#i was always of the opinion that michael was gay and he could do better than jeremy

[hecksupremechips]

Listen I don’t really care about this play anymore and I haven’t interacted with it in ages but in Be More Chill I think Jeremy and Christine were good together and I won’t STAND for everyone in that fandom trying to convince me otherwise!!!!!

[im-out-of-it]

season 1, episode 11 “blood calls to blood”

aka guess who are “siblings” 💀

1. it’s almost funny that Valentine tricks jace this way. like jace thinks it’s his father and he’s so happy but all Valentine is doing is taunting jace and tricking them just so he can have the cup. just like Alec predicted lmao

2. you don’t have to heal jace. you can let him die. we would all be better off

3. I know I post a lot of anti jace stuff but if the writing actually had him being held accountable and he was a decent person, I could get on board. but I can’t. he’s insufferable, toxic, and self involved

4. well, we are back with Alec and Izzy. one shadowhunter trial about to come up 👏🏼

5. “I can’t find jace because I weakened our bond”- yes Alec did weaken it but let’s not just put it all on Alec. parabatai are supposed to have each others back and I haven’t seen jace do that for Alec at all. anytime Alec needs him, jace isn’t there. we don’t know their relationship before episode 1 so maybe he was there but knowing jace, I fucking doubt it lmao

6. “what am I supposed to do, sit here and play solitaire while they find something else to blame me for?”- Izzy. I’m just surprised she knows what that game is 😭 but honestly it’s kind of messed up that clary and Jace got to run off with the mortal cup while Izzy is here almost about to lose her being a shadowhunter. it’s not fair at all. and I think the treatment of jace and clary vs Alec and Izzy is something that doesn’t get discussed much. they hardly are held accountable for anything. they’ve ran off and who is to blame? ALEC. Izzy may have had a hand in helping meliorn but she didn’t do it alone so why is Izzy the one paying the consequences?

7. literally jace could go out and kill a bunch of downworlders and say they attacked me first! and he still would be fine. oh because jace is supposedly the best of us all except he always needs rescuing. Alec has paid the price for so many of jace’s actions.

8. “Izzy, I’m your big brother, please let me help you”-Alec 😭

9. I love that Simon has people helping him out. Luke in season one, Magnus in season two. Magnus had to deal with being a warlock all on his own. Luke had Jocelyn but no one should have to go through their changes on their own ☹️

10. LET JACE DIE! LET JACE DIE! LET JACE DIE!

11. I know Raphael is asexual but I would have been 100% okay with a Raphael and Simon pairing. THEY HAVE CHEMISTRY

12. but I love the importance of the showing making representation matter. we have Magnus who is bisexual, alec is gay, Raphael is asexual, and I can’t think of her name but that officer in season three who is a lesbian as well as aline and Helen. so nice to see 🥹

13. “Funny how those rules for downworlders stop being such a big deal when you need our help.”-ok Raphael tell her off 🔥 literally, what I have been talking about!!!! shadowhunters can break the accords = it’s okay! downworlders breaking accords = they’re evil and must be executed and punished!

14. having Camille only being on the show as temporary was a mistake in my opinion. I’m not saying she needed to be there the whole time but I think she’s a very underrated character who could’ve been more. she didn’t have one entire scene in all of season one that was terrible

15. ah blackmailing, how original

16. how I feel everytime jace gets away with something lmao (I always try to do shadowhunter gifs but I couldn’t resist)

17. Raphael: blackmailing me? how unkind, now stick around new advisor 🥲 raphael doesn’t play any games

18. ah, inquisitor herondale. what a cold bitch she is

19. well jace lives so yay I guess?

20. “this is real clary”-jace. ugh not them putting their whole mouths all over each and making cringe facial expressions 🤢

21. not sorry, I find them so cringe

22. ah, Valentine being Michael wayland being highly suspicious (shit I hope I didn’t ruin this for anyone, SORRY)

23. I love how “Valentine” sees jace following whatever clary says and is thinking hmmmm interesting

24. Izzy is all like if Jocelyn can be on the run then I can, but she had runes and weapons and Luke for starters so it’s not like Jocelyn was alone

okay so this isn’t going to be in order and this post will be more than likely go towards the trial 😌

45. I love the way alec says done and he just stares at Magnus like this man is going to take me for all I’m worth and I’m going to be happy about it 😭

46. the struggle is real for alec because not only is he denying a man who he is most likely having feelings for but he has have the audacity to go back to that same man 😬 and literally ask him for help while also trying to fight his feelings

47. like it’s just got to be hard for alec to be around magnus. I know he’s gay, we know he’s gay, literally the whole world knows he’s gay but alec doesn’t feel comfortable being gay in the shadow world. this is more of an assumption on my part when it comes to Alec. because he’s never dated and we see him “secretly” eyeing other men. which he is rightly validated in because the shadowhunters (more clave) are such oppressive ass judgmental prejudicial dicks who would rather control a being to their mold than have someone be comfortable in who they wish to be. they have this my way or no way thinking of how a shadowhunter should act and be

48. and the show doesn’t really touch up often on what it means to be gay in the shadow world or just different (I mean the books barely did and I would rather cc stay away from all matters because she burns everything she touches so no thanks)

49. also can we talk about how fucking gorgeous Magnus is???????

50. HE KNOWS HE IS FINE AS HELL

51. like how is Alec not drooling over him?????? man he’s got to be using every strength to hold it in and fight it 😭

52. also kind of funny how we’re introduced as jace being the one without emotions and clary as the emotional feeling one and the fact that clary is the one ending valentines reign, and Jace can never handle it

53. I sympathize with Jace losing his parents and having a messed up childhood but I don’t sympathize with someone who has this and uses excuses to be a shitty person. I’m sorry but I never once saw a change in either jace or clary in the show or the books.

54. “You don’t trust Alec so clary means more to you.”- “Michael wayland” ayyyyyy isn’t this what I have been saying this whole time????? dude is reading my mind I swear

55. and now he’s trying to act as though he trusts Alec. “Valentine” is right about something. he has put clary first since she arrived and Alec last. fucking Izzy is about to get deruned and jace and clary are out here basically having the time of their life. I know it’s an exaggeration but what did they think would happen after they saved meliorn????

56. MAGNUS THE LAWYER IS HERE

57. HES IN A SUIT AND TIE ALL READY TO FIGHT FOR THE LOVE OF HIS LIFES SIS AND HE IS ABSOLUTELY THE HOTTEST PERSON IN THE ROOM!!!!!!!!! this is who I need to represent me at any time!!!

58. Magnus: excuse me, your honor but this bitch is irritating the fuck out of me (magnus having to be near Lydia lmao)

okay, so part 3 coming soon 🥰✨

[merp-blerp]

Some Tincrow Moments From The Wiz Production I Just Saw While It’s Fresh In My Mind

Note: I had never seen the stage version of The Wiz before last night, so I could be missing things and points. Also, my memory might be just a bit fuzzy on exact details, but I know this stuff mention did indeed happen at some point.

Avery Wilson was Scarecrow and Phillip Johnson Richardson was Tinman. They absolutely killed it. Everyone did. I’m going to need a cast album and pro-shot please!

Scarecrow is a dance God once they get him off the poll in time for “You Can’t Win”. Why they kept Michael Jackson on a damn poll in the movie despite the fact that his dance moves would've been really cool for Scarecrow, I’ll never know.

This is the first direct Oz retelling I’ve seen to give Scarecrow a human backstory (Wicked is more of/better off seen as it’s own thing in my opinion). He was once a scientist who got his brain taken by one of the witches and turned into a Scarecrow. I don’t remember if it’s mentioned if he had a family in this show—it might’ve not been—but if he did I guess he would’ve completely forgotten because he “has no brain”. And I might be wrong, but I think it was mentioned he had a name too, but if so I don’t remember it. I find that interesting and fun to play with, especially if one would be able to compare and contrast that with Nick Chopper’s backstory (and/or whatever the Tinman’s name might be in this version of Oz; guy collects names like candy). I would have to see The Wiz again in order to do that myself, but you know, I like the idea.

Tinman’s backstory is slightly different. He was too gay and sassy for his own good, saying one of the witches was a “rusty” singer, causing her to turn him from a lumberjack into a “heartless” Tinman who gradually lost almost all of his memories outside of the mere fact that he once had a family due to this curse. He thinks he doesn’t have a heart because he can’t remember the ones he loved, just that he used to. Nimmie Amee isn’t a part of his story in this show. That’s about as tragic as the backstory Baum gave him, if not worse.

Give me an angst with a happy ending AU where Tinman and Scarecrow knew each other as humans but both forgot due to their curses, only to rediscover each other through their found families. Imagine Scarecrow having Nimmie Amee’s original role in a way—noooo—

Scarecrow mimicking Tinman’s rusty dance moves while they oil him (he mimicked a lot of people throughout the show—Dorothy, the wizard’s announcers calling his name, maybe etc., so I guess it was just his cute little thing).

When Dorothy’s trying to convince the gang to bring Lion along Tinman says “Are you sure? We already have to bring Captain Brainless?” (or something a lot like that, I'm paraphrasing), thinking they had too many already as if his husband wasn't first in line on the journey before him, only for Scarecrow to say, “I’m captain?!?!” *Insert cute happy head waggles* (Hits different when you know Scarecrow becomes the ruler of Oz after the first book till Ozma’s found, but his leadership wasn't mentioned in The Wiz so maybe that's not on purpose) I adore Avery Wilson’s take on Scarecrow. Tinman has always been my favorite of Dorothy’s friends if I had to pick one, but Wilson’s performance really made Scarecrow stand out even more than usual. I don’t know if I can explain it, it might just have to be seen; pray there’s a slime tutorial out there.

Lion’s kinda gay too, but in solo. And I know Ozma’s not here, so there’s not really any evidence for Dorothy’s queerness… but she is—I can feel it in my lesbian soul, okay!?!?

All of Dorothy’s friends not only want their gifts, but don't see the point in their existences without them. It made me sad for them.

I don’t know where to mention it, but Toto’s not in this show at all—poor guy. EDIT: I just learned that in the original production, Toto was played by a white dog as a joke that there was an all-black cast as opposed to him traditionally being a black/brown dog with a white cast. That is hilarious—why didn't they recreate that???

Tincrow’s only straight-feeling moment is with them both being distracted by the poppies (which caught me off guard in this show because traditionally Scarecrow and Tinman are the only ones not affected by the poppies because they’re not flesh and blood like Dorothy, Lion, and Toto; in this Dorothy was the one to break everyone free from them. I’ve been trying to understand the purpose of this change. Maybe to give Dorothy a bit more agency). The poppies were these sensual flower ladies trying to convince the gang to be lazy, which on it’s own is a fun twist on the flowers that put Dorothy and Lion to sleep. But hey, maybe that makes it not straight, just lazy. I'm all for Bi4Bi Tincrow too.

After the Kalidahs attack they comfort and hype each other and Dorothy up (Dorothy’s their sapphic adopted daughter, in this essay, I will—).

