m not sure about the height or anything but i do know that they’re there. there’s also a haikyuu store that shows the players hand prints and you can put your hands flat against the displays to see the difference 🥺🥺🥺

going to japan in general is such a bucket list for me, there’s so much i wanna try but i’d love to go when the cherry blossoms are in season!

let’s call it even and we both buy each other merch then we can take some really cool photos :):) i’ve seriously been checking their website every day to snatch a few prints so i hope that you can grab ahold of some as well! u want the window seat on the airplane when we go shibuya?

love you!!! take care of yourself :))

[deobis]

hello!! just thought I'd stop by and say thank u for making content for us!! your little creations help make my day go by a little better :) also I thought I should ask whats your favorite thing about each tbz members if you dont mind? I'm in the mood to adore these boys more! 💞🥰

Heyo <3 been seeing this ask around my dash and i just want to say thank u!! this is so sweet and thoughtful <3<3 

my favorite thing about each member goes as follows:

Sangyeon: One of my favorite things about Sangyeon is his smile. There are also other things like the way he shows that he cares through both actions and words, his god awful dad jokes that always make me laugh, his absolute horrid losing streak at games; but none of them compare to his smile. If I had to say why, it’s because his smile incorporates all the things I love about him. I’ve said this before but TBZ’s smiles can be split into two categories: the pretty smiles and the dorky smiles and Sangyeon just happens to have one of the prettiest smiles out there.

Jacob: With Jacob, it’s his voice. You could say Jacob’s singing voice is what attracts people to him (which is true), but for me his tone is what I really love. Jacob speaks the language of the clouds. When he talks, it’s soft and warm but not too thick. His voice is sort of transparent? But in a good way. He speaks with care and almost always with a smile. 

Youngjoon: For Younghoon it’s his thoughtfulness. He thinks so much about how others around him act and feel and he’s not afraid to say it. A recent example is when he said he explained how he felt when he wasn’t able to go dance the RTK stage with his fellow members. I think this plays into why hes so emotional (and a cute crybaby haha). 

Hyunjae: Hyunjae’s duality is my favorite quality about him. Not duality like “sexy vs cute” but duality with seriousness and goofiness. He plays and interacts comfortably with the maknaes (they have said this many times) and he was a big part in making them feel comfortable in the group. But at the same time you can see his dedication and hard work. 

Juyeon: My favorite thing about Juyeon is his stage presence. Even though I tunnel vision on Sunwoo, He’s always able to catch my eye in any performance he’s in. His dancing skills and facial expressions really do make you want to focus on him. The amazing thing is: he can do this whether TBZ is doing a cute or sexy concept. He has so much control with how he presents himself on stage it’s amazing. 

Kevin: With Kevin, it’s his awareness. He pays attention to many things around him and continues to learn. Him being an artist might have helped him with this. He sees small details and it not only helps him adapt to those around him, but also to be as creative as he can be. 

Chanhee: Chanhee’s patience takes the cake. This isn’t a really obvious one, but I get the feeling that hes a very patient person. You can tell by the way he literally sits through TBZ bullying him. He also shows this trait through his vlives and the way he interacts with fans. He knows when he should be patient and when he shouldn’t tolerate misbehavior. Though he looks like he could be the youngest member, he’s very mature.

Changmin: Changmin is a Qt ball of mischievousness. He likes pulling pranks and taking risks. For such a smiley boy, he love horror and doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything. There’s literally no way to predict what he’s going to do next. Sometimes I wonder what goes through his brain or what he ate growing up for him to think the way he does. 

Haknyeon: Haknyeon’s confidence is one of his most attractive points. It hurts to think that everything Mnet/Broduce did to him might have lowered his confidence for a short period. But now we know hes ambitious and confident (thank god for the GENZ video). He holds himself with pride but can appreciate the talent of others.

Hyunjoon: My favorite thing about Hyunjoon is his boldness. Whether he expresses this through his fashion or dancing, he never seems to care what other people think (at least in regards to what he likes). Some might see his fashion sense as over the top or his dancing as too expressive, but he’s never backed down from his own style and continues to do what he likes.  I miss Hyunjoon so much 😔 he will forever be irreplaceable.

Eric: I love Eric’s, well, love. He has so much to give and I hope he knows he’s receiving even more. What’s even better is that he’s never afraid to show his love as well. His love for pink, his love for his family, his love for Juyeon his members, and of course, his love for his fans. As Kevin said, he has a big heart, maybe even the biggest one in the world. 

Sunwoo: I saved Sunwoo for last because I know I’m going to have a lot to say haha Just listing off the top of my head, some of the reasons I love Sunwoo are: His rapping, lyrics, humor, personality, cowardice, effortlessness, and much more (basically I love everything). But if I had to narrow it down to one specific trait, the thing I love most about him is his mannerisms. Sunwoo has many tiny little quirks that are so specific to him that I just can’t help but fall in love over and over again. On stage and off stage, there are so many small details that make Sunwoo Sunwoo. His habit of licking his lips, crossing his fingers, talking with his hands, rubbing his eyes, scrunching his nose, laughing with his mouth wide open, etc. Every little detail is precious and there are probably even more I haven’t noticed. His mannerisms aren’t just in visible actions we see in videos, he also updates the fancafe almost every day. It’s almost as if he treats it like his own little diary. Even if its just one line long or a ‘I love you deobis,’ he always remembers to connect with his fans. Of course, he has his flaws, but they’ve helped him grow. Sunwoo without his quirks isn’t Sunwoo, and I love him through every little detail.

[notthatiwilleverwriteit]

Favorite TV shows tag game 📺

I was tagged by @call-me-ala and @ginmayo (And a few days after this by @el-pintor​ ) Thank you! These are always great fun 😊 Because anime and Western television are kind of in different parts of my brain, I’m going to exclude anime shows this time. I couldn’t decide where the anime series I love would fit in on the list of my favorite Western shows.

#1 Breaking Bad

In my humble opinion, Walter White is the best-written TV character. The changes in him are seemingly obvious until even you can’t tell when you’re being manipulated by him. The details that have gone into making Breaking Bad are brilliant overall.

#2 BoJack Horseman

Listen, listen. I know what you might be thinking. A cartoon? Anthropomorphic animals? Pfft, yeah right. I was like that at first, too. Then this show had the audacity to turn out be one of the realest things I’ve ever watched. Though I can’t binge-watch this anymore because high dosages of BoJack makes me feel too sad and empty inside.

#3 Chernobyl

My parents had experienced the nuclear disaster and the epic cluster fuck that was the Soviet Union. Those things had always been parts of our history books and lessons at school. But watching non-Europeans reacting to this mini-series baffled me. It seemed not many people were at all familiar with the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, even less with why USSR was so desperately trying to cover the thing up with propaganda. This series is not only amazingly done but also a great history lesson.

#4 Game of Thrones

Yes, yes, I know. This show fell high and hard, but I don’t think it can be denied it’s still one of the most amazing TV shows ever produced. It took me a long time to jump this bandwagon because I’m not really into the whole Middle Ages, dragons and sword fights thing. But I was swept away by the compelling characters and storylines. If only the last season hadn’t been such a disappointment.

#5 House of Cards

Look, yes, I know. Most people would probably not have listed this show after what happened with Kevin Spacey, and I can’t blame you. What he did makes my skin crawl. But the man can act. He made this show, and I loved every second of it. Frank Underwood was another brilliantly written character. You started with rooting for him and ended up feeling hella conflicted. Unfortunately, this series also suffered from having a horrendous last season. The fall was high. Robin Wright did an amazing job as Claire Underwood, but unfortunately “F.U.” without the “F” is just a “U”.

#6 Better Call Saul

Imagine

Breaking Bad

, only with more humor and hustling. A spin-off that shares the same level of brilliant character writing as its predecessor. On good days, even higher than that. And the thing is, we know from the start how Saul will turn out and yet we’re holding our breaths for his life taking another turn somewhere along the way.

#7 Black Mirror

Another series that took me the longest time to check out. Almost every episode ended up being such a mind fuck. Gave a lot food for thought, that’s for sure.

#8 OZ

Nope, I’m not talking about the musical about wizards and flying monkeys from 1939 but about the Oswald State Correctional Facility. A gritty show about men in prison and surviving there. No disturbing stone is left unturned.

OZ

is said to have paved way for such legends as

Sopranos

, so it’s definitely an essential part of TV history.

#9 Queer as Folk (US)

This. show. changed. my. life. The first time I was exposed to LGBT couples on my TV screen and my life wasn’t really the same ever since. I had come for the queer but stayed for the folk! I had the biggest crush on Brian Kinney and went through a pretty intense Britin craze. Ugh, I’m getting the feels again!

#10 Frasier

I’m not big on sitcoms, but Frasier has always been a feel-good show for me. Comfort food. I know the lines and jokes by heart already but they still make me laugh. Niles Crane is one the funniest TV characters.

I tag: @voatsiperifery @hushmiit @ficsficsficsallfics and @iphanwhenikickthesticks You guys are always keeping my notes up! But no pressure 😊

[golgoterror]

Alright, this is ungodly long, but I just wanted to talk about something regarding Jake. 

A lot of this fandom -- at least, from what I’ve seen -- label Jake as stupid. Some may even say Jake and smart are antonyms. This could not be further from the truth. It almost irritates me how much the fandom places this mischaracterization on him. Also, I get to talk about The Lad™ for about ten pages worth of words on Google docs, which is always very, very fun for me.

Well, first things first, let’s talk about the child genius and multi-billionaire polymath that is Jake English.

Puzzle Modus.

Let’s begin with something small. Jake’s modus is of puzzlekind! This is described as:

It's quite a handy modus, allowing you to captchalogue objects of any size, as long as you can fit them all in a finite space by maneuvering the cards around like a big game of Tetris. You like it because it keeps you sharp for solving any puzzles you might find when you go out raiding hallowed tombs, which is never. (x)

He likes puzzles! This is a huge headcanon I absolutely adore that has a basis in the comic: He’s a puzzles guy! This is just sort of a neat little fact about him that I adore to the moon and back. Just the idea of Jake fiddling about with a Rubik’s Cube is kind of adorable.

This is how he goes about doing everything every day of his life. I think that’s just amazing! And incredibly smart of him, I might add.

Skaianet. 

Jake is shown in the credits to take over Skaianet after the game ended. For those unfamiliar, Skaianet made many things for the game, including but not limited to: the interstellar travel we see, transportalizers, the lab by Rose’s house, all Jake’s fancy-schmancy computers, and Sburb itself. In the beta timeline, Grandpa Harley founded Skaianet. In the alpha timeline, Grandma English did. I know Jake didn’t start it up and trying to pass off his alt-timeline self as him is a bit far-fetched at best, but he had the spoons to take it over. I think that speaks volumes for Jake’s intelligence -- this implies, at the very least, he can understand mathematics and physics at a high level. Remind you of someone we already know?

It is also important to note that Jake does, in fact, build the company back from the ground up, because it went to shit before his grandmother died:

GT: Pretty sure her company made a tidy fortune til it went belly up. At least i still have a few of her knickknacks for keepsakes. (x)

So he built an interstellar company back up -- using what his intelligent grandmother had once used -- to being very useful and practical once again. 

As someone with a degree in mathematics and about to finish a degree in physics, I can say this sort of work would for sure require at the very least a decent understanding of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, electrodynamics, calculus (vector and differential forms), ordinary and partial differential equations, and perhaps other things like topology. I don’t know about you -- and I’m probably tooting my own horn a bit by saying this -- but I think that’s pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. 

Actor.

Once again, I’m reaching into the credits to show that Jake has become a movie star after the game ends. Memorizing all those lines, slipping into characters... Being an actor is no easy feat. 

( Side note: This leads into my headcanon that Jake can imitate accents and voices on a whim. No more arguing about whether he has a British, American, or Australian accent -- you’re all right! )

And I would like to add he has two jobs! Skaianet and being a movie star! This guy’s a fucking polymath for Christ’s sake.

Reading People.