I forget when exactly this happens, maybe during the Kalidahs scene, but at one point they casually cling to each other's arms for no(?) reason. They just met and they’re already married.

Scarecrow backup-singing a little before everyone else joins Tinman during “What Would I Do If I Could Feel” (at least at my showing, I don’t know if this is a regular occurrence as a part of the show or just something that happened to happen at mine).

Making fun of the Wicked Witch together, calling her smelly, and having Lion join in. Bros, that’s what got you in trouble to begin with—messing with a dang witch!

Interestingly, the idea of Dorothy’s friends having they’re gifts all along isn’t here. Instead, it’s implied that after they kill the last wicked witch the curse is mostly lifted, with Tincrow’s gifts returning to them, but they stay a scarecrow and tin-man for some reason. I like to think they still had them all along though, that idea’s too cute and sweet for me to let go of.

The last time we see them they leave the stage together, Lion going ahead of them to reunite with his mom. I can’t explain why this feels important to me. I guess because usually characters exit the stage individually as like a goodbye queue to the audience, knowing that that last step off the stage will detemand the last impression of the characters. So the fact that the last impression of both of them is them together feels special. Or maybe it’s just me.

They both had such sassy black queer vibes the whole time. The show itself already has such sass, but both of them, Scarecrow especially, were oozing it in different fonts. They were giving off bear x twink—or maybe otter couple vibes.

Gay or not, The Wiz is so great! I recommend it so much!

[phantomss-pain]

I have to know what's your opinion on the silver eyes as a whole?

(Also do you have any headcannons for why Michael just doesn't exist there? (I don't know why but I always find people's reasoning for why he isn't mentioned once funny))

I’m guessing when you talk about silver eyes as a whole you mean the entire trilogy so I’ll just go over each of the stuff there and explain my headcanon for why Michael isn’t there.

Silver eyes book:

Second favourite thing in fnaf in general behind fnaf 2. I love Charlie and her whole storyline. I love most of the characters (Lamar doesn’t count). The fact that it’s such a character driven story is amazing and there are so many scenes where I’m just like this is amazing. William’s reveal, Sammy death scene as well. All of it was perfect. I know a lot of people complain about the pacing but I don’t care. The fact it takes its time is great as it build up everything to the finale very well.

Twisted ones:

I also really like this book. I know people say it’s boring but I disagree. I like Charlie’s whole crisis with Sammy and Henry as I think that makes sense after what happened to her in silver eyes. I like Jessica and Clay here with the two basically being there to say hey Charlie you okay there? I guess the main problem is just the stuff with John as it feels like filler however I do think it adds to Charlie’s current crisis. Buttttt then there is the ending which sets up Forth Closet.

Forth closet:

This book is where the silver eyes trilogy goes off the deep end and I say is the main reason the current lord is a god damn cluster fuck. To give some positives out there I do think John and Jessica being the main characters here work and I like that. The first two chapters are also pretty solid. But then everything just goes down the fucking drain and it’s all because of that god damn twist. Charlie being a robot is so fucking shit. It takes away from her character as she isn’t even her own person she is just Henry’s agony or something like that. It also doesn’t help the fact that the robot kid twist could have worked IF FUCKING SAMMY WAS THE ROBOT KID.

Like imagine if the main plot of Forth Closet is Charlie bonding with this version of Sammy finally thinking that she has someone from her family to bond with only for that to be ripped away as she finally lets go of Sammy and Henry for good. Like the plot of Forth Closet wouldn’t change that much except Charlie can still be a character and have a arc where she has to put down this version of Sammy that has been possessed by Evan or Elizabeth.

Forth Closet makes me angry the same way Security Breach and ruin does lmao.

Charlie:

Charlie in silver eyes is hands down my favourite fnaf character. It’s the main interpretation I look towards when writing for Charlie. I like her helpful shyish nature while being a cool tomboy on the side. Now I think I made it clear I don’t like forth closet’s reveal and I’ll leave it at that.

John:

I think John does get a bad rap in the fandom I think part of that is due to how the fandom doesn’t really like straight ships which I’m not going to get into and trust me I don’t mean it as a diss towards gay ships in this fandom but god fucking can we please stop using Jessica and Charlie to shit on John and Charlie please for the love of god. Anyway John um. I like him. He’s at his worst in twisted ones but he does improve in Forth Closet so that’s cool. (Also I’m really sorry that John basically turned into a slight fandom rant but I really needed to get that off my chest)

Jessica:

I have a love hate relationship with Jessica mostly due to people insisting that Jessica would have been so much better as a love interest for Charlie and using that to shit on John. Which I’m being real that did turn me off Jessica and Charlie as a ship until recently (but my love for the ship went down as saw those takes pop up again and just urg). Anyway I love her personality and I love the fact that she is Charlie’s right hand lady basically. Like can we just get more fics where instead of Charlie being friends with the mci kids and Elizabeth we get more fics where it’s Charlie’s actual friend group in the books and have Jessica and Charlie be the close ones instead of Elizabeth and Charlie?

Carlton:

Funny man. I like his whole thing in silver eyes and is just really funny like I said.

Marla:

I’ve really opened up to Marla recently (part of that is because I am writing a fic with her and Elizabeth together with a friend) I just like her mama bear personality. She’s sweat and needs to be used more.

Clay, Aunt Jen:

Both characters need to be used more full stop. Can we have more fics with Jen talking to Henry or have Clay be the one investigating Freddy’s please. Just give them more attention I beg

Michael headcanons:

My person headcanon is just after Charlie died Mrs Afton just divorced William and in their agreement took Michael and Evan. I think he’s just out there maybe with a girlfriend or a boyfriend just having fun not knowing anything about what William is doing.

[metaphysicpareidolic]

OPINION TIME because i need to know i'm not the only one who feels this way:

i'm gonna be perfectly honest and many of you might hate me for this but. i. did not like good omens season 2. so if you don't want to read, i'll just write my essay under the break dlsjfdh

OKAY.

i mean i understand why people like it, the two (mostly) male-presenting characters that everyone has been smashing together like barbie dolls for decades finally get a canon kiss, great. yeah, as a trans gay guy, i can't deny that i love seeing any kind of queer representation, especially from such a popular show, from such an influential author. but this? did not. feel good to watch. and it's not just because of the soul-destroying cliffhanger ending.

i lived and breathed good omens when the show first came out, it was one of the most intense hyperfixations of my life, i was completely obsessed with it and i recommended it to everyone i knew, both the show and the book. it's the entire reason i got tumblr in the first place and the first fandom i actually participated in. quite a good portion of my waking thoughts were consumed by the ineffable husbands and all the other characters. i was a young teenager at the time and this story shaped my view of the world for over a year, and i will always love it. but even then, i hoped to god (ha) that they wouldn't make a second season. but inevitably, they did.

i went into the first episode hoping i was wrong, and i finished it just feeling disappointed. i kept watching and got through the whole thing, hoping it would get better as the season went on, but it just got worse and worse. granted, i did enjoy the little historical throwbacks (i think the entire second season should have just been aziraphale and crowley through the centuries with michael and david improvising the whole thing like that one post) but the actual plot was bland, the characters had lost all their depth, and on top of that the budget was obviously cut by a lot so the rich visuals that were so captivating in the first season were gone, as well. that and issues with sound, which probably were more noticeable cause i was wearing headphones, but this is one of the most popular and profitable shows on a leading streaming service owned by one of the biggest fucking companies in the world. shouldn't they be putting money into it?

i'm not upset that beelzebub was recast. i'm upset that their entire character and personality was forgotten in favour of a romantic side plot, which exists, why? again?? to somehow emphasize a point already made by the other rushed romantic side plot?? that has barely anything to do with the actual story other than being accidentally dragged into it by aziraphale, whose entire character development from the first season has been entirely pushed aside because we need a third season, because we want more money! hehe they are kissing, gay people kissing ooh look, give us your money and attention so you can see them kiss consensually this time! i could continue but i will spare you the entirety of my spiel because i could write. PAGES. about how much this season hurt my soul not because Oh No They Broke Up but because i believed in this world and i believed in these characters and i don't like seeing them like this, wrung out and milked for cash and fanservice. everything that made the first season good is dampened by the knowledge that i now have to consider this fucking thing canon, that this is what the story turns into.

neil gaiman i love you but for the love of god get off of tumblr. he just wrote a fucking fanfiction of his and terry pratchett's work because he knew he would get money from it. and we are eating it up, because we love the story, we love the characters, and we love the author and we always want more. if you want more, draw fanart. write fanfiction. create your own version of a story. please, don't give your money to a company just because it's Officially Legit Canon when you could create a much better, more compelling, and more satisfying ending for yourself, for free. i lied earlier, i don't understand the appeal of this season. i don't understand why people like it. it feels fake. it feels wrong. it feels like an entirely different universe than the first season, and the book, and that wouldn't necessarily even be a bad thing if it was at least done with some level of concern for quality and consistency.

i know not everyone wants to be critical of their favourite show and would prefer to just enjoy it for what it is. i understand that, at least. i don't want to ruin anyone's fun. if you enjoyed this season, good. i'm glad you did and i love seeing all the fanart and fanfictions happening everywhere. i just really wanted to talk about this and maybe spark a little discussion if anyone's interested. anyways if you read all of this, thank you.

tl;dr: i hate capitalism, i hate streaming services

[jalboyhenthusiast]

mp review: general non spoilery thoughts under the cut and then a separated spoilery bit afterwards if you’d like to skip it

so when i first got to the event i was like oh no it’s just harry stans here because there was a lot of merch fjfj but i got into my auditorium seat early and watched ppl filing in and i was actually pleasantly surprised at the diversity in age?? there were quite a lot of older ppl there and a significant amount of older gay couples which was so nice to see.

before the film started michael came out and spoke a little bit. he thanked some ppl in the audience (bethan etc) and mentioned harry being on tour thus not here (there were a few quiet whoops for harry lol) and then he introduced the rest of the cast and crew on stage. david and emma both got HUGE cheers :) there were just like 2 questions from the presenter and then the film started.

okay the film itself.

i loved it 🥺 it felt very.. intimate is how i would describe it. it felt like a very intimate and magnified look at a small story. idk if that makes sense. but other than the budget for venice it felt v indie and contained in a nice way. you could see that michael’s vision was on the small moments and the intricacies of the relationships rather than this huge grand story or political statement. it’s always difficult ofc to adapt a book and especially one that jumps timelines but i do think it was done successfully. my only complaint there was that i wish it was longer and that certain scenes were fleshed out more than they were in the novel. i also don’t really understand the barrage of negative reviews it’s had.. maybe they were expecting a huge blockbuster bc harry’s name was attached? and were surprised when it wasn’t? idk but i definitely wouldn’t describe it as dull in fact it was delicate and affecting 🥺

unfortunately there were a lot of laughs :// again at scenes that are only funny because it was harry. it was very grating bc the audiences reaction is what took me out of those scenes, not the film :/ there were no laughs at the sex scenes though thank godddd. just at lines here or there and mostly contained to one area in the auditorium.

i’m terms of the performances i can understand why it was being praised as a successful ensemble because everyone was truly wonderful. there were no weak links and harry held his own even with so little experience. michael’s comment on harry being “honest and innocent” in his performance makes a lot of sense once you’ve seen it. he’s no oscar winner yet but he has soo much potential i feel v proud of him.

in general it’s a beautiful and delicate film that will 100% start conversations (i heard debates erupt immediately once the credits rolled lol) but again it can only be authentically enjoyed if you put Harry Styles out of your mind and just watch. it also really hit me while watching, what project harry had pursued here.. it was very brave of him and i hope that much can be appreciated no matter what your personal opinion of the film is.

* SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS *

okay a few thoughts!! the second half of the film was better than the first imo. much like the book! once patrick is properly in it basically.

the tom and marion scenes were appropriately awkward and the tom and patrick scenes felt.. charged and heavy. the contrast felt v clear to me.

the sex scenes were shot so ridiculously beautifully. not awkward at all not too much just passionate and stunning. i completely get the conversations around it now. their chemistry was great. i particularly loved the little scene of patrick inviting tom to venice and kissing his shoulder from behind 😭 so cute.

julia!!!!! my lesbian girlie got her screen time!! the audience gasped at her reveal lol.

i wish venice was longer :( but the naked scene was cute and again is there to contrast that cold and passionless environment he has with marion. cinema !

i loved the older cast. they were great and linus in particular was almost freakishly good at an older harry. even his walk 😵‍���

that final scene BROKE me. i liked how the 1950s scenes felt almost like memories for the 1990s characters and the way it would bleed into their present day but oh god that final scene with tom and patrick. i was in bits. what a lovely divergence from the book ending.

oh and the soundtrack was gorgeous.

[piratewithvigor]

My first thought in regard to every band that gets played on my radio station

ACDC: Every dad’s favourite band

Adams, Bryan: Every mom’s favourite singer until Michael Buble came along

Aerosmith: haha they thought Vince Neil was a lady

Alice Cooper: he’s a Game Of Thrones fanboy and I have proof

Alice In Chains: my sister doesn’t like them because she decided AC were Alice Cooper’s initials ONLY

Allman Brothers Band: good music for dropping acid to

Allman, Gregg: That’s too many Gs for one name

Animals: House Of The Rising Sun, or who even cares

Argent: Sometimes Hold Your Head Up is really catchy

Asia: Tuesdays

Autograph: one of the members went on to be a pharmacist

Bachman-Turner Overdrive: There are just so many pop culture jokes about Taking Care Of Business that whatever I say won’t be as funny

Bad Company: with their song; Bad Company, off their album; Bad Company

Benatar, Pat: Always getting her confused with Patti Smith

Black Crowes: I like them for Lickin, but it doesn’t seem to exist outside of one shoddy video on youtube and my old CD

Blackfoot: this band name feels kind of racy

Black Sabbath: Dio was not better or worse than Ozzy; just different

Blondie: I like Call Me, but Blondie confuses me stylistically

Blue Oyster Cult: MORE COWBELL

Bon Jovi: Hello, childhood trauma, I missed you

Boston: ONE GUY. ONE GUY DID IT ALL AND NO ONE KNOWS

Bowie, David: Don’t let your children watch The Man Who Fell To Earth, or David Bowie’s will end up being the third penis they see in life

Browne, Jackson: Another musician ruined by Supernatural

Buffalo Springfield: Jack Nicholson was at the riot they sing about

Burdon, Eric: no ideas, brain empty

Bush: ditto

Candlebox: ditto once more. Who are these people?

Cars: This band feels so gay and so straight at the same time, I can only assume they’re the poster children of bisexual panic

Cheap Trick: I played Dream Police on Guitar Hero so fucking much because it was the only song anyone who played with me could keep up with

Chicago: Chicago 30 exists, but they do not have 30 albums. Fucking riddle me that

Clapton, Eric: 6 discs in one Greatest Hits is too many. That’s called “re releasing your discography”

Cochrane, Tom: For some reason, everyone thinks Rascal Flats did it better

Cocker, Joe: Belushi did it right

Collective Soul: who?

Collins, Phil: If his biggest hits were done by MCR, they would be emo anthems, but because he’s 5′6″ and from the 80s, they’re not

Cream: *Vietnam flashbacks on the hippie side*

CCR: *Vietnam flashbacks on the war side*

CSNY: David Crosby; meh

Deep Purple: THEY’RE SO MUCH MORE THAN SMOKE ON THE WATER

Def Leppard: the only music for when you’re a heartbroken bitch but also a sexy one

Derek And The Dominos: Clapton and ‘Layla’ broke up

Derringer, Rick: Tom Petty if he was from the midwest

Dio: You thought it was an anime reference, but it was me, Dio

Dire Straits: You can tell how bigoted a radio station is based on how much of Money For Nothing they censor

Doobie Brothers: I have yet to smoke weed, but I listen to the Doobies, and I think that’s pretty close

Dylan, Bob: I take back everything I said about him in my youth

Eagles: Hotel California isn’t their best song, but the memes that come from it are second to none

Edgar Winter Group: @the--blackdahlia

Electric Light Orchestra: Actually an orchestra and sound a fuckton like George Harrison

ELO: I really hesitate to ask what happens with the 7 virgins and a mule

Essex, David: no prominent memories of him

Fabulous Thunderbirds: cannot spell

Faces: Who on earth thought that was a good album name?

Faith No More: I got nothing

Fixx: One Thing Leads To Another is a damn bop

Fleetwood Mac: I ain’t straight, but I’m simply not enough of a witch to enjoy them to full potential

Fogerty, John: He got sued cause he sounded like himself

Foghat: Slow Ride slowly becoming less coherent feels like a drug trip

Foo Fighters: He was just excited to buy a grill

Ford, Lita: deserved better

Foreigner: dramatically overplayed

Frampton, Peter: a masterful user of the talk box

Free: dramatically underplayed

Gabriel, Peter: leaving Genesis changed him a lot

Genesis: if someone likes Genesis, clarify the era, because yes, it does matter

Georgia Satellites: sing like you have a cactus in your ass

Golden Earring: Twilight Zone slaps, but it doesn’t slap as hard as this station thinks it does

Grand Funk Railroad: Funk

Grateful Dead: I like their aesthetic more than their music

Great White: there are so many fucking shark jokes

Greenbaum, Norman: makes me think of Subway for some reason

Green Day: the first of the emo revolution

Greg Kihn Band: RocKihnRoll is literally the most clever album name I’ve ever seen

Guns N Roses: They have more than three good songs, but radio stations never recognize that

Hagar, Sammy: I’m still trying to figure out where he lived to take 16 hours to get to LA driving 55 and how fucking fast was he driving beforehand?

Harrison, George: He went from religious to rock, and if he had continued rocking, he would have gotten too cool 

Head East: I respect people who use breakfast foods as album names

Heart: Magic Man and Barracuda are played at least once every goddamn day. They’re not even the best songs!

Hendrix, Jimi: I have both a cousin and a sibling named after Hendrix references

Henley, Don: Dirty Laundry gives me too much inspiration

Hollies: Somehow sound like they’re both from the 60s and the 80s at the same time

Idol, Billy: he’s doing well for himself

INXS: Terminator vibes

Iris, Donnie: knockoff Roy Orbison

James Gang: too many funks

Jane’s Addiction: if TMNT had a grunge band representative

Jefferson Airplane: *assorted cheers*

Jefferson Starship: *assorted boos*

Jethro Tull: The only band to make you feel not cool enough to play the flute

Jett, Joan: icon

J. Geils Band: I requested them on the radio once and it got played

Joel, Billy: he really did just air everybody’s business like that

John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band: literally wtf is that name

John, Elton: yarn Elton sits in my basement, unstaring. Please someone take him from me

Joplin, Janis: Queen

Journey: Stop overplaying Don’t Stop Believing. It takes away from the rest of the repetoire

Judas Priest: literally started the gay leather aesthetic

Kansas: another fucking band Supernatural stole

Kenny Wayne Shepherd: the man confuses me to the point where he isn’t in the right place alphabetically

Kiss: Mick Mars and I will simply have to disagree on the subject

Kravitz, Lenny: runaway vibes

Led Zeppelin: Fucking fight me if you don’t think they’re the most talented band (maybe not the most talented individually, but collectively, no one comes close)

Lennon, John: My least favourite Beatle for reasons

Live: I got nothin

Living Colour: slap a decent amount

Loverboy: do you not get TURNT the fuck up to the big Loverboy hits? Who hurt you??

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama is a Neil Young diss track

Marshall Tucker Band: no opinion

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band: VERY STRONG OPINIONS THAT THEY AREN’T GOOD

McCartney, Paul/Wings: Power couple

Meatloaf: I have nothing but respect for a man who willingly named himself Meatloaf

Mellencamp, John: voted cutest lesbian of 1987

Metallica: I liked their appearance on Jimmy Fallon

Midnight Oil: I get them confused for Talking Heads a lot

Modern English: who?

Molly Hatchet: Hollies vibes, but also Georgia Satellites vibes

Money, Eddie: DAN AVIDAN, IF YOU SEE THIS, COVER TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT

Motley Crue: Stan Mick Mars and John Corabi. They’re the only ones who deserve it

Mott The Hoople: no one loves them except for David Bowie

Mountain: props for naming an album ‘Climbing’

Nazareth: I want to make a John Mulaney joke here, but I can never come up with one

Nicks, Stevie: witch queen

Night Ranger: I get them confused with Urge Overkill

Nirvana: Kurt Cobain was the ally grunge needed

Nova, Aldo: he’s Canadian, at least

Nugent, Ted: *serves a ghost as jerky*

Offspring: nothing here

Osbourne, Ozzy: this bitch crazy

Outfield: Your Love is kind of a sketchy song, but it slaps hard

Palmer, Robert: low quality Eddie Money

Pearl Jam: *grunts in Eddie Vedder*

Petty, Tom: I have so many feelings about Tom Petty and they are all good

Pink Floyd: which one is Pink?