Let’s start of simple: Brain Ghost Dirk. I can hear the outcries now of Dirk’s powers being the cause for this. And, yes, I can’t ignore Dirk’s influence in this, but Jake’s hope powers were also needed for the projection to come alive. And the fact he was able to make such a startlingly accurate projecting of Dirk in his own mind is astounding -- even BGD himself thinks so!

TT: You could view me as a projection of the real Dirk within your mind, as expressed through all of your thought patterns about him. TT: So I'm kind of a splinter of his corporeal self who happens to live in your awareness. TT: I'm a startlingly close approximation to the real thing, for all intents and purposes. GT: Just how startlingly close are we talking? TT: I'm not going to give you a bogus percentage like the glasses cause that's not my shtick. TT: But pretty damn close. (x)

A very deep understanding of the other is needed for Jake to do this. That is pretty fucking incredible. He can clearly read people really well -- he had a few times where he was cluing in on Jane and Dirk have feelings for him:

TG: its one of those things jane likes about u so much GT: It is? TG: which TG: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr im not supposed to talk about 2 u evr so nm GT: Talk about what? TG: nope GT: You mean how um... GT: Well a way in which i suppose... TG: no nope GT: Jane is prone to looking upon me with what i fathom to be more than just friendly affection? (x)

TT: I guess call it an extra birthday present. But instead of a present that's awesome, consider it more like a weird confession that may change the way you feel about me. GT: Whoa uh... GT: Dirk are you... uh... GT: Saying what i think? (x)

He’s not completely clueless on people! In fact, he seems to have a really good understanding of his friends. That’s something a lot of people seem to forget because of the incident that I will be getting to later on.

Fending For Himself.

I’ve already written quite a bit on this, but I’ll sum it up here: Jake is exceptionally good at living in the wild and taking care of himself. Sort of like a wild garden; he doesn’t need to be taken care of. Survival skills, especially around fighting and fending off things, aren’t something everyone has. This, once again, counts in his favour, even if it doesn’t line-up with “book smarts”.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

That’s five things! It’s clear Jake is, in fact, a polymath and incredibly intelligent. So, what’s with the fandom painting him as being dumb? What’s with people actually thinking he’s stupid? I think we can all take several wild guesses as to why that’s the case.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Takes things literally.

This is something that plagues Jake quite a lot. Case in point:

GT: Wow like the epic kevin costner film? TT: Almost exactly. Especially by the same degree of shittiness. GT: Oh man does that mean you have to drink your own pee?????? TT: You get used to the taste. Welcome it, even. TT: That takes about 15 days in a row of hard piss drinking though. GT: Ewwwwwwwwwwww no dude. No ew. :( TT: Relax, I don't drink any goddamn piss, ok? GT: Oh ok. Whew. (x)

But, well, let’s address the elephant in the room. The chat I laughed so hard at when I read it the first time due to pure, unadulterated second-hand embarrassment: Jake asking Jane if she had feelings for him.

Let’s analyze this, shall we? Jake starts off by being vague as all Hell, and I’ll spare those details, until finally...

GT: Just come out and say it. Do you fancy me? GG: No! GT: I see. GT: Very well then. GT: Jeez i mustve really misread that one! I feel like kind of a bone head now. (x / x)

Okay, she says no, and he backs off. That’s fine and dand--

GG: No!!!!!! GG: Oh my God, what am I saying here? GG: Jake, I didn't mean it! I didn't want to make you feel that way! GT: Now jane lets not backpedal here. GT: Youve spoken the truth and i greatly appreciate and respect you for that. GT: But now that i think about it you know what? GG: ... GG: No? :( GT: Please dont take this the wrong way but your answer is actually kind of a relief! (x)

... Oh, right. Yeah. It keeps going. It just keeps--

GT: Actually since youve made your feelings apparent and only see me as a friend that makes it a lot easier! GG: Haha, yes! GG: Friends!!!! GT: Maybe you could help me sort out some stuff that has been weighing on me lately? GG: Well what are friends for Jake!!!!! (x)

Sweet Jesus, Jake.

GG: Me? GG: HOO HOO HOO! GG: I'm just GG: Terrific! GG: I'm feeling so... GG: Friendly!!! GG: I clearly just want to be a good friend and bring all my AMAZING FRIENDLINESS to bear on your problems. GG: Friendlystyle! Ahahahah? GG: Shit I mean GG: Ahahahah! GT: Thats aces. Jane youre a sweetheart. (x)

Alright, alright, enough! You all remember the fucking chat. 

Regardless, it’s very apparent Jake takes things at face value. I also will cite him talking to Jane before her birthday, but not list examples, because what happened above will just happen once again. 

Okay, so he takes things at face value. What’s wrong with that? He trusts people to not lie to his face -- to not sugarcoat things or beat around any bushes. Perhaps I’m projecting a bit, but I do the same damn thing. I think a lot of people do! I don’t think reading things as fact over text is a good measure of someone’s intellect. All it does is show he has issues with communication. Okay, so he struggles with one thing. Sue me.

Doesn’t catch things right away.

Yeah okay I’m just gonna dump a few examples of this.

GT: Haha wow. Must have been a hell of a guy. TT: So... TT: You're not making any connections there? GT: Where? Huh? TT: Famous comedian, about the age of your grandma, inheriting the family name of the Baroness... TT: Not ringing a bell? GT: What are you talking about! Dirk stop speaking in riddles and keep telling the story i am on tenterhooks here! TT: Ok, well it's not like it's that important. Just a super obvious thing that'll probably occur to you later when you're looking in the fridge you don't have, at which point you'll feel like an idiot. GT: Oh my god you can be one opaque motherfucker just clue me in bro! TT: Nah, it'll be funnier this way. GT: STRIIIIIIDEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!! TT: Moving on. (x)

GT: Whats going on? TT: Took you long enough to figure it out. TT: Pages really are a slow burning class. Damn. GT: Figure what out! TT: You're asleep. (x)

This leads into the point above. His mind doesn’t work that way -- but that doesn’t mean he’s not intelligent. He needs everything laid out in front of him so he can make the connections and understand what’s happening, but there’s no real harm in this, and it certainly doesn’t dictate whether the guy is “intelligent” or not.

There are many, many more examples in canon depicting Jake as having difficulties with communication and you all can open most of his pesterlogs and probably find one. I’m not going to list anymore. But, hold your horses, I swear I’m getting to a point!

Difficulty reading.

A lot of the media Jake consumes is picture-based. Movies, comics, even the puzzles are most likely spacial and probably not riddles. It’s not far to imagine Jake might not be a terribly good reader, considering nobody was really around to make him read. Of course, his grandmother was around when he was little, so he can read -- and he can read just fine. But he probably isn’t very good at it simply from lack of practice. He also has terrible grammar, something Jane picks on him for, so it’s entirely possible that’s a contributing factor. He may just have trouble reading and writing.

Speaking from experience, I have dyslexia. As such, reading and writing are incredibly hard for me. I never read the books in my literature classes -- both in English and French -- but I did get the gist of the books (enough to get a decent mark in the class at least) by watching a movie adaptation of the novel. I don’t think it’s that far-off to think Jake may, indeed, do the same thing.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

NOTE: This next part is a bit hard for me to write, because I don’t want to vilify any of you. It might not have clued in on anyone or maybe you just saw Jake as a sort of comic relief and meant no harm by it. And I hope shining a light on this will make you all think twice about the guy. However, I can’t really avoid this next part, and I may get a bit emotional in it. Just a bit of a warning.

All of the above points are just me trying to say Jake probably has undiagnosed learning disabilities and perhaps autism. I don’t think I need to go into detail about how those don’t make someone “stupid”. If you think that’s the case, fuck you. I can’t argue with ableists, much less do I actually want to. 

NOTE: I wrote a thing on his speech impediments. That may be of interest too. I don’t really know, but here it is nonetheless.

My take-away message here is: just because someone struggles with socialization or other things doesn’t mean fucking anything in terms of their intelligence. Jake is very clearly smart and has the ability to read people incredibly well -- to the point of making copies of them! Perhaps it’s just a bit easy to underestimate the guy compared to other characters, though.

There are other things that muddy this up a bit, unfortunately.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Trolling.

Jake is such a fucking troll. Jesus shitting Christ, does he get a kick out of acting stupid just to make the other person look silly. Or perhaps even to make himself laugh in the process. Case in point:

uu: I WILL JUST BE YOUR PATRON DUDE. uu: OR MAYBE. YOUR PATRON MANBRO. GT: Sounds pretty gay. uu: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? GT: Whats what? uu: GAY. WHAT'S GAY YOU IDIOT FUCK. GT: Oh right. GT: Forgive me i forget you arent familiar with all of my earth lingo. GT: Its like... GT: How do i explain. GT: You know. Its a rather old fashioned term for being jolly and festive together. GT: Like "that rollicking time we had scrumming the other eve sure was gay." uu: I SEE. uu: THEN YES. YOU ARE CORRECT. uu: THIS IS GOING TO BE GAY AS HELL. (x)

Look at his goddamn face during this exchange:

That little bastard knows exactly what he’s doing. 

And these aren’t stand-alone events! Jake is very, very silly and will use the fact others see him as stupid to have a little fun. May as well, right? And, in the process, he makes others look pretty damn stupid. 

But sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell when he’s acting stupid against when he’s genuinely not getting something. I think he even fools himself sometimes! So you have to be a bit careful about fake-outs. I’m sure even the other alphas have trouble deducing when he’s doing this -- which only adds to the myth of him actually being “stupid” when viewed on first-glace.

He probably also does this with crushes, purposefully ignoring the signs because he doesn’t want to deal with it or may not believe anyone could like him that way. After all, if he’s wrong, he may think himself to be conceded and having a big head. So, he ignores the signs, thus convincing himself the feelings aren’t there. Then he gets absolutely fucking bamboozled beyond belief to find out they actually do like him. But that’s just a little side-note.

Thinks he’s stupid.

This one is just a bit... Sad. Very sad. Jake genuinely does think he’s stupid. Quite a lot, really. 

GT: I shoulda asked where he fit into the picture if you were raised alone. I can be dumb as a bag of penny candy sometimes. (x)

Just... Man, he’s been called and treated as stupid so many times, he’s at the point where he believes it. If you asked him, he’d say Dirk is a genius, Roxy is always smart and sassy, and Jane is brilliant. (I don’t have a source for that last one but... Come on. She lectures him about grammar. Don’t fuck with me.) But when it comes to himself? He can’t say the same. Of course he then acts that way. He sees himself as a burly adventurer who is also a gentleman and tries to live up to that. No where along those lines does he think he’s intelligent. And that’s just... a little heartbreaking, really, all things considered.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Can’t believe this blog is just me going, “Wanna see how fast I can talk about Jake?”, and a shit-ton of people all nodding before I talk for six hours straight. Anyway, take-home message is: Jake’s smart. Jake’s very, very smart. He’s also a himbo, but he’s incredibly smart. Just because he has learning disabilities doesn’t mean fuck-all. 

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. There are drinks and refreshments in the back. Have a safe trip home. Remember to tip your waiters and waitresses. Jesus fuck can I run this gag any harder into the ground? Giving me language was a mistake. No but, really, if you read this whole damn thing, thank you! I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write.

[allforthecourtt]

rereading aftg with my dumbass opinions pt. 2 (tfc chapters 6-10)

pt. 1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3

look guys! its the highly unanticipated continuation of my reread of aftg!

chapter 6 (aka. meet this MESS of a team)

“My mother's family is French." It was a lie that probably had his British mother rolling over in her sandy grave.”

neil really never misses an opportunity to remind readers that he fucking buried his mom on the beach huh?

“A liar who practices occasional honesty. Clever. Keeps people guessing. Very effective. I would know. I do it myself, you see. Come on, then. After you.”

have i mentioned how entertaining high andrew is? because he’s funny as hell

also rereading these are fun because Nora is incredible at foreshadowing just sayin

“Neil automatically reached for his seatbelt, but one of the brothers was sitting on it.”

how neil would be in the back of the cousins’ car if they let him:

“You?" Neil said. "You can't." Andrew's smile curved wider. "Ohhh, that sounds like a challenge. Mother may I?" "Your mother's dead. I don't think she cares what you do.”

HO HO HOLY SHIT NEIL

“Starting a fight was too out of character for who he portrayed "Neil” to be, though.”