Plant, Robert: solo career is a crapshoot, but his voice is unparalleled

Poison: I want them to write a song called ‘Alice Cooper’

Pretenders: I want to say good things, but I have nothing to say

Queen: A doctor of astrophysics, a screaming girl, a disco queen and a diva walk into a bar. It’s Queen; they’re there to play a gig

Queensryche: neutral opinion

Quiet Riot: they got big because of a song they hated. I love that

Rafferty, Gerry: the second-sexiest sax opening in all of music

Rainbow: Ritchie Blackmore created something very magnificent

Ram Jam: one good song and they didn’t even write it

Ratt: I’m sure they have more than Round And Round, but I don’t know it

RHCP: funky, but if you have paid money to hear them, you’re going to The Bad Place (I don’t make the rules)

Red Rider: basically Golden Earring

Reed, Lou: Walk On The Wild Side would be such a cool song if it wasn’t so dull

REM: American Tragically Hip

REO Speedwagon: Props for having a dad joke as an album title

Rolling Stones: Never in my life could I imagine the drummer being named anything but Charlie

Rush: How to make being uncool the coolest fucking shit

Santana: The world needs more Santana

Scandal: There’s something really funny about The Warrior being my brother’s “song” with his girlfriend

Scorpions: Was Wind Of Change written by the CIA? Only the spotify podcast I got an ad for once could say

Seger, Bob: A different variety of Eric Clapton (frankly a better variety, but that’s just me)

Simple Minds: we ALL forgot about you

Skid Row: Sebastian Bach is prettier than all of us

Soundgarden: music that makes you feel like you dunked your head underwater

Springsteen, Bruce: my arch-nemesis. Maybe someday, he’ll find out about it

Squeeze: according to my friends, the stupidest band name ever, but they’re theatre kids, so you know

Squier, Billy: If he can make it through 1984 alive, you can make it through whatever bad day you’re having

Stealers Wheel: Yet another band who I always mistake for George Harrison

Steely Dan: my house’s nickname for the Robber in Settlers Of Catan

Steppenwolf: Either makes me think of Jay & Silent Bob, Jack Nicholson, or that time I had to cut 6lbs of onions

Steve Miller Band: when you’re in the right mood, they slap hard

Stewart, Rod: my soundtrack to summer 2015

Stills, Stephen: Love The One You’re With Is Catchy, but the lyrics are questionable

Stone Temple Pilots: the only band to write a song about goo you smear on yourself

Stray Cats: an obscene amount of merch is available for them

Styx: Supernatural would have ruined them for me too if I hadn’t been into them previously. 

Supertramp: I hunted for Breakfast In America for two years and it was worth every hunt

Sweet: I will never understand my two-month obsession with Ballroom Blitz when I was 15, but it was legit all I listened to

Talking Heads: you may find yourself in a pizza hut. And you may find yourself in a taco bell. And you may find yourself at the combination pizza hut and taco bell. And you may ask yourself; ‘how did I get here?’

Temple Of The Dog: I keep confusing them for Nazareth

Ten Years After: somehow still relevant

Tesla: not the car or the dude

The Beatles: Evokes a lot of opinions from people. Mine is that I love them

The Clash: I showed my sister the ‘Lock The Taskbar’ vine ONCE and it still kills her

The Doors: evokes teenage terror from deep within my soul

The Guess Who: Canada’s answer to confusing question-themed band names

The Kinks: kinky

The Police: wrote the theme of 2020 and everyone somehow forgot it was about a teacher resisting becoming a pedophile

The Ramones: playing all of their songs in a row wouldn’t take more than 2 hours

The Romantics: you don’t think you know them, but if you’ve seen Shrek 2, you have

The Who: If someone can explain Tommy to me, I’d be glad to hear it

The Zombies: I think they happened because of the 60s

Thin Lizzy: Could the boys maybe leave town?

Thorogood, George: blues, but make it modern

Toto: the most memed song behind All Star

Townshend, Pete: just makes me think of the end of Mr. Deeds

T-Rex: Mark Bolan is an icon

Triumph: The no-name brand of Rush

Tubes: like the yogurt

Twisted Sister: they did a christmas album and my mom does NOT hate it

U2: U2 Movers; we move in mysterious ways

Van Halen: RIP Eddie

Van Morrison: honestly, who’s named Van?

Vaughn, Stevie Ray: Steamy Ray Vaughn

Walsh, Joe: The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get

War: Foghat, but even groovier

Whitesnake: the most successful band to be named after a penis

Wright, Gary: the 90s thanks him for writing the song every movie used for the “guy sees cute girl and it’s love at first sight” scene

Yes: To Be Continued

Young, Neil: The best part of CSNY

Zevon, Warren: the album cover of Excitable Boy makes me deeply uncomfortable for reasons I don’t understand

ZZ Top: has been the same three guys since 1969. Lineup unchanged. 

3 Doors Down: They feel a little modern to be on a classic rock station, but whatever

38 Special: Why 38?

[spaceskam]

happy birthday @sungbeen ! here’s some fluff and I hope you have a good day!

ao3

“Come on.”

“I hear you! I’m just saying I don’t have a preference.”

Alex made a face, crawling closer and right onto Michael’s lap. It was still a little surreal that they’d gotten to a place where he would just… do that. Alex was comfortable and confident and trusted him not to fuck it up. The thought made Michael a little dizzy.

Dizziness aside, Michael put his hands on Alex’s waist and slid up and down his sides, pulling him in closer. Alex’s face bled into a smile and he pressed into Michael more, nudging his nose against his while draping his arms around his neck. Because they did that now. They sat close in their bed together. Their bed.

“I don’t believe that. It’ll be your house too, you get a say,” Alex said warmly, fingers trailing up and down the back of his neck, “And I need to know what to tell the realtor.”

“I really don’t know,” Michael insisted, “Just, like, something affordable.”

Alex rolled his eyes and tugged gently at one of Michael’s curls. “I already know our price range and my credit is great, tell me what you want.”

“I don’t care, whatever you want,” Michael insisted. Alex groaned and leaned away. Michael wanted to chase him, but he knew better.

“You have to have an opinion on something.”

The problem was that he really didn’t. He never thought he’d get the chance to even have a whole house like Alex was offering him. Sure, he’d daydreamed about an ambiguous space and a white picket fence and a garden and little feet running around, but that was just that. Daydreams. He never thought it would be real. It led to his actual wants to be minuscule at best. And all of those didn’t really matter when Alex was there. He would choose whatever Alex wanted, he would do whatever Alex wanted.

Which probably wasn’t healthy, but they were working on it, honestly.

“I really don’t know anything. I don’t care, just as long as it doesn’t fall apart the moment we move in,” Michael said, but he paused and tilted his head before adding, “Actually, that’s okay if it does. I can renovate it to whatever you want it to look like.”

Alex scoffed and shoved his shoulder gently, but his smile was there. He leaned forward and kissed his forehead. Michael tried not to miss it too much when he pulled away. He’d get another one. He knew that for sure. That was a good feeling.

“I don’t get how you don’t have any preferences. Well, I don’t believe it at least. I think you’re just saying that because you’re embarrassed or something,” Alex said softly, resting his forehead against Michael’s again. Michael reached around to circle each knot of his spine slowly, methodically.

“I honestly never thought I’d get this far. When I thought about my future, if I was going to have one, I always just wanted a functioning kitchen, a comfortable bed, A/C, and a working bathroom. Everything else are all just bonuses,” Michael answered honestly. However, that obviously didn’t sit well with Alex because his pretty smile fell.

“You didn’t even have that at the airstream,” Alex said softly, tracing Michael’s ear with his thumb. Michael just shrugged. “Don’t shrug, those are basic wants and you didn’t have them.”

“I have them now,” Michael said, reaching up for a kiss. Alex reciprocated it for a moment before pulling away.

“Then how about I ask questions and you just give me answers? Would that be easier than trying to come up with something out of nowhere?” Alex wondered. Michael nodded if only because that would make him happy. “Okay, so how many bedrooms do you want? A lot of houses are, like, two, but do you want three?”

“Depends on how many kids you want, I guess,” Michael answered. Alex’s cheeks tinted a pretty shade of red and he shook his head. “If we can find one with three bedrooms that’s in our price range, I’m down. We can use it as an office or whatever.”

“Okay, cool. Three,” Alex said, though the kids comment must’ve stuck because he just stared for a moment after that. Michael leaned forward to give him a kiss before he continued. “Okay, um… oh, are you okay with a one story? We can do a two story if you want, but, you know, might make life easier if we have a one story with my leg and all.”

“Yeah, of course,” Michael scoffed. As if he’d ever choose to make his life harder. Alex gave him another kiss and hummed against his lips.

“Oh, do you want me to see if I can get her to find an open floor plan or no?” Alex asked. Michael wracked his brain, trying to think of what the hell that even meant. “That’s like when the kitchen and dining area and the living room are all together and open rather than their own separate rooms.”

“Oh,” Michael said, “Um. Shit, I don’t know. I never thought about it. What do you prefer?”

Alex eyed him skeptically. “Michael, you’re supposed to say what you want.”

“Yeah, but this is also a team effort. If I have to say what I want, so do you. So, what do you want?” Michael said, squeezing his thigh for emphasis. Alex breathed out of his nose.

“Fine. I guess I don’t really mind either way. I mean, it’d be nice for space purposes and free reign, but it isn’t a necessity,” Alex explained. Michael nodded.

“Sounds reasonable to me,” he agreed. 

“What about location? Do you wanna be in a subdivision or not? I don’t really care either way, but maybe we should lean towards not being that so close to that many people with so many rules,” Alex brainstormed. Michael raised an eyebrow.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re an alien,” Alex teased, poking him in the stomach just to make him squirm, “And I want you to feel comfortable in your own house, not like people are watching you.”

“Okay, that’s valid. Also, I know it’s getting a bit better, but I don’t know if I want to be the gay couple that people find interesting to speculate about. It’s enough without them being able to see us come and go,” Michael said. Alex hissed softly.

“Didn’t think about that either. Yeah, so, spaced out,” Alex decided, “Okay, I can’t think of anything else, but I’ll ask if I come up with anything. And it’ll probably be easier once we start looking at actual places.”

Michael nodded and put his hand on the back of his neck. He stared at him for a moment, just taking him in.

They were moving in together. And not just Michael gradually infiltrating his house. They were finding a place that would have both of their names on the lease. It’d be truly theirs. Fuck.

“Hey,” Michael said, “Hey, I love you.”

Alex’s smile took over his face naturally and beautifully and Michael just felt that even more. Every time he looked at him, he cared less and less about what their house would look like. He could barely even think that far. He was just obsessed with here and now, Alex under his hands and happy.

“I love you too,” Alex said easily. Michael pulled him closer and met him in a kiss.

Michael held onto him as he flipped them over, pushing Alex into the mattress and kissing him harder. He was smiling and holding Michael close without an ounce of reservation, but there wasn’t anything hurried about it either. It was slow. They could take their time. They had forever.

“Alex,” Michael said firmly as he pulled away, “I want a garden.”

Alex laughed and pulled him down, sealing the promise of a garden with another kiss. It was buried in between a sea of prior kisses and future ones and somehow that made it all the most exhilarating. 

For once in their life, the future was tangible and it was good.

[sweeethinny]

Brothers

none of this makes sense, I didn’t make a good ending, so .... I’m sorry I wanted to write this, but it wasn't getting any better, so I made these little moments during the years of James and Albus, I hope you like it i'm sorry for not making sense, or for mistakes, I just needed to get it out of my mind

(James and Albus are 2 years apart, so in the fight scene James is 15 and Albus 13 - and it happens in the same year that Lily enters Hogwarts -, and in the final scene, James is 17 and Albus 15)

-----

When James went to Hogwarts, Albus felt alone.

It was strange, because he always had James in the next room, ready to play with him or just piss him off, Albus had a friend at all hours of the day, but then, he went to Hogwarts and he came back talking about friends that he had done it there, and everything incredible that happened there, and Albus was alone and jealous.

He lost James to those stupid friends of his.

When Albus went to Hogwarts, he was angry with James.

At Hogwarts, James was not his older brother, who liked to race with him and loved to talk to him and make jokes. James, in addition to having his own friends, James seemed to be famous, even though he did nothing. People always seemed to sit down and listen to whatever shit he or his friends were talking about, and the worst part is that Albus realized that they loved all that attention.

When Lily entered Hogwarts, Albus wanted to break James' nose.

Albus was seeing a boy. A Ravenclaw boy who didn't want anyone to know about them. But Albus also wanted to keep it a secret, so it was no big deal. However, James was always on the way.

He and Greg agreed to flee to Hogsmeade together, but of course James was close by and saw him running away, and of course he followed. But in the end it was good, because their father was in Hogsmeade and if it weren't for James and the cloak, they would have been caught.

Later, back at Hogwarts, James even had the courage to yell at Albus about him being irresponsible! James! The same boy who got into trouble almost every week.

Albus had been so angry that if it weren't for Mira to intervene to warn that Harry was at school looking for James, Albus would have broken his brother's nose. How could he think he had a right to intervene in what he did? To say what was right and wrong? James liked girls, he had seen his brother kissing some in the halls, he would never have to worry about the things that Albus worried about. He didn't need to be afraid to talk about who he liked with his parents. His father had even talked to James about girls.

James was normal.

When James broke Greg's nose, Albus felt guilty.

James, as always, was out of the castle that night with his friends, he saw when Greg attacked Albus, when he fell like an idiot to the ground, and he went to help him.

James didn't tell anyone about what Greg had called him. He didn't even joke later, when Minerva sent them home for the weekend. James had a bruised eye and cheek, and Albus's jaw was aching like never before, and even when his father yelled at them, James said nothing.

'Who was in Hogsmeade that day?' Harry asked, and for a second Albus thought James was going to tell the truth, but for some reason, he said:

'Me.' And Albus thought he had never seen his brother so embarrassed and looking so sad when his father said he was disappointed in him.

'You lied to me.'

When James defended Albus, he was stupidly moved.

Their father had been injured and had gone to the Hospital, the three were called by their mother, because Harry had asked for them there. He was in terrible shape, half of his face was bandaged, James and Lily cried when they saw their father in that state, Albus however was paralyzed on his mother's side.

James asked Albus to tell their parents that he was gay, sometime soon, saying that no, they would not fight with him or throw him out of the house. Seeing his father like that, looking so fragile and so hurt, Albus wanted to throw up, thinking that he could have died without knowing the truth. James never told him why he had hit Greg.

'I'm gay,' he said, awkwardly, and his parents looked at him as if Albus had said that he had found a diamond mine in his room.

He was afraid, so afraid that he went to James' side, who had come out of his father's embrace. Nobody said anything for a while, and Albus thought it had been a bad idea, he should have been quiet.

'Why are we quiet?' James said, nervous. ‘It isn’t a horrible thing what Albus said, you don't need to be like this.’ He didn’t even seem to be breathing. 'He's still the same Albus, boring and stubborn, as usual, and just because he kisses boys doesn't mean anything. And if you two think this is a big deal, I'm going to disinherit myself, because Daddy was excluded his whole life for being different, and I think the Potter know what it's like to be alone, so I don't see any point in making Albus feel like that.' James put his arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. 'I think Al deserves our support, and he has my full support. I punched Greg in the face for talking shit, and I would do it again, even if it’s someone twice my size.’

Albus blinked his tears away when his mother hugged him, and when his father called him in for a hug. They were not angry, ‘We would never be angry about that, regardless of who you kiss or how you see yourself, we still love you very much.’, And Albus felt a lot more relaxed and free when that weight came off his shoulders.

'Please call us if someone says something to you. You have a very beautiful face to be hurt by punches.’ Ginny said, filling him with kisses, tears falling down her face.

When James told him that he was dating, Albus wanted to laugh.

It was so obvious that he and Mira had been dancing around each other for months, and every time he saw them together, full of little secrets and smiles, Albus knew they would end up dating.

He and Lily even bet when James would tell the news, Lily who won.

'James doesn't know how to keep a secret.' She said, laughing. 'And he seemed very nervous when I saw him and Mira together near the Astronomy Tower.'

When James asked Albus to go out with him and his friends, he felt important.

They went to Piper's house, together.

Albus felt much older that night, along with James' friends, listening to them talking about girls and boys, and playing video games with them. Michael always asked Albus' opinion if he was quiet for a long time.

‘Any boy on your radar, mini Potter?’ Piper asked, handing him the packet of snacks. 'Pretend your boring brother is not here, and tell us about the Slytherins. Hot or not?’

But when they smoked together, Albus felt that they had reached a new level of friendship between siblings.

Usually Scorpion didn't like being around James on vacation, and Albus knew that he hadn't fully overcome his crush on Mira, and it seemed that James knew it too, because he never talked about girls as much as he talked to Scorpion around.

'It's to irritate you,' he said for the thousandth time. 'He never talks about it, but he knows it will piss you off, so he does.'

James was lying on the floor in the living room, smoking a joint and laughing at something Michael had said, something that involved girls. Scorpion grimaced, and Albus thought his friend really didn't understand what it was like to have an older brother.

‘Sloan, you need to learn to talk to girls, or you’ll be forever comparing their hair to that poisonous flower,’ James said, his voice slightly curled from the marijuana.

'I need to learn? Don't be an asshole, Potter, if it weren't for Hazel you would never have started dating,' Piper snapped, taking the cigarette from James' hand and swallowing, green eyes, which were naturally clear, now dark. ‘And Blanca liked my poem.’

'I would never have agreed to go out with you.' Michael was sitting in the armchair, his feet dangling from the arms of the chair while he was leaning on the other arm, devouring the rest of the ice cream that was in the jar.

'Of course you would, you already kissed me, why wouldn't you accept it?' Piper asked, pushing the cigarette to Albus. ‘Do you want to try, mini Potter?’

‘Albus doesn’t smoke,’ James said, staring at his brother with the eagle eyes very much like the ones his mother gave them when they fought.

'Stop it, James. Albus you can smoke, if you want.' Michael smiled at him, blinking. 'If you don't want to, mini Malfoy can try.' Scorpius looked at Albus, seeming to be talking to him mentally.

'I never smoked,' Scorpius said, looking at the other boys in the room, but Piper didn't seem to mind because he kept the cigarette stretched out for both of them.

‘Take it or leave it, if you don’t want it, I won’t offer it again.’

'You two don't have to do this,' James said, now sitting on the floor.

'But what if I want to?' Scorpius asked, looking more cheeky than usual, and Albus almost laughed at the grimace that James made.

'Then smoke. But I am only responsible for my brother.'James raised his hands, facing the two who were sitting on the other side of the sofa. ‘If you fall, I won’t get you up.’ He would, Albus knew that, but James would never admit it.

'Okay.' Scorpius shrugged, taking the cigarette out of Piper's hand and putting it in his mouth, all attention turned to him. ‘Al?’ He looked at Albus, the joint in his hand, the smoke coming out of his lips as his pupils seemed to dilate a little.

'Will you lift me if I fall?' Albus asked, just to annoy James, taking the cigarette between his fingers. His brother laughed, lying on the floor again.

'I always get you up, Al.'

[pastelwitchling]

               Alex had had a reputation when they were teenagers. Michael had heard more than a few mutterings about the emo kid with the skull-and-crossbones ring and the black eyeliner.

               “Don’t look at him,” girls had frantically whispered to their friends.

               “He’s so cute. Too bad he’s one of those.”

               Michael had wondered what ‘one of those’ was supposed to mean, but less-than-subtle stupid jokes from Kyle Valenti and his friends had told him everything he’d needed to know. Alex had been dark and angry and gay, which had made him a source of gossip, which had made him even more dark and angry.

               Michael had never had much of an opinion on Alex himself. The guy had looked so serious all the time, trouble etched in the tension of his shoulders, his straight spine, his permanent frown, as if he’d never thought anyone was worth his time – that Michael had known to stay away on his own. He’d had enough trouble to last a lifetime, he hadn’t wanted any more from some probably spoiled kid.

               It had been one afternoon though, when the last bell had rung and most of the students had left for the day, that Michael had discovered the truth. He’d heard guitar music coming from the music room, the door opened ajar. But there had been something else. Someone had been singing.

               Michael had slowed, and peeked in, curiosity getting the better of him. He had been shocked when he’d seen that the emo kid who he’d rarely heard speak was now playing a guitar and singing a song Michael had never heard before.

               But he had, in a way, known it. Alex’s words had spoken of masks, of lies that hid the ugly truth. The perfect veneer of a lovely, happy family, and being the furthest thing from it. Of being unable to tell anyone because who would ever understand? Who would ever listen?

               The longer Michael had listened, the more he’d realized how wrong he’d been. He’d recognized that pain in Alex’s words, in the furrow of his brows. His voice had been beautiful and soft and strong and terrified all at the same time. That this lie he lived with, this lie that people saw, that it was going to define him forever. He would forever be under the eyes of those who would never know, and never understand, how bad it really was.

               And Michael had suddenly thought of past foster parents who’d pretended to be caring and loving and happy to have him as their son, when the truth was beatings and shouting and pain. And Michael had tried too many times in the past to know that, after a while, trying did nothing. He’d managed to rid himself of that, of the cruelty and abuse and fear, but Alex . . .

               It was then Michael had started to notice things about Alex he’d never noticed before. Sometimes he’d scrunch his shoulders, as if pained to move a particular arm or reveal his hip. Sometimes Alex’s eye looked swollen underneath his eyeliner, and sometimes . . . sometimes Alex smiled around Liz and Rosa Ortecho and Maria DeLuca. Sometimes he even laughed, and it was . . . everything.

One day Michael had found himself wanting Alex to talk to him, eager for his attention. He had no idea if he was welcome to just walk up to him, and had no idea what he would even say if he could, so he came into the music room. And he found Alex’s guitar, and a stupid thought had occurred to him.

               But it’ll bring Alex to me, he’d thought, and that had been good enough.

               Since then, Michael had learned that Alex was usually better at communicating with music than words. Where confessing to his pain might’ve felt like a weakness to him, music was just a melody. Whatever people saw in it was up to them. It had been months since he’d last heard him sing, since he’d last heard the truth that he hadn’t told Michael in their conversations or the small smiles he’d given Maria.

               That Michael was Alex’s home, that Alex was his, that he was tired of being on opposite sides when all either of them wanted was to be together.

               Michael hadn’t responded then, hadn’t even stayed for the whole song. But he’d never stopped wondering if there was any other truth Alex had sacrificed for the happiness of the people he loved.