“Consider this your official invite, you suicidal wretch. I'm bringing you to Columbia with us this Friday.”

awe suicidal wretch... glad they’re starting those pet names early

“I don't drink or dance," Neil said.

andrew: i kno u can

“Kevin doesn't dance anymore”

anymore? ANYMORE??? release the cursed events that led to him not dancing anymore Nora im begging you

“Are you bleeding anywhere?" Matt asked. "Nowhere vital," Neil said.

gskjgnsak god i stan this little asshole so much

“She said it gently, with the hint of a smile on her face, but Neil still felt the rebuke. It was subtler but somehow deadlier”

have i mentioned how gay i am for renee? because im very gay for renee

“Allison looked ready for a photo shoot with perfect platinum curls, spiked heels, and a skintight dress.”

im also gay for allison ngl

“I can move if you want to sit here," Neil said. "No, this is fine." She smiled, but it had a smug edge to it, probably because Seth was glaring at them like he could kill them with willpower alone. ”

lol remember how neil doesn’t think he’s attractive and yet in 0.1 seconds after meeting him allison is like “yes this idiot is hot enough to piss off the other idiot im dating”

“Personal favorite was when someone told the police we were running a meth lab out of the dorm," Dan said sourly. "Police raids are awesome.”

no offence dan but that’s fucking hilarious omg

that’s kind of like the time my residence floor had to get evacuated bc some kids hotboxed their dorm room

god i love uni

“The death threats were creative, though," Nicky said. "Maybe this time they'll follow through and actually kill one of us. Let's vote. I nominate Seth.”

pfffffttttt i love Nicky omg

also hahahahahah foreshadowing!

“It'll be fine," Andrew said. "I promised, didn't I? Don't you believe me?" It took a while, but at last Kevin visibly relaxed. ”

again this is why i thought they were fucking for like the better part of the first two books

“The dead look Kevin turned on Andrew today was the same look Neil saw in his reflection. When Neil stopped acting, when he stopped worrying about who was watching, when he let go of the lies that kept him alive, that was the only expression he could make.”

it’s fine i didnt need a heart anyways

this kid is 18 hes A BABY

the first time i read this i was 18 too and like jfc i was a BABY at 18 and so i neil

“One of us has to make it, Mom." It wasn't going to be Neil. It was obvious he was too stupid to survive without his mother if he let himself get into messes like this. But maybe Kevin could do it.”

sorry let me just wipe my TEARS off my fucking laptop neil honey what the fuck

“He felt distant as he watched them walk in. Maybe he was already dying, his stupid soul fading from his short body in preparation for a brutal end.”

neil we get it you have depression (me too bitch u aint special)

“Fuck running," Seth said.

now that’s a whole ass mood

“he didn't know how Renee could smile so warmly when she was speaking to Andrew.”

haha bitch just wait

“when he slept, he dreamed of his father waiting for him on the Foxhole Court.”

remember how at the end of the series his father is waiting on the court but neil wins??? god we love good storytelling

this is such a fucking wild chapter

could you imagine? coming back from the summer and your first introduction to this amateur from arizona is this neil josten level of sass? because i’d probably kill him

first years are bad enough but first years who dont care about other people’s opinions? the fucking worst

chapter 7 (aka. neil does NOT have a fun night out)

“It seemed Allison and Seth didn't believe in middle ground: either they were slinging vile insults at each other or they were making out in the locker room regardless of whoever might be around.”

that’s just how the straights are

“It reminded Neil a little of Allison and Seth, except without the desperate sexual undertones.”

i’ll just leave this gem of a line here

“His teammates held so little regard for him he didn't even have the dubious honor of being dead last.”

neil shading himself is actually hilarious how relatable

“Neil watched him do it, trying to remember the last time someone gave him a gift and coming up blank. That his first one should be from Andrew was unsettling.”

i actually love the fact that andrew bought him clothes so early on like andrew your gay is showing

“Neil debated how much damage the thick heels of his new boots would do against Andrew's face and liked what his mind came up with.”

i thank god everyday that these books are neil’s pov

“Andrew gave Neil another slow once-over and let go. "We're going.”

^andrew seeing neil w/o contacts (aka. the ‘i can’t think straight’ vine)

“Most of the men wore leather, half the women had corsets, and a good number of both genders were covered in buckles and chains.”

this... is a... gay bar

“Andrew saluted the bouncers on his way by and led the way into the club, bypassing the line entirely.”

i always forget the drinking age in the us is 21 but like this bar really dont care about their liquor license AT ALL lmao

“You think Kevin would risk his future over a night out at the club?" "What future?" Neil asked.”

WOW NEIL WAY TO BE A BITCH

“Neil hadn't seen Aaron get up, but he was waiting behind Neil when Andrew let go. Neil reached for Andrew with lethal intent, but Aaron grabbed the back of his chair and pulled hard enough to topple it over.”

why are the twins literally this gif:

real talk nicky kissing neil like that is horrible and really reflects poorly on nicky as a character

andrew for this entire chapter:

chapter 8 (aka. a hitchhiker’s guide to lying about your identity)

“I don't know how your conversation with Andrew went, but it didn't end well. Rumor has it you paid a busboy a hundred bucks to knock you out. Way to cut our night short.”

this is probably my favourite thing neil does in the entire series ngl

“Wymack grabbed his elbow and hauled him inside. He slowed just long enough to slam the door behind Neil. "Are you stupid or just crazy? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you between here and there? What were you thinking?”

Why does Wymack literally sound like my father?

foxes: daddy?

wymack: DO I LOOK LIKE

follow up:

kevin: daddy?

wymack: uh yeah

“I don't know what the beef is between you two, but it ends here and now.”

Wymack @ neil: tell your boyfriend, if he says he’s got beef that your a vegetarian and your not fucking scared of him

“Then correct me." "Give me a reason." "Besides the obvious?" Andrew said. "If I can't get an answer from you, I'll get it wherever I can.”

andrew:

“I'm—" Neil didn't want to say it, but the word was already there, broken and pathetic between them, "—nothing. I'll always have and be nothing.”

“He wondered for a moment if Andrew could handle the entire truth so calmly, but that was too dangerous and stupid to consider.”

“Hope was a dangerous, disquieting thing, but he thought perhaps he liked it.”

this is such a good fucking line like i am shooketh

chapter 9 (aka. neil is, like, really horny for exy)

“Are you stupid?" Seth asked. "Yeah," Neil said.”

what a fuckin MOOD

“Neil had almost forgotten why he liked Exy so much. He did his best at practices but these days he worked mostly to keep his teammates off his back. As Neil surveyed Kevin's damage, he finally felt inspired again. On its heels was a hungry, desperate rush.”

“Seth made as if to throw his beer at Neil. "His life is not more important than mine just because he's more talented.”

sometimes i really wish seth was actually given a chance to have some character development

“ "Maybe you're not as stupid as I thought." "Maybe I am," Neil said”

another big fucking MOOD

chapter 10 (aka. shocking: university is hard :/ )

“It's fun telling Kevin no," Andrew said with a wicked grin.”

why is andrew like this omg

betsy probably was like just looking for a chill job and was like “oh cool uni students? ill have to deal with like a lot of anxiety, sexual tension, depression and like confusion about the future, not to bad” but NOPE welcome to the fucking MAFIA WARS

“That wasn't so bad, was it? Andrew was convinced it would be a disaster. He put money on you hating Betsy." "Did you bet against him?" "Yes," Renee said. "It was a private bet between the two of us.”

“I hope you didn't lose much," Neil said.”

god why is he such an asshole at every opportunity i love him

“I can take care of myself," Neil said. "Watch me beam with pride.”

wymack is the best father in the world and you cant convince me otherwise

“There was one for every fall team with schedules printed on each. Neil kept the Exy one, tossed the rest into the trash, and buried his magnet deep in his pocket where he didn't have to look at the dates.”

neil “i only care about exy” josten strikes again with his great school spirit

“Palmetto State was facing Edgar Allan on Friday, October 13th”

that’s such a cliche and i love it

“He detoured around students toward one of Palmetto State's three dining halls. Two were for the general student body. The third was for athletes only”

lmao my school literally has one dining hall and it couldnt give less of a fuck what type of student they’re selling food too as long as they’ll pay $15 for chicken fingers

what kind of money does palmetto state fuckin have

like i get us tuition is a lot but jesus so’s mine and my school couldn’t be less fucked

“It was only the first day of school and he already had three assignments: a short paper, a fifty-page chapter to read, and a page of questions about said chapter. Neil debated for a minute as to which one sounded least painful. Five minutes later he was still uninspired, so he put his head down on his desk.”

1. MOOD

2. first years are so cute thinking that’s a lot of assignments i remember in first year being like “i have to read 40 pages thats so unfair :(” and now i’m like “ah sick only 200 pgs of readings this week? im gonna have so much free time!”

upper year history sucks ngl

“I'm fine," Neil said.”

neil knows exactly two (2) words and those are it

“You say that an awful lot," Matt said. "I'm starting to think you don't know what it means.”

overall thoughts:

the plot is pickinnnng upppp

i kind of forget how much world building happens in the first book but like its good

also i love neil literally hating everyone its so funny bc like bby these going to be your best friends just wait

anyways that’s all for now

part 3 will be the rest of tfc and then we’ll move onto trk if you guys still want more of this? let me know

love u all bye

[trashyficsfortrashykids]

The Art of Grieving

Prompt: emilycowley said: “Can you do an imagine where your dating reggie and you’re in bed togther in the morning and then your best friend (keller) calls you saying Jason died and you tell reggie and he hits rock bottom? He gets drunk and shuts you down and you cant reach out to him. But u find him when vulnerable, you just hug him and comfort him?”

A/N: I hope I deliver. I also changed the title and this is the first thing I’ve written in a really long time so I apologise if I’m a little rusty.

Tags: Murder, spoilers but not really spoilers if you’ve watched the show, sad reggie, angst, underage teenage drinking, mentions of drug use, minor violence, swearing, repetitive language, fake spoilers, non-canon events, dealing with death, emetophobia, vomit

Word Count: 3.9k

-

-

    The day Jason Blossom went missing my phone didn’t stop ringing for hours, my friends visited me to see if I was okay, they all knew how close I was with the Blossom boy.  I didn’t care too much about the people checking in to see if I was okay, I only cared about Reggie Mantle.

    My door almost flew off its hinges with how hard Reggie was banging on it, I opened it and was greeted with the upsetting site of a puffy eyed Reggie. It was obvious he’d been crying; the only person who cared about Jason more than Cheryl was Reggie. Those two boys were practically inseparable, always spending time together, almost like brothers.

    It was obvious that Reggie didn’t care about most things our small town, but when he did care about something he cared with all the parts of his being and it was like he was being torn to shreds when he lost it. Jason Blossom meant the world to Reggie and then some, I wasn’t even bothered that he loved Jason more than he loved me, his own girlfriend, because I understood what it was like to love something with such an intensity that I couldn’t be upset that he didn’t love me the same way he did Jason.

    “He’s missing, they can’t find him, Y/N. What if he doesn’t come home?” Reggie sniffs, he’s sitting on my bed with his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees. “What if-” He can’t finish the thought.

    I sit next to him and wrap my arm around his shoulder trying to console him, “Reg, they’re gonna find him. His parents are going to do everything they can to find him, I promise Reggie, he’s going to come home.” I murmur, pulling him in close to me to hug him. He cries against me for some time before he falls asleep, he must be so stressed out and exhausted.

*****

    Everyone had heard the rumours, created theories, and speculated about where Jason Blossom might be, but the underlying problem was that without a body, nobody could be certain of the whereabouts of the Blossom boy.      Cheryl wasn’t much help, giving little information to the police about their small boat capsizing while they spent the morning on Sweet Water River. She could only say that he had gone under the water and that was the last she saw of him. It didn’t help that she had completely shut both Reggie and I out, despite how close we all were and how much the pair of us cared for Jason.      Nothing made sense, people couldn’t understand why his body hadn’t turned up. The river would have certainly spat his body back onto the shore after a week; but still nobody could find him.      Both Reggie and I were worried sick about where Jason could be, had he run off with Polly? Had his mother sent him away like she often threatened with Cheryl? With next to no information, we had conducted searches of our own, we only wanted our friend to come home. We wanted someone to find him, so we weren’t so worried about where he might be, about what might have happened. These ‘what if’s’ where driving us insane.