               Until he was witness to another one.

               He’d come to the bunker just as work had ended, the sun setting and casting the desert into gold. Michael had gotten word from an exasperated Kyle that Alex was still at the bunker, looking through the remaining Project Shepherd files they had left.

               “Yeah, he’s there,” Kyle had said with a sigh. “And on his only day off, too. He’s been running himself into the ground for you, so try to get him to rest, okay?”

               Michael had ended the call without a word, but had no sooner gotten into his truck and all but slammed on the gas pedal, eager to see Alex. Something about hearing his voice, having his attention, his dark piercing eyes, it helped Michael breathe better.

               When he’d gotten there though, the door was open ajar, and Alex was sitting at a table with a guitar in his hands. The workspace before him was littered with stacks of files, reports with official stamps, and two different computers with green coding from top to bottom.

               Alex’s weary shoulders slumped, his eyes remained closed as he played, his voice soft and sad, as if lacking the energy to pretend to be anything else.

               Michael’s steps came to a stop at the doorway. Alex didn’t seem to notice him, the biggest mark of his exhaustion, as he sang. His voice, as beautiful and melodic as ever, filled Michael with a warmth down to his bones, to the very core of his heart, and left him weak.

               And in Alex’s song, Michael heard his airman’s truth.

               A song of lost love, of a love Alex never wanted to stop fighting for. He understood why Michael would choose someone like Maria, a pretty picture, everything a man could want, but Alex wanted Michael anyway. He could love him, hold him, protect him, as he deserved.

               Michael’s eyes burned as Alex’s song confessed that Forrest couldn’t measure up to the cowboy, that no one could, that Alex only ever wanted to love – that he only ever could love – one man, and that was Michael. If only Michael let him.

               It left Michael wondering about their past, of all the times he’d gone where Alex had wanted. Hadn’t that been the same as asking Alex to stay? As giving himself over completely?

               But it had never cost Michael anything like it had cost Alex to keep coming back, to keep trying, to keep confessing what he felt only to keep getting his heart broken. As Alex sung, Michael realized the saddest truth of all; Alex still didn’t know that Michael had been his since before they’d ever spoken.

               Alex finished strumming, his brows furrowed as if he was in pain, the kind of pain he didn’t dare show anyone else. After all this time, Alex still didn’t feel like he was allowed to be honest about how he felt.

               Michael felt a tear roll down his cheek, and reached up to wipe it away, unwilling to look away from Alex. He sniffled as he shouldered himself in. Alex looked up, unsurprised.

               “I thought I heard someone.”

               Michael stopped at the foot of the stairs. “You knew I was listening?”

               “You’re not really subtle, Guerin,” Alex said with a smile as he set his guitar down. The guitar he’d tried to give Michael before, and which had been so cruelly returned to him. He didn’t seem bothered about holding it now.

               Alex raised a brow. “You okay?”

               Michael started to nod, but the suffocating truth overcame him, and he ended up shaking his head. “Alex, what you just said –”

               “It was just a song,” he said readily, his smile unfaltering.

               And the thing was, if Michael didn’t know Alex as well as he did, if he hadn’t memorized every slight change in that beautiful face, if he hadn’t learned what pain in those dark eyes looked like, he might’ve believed that Alex was okay. But . . .

               “You’re lying,” he said, his voice hoarse to his own ears. “You – Alex, you . . .”

               Alex’s smile softened to something sadder, something more resigned, as he handed over a file for Michael to look over.

               “It was just a song, Guerin,” he said gently, as if Michael was the one whose heart had been bleeding into his music only seconds ago.

               But then Michael noticed the circles around Alex’s eyes were darker than usual, his cheeks hollower, his hair more of a perfect mess, his fingers trembling as if he’d had too much coffee to force himself awake. And he knew that despite the strength in Alex’s voice, he was barely holding together.

               It’s time to go back to the lie now, Alex seemed to be saying. The truth only hurts me, and I’m too tired to hurt any more today.

               In his song, Alex had asked if Michael would let him love him. If he would let Alex take care of him, hold him. Michael wanted it.

               Instead of taking the file, Michael reached out and turned Alex’s chair so that they were facing each other. Alex frowned, startled.

               “Guerin, what –”

               “C’mere,” he said, tugging on Alex’s hand, the airman’s fingers cold in his. Michael kissed them. “Come on, c’mere.”

               Confused, Alex stood and came up to Michael until their knees were touching. Michael tugged him down, and Alex’s eyes widened.

               “You’re kidding.”

               Michael’s lips quirked up. “Sit down, Private.”

               “Guerin –”

               “Come on, Alex,” he said. “Don’t you want to?”

               Alex swallowed and looked around, as if to make sure no one could see what they were doing. Then he bit his lower lip, hesitant, and slowly sat down on Michael’s lap.

               Michael brought an arm around his back, his hand running up and down Alex’s spine as Alex’s head settled on his shoulder. His other hand was on Alex’s thigh, keeping him safe and warm against him.

               Alex exhaled shakily against Michael’s shirt, his hot breath sending a wave of relief throughout Michael’s body. Alex was here, with him, and for now it was all the comfort he needed.

               “This is stupid, I –” Alex tried. “I don’t need this.”

               Yes, you do, Michael thought, but instead kissed Alex’s red cheek softly, then raised his lips to Alex’s hair.

               “I need it,” Michael whispered, settling on another truth. “I need to feel you.”

               Alex clutched his shirt tightly and said nothing, and Michael realized he didn’t always need music to know how Alex was feeling.

***

Based on the songs; “Hiding In Your Hands” from the Dear Evan Hansen Album (Bonus Track), and “If You Let Me” by Beth Crowley. I’m exhausted 💞

[itsfunorwhateva]

Sweet Creature

Hi! I’m back with some more of an analysis type post! I hope this helps with a deeper understanding. I’ve provided sources where I got my information. I really tried to set this up and write this in a very informational/analysis way so it isn’t strictly an opinion. Also I want to say I haven’t read the entirety of Othello, but I have read some scenes and read complete analysis of the play to write this. Without further ado... Sweet Creature. 

While it seems that some people have a general understanding that Sweet Creature by Harry Styles references the tragedy, Othello written by William Shakespeare, most people don’t get why that is huge, not only in terms of Harry making this decision, but also in support of Sweet Creature being about Louis Tomlinson. 

So I’m going to break this into three parts to help make this make the most sense. 

1. The reference Harry Styles makes in his song, to the play Othello

2. Why an Othello reference is huge; more on the play

3. William Shakespeare and his sexuality/coding in other works

These will make more sense with further explanation(duh), but I’m hoping this will connect the dots. Also, a quick disclaimer before we begin, this information is coming off of google searches, and analysis that I’m reading, and some from information I researched for a research paper on William Shakespeare. I am in no way an expert on song analysis, literature analysis, or on William Shakespeare and his personal life. I really just hope to give people a base to start themselves on more research, and understanding of the topic. Happy reading!

1. The reference Harry Styles makes in his song, to the play Othello

Now there is not much to dig up or uncover here as the reference is actually pretty obvious. The term Sweet Creature, in which the song is titled, is said to have originated from the play Othello. Act 3, Scene 3, specifically is where the term of endearment (this is important to note, Sweet Creature is used as a term of loving, endearment) is first seen. 

“In sleep I heard him say ‘Sweet Desdemona, Let us be wary, let us hide our loves.’ And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand, Cry ‘O sweet creature!’ and then kiss me hard“ (Othello III, iii ,428-432). 

Some context for these lines of dialogue Act 3, Scene 3 is Iago telling Othello about his wife cheating on him. The scene has multiple instances of Iago expressing love for Othello, basically saying how Iago would not be telling Othello this if he didn’t love him so much. More on that for our next section. This first appearance of the term “sweet creature” is Iago telling Othello what he heard a man speak to Othello’s wife while the two were in bed together, all in a dream. Now the idea of cheating is not something to be too hung up on, but this is the context in which sweet creature first appears. While the term, Sweet Creature, is said form man to women - it is revealed to the husband from another man. Iago in which it is said may have homosexual desires/feeling towards Othello in this play. Personally I believe that Iago almost uses the term as a way to convince Othello that his wife is being loved by someone else, and maybe Othello should leave her to be with someone, like Iago, that could love him better. 

Sources for this section!

Harry Styles References Othello in new Single, Sweet Creature

https://genius.com/a/harry-styles-references-shakespeare-s-othello-on-new-single-sweet-creature#:~:text=The%20song's%20title%2C%20%E2%80%9CSweet%20Creature,originate%20in%20William%20Shakespeare's%20Othello.

Othello play

https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/shakespeare/othello/page_166/

2. Why an Othello reference is huge; more on the play

Deeper meanings behind the characters and the play obviously take a bit more time and effort to really understand. Depending on what angle and the kind of understanding you have about the characters and situation in Othello you’ll think one way or another. Othello is partially about homosexuality (in a way that it is not the whole plot, but it does play a major part if you understand the context/characters). Not everyone thinks this and it’s normally not brought in class discussion/normal educational settings, but the fact remains. 

There are a few things throughout the plays that hint towards the characters sexualities. When looked at in the right light and context it can help make sense of not only Harry Styles’ reference, and way choosing Othello to reference is kind of a big deal, but also a better understanding of the play. One article writes, “In William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice Shakespeare leaves the character of Iago’s sexuality to be questioned. Although Iago has a wife, he drops slight hints throughout the play that he has homosexual thoughts or feelings toward other characters, but he uses his position in the military and his fear to suppress these feelings. These “hints” are shown through his wildly questionable story about Michael Cassio, his word choice when describing Othello, and his discourse with Rodrigo” (Homosexuality in Othello). 

The character Iago is a military officer, and it shouldn’t take a genius to understand that being in the military and being homosexual only equal no good. The American policy in the military of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was/is a more modern day policy but still shows how military personal were/are expected and required to act in regards to being homosexual. Simply speaking, don’t. Now thinking even more to Shakespearean time, an even greater restriction was likely in place for homosexuality and the military. This part of the character, Iago, is likely a huge reason people overlook any thought of the character having homosexual desires/thoughts. 

Even if you remove the circumstances surrounding Iago, and him being a military officer there are some others things throughout the play that hint towards possible homosexual desire/feelings. Iago is constantly informing Othello of his love for the other man, claiming to always be Othello’s, should he want him. Some of this can be chalked up to the language of the time, in being, love was used for both friend, and lover, but the extent in which Iago professes may hint towards something deeper. Others things include, Iago claiming to have “lay with” Cassio, another male character, and while some say this is simply in the barracks as fellow soldiers, others think this could have been to hint at being lovers. 

One other thing that isn’t necessarily the play at face value, but still supports the idea of Iago being homosexual, is that actors throughout history have chosen to play him either as a straight or gay characters. While, this could simply be a creative decision based on an actor individually, it still seems a bit huge. If nothing in the text supported Iago being gay, there would not be actors playing him this way. 

Sources for this section!