    It was three in the morning, a week and a day after Jason Blossom disappeared. My caller ID informed me that it was Kevin Keller, a close friend of mine and the Sheriff’s son.

    “Hello?” I whisper, trying not to wake Reggie who was sleeping beside me. “Are you okay?”

    “I’m fine, I’m okay. I think, maybe a little mentally scarred and a little traumatised but I’m okay.” He’s talking fast, I can tell he’s scared.

    “Kevin, what’s happened?” I sit up, Reggie shifts beside me. “Calm down, just tell me.”

    “Y/N, I need you to listen to me very carefully.” He begins. “I went down to Sweet Water with Moose, we were along the riverbank and,” he takes a deep breath, “Y/N, we found Jason’s body.”

    Shock shoots through me and I try and keep myself composed, “Is he okay?” I know the question was a pointless one to ask, after a week alone and in Sweet Water there was no chance of Jason being in good health. I just needed good news, anything other then what I knew I would hear come out of Kevin’s mouth.

    “He didn’t drown, he looked like he hadn’t even been in the water.”  Kevin says.

    “Then how did he die?” I ask.

    The line is quiet for a moment and I check my phone to make sure Kevin didn’t accidentally hang up. “Kevin?”

    Kevin talks slow, but I don’t think I hear him correctly, everything around me moves slowly. It’s like the entire world is freezing over. “He was shot in the head, there was a bullet wound between his eyes.”

    I press end, not even saying goodbye to Kevin. I know that he wouldn’t lie to me, even if he did see Jason’s body first hand or not. I tried calming myself down, but I couldn’t help the tears as they started to overflow, how was I going to tell Reggie that someone had murdered his best friend?  

    “You lied to me.” Reggie’s voice is hoarse, still laced with sleep but I hear it from behind me.

    I sniff, turning to look at him, “What?”

    Reggie sits up, the sheet pulling up and over his knees. “You lied to me.’ He repeats, “You told me that Jason was going to come home.”

    “Reggie-” I try.

    He ignores me, getting off the bed, “You fucking lied to me.” He makes his way to the wall, turning the light on. It’s bright and I squint, my eyes trying to readjust. He reaches for his shirt on the ground, pulling it over his head. He picks his trousers up and pulls them up. “You told me, he was going to come home, you told me everything was going to be fine!”

    I rest my face in my hands, shaking my head. “Do you really think I believed that, myself?” I say, “Do you?”

    “You don’t say shit that isn’t true!” He yells, running his hand through his hair.

    “What do you want me to say? He’s dead? He’s not coming back? Jason Blossom is dead, dead and gone?” I yell back.

    “Shut the fuck up!”

    “Don’t talk to me like that, Reggie. I’m just as upset as you are.” I keep my voice steady, not wanting him to be any more then he already is. He balls his hands into fists and presses them against his temples. “Dead boys don’t come home Reggie.” I whisper.

    “Fuck you!” He roars, “Fuck you, you don’t get to fucking say that to me!”

    My door swings open, my Mom is standing in the doorway in her pyjamas. “What the hell is going on?” she questions. She looks angry.

    Reggie storms past her, “I was just leaving,” he huffs and disappears down the hall. I don’t say anything or try and call him back, I know he needs and wants his space and I’m not going to take it from him.

    My Mom comes and sits on the end of my bed, “Care to explain?” she asks.

    I take in a deep breath, the unfolding events that just happened in such a short amount of time is all too much, tears well in my eyes again and they spill over my cheeks. My chest feels so heavy and a lump rises in my throat. “Mom, the found Jason.”

    “Where was he?” She can see from my reaction that he isn’t okay.

    “Kevin found him on the bank at Sweet River.”

    “He drowned?”

    I shake my head, wiping my nose with the back of my hand and letting out a soft sob. “They say he was murdered, the know he was murdered. When Kevin found him, he had a bullet wound between his eyes. He was executed, Mom. Someone executed Jason Blossom.” She moves closer to me, scooping me up in her arms and holding me while I cried, hard. “What am I going to do without him? The only people I really loved was Reggie and Jason, what are we going to do, Mom?”

    “Oh sweetheart. I’m so sorry about your friend, it must be so hard.” She tries to calm by rubbing my back and holding my head against her chest. “There is only healing and recovery from here.” She says.

    “Who could be so cruel to do that? Jason Blossom never hurt anybody, why would someone do that to him?”

    “Some people in this world do heartless things, Y/N, we can’t help that. You need to let the police do their jobs and find whoever did this. For the moment, you, and Reggie both need one another. This is something that is so heavy it can’t be faced alone.” She says.

    “He doesn’t want to see me, Mom. He says I lied to him.” I sniff.

    “What did you lie about?”

    I move away from her, pulling my knees close to my chest. “I told him Jason was going to come home.”  

    “Y/N, hope makes us believe impossible things. Try and get some sleep, all right? Did you want to take tomorrow off school?” She offers.

    I shake my head, “No, it’s okay. Thanks though.”

    She gets off my bed and heads for the door, pulling it closed halfway, “Reggie will come around, Y/N. He might just need time.” She switches my light off and closes the door completely.      I curl up under the covers and stretch my arm out over the empty side where Reggie was a sleep minutes ago.

    It wasn’t easy to understand, or comprehend completely, but the murder of Jason Blossom ripped through our small hometown of Riverdale like a tornado, everyone had secrets to hide and everyone in some way or another, disliked the red-headed Blossom boy.

    I just never knew a dislike of someone could escalate to murder.

*****

    “Hey, it’s Reggie Mantle. Sorry I can’t answer your call now. Try calling me back later to see if I answer then. ‘Beeeep’.”

    “Shit.” I mumble, ending the call. This was the fifth time today, the sixteenth in three days, that I had been sent to Reggie’s voicemail, he wasn’t responding to my texts or answering my calls.     He had been active on social media so I knew he wasn’t sleeping or busy and I’d caught fleeting sights of him in the hallways at school. He just didn’t show up to his classes.

    I try Betty, maybe she might know where he is, Reggie was always drawn to a room with Jughead to cause an unnecessary argument, some days I wondered if those boys had magnets in their stomachs.

    “Hey, Y/N, how are you?” She answers on the third ring.

    “I’m okay, Betty. Have you seen Reggie at all today?” I ask, biting the corner of my nail.

    “Yeah, He was at Pop’s just a minute ago, he didn’t seem like he was in a good place either. He was agitated and upset, even tried to physically fight Jughead.” She tells me.

Fuck Reggie, what are you doing? I think to myself. “Thanks, Betts.”

    “Y/N?” She adds.

    “Yeah?”

    “I think he may have been drunk.” She mumbles into the receiver.

     “Are you sure?” I question, it doesn’t sound like Reggie to be drinking so early in the day, let alone a school day.

     “I could smell the alcohol on him when he came over to our booth, he was slurring and wasn’t making any sense. He was asking which one of us did it, why we did it. He was acting completely out of control.” She explains, I can hear the worry in her voice.

    “Betty, I’m so sorry he was harassing you and Jughead.” I apologise.

    “It’s okay, Y/N. You didn’t do anything wrong, Jughead and I aren’t upset about the incident, we’re just more worried about Reggie’s safety. After hearing the news about Jason…” She pauses, and figures out something else to say. “We get it, okay? Let me know if you need help finding him.”

    “I will. Thank you again, Betty, it means a lot.”

    “Anytime.”

    I end the call and look out my bedroom window, Reggie isn’t handling this situation very well and I’m starting to worry. Ignoring me for three days was okay, I’d hurt him by promising him things that were never going to happen. But trying to fight Jughead just because he’s grieving is unacceptable.      I try and call someone else who might now the whereabouts of Mantle.

    “What?” Even though she answers bluntly, I can still catch the hint of a quivering voice.

    “Have you seen Reggie?” I question, running my hand through my hair, “I don’t know where he is.”

    “Why would I know where your boyfriend is? It’s not my job to track everyone in Riverdale.” She hisses. “Instead of sitting alone in your bedroom, get out and find him yourself.”

    “Why are you being like this?” I ask.

    “Oh?” She seems offended, “Sorry, my brother just died. Did you want me to try and be a little cheerier for you? How about ecstatic? Maybe I can come and do fucking cartwheels in your front yard to show you how pleased I am that Reggie is missing, maybe I can conduct a search party for your Beau?” Her sarcasm shoots knives through the phone.

    “That isn’t what I meant, I want to know why you’ve completely shut Reggie and I out. You know we loved Jason too, and we’re hurting as well. It isn’t just you, Cheryl. Reggie’s missing because of this whole situation and I would really like to find him before he does something stupid or something he’s going to regret.” I try and keep my voice calm.

    I hear her breathe deep into the phone. “You were Jason’s friends, not mine. Please don’t act like you care about me, I know nobody does and I know what everyone at school thinks of me. So please don’t pretend that we can grieve together.” She says softly.

    “Cheryl-”

    “Reggie is at the Twilight, it’s where he and Jason spent their last night together.” She hangs up, the phone beeps in my ear.

     My heart breaks for Cheryl Blossom.

*****

    I make my way to the Twilight Drive-In, it isn’t hard to find him. He’s sitting close to the large cinema screen, taking swigs from a bottle, wiping his face with his letterman jacket.

    “Reggie?” I say, getting closer to him.

    He turns his head to look at me, I can see that his face wet from crying, he sniffs and turns away. He lifts the bottle of Jack to his lips and takes another drink; he cringes as he swallows. “What do you want?”

    I sit next to him, rubbing my legs, it’s getting cold and I forgot to bring my jacket. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

    “I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be? Nothing is wrong.” He wipes his nose, he refuses to look at me. “Wanna feed me any more lies?”

    That’s fair, I don’t try and fight him on that, grief makes people do and say things they don’t really mean and I can understand why Reggie is being this way. “I heard about what happened with you and Jughead at Pop’s, did you want to tell me about it?”

     “Nothing to tell.”

    “You accused your friends of killing Jason.”

    He sniggers, “Friends.” He takes another drink. “What friends?”

    I sigh, none of what I’m saying is getting through to him, “Reggie, are you just drinking? Is that all you’re doing?” I question.

    He nods, burping. “Today that’s all I’m gonna be doing.”

    “What do you mean?”

    He reaches into his pocket and produces a small ziplock bag full of green buds. It’s pot and anger rises in me. “Reggie what the fuck are you doing with that stuff?”

    “What’s it to you?” He puts the ziplock bag back into his pocket and stretches out, his bottle is half empty. “You don’t fucking control me, Y/N, you don’t get to say what I can and can’t fucking do.”

    “You’re doing drugs, Reggie! Not only is it illegal but I don’t fucking like you doing it. It’s disgusting.” Anger rises in me, in just a few days Reggie has gone from the sweet boy I fell in love with to someone I barely recognised. “Why are you doing this? Explain to me why! Because I don’t seem to understand, I don’t get it. You’re starting fights with people who are here to help you, you’re drinking excessively, and you’re smoking pot!”

    He tries to get up, staggering a bit he takes another swig of his drink. “Whatever, I don’t have to sit here and listen to this bullshit.” He slurs, adjusting his jacket.

    I stand up as well, “Reggie if you keep doing these things, Jason isn’t the only person you’re going to lose.” I push past him and head towards my car. I try to control the lump that rises in my throat and the tears that well in my eyes but this is all so hard, loving Reggie when he’s grieving, when he’s in so much pain is difficult. Trying to grieve for your friend while you slowly lose another person you love is an unimaginable pain.

*****

    It had been a week since the incident with Reggie at the Twilight, I had decided to give him space and let him deal with the emotions he was experiencing on his own. I couldn’t be the one to tell him the way he needed to feel, there isn’t a correct way to grieve. There isn’t a right or wrong way when it comes to the death of someone you care about. Reggie had just chosen a darker way of healing from Jason’s death.