Homosexuality in Othello

https://www.cram.com/essay/Homosexuality-In-Othello/P3Z2W7LCX5Q

Is Iago Gay in Othello?

https://www.arogundade.com/homosexuality-in-shakespeare-is-iago-gay-in-othello.html

3. William Shakespeare and his sexuality/coding in other works

Final section is really just me helping you understand the feasibility of William Shakespeare writing his characters this way. There’s essentially two parts to understanding this and I’m going to try and help this make the most sense without going too overboard. One part is going to be how William Shakespeare has written other works. I’m going to focus more on his sonnets because I’ve already researched them for a paper in school, but they still stand with this point. The second part is going to be William Shakespeare’s own sexuality and why this is going to affect his written work.

Ok, so the sonnets. 

“The sonnets have a contrasting set of subjects - one set chronicles the poet's lust for a married woman with a dark complexion, known as The Dark Lady, while the other describes a conflicted or confused love for a young man, known as the "fair youth."‘ (William Shakespeare, his Life, Works, and Influence). 

So the sonnets were pretty revolutionary, exploring concepts such as love, lust, and even same sex relationships. This is observed in Shakespeare’s use of gender neutral terms and male pronouns, depending on the sonnet. This is pretty huge. When I did a sonnet analysis I chose two sonnets, which I’ll provide (Sonnet 18 and 29 - both are pretty well known and brought up in regarded to hidden messages/meanings). Both used pronouns that were either male or neutral, something that has been used forever to queer code in works, so do with that information what you will. A common analysis, is that William Shakespeare often wrote from personal experience, more so in his poems and sonnets, then in his plays, but nonetheless. 

Second part, Shakespeare’s own sexuality. William Shakespeare was married to a women, but that doesn’t exactly say much. Men were known to get married because it is the thing to do, without necessarily having any feelings or desires towards said women. 

When Shakespeare’s sexuality comes into question there a few things that are addressed. I definitely recommend reading the first source for this section, “Was Shakespeare Gay?”, it gives you a really good analysis and explores so many faucets of the question. I’m going to sum up the article and you can either read more or just take what I’ll explain. 

The article explains that when looking at Shakespeare’s works he is really good at getting into the minds of his characters, without necessarily having the experience to match the character, i.e. writing from Cleopatra’s perspective, or from a gay man’s perspective. However on the flip side of that, when Shakespeare writes of same sex experiences, he seems to have a wide variety of knowledge of very specific references and experiences, maybe leaning towards him having these experiences. People point out that Shakespeare’s sonnets are his most personal works, and imagine that, they are also the ones that reference same sex attraction and love. Now of course there is way more in the source, but here’s what I think are the most important/key points. It’s important to remember that sexuality is only able to be labeled by the person, but from different works, and cultural ideals, there are certain things to be said about Shakespeare himself. 

Sources for this section!

Was Shakespeare Gay?

https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/podcasts/lets-talk-shakespeare/was-shakespeare-gay/

William Shakespeare, his Life, Works, and Influence

https://www.williamshakespeare.net/

Sonnet 18

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45087/sonnet-18-shall-i-compare-thee-to-a-summers-day

Sonnet 29

https://www.williamshakespeare.net/sonnet-29.js

Finally

Thank you for reading and I hope this made you think a bit. I want to repeat that I am in no way an expert, nor am I claiming to be. You are more than welcome to think whichever way you want about this information and I invite you to do your own further research. I hope this helped explain the reference and the importance of said reference in Harry Styles’, “Sweet Creature”. Thank you for reading, let me know what you think, and as always TPWK. xx

[beclynn-herondale]

hi!

hope you are well ❤ and i hope it's fine if i talk about robert adopting jace!

since this is totally related to robert's homophobic behaviour i'll have to mention it, take this as a trigger/content warning to anyone who may need it! (you probably know a lot about it already but i guess many people don't actually understand robert's side, and not sure if i even need to say it, but everything next is canon or based in canon information, i'm not making up anything) so here's my analysis:

so first i'll mention the basics: robert adopted jace (as jonathan wayland, michael's child) because of what he did to michael in the past. what exactly does that mean? he was trying to compensate what he did to michael. and how this compensation works? helping michael after his death?

something kinda obvious i guess is that robert felt miserable most of the time, for multiple reasons combined. one of them being his intense self-loathing/none self-steem, also caused for multiple reasons. for most of his life robert was ashamed for.. existing, basically, i mean he really was extremely ashamed of himself in general. another reason, more specifical, was michael. i won't explain the effects of a dead parabatai to a shadowhunter, but in was mentioned in later books how the life-death separation of robert and michael devastaded both of them, and that's just the parabatai part. along with their other complications, it was all very harmful, and robert is shown getting triggered under mention of michael.

now there's something one needs to understand so they can understand 1) robert's self-loathing over michael and 2) robert hoped adopting michael's son would "redeem"/"forgive" him?

see, on robert's opinion, homophobia is unforgivable. really.

nobody ever lectured or told him this. that's his actual opinion on homophobia. and that was his opinion on the matter years before alec was born or any shadowhunter close to robert cared about it. when robert was a 80's teenager, he thought it was unforgivable, and he kept thinking that through the years. this is important 'cause it's a impression of mine that a lot of people think robert was actually anti gay people and then changed his beliefs for alec's sake, and this is absolutely incorrect. robert knew that discriminating people for their sexuality was wrong — and he hated himself for doing it to michael (and afterwards to alec, but then it was mostly a misunderstanding)

said that, we know michael was something like a ugly open wound in robert. because, as i mentioned, they missed each other, and robert had to cope with the fact that he was horrible to michael and he knew what he did was horrible, and he just had to live thinking of himself as trash. michael was a extremely sensive topic and thinking about him hurt too much. that's how alec and isabelle ended up taking many years to find out robert had a parabatai, because robert never even mentioned michael. they only found out who michael was because of jace's adoption.

now i'm getting close to the point. robert didn't want anything to ever remind him of michael, because it hurt too much (that was the main reason he didn't react well to alec's relationship with magnus!!!!! his children took a decade to find out michael even existed!!!!). and that's why i can't agree with the idea that robert only adopted jace to feel better with himself.

obviously valentine can't really be trusted as a source of information, but he was probably who best knew robert after michael, and his entire plan relied on robert taking jace in for michael. now, according to him, he knew robert would do that for michael. and how could him be so sure? robert had to actually fight maryse to adopt jace, and valentine trusted he would do it over michael. valentine thought very low of robert, so that's really something.

if robert only wanted to feel better about himself, adopting jace wouldn't make any sense to him, first because, well, robert's self-loathing is deeper than that (and he would know it better than anyone), but i know people in pain don't always act logical and robert is a great example of this so, second, as i showed, michael is a big emotional trigger to robert and he gets very upset about. we don't know how much and how often robert and maryse got agressive with each other, but their fights about adopting michael's child envolved a lot of shouting, and this is not the only context we see robert getting upset over michael.

(as if this wasn't evidence enough, in the wicked ones we are directly informed that all of robert agressive and permanently triggered and dangerous vibes are nothing more than hurt over michael. that's really something)

if thinking of michael was so triggering to robert at the point he hurts people - and people he love (maryse, alec) over it, how adopting michael's son and taking care of him with his presence as a permanent reminder of michael (and that michael was gone) would make robert feel better with himself? and, even more: he wouldn't expect jace to look like michael, as he did expect. if he was thinking mostly about himself, he would be satisfied finding out jace's looks don't remind him of michael, but instead he was awkward and got worried about how jace was feeling.

so what was this about? robert says he was trying to compensate for what he did, as according to cassie, "awkwardly and painfully trying to convey that he loved michael." and yeah, doing something good to michael would make robert feel better, because he loved michael and doing good things to michael makes sense to him. robert never expected what he did to michael to be forgiven, but he did want to demonstrate that he loved michael and that he could be better than that - better than what he had done - for the people he loved.

that was a ride, sorry any mistakes (not native english speaker) and i hope you like these observations, since i understood you liked my last robert analysis

xoxo, thank you for your attention 💓

Hello again, flower

I'm hanging in there 😎

Sorry it took me a bit to answer

I actually got a new perspective on Robert from this. And I love the way you explained this. I don't have too much to add, but a little.

I do agree that he wasn't as homophobic as some might think. He was afraid of what other people would think, and in which case, did end up kind of being that way.

I think if Robert hadn't been so afraid of what people would have said, (I do think the trauma he had with the rune played part in this. As he didn't want to have something else people felt he should be ashamed of), I think he would have actually accepted Michael. It was a very complicated situation and it was cringe a little to, but there's so much to unpack there. And I do believe there's always at least two sides to a story. We know he was a little homophobic with Alec, but he acknowledged it and started changing his ways, which is all you can ask for in this case. I appreciate him trying to change and be better, as I am a sucker for redemption and growth and change. Sometimes change is all that can be done. It won't erase the hurt that was caused but it does mean there won't be anymore hurt done, and I think that's what matters.

Also, the stuff with Jace I very much agree with. but I think it also left Jace feeling like the only reason they took him in was because they thought he was Michael's son, we know that isn't actually true and they love Jace for Jace. I think itleft Jace struggling a little bit though. But in TDA it kinda seemed like him and Robert had somewhat of an improved relationship, as Jace said that Robert had mellowed out a lot since he had become a grandfather, and he wasn't so bad. I do think Robert was fond of his children he just didn't express it openly with them. We do however see him doing it with his grandchildren, everytime he called Max, his M & M, I thought it was precious.

And I fully believe he apologized to Michael in the afterlife and they are hanging out, and taking care of Max. I also believe he tells the other Circle members there about TMI Gang. Mostly about his kids.

This is also a stretch but I think they Robert and Jace could have bonded over their experiences with runes. Jace didn't have the same experience as Robert, but we Valentine marked Jace early, and marking Nephilim children early gives them terrible nightmares. I think there could have been an understanding between them. But we know neither of them like to talk about their trauma. And definitely don't like to talk about their feelings lol.

Hope you are well 💛🧡

[sunflowerdigs]

So, I did a little sarcastic-y review from the salt mines for RNM 3x09. Warnings for excessive sodium content, Maribel mourning, a desire to recycle cardboard, and, of course, Malex opinions. Without further ado:

- Every time Michael smiles I forget for like 5 whole seconds how much I hate that Malex keeps me shackled to this show. Too cute that he brought Alex lunch (and probably hoped he could sneak a glimpse of him) and they're going on their first date (omg omg omg).❤❤❤❤❤

- Kyle should yell at people more. Starting with his garbage friends who left him in a barn without proper triage or jello cups while he was in a coma (why didn't they just keep him at DS if he's having appointments there anyway? Nevermind... ). Alas, he's starting his understandable rage tour with Uncle Edgelord, who, naturally, makes a dramatic statement and tries to leave. I am so glad Kyle called him on that.