    I had given him the space I felt he needed, but I didn’t ignore him completely and I continued to keep an eye on him just to make sure he wasn’t doing anything extremely self-destructive; Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, and Kevin promised to watch him for me.

    My phone buzzes in my pocket, I reach to grab it and look at the caller ID. “Hey, Ronnie.” I answer. “What’s up?”

    “We’re in the boy’s locker room. Can you get here quickly?” She sounds erratic, worried almost. “Yeah, Archie, I get it! Just keep him there!” She yells away from the phone.

    Anxiety spreads through me, I know why Ronnie is calling and I start to run full pelt down the hallway in the direction of the boy’s locker room. “I’m on my way.” I end the call; my sneakers squeak on the linoleum floor of the hall as I turn to take a different path. I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get there, I don’t know what state Reggie is going to be in when I reach him. So many bad thoughts circle my mind and I’m close to crying.

    I barge through the locker room door to find Veronica and Betty standing by the first aisle of lockers, the turn and hurry towards me engulfing me in a hug. “Y/N, Arch found Reggie under the bleachers. He was so drunk, Y/N. We bought him here and then he started throwing up and when he finished he started calling out for you.” She explains.

    I move around the lockers and see Archie and Jughead with Reggie in one of the showers, a waste paper basket clutched in his hands. They look at me, moving away from Reggie. “Reg?” I say softly, his head lolls to the side and I can tell he’s extremely intoxicated.

    “Y/N? Is that you?” He whines. “Is it you?”

    My bottom lip quivers, he looks so vulnerable, so small. He isn’t Reggie Mantle, here, he’s just a sad kid who lost his best friend. “Yeah, it’s me.”

    He stretches out his arm, offering me to take it. “C’mere, I missed you so much.”

    I move to him, sitting beside him. He doesn’t smell nice, he reeks of alcohol and sick. “What are you doing, Reggie?” I ask. From the corner of my eye, I see the others moving away, offering us privacy.  “What’s going on with you?”

     He rests his head on his shoulder, his eyes closed. “I’m just trying to not make it hurt so much.” He chooses his words carefully, he’s out of breath. “Right now, it all hurts so much inside of me and I don’t know how to make it stop.”

    I hold the hand he offered to me and kiss the back of it. “I know it hurts, Reggie, but doing this to yourself isn’t going to make it stop. It’s going to hurt for such a long time, but the pain is good. It tells you that you’re human, that you’re alive. Don’t numb it out.”

    “I know the pain will stop, Y/N.” He starts. “But there’s a black hole inside of me and I’m not sure it’s ever going to go away.”

    I pause for a moment, thinking about what he’s said. “A Jason sized hole?”

    He starts to cry, it’s ugly, hard sobbing, he moves the waste paper basket and covers his face with his free hand. “Y/N, why did he have to die? Why did he have to be taken away? Why did I lose my best friend?”

    “You can’t keep asking the ‘why’s’, Reggie. You’re never going to get an answer and you’re not going to fill up the space Jason left by putting yourself through this, it’s killing you. Do you remember what Jason said? Do you?” I ask.

    He sniffs and does his best to look at me, “He said to never mourn him if he died.”

    I nod, agreeing with him, “But you’re mourning him, Reggie. You’re mourning him in your own little way, I need you, Reggie. You need me, we can’t do this alone, we can’t grieve him by ourselves.”

    “But it’s so hard.” He starts to cry again.

    “Jason left his mark on this world, and he influenced a lot of people, he fell in love with Polly, and they were going to have a child together. When that baby grows up it’s going to need someone to tell it how wonderful, how amazing it’s dad was and you can’t do that if you’re drinking yourself stupid every day.”

    He wipes his eyes, cuddles in closer to me and apologises. “Do you really think the pains going to stop?” He questions.

    “One day.” I say, “it’s going to take time and it isn’t going to be easy, but it isn’t going to hurt so much. As much as it does.”

    “Are you lying?”

    “No, I’m not.” I start to get up, “let’s get you home Reggie.”

    The others help me to carry him out into the parking lot and to my car.

    Jason Blossom’s murder shook our small town of Riverdale, it shattered friendships and turned families against families. His death turned the strongest of people into the weakest.  Getting over the heinous crime, how violent Jason’s end was, wasn’t going to be easy. But we could try.  We could slowly mend ourselves and rebuild our lives and hope that his killer would be brought to justice, but in the mean-time all we could do was collect the pieces of us we lost in the past few weeks and start to heal.

Slowly, and surely.

[zoetekohana]

I finally watched “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” and I wrote down all my reactions:

Here it goes... COWABUNGA MY TURTLE DUDES.

Ooooh I love the use of ninja throwing stars for the Paramount stars.

I’m also digging the music.

TURTLE FORMATION

Omg, Mickey, no squirrel formation. (I don’t want to see those creepy squirrels from the 2012 series.)

Honestly, even though the plot of the 2014 film wasn’t great (hopefully this one will be better), they had the personalities down to a tee, and it’s great to see that’s still the case.

The way they depict the sibling relationship between Leo, Raph, Donnie and Mickey is so awesome to watch. Not to forget: the fact that they actually act like teenagers is such a plus.

Case in point: Donnie repeatedly telling Raph to “do it do it do it do it do it [the shellskateboarding thing]”. I love it.

Hahahaah, Kevin the pizza guy. Such a nice Kevin Eastmann cameo!

Donnie: “When I say Knicks you say Go.” I’m reminded of the failed “When I say Vol you say Tron.” speech. But at least the bros got it right.

Vern The Falcon? Oh no....

Hahaha, shooting the little spit balls at Vern and then mimicking his falcon. See, such teenagers.

APRIL IS CALLING DONNIE.

I REPEAT APRIL IS CALLING DONNIE.

Yes, I ship them. Shush.

Also, that blonde wig + glasses look really good on Megan Fox? 

Baxter Stockmann... He’d go with a FLY FORMATION.

Donnie to April: “Do you need us there?”  Awwww.

April to Donnie: “That birthday present that you made for me?” AWWW.

Yes, April, explain Baxter the difference between geek and nerd.

Omg, Baxter, that laugh.

Ofc there needs to be some Megan Fox fanservice... /eyeroll (She was pretty badass going undercover, but still that was unnecessary.)

HAHAHA I LOVE THE DONNIE SMILEY FACE ON HER WATCH WHEN THE DOWNLOAD OF THE FILES IS COMPLETE!

Oh no, the pizza slice on the basketball court....

Poor Mikey, he just want to “LIVE UP THERRRREEE. Up there where flowers bloom.” (And now I have that South Park song stuck in my head.) 

Also, a Transformers reference, really?

Wait;;; How are the copied files on April’s watch being deleted? She downloaded them? She wasn’t streaming them....

But good on her for discovering that Baxter is working with Shredder (where did that hunch come from though?) and that he + the Foot Clan plan on breaking him out when he’s being transferred.

Casey Jones as a law enforcer? That’s new? 

Ngl, I don’t really like that detail. It doesn’t suit him.

BEBOP AND ROCKSTEADY!!!!! :D

It’s not a Michael Bay production without car explosions. /eyeroll (again)

Also, NYC believes that Vern stopped the Shredder. Why didn’t the NY police ask him to accompany this super important transfer?

Hahaha, that tmnt theme’d honk. I LOVE.

Great updates on the Turtle Shell, Donnie.

Raph when taking out the last of three foot bikers: “That’s how I roll. That’s how you roll.”

Why didn’t Raph stay on the bike? He could cover more ground that way.

Soooo, Baxter knows of the Turtles. 

I love how personalised the Turtle Shell is.

Hi there, Krang! 

So, lemme get this straight: Krang needs the three teleport devices he sent to Earth to join them into an arch capacitor to teleport the Technodrome to Earth to conquer it. But he was able to teleport Shredder to where he was. Something does not add up there... 

So many plotholes.

But whatever, I’m still enjoying this. :) 

Donnie and April make such a great team.

But how is she going to get to the TCRI’s mainframe? (Also, how is she going undercover everywhere? Isn’t she recognised as a television reporter?)

Chief: “Manhole covers?”

That was some nice exposition on Jones wanting to become a detective. Like really? It was so odd to tell your superior who’s clearly mad at you that.

The casting for Bebop and Rocksteady is so spot on.

It’s still weird not to have the Shredder vs Splinter backstory. It feels like Splinter is just there now? He’s more important than that. :(

Is that barkeep the Vulture from b99? 

Quickly looked it up, yep, that’s Dean Winters. :D

It’s not a Turtles movie without some Vanilla Ice. ;)

Reporter thing aside... Why go on this important undercover mission on high heels? Everyone can hear you. That’s not stealthy there, April. 

I get that the purple ooze is different (iirc from the 1987 series) - although I’m not a fan of a different kind of mutagen -, but why not mention the green ooze? They have the green mutagen from the previous film that mutated the Turtles and Splinter? Or am I completely remembering the 2014 film wrong?

Also, how did Shredder shoot two darts into two different directions? 

Yes, that gun has two barrels, but he shot both darts practically at the same time?

Also, how are they mutating into a warthog and a rhinoceros without the DNA from those animals? 

The way they transformed, that sequence, was pretty cool, though.

Hmm, so we all have a dormant animal gen. It’s an explanation for not needing the animal DNA, I guess.

YES TO HBIC APRIL O’NEIL!

So Casey wants to be a detective, but then suits up as the Hockey Vigilante we know and love. That really doesn’t make much sense.

April to Casey: “Stacey Moans?”

Stacey’s mom has got it going on.... And now I’ve got that song stuck in my head, haha.

Amell physically makes a good Casey Jones. But I’m sorry to say, he’s so stiff and mainly has two faces: this :| or this :D. I’m not a big fan of this casting. I’m okay with it, but idk.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And Koteas is forever my favourite Casey Jones. 

Casey to the turtles: “Do not eat us humans.” Are we really going with that joke?

I love Mickey’s introduction of the Turtles to Casey. :D

DONNIE’S POSE . <3

Haha, Mikey and Raph keeping Casey out of the huddle.

Leo about Casey: “Raph, grab Friday the 13th.” Great reference.

Casey: “And have the most pretentious names ever.” 

”Is it me you’re looking for?” ♫ Omg, Splinter listening to pop ballads. I love. xD

Of course Donnie could turn the ooze so they could become humans.

Don’t keep secrets from your brothers, Leo. 

Awww, Mickey. The one who wants to be among humans the most. :(

A Turtle Christmas album?? I WANT!

Leo: “There’s only one vote that counts in this family: Mine!” Harsh, bro.

Awww, ofc Donnie loves museums. :)

Casey to Vern: “See you there.” Mikey to Vern: “See you there.” Vern: “He already said that.” That made me laugh more than it should have.

I love how Leo and Donnie are riding the subway like that.

They’re not monsters. :’(

I want to give Mickey a big hug.

Leo to Splinter: “I can’t get them all on the same page, to think with one mind.” Splinter to Leo: “You shouldn’t want them all to think the same. It’s their different points-of-view that makes the team strong. A good leader understands this. A good brother accepts it.” I love this. 

Seriously, the personalities and the interactions are so on point.

Where did Beebs and Rock get a tank???

So many fistbumps in this film, omg.

I forgot to mention this before, but I like that Donnie isn’t as muscle-y as the others. I do like these different personal designs.

Also, Donnie easily jumping to go to the other plane. That was great.

Raph: “What would Vin Diesel do? No regrets, no fear.” Hahahaha.

Whoa, really, shooting from a tank inside a plan? “Dude seriously” is the right reaction.

Also, how is Donnie able to stay inside that open cockpit??? 

Lbr, Donnie is the mvp in this film.

“THIS PIG IS FLYING!” Hahahahahaha.

Raph seeing that turtle. A reference to Spike, maybe? :D

Okay, that entire river sequence was AWESOME!!! 

I wouldn’t change one things about it: from seeing the turtles swim under water, to Raph saving Donnie from the tank missile, to the four of them hiding in their shell (along with that “ploemp” sound effect) when going down the water fall.

Leo (sarcastically): “Thanks, guys. Real time effort.” Wow, way to be a dick there. :/

”Justice comes in all shapes and sizes.” That explains Casey Jones suiting up in his hockey vigilante get-up, I guess. But idk, that little plot could have been written better.

Come on, Vern, you can step up. :)

Oh no, Vern missing the obvious there with the location of the data storage of that hidden camera. hashtag relatable

Leo: “We may be brothers, but we’re not a team.”  That hurts....

But that portal technically isn’t your science, Baxter, it’s Krang’s. The names you mentioned might become footnotes, but so would you.

Donnie gathered all that information rather quickly? Unbelievable quickly?

But again, he’s the mvp!

I love that old video console on Donnie’s wrist.

They’re turtles forever. :)

I really thought Shredder was going to say that Baxter would always the same, aka “a fly on the wall” instead of “a footnote”.

Vern: “When something bad happens, you want to be with the turtles.” That is true.

Haha, oh u Shredder. You betrayed Baxter to have all the glory, but you didn’t consider Krang would betray you?

KRANG DOESN’T SHARE FOOD.

Oh, I noticed that Triceration next to Shredder! :D

Wow, Jade spoke for once. :o

I like the way the police protected the Turtles from being seen by the public.

Raph: “SURF’S UP, NY!”

Again with the heels, O’Neil?

I love that shot with the four turtles standing on the edge of the almost finished Technodrome.

Mikey calling Krang “a chewed up piece of gum” and then Leo continuing with “Bubblicious”, haha.

Mickey: “I’m vertical.”

Mickey is the second mvp this film.

I really really love that Donnie and Mickey get most screentime this film.

Great how Casey tricked Beebs and Rock like that. :)

TEAM EFFORT, BB!

Leo: “We got something nobody else has.” Leo, Donnie and Mickey: “Turtle power!” while Raph: “Garbage truck!” Hahahaha.

But seriously: TURTLE POWER!

Finally, April being a reporter again.

Chief to the turtles: “Last name?”  Hamato immediately came to mind, tbh.

Some Capril flirting. ;)

HEROES IN A HALF SHELL! ♫

I love the comic style in the end credits. 

But see: Splinter’s actor isn’t even mentioned in the special part of the end credits. He deserves better and more.

All in all, despite its flaws (too many expositions or Krang being the main villain with hardly any screentime f.e.), I really enjoyed watching this. It’s so much better than the 2014 one. 

(I do hope for actual one on one friendship between Donnie and Mickey next time, though. I love the turtles most together, but separate friendships I love them the most.) (And on that note: Where was my Raph&Casey romance friendship?)

[runaways-withme]

Kink side

"Ur the same thing as a right wing bigot if u have any reservations towards sexual things."

"Kink isnt sexual at all lmao not a big deal I've seen sexual things as a kid" (so did I and it traumatized me .. just bc u can handle it when u were doesnt mean random kids u never met can just handle shit. Hello.. consent ?)

"I hate all kids yet am making actually minors feel bad while acting like they are such this evil force toward this issue when all they do is have access to a twitter account "

Which is it. Is it okay that its sexual bc being sexual is a huge part of (some) lgbt ppl sexualities [hard agree] or is it not sexual n ppl r making shit it up?

"Its just a leash" that has sexual connotations isnt that the whole point... sex =good but know ur downplaying its importance to ppls identities to act like it isnt an issue if minors see adults

"If u want to protect kids then what abt xyz: x:predatory men (we LITERALLY always talk abt how gross this is all year round y. Sexualized billboards in public (I don't see ANYONE actually be pro-those billboards on here. Just sounds like examples of attacking the wrong ppl ?? ) edit: ppl also used this to call out bigots who made lil nas sexual song a big deal bc "think of the children" when they dont say shit abt sexualized shit involving str8 ppl since they are homophobic. N obv lil nas isn't a child star to begin with)

-the ACTUAL problem is corporations *the other side also agrees with this. U cant say someone's criticisms is ruining the sanctity of pride when it's already been co-opted by capitalism lmao. Rmr when ppl were pissed Ariana made it into a concert when she had no indication of being in the community and is a mega celebrity?

The side against it:

Teens who have weird experiences with adults whether they are LGBT or not . Gay ppl CAN be predatory, this obvious doesnt mean all gay ppl are automatically that's OBVIOUSLY HOMOPHOBIC. But are we forgetting KEVIN SPACEY, CMBYN ??

Not all teenagers have sex bc of obvious reasons of not being mature enough or like u know.. sometimes there are dangerous of it.. so smth on the more extreme side (kink) might be off to them... this DOES NOT mean all sex is bad just giving a POV since ppl do not know how to not make the other side seem automatically evil.

I feel like the first half already explains a lot so I'm also going to say like. If the whole thing is that its homophobic to say gay is inherently sexual bc the whole disgusting stereotype that someone saying it's okay for a kid to be gay is bad bc bigots assume ur saying it in a sexual way (predatory stereotype) not.. just being a kid who is not straight and has a crush ??? then ppl shd be able to handle someone saying to not be sexual in areas where there ARE kids. That's not homophobia that's just common sense .

-the actual cishet homophobes both sides hate who arent even the main ppl in the discourse in the first place. They're too busy being violent over lgbt just breathing air in the first place n they have their bigotry so loud n obvious n their bio so I'd know to avoid them.

I'm trying to understand the whole thing n through this I'm talking to a kinkster who says there should be kink gear at pride just know ur limits on actual acts since not everyone can consent to that. Which I agree with.

Before someone says : 1.well yeah obviously no ones literally having sex : many points above

2. Theres rules n regulations etc.: Pride is different based on where u live which makes this whole thing so stupid bc like all discourse multiple things can be true at once (ur experience DOES NOT negate someone else's) n since when did everyone listen to rules.. this ignores the ppl who DO NOT care when kids are involved at all

Genuinely everyone on one technical side of an issue should all talk to eachother before trying to paint the other side as losers or bigots. ppl are saying things that do NOT line up with their co-discoursers at all but I wld actually agree with even tho I'm technically not on their "side" , but ppl forget theres such thing as nuance lmao

[alwayskaysanova]

what did you think of the tvd final? it felt rushed to me and i'm even more upset now ive seen all the interviews with kevin saying it was always meant to be stelena and it feels like a slap in the face that they gave us delena but only by default and the delena we got was so lacking everything i loved about them what did you think?

it’s taken me two days to process everything i felt about that finale and i’m still not fully there yet but i’m gonna try to put my feelings down and then move on

firstly, i had a lot of fun watching it with everyone (specifically @lowsodiumfreaks bc it was hilarious) and i am really glad i got to experience this fandom one last time in all its crazy glory

(i’m tagging @insightfuldamon too bc i like yelling my feelings at jackie bc she understands and i love her for it)

immediately after the finale i was content, i was crying, i was thankful for the show and its characters, i was generally A Mess but i was happy about it

yesterday, once i’d had some sleep and a chance to properly look at the finale by watching it again without the fear of my faves dying i was…less happy with it

i’m gonna start by saying what i loved and still love;

BONNIE BENNETT BEING THE ULTIMATE HERO WE ALL KNOW SHE’S BEEN FROM THE BEGINNING

the bennett witches being fucking amazing

that steroline phonecall bc as someone who never really shipped steroline that was the first time i truly felt it and i was so upset on behalf of caroline and stefan that they didn’t even get a day of marriage before death did them part

caroline/alaric and their girls, the whole convo where alaric mentioned liz and caroline got it and chose her girls over stefan bc she knew it was the right thing to do regardless of her love for him she’ll always put her girls first AND GUYS THAT WAS SO AWESOME BC ONE OF CAROLINE’S MAIN CHARACTER POINTS WAS GETTING THE GUY AND SHE LET THE GUY GO IN THE END !!!!!

BONLENA REUNION!! both times were glorious

all the defan. all of it. amazing. the whole scene where they were trying to sacrifice themselves for each other and i didn’t want either of them to die but then damon chose to save stefan and compelled him away AND I WAS SOBBING SO HARD AND SCREAMING AT CHAR but i’d also accepted it and was so proud of damon bc it was such a great moment in his journey

and then the plot twist with stefan tricking damon and turning him human and then sacrificing himself instead AND I WAS EVEN MORE OF A MESS BC I DIDN’T WANT IT AND HISTORICALLY I HAVE HATED STEFAN BUT I DIDN’T WANT HIM TO DIE but it was beautiful that he went out saving everyone

the whole stelena goodbye was a nice nod to their relationship even though i never liked it i adored their goodbye scene

STEFAN AND LEXI AND I WAS FEELING EPIC

the little daroline scene was cute

caroline seeing elena again!! all the girl feels when they were sat on the bench

i did like all the after death reunion scenes and the nods to past characters even if it felt a little too ‘wrap it neatly in a ribbon/all the fuzzy feels/overdone’

all the donovan family feelings were beautiful

now on to the things i didn’t like;

the delena scenes were flat as hell, felt forced, disjointed and just generally Bad

we got no conversation, no last ‘i love you’, no hint of a flashforward into those supposed ‘happy, human lives’

don’t get me wrong i’m content with the endgame and my 12 year old self now feels supremely justified in all her decision makings but it was so U G H purely bc it wasn’t anything

we got the endgame in name only and i didn’t feel it

i have a suspicion most of it was to do with the very obvious bad feeling between ian and nina, though i have to give credit bc i 100% felt everything delena from nina’s side it was ian doing a terrible job which was seriously jarring after how amazing his acting was in the scene with paul when defan were debating who was gonna die

the kiss was awkward, the handholding was awkward, the looks were awkward, EVERYTHING WAS AWKWARD THEY WERE LITERALLY ON SCREEN FOR A MINUTE AND IAN COULDN’T ADULT ENOUGH TO GET THROUGH IT GOOD LORD

but whatever i’m done, it’s over, bye

/side note; the interviews afterwards mean shit to me tbh bc the writers knew that nina was leaving at the beginning of season 6 so if they had ever truly intended stelena to be endgame they had plenty of time to write it and it’s obvious they’re just throwing every fandom a bone bc delena get to claim the endgame but the interviews suggest stelena get to feel justified in thinking stelena was always meant to be

blaming nina leaving is an utterly shitty thing to do so they can fuck off with that nonsense

the bottom line is they wrote the show, they decided the relationship endgames, they CHOSE THE CHARACTER ENDGAMES

their writing is on them and they need to own their decisions and stop trying to appease everyone or shift blame to one fucking actress like she didn’t dedicate her whole damn sanity to the shit they put her through

like the fact she even came back…they didn’t deserve her that’s all i’m gonna say but then they haven’t been deserving kat graham since she arrived so…fuck them basically

/end side note

i was disappointed that there was no dalaric other than the casual mention, there was no denzo, there was no last bamon scene which was utter bullshit considering they are supposed to be best friends though i loved damon mentioning his utter faith in bonnie and i also loved how as soon as bonnie found out damon was off to sacrifice himself she was like ‘nope i’m gonna save their asses’ once again

i’m waiting for a character to embody the title of ‘Queen’ more than bonnie bennett

still waiting

like we literally got a daroline scene but no bamon scene…what. the. frick?

i don’t care for katherine or datherine or steferine so all of that was a complete waste of time for me and the fact that katherine got more than elena in terms of screen time makes me all types of bitter but once again nina owned what she was given so kudos

i’m happy bonnie’s endgame was her getting the fuck out of mystic falls and i realize that their intention with that was to portray her as strong and moving on whilst still having enzo there whenever she needs him but i also can’t ignore the inherent wrongness of the black girl who has sacrificed literally everything of herself being the one who gets the ‘on her own/off to explore the world’ storyline whilst elena gets her happily ever after with damon and caroline gets her family and the future tease of klaus (also fucking africa?? s e r i o u s l y ? ?) whilst bonnie is supposed to be content with a semi love life she can’t really have until she’s dead ! ! ! n o p e 

(like bonnie is literally the only one who ends up alone after she saved every single other character multiple times I’M SO FUCKING ANGRY THAT HER ENDGAME IS COMPLETELY SEPARATE OF EVERYONE ELSE’S LIKE ‘THANKS FOR ENSURING WE LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO GET OUR HAPPILY EVER AFTERS BUT WE’RE FINE NOW BYE’ what the fuck honestly)

but i’m white so i can’t really speak to that racist nonsense and there are hundreds of people in this fandom way more qualified to speak on that than me so i won’t say anymore on it

and then the whole ‘oh we thought maybe matt and bonnie could eventually get together but we left that up to the audience’ bullshit just bc matt’s the only guy left *barf noises*

i love matt but come on (also there wasn’t enough matt for me either)

i never really liked bonenzo but i can deal with it even though it should have been bamon until bonnie died and then i’d have been fine with delena after that bc i am of the opinion that u can have more than one epic love and to me damon was in love with both bonnie and elena and we were robbed but again w/e my multishipping ass will just have to be content with fanfiction

i hate that tyler got nothing but a tiny scene smiling at matt and holding hands with vicki bc they did that character so dirty after giving him such a fantastic journey in the early seasons

listen highkey we should’ve gotten forwood but then klaroline butted in with all its nonsense and tyler lockwood was sacrificed on the alter of shipper bullshit

I HATE THAT WE GOT NO JERLENA REUNION AND IT WASN’T EVEN HINTED AT IN THE WHOLE ‘ELENA DIED THEN REUNITED WITH HER FAMILY’ SCENE

B U L L S H I T

like superficially this finale was good as far as finale’s go, i’ve had to deal with a lot worse, but when u pick it apart and get past the glossy happily ever after sheen it’s kinda false to a lot of the relationships and characters

basically i have a lot of mixed feelings on it but i personally got enough that i can now move on without feeling entirely like i wasted 8 years of my life on the show and 12 years on these characters and relationships tho lbr they never really followed the books anyway

the thing i’m most thankful for about this show is the people i’ve met online through it and if the most i can take away from this experience is the friendships i’ve made with other fans then it’s been worth it

i know some of u won’t agree with everything i’ve said, some might not agree with any of it, but i appreciate u reading it anyway and i hope the finale meant enough to u that u can still be glad u fell into the hellhole that was tvd

[neopuff]

riverdale ep 1-3

these twins always make me >___>

oh yeah i knew jason was gonna die

this is very artsy

i thought he was murdered

oh

tragedy

oh......a mom for veronica

what is a...chocolate shoppe? and why? does it sell? burgers?

is veronica the new kid

OH KEVIN

the gay kid gweiopubgoewgnew

the acting in this is terrible

the archie actor is clearly not a real ginger so i approve of this casting lmao

“to pass time i started composing poems in my head” shut up archie

archie: says anything betty: amazing!

lmao

betty: ive been thinking about us- archie: is that a hot bitch i see

“we do, both of us, together”

omg

GNOIWPEGWE BETTY’S FACE IS KILLING ME

awkward

oh....archies dad

thats not archies dad

archies dad got that fat gut

“im a sophomore’ BITCH NO UR NOT

SHES GOTTA BE LIKE 25 LMAAAOO whaaatt

im still dying theyre supposed to be 15 gwenpiubgewo;gwe

“gay, thank god, lets be best friends” im gonna piss and die

wow

love these pussycats

“ive had every flavor of boy except orange” its better that

waywiongubwepogn;wegew

ARCHIE AND GRUNDY IM DYING!!!!

IM GONNA FUCKINGGG DIIEEEE

GRUNDYINOGEW;EWL

im pissing im

DYING

shes the music teacher

why wouldnt they just make up a new teacherniogwepng;ew WHY IS SHE MS GRUNDY!!!

oh

archies dad/veronicas mom have a....history

“chose the rich kid”

wow

so many divorced parents

outdoor cafeteria

when will i see a high school that has one of these forreal

i assume its a west coast or south us thing

kevin: refers to cheryl as a widow me: i called the JOKES

“is cheerleading still a thing?” “is being the gay best friend still a thing”

the dialogue in this show is terrible its so funny

im glad betty/ronnie is a good ship

grundy is all turned on by archies music

this is so gross and im DYING

“i dont think thats a good idea” cuz u fucked a 15 year old bitch

oh

theyre not talking about the fucking

did cheryl murder her brother

why doesnt just one of them say it and not mention the other

bitch ur the only one who’d get in trouble ur an ADULT

that was so lackluster

wow

GNIWEUPGEW;OGWE

CHERYL’S FACEGNIEW;GEW

like yeah....not the kind of heat i meant :\

oh

im glad cheryls the villain i always hated her

wow

veronica: i know who u are [has known her for 2 minutes]

this dialogue is so unnatural and bad its cracking me tf up

get WRECKED cheryl

veronica: betty and i come as a matching set

i bet u do

time for football

“what you got something better to do” dont be rude

awww

“why did you defend me” just accept the kindness u fool

man

i like mr lodge

this is very awkward

was polly a character in the comics i dont remember her

WOW

“both of us” gewinouogbewgew

im DYING

in the headspace

“archiekins” gweinouobgweo;ngew

wow

“cheryl blossoms cheerleading squad.......”

bettys mom is so annoying

she sounds familiar

oh

mr lodge just sent a lotta money their way

why did the coach call his dad

he said hed give him a day

impatient ass

archies dad is just like :\

:/

:\

:/

these actors dont look related at all

which is funny to me

oh good its the pill in ibiza song

omg

i love that veronica is the speech giver in this show

moose/kevin gwiuebogiwgew

where is REGGIE

my SON

wow

openly talking about the illegal secrets at a big party

i just realized reggie is the asian guy

i didnt hear his name and couldnt figure out who tf that was gweopiubgwe;ngwe

im a fool

whered ronnie go

dancing with the gay guy, god

“i have this fantasy of us as a power couple” who asks someone out like that

STOP STARING AT GRUNDY

this is super awkward

cheryl is gonna murder...everyone

they could just

chill

“cheryl blossom truly is...the antichrist” just all her a bitch like a normal person

“we’re not just friends we’re best friends” shut up archie

wOW

hes NEVER FELT for betty

if these two make out i s2g

once they kiss cheryls gonna open the door

foolish children

ronnie dont DO IT

foolish

sighs

boring

what how tf would she know they made out

did they not come out at exactly 7 minutes

ok but wheres betty

oh hey jughead

i like jugheads not-crown

oh

now shes goin straight for love

“of course i love you” hes being so...obtuse

annoying

oh

ok now its about not being good enough

sure

did they find jayjay

and look at that

he got shot in the head

probably by his sister

ok

its obvious cheryl did it

im sure theyll switch it up like somehow it was secretly jughead

but it was cheryl

ok ep 2

fgewgw

why were they even fuckin at 6 am

cant believe they made moose gay

i forgot his gf’s name in the comicsniguwebgew

god

the actor that played jason was so uggo

GEWNIOG;EW SHARING A SHAKE WITH HIS TWIN SISTER!!!

maybe someone shot him for being so openly incestuous with his creepy sister

i know its like plagueing archie now but i feel like this should help him

“are you up?” “no” “youre killing your mother”

he went to grundys house

weird

and hes shirtless

“you could be expelled” “we could go to jail” NEITHER OF THOSE THINGS WOULD HAPPEN TO HIM!!!

pedophilia is not a two way street

oh

bettys mom is...the worst

betty plz dont talk to your bitch mother about your life

i love archies eyebrows

i hope this is the end of archie/betty forever

wow

“sardonic humor”

oh

bye jughead

oh

is kevin not out to his dad

“the yellows for friendship” sure

veronica is so aggressively into this friendship

YAYYY

the otp stays together

wow

betty u are a fool

that is your future WIFE

oh

hi mr weatherbee

cheryl is wearing a spider pin gewoinubgewlngkew

CHERYL

archie and mr weatherbee just gonna

make eyes

jughead: archie you KILLED him

fewijohuog

HE THINKS ARCHIE DID IT

no jughead i was just fucking the hot prof

jughead: ew

fewiougobewgno;ewlgew

kevin moose is your new bf

“fate throws us together” ok

wow

why is he rejecting moose

because hes in the closet???

hes clearly trying to come out cmon

oh

everyones terrified of cheryl now so thats good

oh

bettys mom

“i ship it” why

“moose has an official girlfriend...mitch” i feel like i heard this line wrong

oh, betty

dont cry sweetums

“im supposed to say yes” THE DIALOGUE

ronnie is trying so hard with these dramatic white ppl

really

they couldnt even keep weatherbee fat

is this channel afraid of fat ppl

wow

does this bitch just sit in her empty ass music room all day

is she not really even a teacher

DONT TALK ABOUT FEELINGS

YALL ARE GROSS!!!!

disgusting

bitch get a dog and leave teenagers alone

WOW

WOW LMAAAAOOOOOOOO

AAAAAAA

JUGHEAD: WHAT!! GROSS!!! WTF!!!

this is not high school cheerleading

one of the girls here actually looks like a high schooler

cheryl just called herself exoticgewiongewiogew; CUZ YOURE A GINGER? BITCH

i die

oh

betty why

wOW

betty dont do this

cheryls a crazy ho

i know theyll make up by the end of the ep but still

“like we were meant to be best friends” gweniguebwg

2nd grade tutor

gewinogubwegw

“oh, little archie-” little archiewgn;klew I DIE

references are what i live for

i cant believe betty let cheryl into her house

wheres her mom to scream and chase her out

welp

there goes that

betty dont let her into ur HOME

oh

whats betty doing

“BEFORE I KILL YOU” BETTY

terrible thing to say

are they not friends because archie stood him up

cougarngiewgew

SHES A PEDOPHILE

awkward

i guess bettys mom coulda killed jason

“sometimes a friend is better than a boyfriend” actually, always, not sometimes

oh reggies finally doin something

gonna keep up the reggie/jughead rivalry

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

ok

“you wanna d the right thing” the way archie said that made it sound like he wants to fuck her and she doesnt want to

but whatever

so does jughead and bettys friendship not exist in this universe

nod like douches and mutually suppress our emotions

wow

this dialogue is still awful its so funny

i hope it never improves purely for my amusement

out door pep rally...

[dances]

fewiulgbew

AHH HONEY HONEY

YOU ARE MY

CAAAANDY GIIIIIIRL

good shit

oh

cheryls having a Time

god the kid that plays jason is so uggo

oh

bye cheryl

finally getting a genuine emotional response from her

were they gonna fake his death for attention but then he was actually dead

yayyy

make up

veronica is over here like “betty and i were destined to be friends” and betty is like “im sure we wont know each other in a week”

aww archie and jughead back 2gedda

does jughead know betty or not

wheres the jughead/betty brotp of my past

veronica and jughead: interact me: yes...

im glad that, unlike in the comics, archie is not dating both girls at once and then also every other girl he meets

where ya goin weatherbee

wha

A CHALKBOARD LOL

i doubt a school like this would have a chalkboard instead of a smartboard

oh

did she do it

gasp

im sticking with my fake death for the attention theory

OK LAST EP

im enjoying this show

but i dont think i could take multiple Dramatic Teen Shows

how could cheryl be wearing that skirt in public school

“the plan was bananas”

oh

jason just wanted.....to leave

thats fine

oh

who got shot

gwneio;glkwe

in my neighborhood it wouldve just been the hunters

is archie gonna have a shiner for the rest of the show

oh

is betty not poor as shit in this universe?

i shouldve guessed from her moms outfits

“a lois lane type like you” nice and ronnie can be clark kent

omg leave grundy alone so she can die in hell

wha

why didnt you just say that you were alone

oh

dog

ok

a date....

oh

hes hot

good call, ronnie

CHUCK CLAYTON

“hes kind of a player” dont be racist, betty

he is hot as hell tho

awww “juggie”

finally jughead and betty are 2gedda

jughead you need shit for your college applications

oh right, dilton

what

“im not ten years old” but you are 15 which is not very different

so if chuck is in the show is nancy gonna be around too

ronnie/chuck is a good ship

“to OUR relationship” shut the fuck you youre a pedophile

wow

the sticky maple....

wow

chuck was cute

ronnie is gonna tear him apart

man

why does chuck have to be a dick!!! chuck was always a nice guy

fewionpgnew

betty: [COVERS FACE]

destroy him

PUNCH HIM

why is chuck a villain im bothered but also hes the worst destroy him

this terrible au version of chuck is terrible

“nothing is off the table...except for my body” weiugblewnkg

i love the pussycats

is this every other girl chuck did this to

oh

its ethel

hi cheryl

go away

lmao

whose this kid

wow

ok jughead

dont steal his ice cream

oh

dilton shot a gun gwoinegbpweo;nglwe

survivalist?!?! DILTON

IM DYING

HES A TECHNOLOGY OBSESSED NERD

why do the pussycats roll their eyes at josie

“a bnd with b&v”

did they find...ze book

so the football players dont even fuck the girls its just about getting a date and a selfie???

oh

cheryl, doubting her brother

what

just take the book

why not...just take the book

powerful

bettys rly lucky her mom isnt violent

(for now)

oh

she looks super awkward in that

omg

the sound of bettys lil demons in her head

“and a hot tub....”

this is such an awkward conversation

just imagining this with real 15 year olds is ridiculous

oh hey ronnie

chuck youre so fucking stupid

shes wearing a swimsuit and heels this is CLEARLY A TRAP

GWENOIGO;NEW

BETTY

black is not a good hair color

ronnie: im so turned on

GEWNIOG;EWG

SLAP!!!!

i just realized why archies dad is so familiar

he was on generator rex AND clone high

love it

part of me always liked archie/josie

15 is not late wtf

“slut shaming...its what they call it when sluts get shamed” wow

when does bettys mom get murdered

um

are they gonna burn him

UM

um

betty

LMAO

shes fine shes just pissed

awww

dads gonna support u now

must be NICE

gweoniugbweo;gew bettys face when ronnie said she called chuck “jason” was so funny

are they gonna do some she went off her meDS OO---OOOHHHA AAAHHH TERRIBLE BEAST

#burn it

cheryl tryin to make up for ze past

i still hate her idc

omg when does grundy get murdered too im done with this pedophilia subplot

STAY AWAY

FROM THE CHILD!!!

-___-

dilton you fool

im happy juggie and betty are hanging out

oh

dont mention ms grundys car

NO

YOU

FOOL!!!!

im tired of this pedophile plz shoot her next

ok im all caught up

whens the next episode

[365footballorg-blog]

Armchair Analyst: Forever orange, purple resilience & more from Week 1

March 5, 20181:17AM EST

So this is a fact I’ve been dying to address for monthsyears two decades. A big part of my dream for what soccer is in America (and Canada – I dream of Canada too, I swear it) is “let’s be a league that not only buys the best players, but also builds the best players right here at home.”

It’s not just because I love the idea of having been on the ground floor for the beginning of MLS and then potentially get to watch it grow into something globally recognized for its quality. It’s not just because I love to see good soccer, or that I’m naturally drawn to “potential,” as are so many of you.

It’s all that, but it’s also that I literally do not see a path toward becoming the best league in the Americas if we do not first become the best developmental league in the Americas. That means buying the likes of Milton Valenzuela and Jesus Medina, both of whom had sterling debuts in big Week 1 wins. It also has to mean building our own great players via our academies and the USL/PDL partnerships that MLS teams have worked so hard to make viable and valuable over the past half-decade.

Progress has been slow:

MLS does a really bad job of playing young American players. Like really bad. Also, before you ask, no it’s not improving – has been about 2%-3% for a number of years. pic.twitter.com/oV0zfPDBpr

— Alex Olshansky (@atosoccer) January 10, 2018

Here is the good news: In Week 1, domestic players aged 21 and under played 4.11 percent of available minutes. That includes a couple of Canadians (Alphonso Davies and David Choinière) as well as Sounders Homegrown Handwalla Bwana, who’s been here a decade, has a green card and is on his way to US citizenship. You may not count him, but for all intents and purposes he’s a local.

Now, the absence of minutes for a few notable, high-upside youngsters justifiably frustrated folks in Atlanta and Dallas, and even if Paxton Pomykal and Andrew Carleton had played, the number would not be high enough yet for my liking. I’d eventually like to see MLS end up somewhere between La Liga and the Bundesliga in terms of minutes earned by the U-22s.

But progress that lasts tends to be progress that’s incremental. Week 1 was a good first step.

Road to Nowhere

We spent a good chunk of time on Saturday dissecting exactly how Atlanta were just asking to be dissected by Houston in the Dynamo’s 4-0 win. They had a d-mid but they played him at center back; their nominal Defender of the Year (that’s the Andrew Wiebe curse) played awful and then got hurt; and their midfield, which I and everybody else has been harping about all preseason, was a “c’mon just drive right through” zone.

It was bad and they were unprepared and they’ve got to move Jeff Larentowicz back to the 6 and Tata Martino has to develop Miles Robinson and even if those two things happen it may not be enough because I still don’t see how Darlington Nagbe fits.

Here, we talked about it a bunch:

But none of this matters if Houston aren’t utterly and ruthlessly prepared. They knew Atlanta were going to try to possess through the middle so they drew a nice mid-line of confrontation – this wasn’t bunker ball from the Dynamo – and forced turnovers in spots where they could get out on the break. And when they did break, they broke together, which you can see in the assist numbers: Each of their first three goals had both primary and secondary assists.

This wasn’t just “kick it out to Alberth Elis and let him run,” and anyone who characterizes it as that should be mocked, ridiculed and generally shunned from polite society.

So how did they dominate so thoroughly? By shutting off any/all outlets for the Dynamo backline:

These are all the passes by ATL’s CBs. That’s Parkhurst with the lone wolf pass into the box. Reams of turnovers for the other two guys who started. pic.twitter.com/HPRS8O4hyZ

— Matthew Tomaszewicz (@shinguardian) March 3, 2018

(Green arrows are completed passes, Red incomplete)

As my old podcastmate went on to point out, incomplete passes from the central defense are invitations to get out into transition. Houston took those invitations time and again during the first half-hour, looking remarkably like the 2017 version of Atlanta against, I don’t know, the Revs or Galaxy or something. It was eerie.

Houston aren’t, I don’t think, deep enough to be great — though they showed off some depth yesterday when Darwin Ceren came in early for the injured Juan David Cabezas at d-mid. Nonetheless they’re going to be very good because they’re smart and well-drilled, and in Elis they have at least one game-changing attacker (Mauro Manotas is knocking on the door to make it two).

As for Atlanta, I’m not about to mash the panic button. I think they’ll end up being fine because they have so much talent, but the biggest part of the next month has to be Martino making the right personnel adjustments, and Nagbe in particular being more assertive about getting into spots and being available to receive outlets.

Seen and Not Seen

If Houston’s dominance was the first story of the regular season, Orlando City’s rebuild has to claim its spot as one of, if not the biggest story of the off-season. They went out and got players young and old(ish), pulled from college and USL and NASL and the Bundesliga and North Africa and MLS and memories of MLS Cup champions past.

And then they went out in Week 1 and played without about half those guys. Sacha Kljestan was suspended and Pierre da Silva was suspended and Josue Colman was hurt and and Uri Rosell has been in the country for about 45 minutes and Lamine Sané just wasn’t quite ready to go. So Jason Kreis – who, for the second straight year kept preseason prep under wraps – had to go with a fairly makeshift XI, and just to increase the degree of difficulty had to do it a man down for the last 50 minutes.

The early returns for OCSC, who played in a diamond (praise be) with rookie Cam Lindley doing very Wil Trapp-y things at d-mid, were good. They eschewed the pointless long-balls that plagued them last year, they had a clear level of defensive buy-in from everyone who took the field (a big change), and they got a resilient and ultimately point-saving performance from Justin Meram:

(Also worth mentioning they have Joe Bendik, whose penalty save was freaking heroic in the 1-1 draw).

Part of this falls on D.C. United, who never really took advantage of their, uh, advantage. At halftime they talked about getting on the ball and spreading the Purple Lions out, but never evinced any sort of plan to do so after the break and were reduced to a bunker for the final 20ish minutes. This is not how an 11-man team punishes a 10-man team with possession:

For a team a man up and a goal up, @dcunited’s pass map for the last 20 minutes vs. @OrlandoCitySC was a cry for help (and structure).

The road point is nice but that’s a catastrophe. pic.twitter.com/EsFVzwCjrb

— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) March 4, 2018

So neither team will leave this game entirely happy, nor will they leave entirely unhappy. OCSC did, after all, cough up two points to a conference foe at home — but did so while fighting back in dramatic fashion after playing most of the game a man down. D.C. did, after all, concede a soft, late equalizer — but still took a road point.

For now, for both, it’s enough.

A few more things to ponder…

8. 18-year-old Anthony Fontana got the game-winning goal for Philly in their 2-0 win over the visiting Revs, who had both their center backs sent off and were only spared from an embarrassing scoreline by some shoddy Union finishing.

Fontana was clever about getting into attacking spots, and C.J. Sapong was simply relentless about creating those attacking spots for everybody around him. Sapong had a goal, an assist, and drew the game-changing straight red on Antonio Mlinar Delamea. He’ll never be the most clinical of finishers, but it’s exciting to imagine what he’ll be able to do in attack this year now with more quality around him.

7. There was obvious quality on display in Toronto, with the shock being it was the visitors who put on the clinic. Federico Higuain continues to be the smartest player in the league. When he moves, it’s not just to get open, but rather to shift the entire defense:

Columbus are going to be good. The 2-0 win they took from BMO Field was not a fluke.

6. Nor was the 3-2 win San Jose took from visiting Minnesota United. The Quakes were vicious in attack through 80 minutes and fully deserved their 3-0 lead, then repeatedly fell asleep and lost track of Kevin Molino over the last 10 as they nearly surrendered it.

The Loons played a lot better once Collen Warner came on the field.

5. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Sporting KC won the expected goals battle but lost the game. It was actually fairly close on xG (1.49-1.42 as per Opta), but NYCFC finished their chances while SKC fluffed theirs in a 2-0 win for the visitors.

Sporting crossed the ball 24 times, which is a very high number that they exceeded only once last year. That’s a bad strategy for a team with no particularly gifted headers of the ball in attack, and speaks to the lack of ideas they had moving forward.

NYCFC, meanwhile, looked very good.

4. Speaking of gifted headers of the ball… Kei Kamara, goal No. 99 followed by our Face of the Week via his celebration with Davies:

The cross, the header, the dance moves!

Kei Kamara opens his account for #VWFC.#VANvMTLhttps://t.co/z9IemFerad

— Vancouver Whitecaps (@WhitecapsFC) March 5, 2018

Wakanda forever.

In general crossing is a low-percentage play, and I thought Davies (who was wonderful, and will almost certainly be on the Team of the Week) was too happy to settle for crossing the ball instead of driving into the box on the dribble and trying to combine. This is a habit of the ‘Caps, to be honest.

But there’s a difference between bending in an early ball when your target forward has found a pocket of space away from the CBs and driving in a cross against a packed-in defense. As Davies matures he’ll better understand those margins, and become even more of a weapon.

Which is freaking scary because, at 17, he was the best player on the field by a mile in Vancouver’s 2-1 win over the Impact.

3. FC Dallas played much better in their 1-1 draw vs. RSL than they had in their midweek CCL disappointment against FC Tauro. That said, they still got ripped up in transition a few times, and still had trouble finishing.

Through 270 minutes there are no signs Los Toros Tejanos have figured out what killed them in 2017.

2. The Galaxy, on the other hand, have found at least a partial cure for their suffering of the past year, picking up a 2-1 win over visiting Portland on Sunday night. It was not pretty from either team, and LA were absolutely holding on for dear life at the end. They also lost Romain Alessandrini to what appears to be a hamstring strain.

But they got Sebastian Lletget back, got three points, and got a goal from center forward Ola Kamara.

As for the Timbers, I’m going to wait to reserve final judgement, but my guess is the 4-2-3-1 is not long for this world. Based upon what we saw Sunday and during preseason, Gio Savarese is going to have to go in a different direction.

1. And finally, our Pass of the Week goes to Carlos Vela, who looked the part of a superstar in LAFC’s franchise-opening 1-0 win at Seattle:

LAFC weren’t perfect, but they were brave in how they played out of the back, they got an outstanding performance form Tyler Miller, and they got three points on the road in their debut game. Bob Bradley seems to know a thing or two about winning with expansion teams.

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Armchair Analyst: Forever orange, purple resilience & more from Week 1 was originally published on 365 Football