- Delmanes would be cute if Greg didn't have the personality of cardboard. They've created a character who is actually only here to remind us of how special and amazing Maria is. Turns out that's not super interesting. And it's so painfully obvious that it's a pair-your-spares situation. I really wish they'd just give her Kyle, he has the patience of a saint. Anyway, Isobel's pigtails are cute af (rip my Isobel/Maria/Kyle heart - I would have taken Isobel interrupting Delmanes and Heather's post with pigtails today as signs if not for genetics).

- Anatsa and Isobel's development seems to have taken place completely off-screen, like everything else gay on this show, so I'm guessing it's gonna stick. Honestly...I guess this is controversial but Isobel and Maria have really good chemistry and a history. I know their bond is supposed to read "sibling" but it doesn't for me. And rather than waste time watching them flirt with these one-note (ah, Greg chimes in right on time with a convenient line any rando could have delivered) LIs, I'd much rather see them get closer. The whole related thing has thrown a wrench into it for me. That said, it's nice to watch a woman be encouraged to go after another woman. 🎉

- Alex the sci-fi/fantasy nerd figuring out immediately that the hallucination is his own subconscious is 100% legit. Much like Kyle not letting his uncle pull a classic tall-dark-and-broody exit, I appreciate Alex's 4th-wall break moment.

- Not Max and Liz proving that discussions about s2 drama can occur on Roswell New Mexico?! What? Must be a straight thing. Lucky them.

- Isobel is actually acting a lot like Sherlock Holmes when he's on a case, from the wardrobe to the focus, and it's hot. Also, totally believable that Isobel would be able to pull up that pod from under the ice because we know she's been training even if it didn't happen onscreen. Because she told us. Just a suggestion.

- I love the idea of Jim Valenti as a double-agent, but I don't see how Eduardo thought he could keep Kyle safe by never knowing him. It feels like there's a lot more here Eduardo isn't saying.

- It wasn't a sister-fight that Maria and Isobel had, but whatever (no one got physically shoved or brought up a horrifying memory from 100000 years ago to shove in someone's face in public - doesn't count).

- Also, why would you waste a glass by throwing it into the fireplace? Wouldn't it just explode back in your face? Man, the show is trying so hard with Maria and Greg, I want to give them some kind of romance-novel award for effort (but not success).

- Not Liz and Max showing us that it's possible to move forward by discussing your past mistakes like adults instead of pretending they didn't happen!? What? Must be a straight thing. Lucky them.

- Draw a line on the bottle? No way, Valenti, he obviously wants you to chuck that whole thing straight into the fire in a fit of passion to prove that his words had an emotional impact.

- Also, Kyle wins the prize for this episode for that speech to Uncle Edgelord. Everyone go home. When do I get a Kyle and Alex spin-off where they travel the world, defying sci-fi tropes and seducing beautiful men and women?

- Not Liz and Max talking loudly about aliens while breaking and entering! This one is actually very believable, I take it back.

- It was idiotic of Liz to trust Heath. And Echo keep having this same fight because MAX IS RIGHT BUT THE SHOW WON'T LET HIM BE. Which is so obnoxious. I would forgive Liz for almost any sin (like, idk, getting a better romantic storyline because she's straight) because she's gorgeous and smart and tough and I wanna go live with her and her mad scientist energy on a deserted island somewhere. But she's being real dumb rn.

- I love the t-shirt and if Vlambase doesn't sell one I will. But he couldn't have held up a radio and blasted some Barry White? I feel like that would have cleared everyone but Alex put of the building real fast. Also, what is time on Roswell NM? Was Alex just setting the alarm every so often for kicks? Does Eduardo really not check in on staff who are working with dangerous technology for days on end? Also, why is this entire plot happening over a single goddamn episode instead of two or more so that we can really feel Alex wasting away under the machine's influence? The reason this twist is at all surprising is also the entire plot's undoing - Alex's demeanor wasn't exactly one of a man obsessed (or an addict, tbh) in his last scene.

- Anyway, back to Rizzoli and Isles. I definitely am always super excited to hear the details of my sister's sex life. All the time. That is totally a sister thing except where it's really not. Do any of these writers actually have a sister? I feel like they must because the Michael/Max/Isobel sibling chemistry is always bang on but Maribel is just...flirty lady city. Oh, and look, the beard just showed up with coffee to cockblock - it really is R&I!

- Back to Alex's plot line, which, much like Isobel's coffee, is Express To-Go. He's become haggard and worn in the time it's taken Michael's mom to find a cute sweater in the void. Seriously, we wasted like 3 whole episodes where Alex was presumably sitting in DS twiddling his thumbs and now he's being worn down by the machine in a single episode? Why didn't this plot start back in episode 3 or 4? Like...look, I don't come on here to be an asshole. But I just really hope they're taking note of what worked this season and what didn't because HOLY PACING FIASCO BATMAN. Just because you're giving us Malex doesn't mean everything else can just be hot garbage (not the acting, Taylor's doing his best to sell this). Also, when did Alex put his leg back on? I have so many questions but they aren't the good kind, so Michael better ride in soon and save this mess.

- Regarding what Nora is saying, it's fine, it makes sense but the zero build up makes it completely ineffective. Alex is afraid he doesn't love enough - it would have been nice to see that over several episodes instead of just being told in a burst of sudden exposition but, you know. Nice straight things we can't have, I guess.

- If Michael and Alex want their relationship to "purr" they could, idk, talk through their past misunderstandings like people in relationships do. Or the show could keep throwing exposition bombs at them, idek.

- Are those empty toilet paper rolls inside the machine? I knew the CW was budget but come on...

- And we finally get the Heath connection and it's to our brand new trope-y character, Wise Old Black Man Dallas. It's surprising but only because the 4th alien didn't exist before this episode. So, good job.

Overall, not the worst episode of RNM ever. I only wondered why I watch this show maybe 3 times this episode. And Michael's enthusiasm for Alex was adorable.

[im-the-punk-who]

Hi! I’m new to the fandom and I’m simply curious (not trying to start a feud or anything), why don’t you like Steinberg?

Hello dear anon! And welcome to the fandom! 

Oof. That’s a question. xD 

I’m going to try and stay as uh. neutral as possible. Because I’ve already written the post I know I failed but, the intent in answering this is also not to start a feud or hurt anyone’s feelings. 

Okay, so I got fairly negative in this chilis tonight, so I want to start by saying that even in light of the opinions I’m about to express, Black Sails is one of, if not my number one, favorite TV shows of all time. Certainly in recent memory - I’ve been hyperfixating on this show for 18 months with no sign of stopping, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everyone who worked on the show - even Steinberg. (The one exclusion is Michael Bay, he can go twist.)

AND I think Stienberg is an incredibly talented writer. Black Sails is one of my favorite shows because it does such a wonderful job of weaving stories, creating characters, and melding things in a way that is both unexpected and makes sense narratively. I have changed as a person because of the show, and they will have to pry James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton from my cold dead knives-attached-to-them hands. None of what I’m going to say is meant to detract from that.

I will also say that a lot of these issues are not particular to Steinberg and are in fact a systemic problem with American TV + Film. And I’m not leaving Robert Levine out of my criticism, it’s just that Steinberg had the biggest hand in the pot(he wrote a full half the episodes) and a lot of what I’ve heard as far as talking about the show comes from Steinberg. So, he gets the brunt. But it isn’t that I think Steinberg was the only problematic element of the show. 

Also, these are all my opinions and are colored by how I interact with my fandoms. I am not only a fandom veteran, but I work and pretty much live in the entertainment industry. I work in indie film and theatre and am surrounded by artists and creators of all walks of life, like, constantly. I know what is possible, and when I see something that can be improved, I want to note it because it is important to me to always be striving forward. Like Miranda says about Thomas, this isn’t out of malice, or out of hate. It’s because I genuinely love this show, and I love entertainment as a whole, and I think in order to get to a better, more inclusive industry we have to have hard conversations and look critically at the media we consume, and it is frustrating to me to time and again see the same faces in the room. 

But if that isn’t your cuppa, that’s fine! Fandom isn’t meant to be stressful and if all you want to do is watch a show about gay pirates that is your tomato and I applaud you. Have at it you funky motherfucker.

OH! One more. At some point I’m going to talk about Silverflint. When I do, it is NOT meant as a ‘you shouldn’t/cant ship this’ or ‘this pairing is bad’ or any negative attack on the people who ship that pairing. My criticisms in this post are exclusively about what it means for Steinberg as a writer and Black Sails’ representation of gay and mlm men. While it’s not my cuppa, this is a sail your own ship blog. 

OKAY! SO! 

My main criticisms of Steinberg & Co boil down to:

The homozygosity of the writers and directors shows a complete lack of desire to include marginalized people in the writing of a show that is about them. Which leads to:

The centering of white men while choosing a historical setting and time period that was in fact dominated by people of color and specifically a black woman, 

The gratuitous inclusion of violence against women, particularly sexual violence, and again, that the female characters are often sidelined for the central male characters. 

SO.

Black Sails is a show centered around queer, female, and black leads, and yet there were only two non white-male directors (one bi-racial man and one white woman) and only 7 female writers - one of whom was Latina. The entire rest of the major creative staff was white men. I’m not going to comment on sexualities but none of the writers or directors are out as queer according to a quick google search. 

Let me reiterate the important bit there. 

In Black Sails, where the last two seasons specifically feature around a real, actually-happened-in-history event that shaped black history in the Caribbean, there was not a single black writer on the entire show. 

This is the main difference between inclusion for inclusion’s sake, and actually centering marginalized voices. Black Sails has a ton of gay, POC, and female rep in front of the camera but practically zero representation behind it, which leads to storylines and implications that Steinberg and his writers, as white men, simply would never realize.

It’s like why Silver and Miranda never realized the true reasons James was waging war on England. They just did not have the life experiences to realize they were missing a piece of the puzzle, and so they filled in their own without even realizing they’d done so. 

Because no one in the room of Black Sails was a part of these marginalized identities, nuances get lost or mistranslated, motivations get muddled through a white man’s gaze(or a straight person’s) and implications that someone within those communities might think is obvious won’t even come up.

And again, because there were no writers or directors of color in the last two seasons (the biracial man directed episodes 2x02 and 2x04 - WHICH MAKES SENSE IMO) the entirety of the historical lore that the show bases itself on in its latter half is filtered through a white man’s lens. And so there is no discussion of how changing something changes the meaning, how leaving someone out or changing their role to be more minor might affect people for whom that is their heritage. How the entire story they’re telling might change with one simple exclusion or addition.

So, how does this relate directly to Steinberg, you ask? Well, simply, because it was his show. 

Steinberg(and Levine) were involved in every major decision about the show, from its conception, to the script, to choosing the writers and directors. They chose how they wanted the show to look, to think, what stories to tell and how they wanted to tell them. Their decisions(and the biases that formed those decisions) are woven into the show.

And look. I don’t for a second believe any of this was willful or malicious. I don’t think that John Steinberg and Robert Levine sat down one day and said ‘you know what would make the gays really angry? If we locked the only two canonically gay men up in a prison camp.’

But the decisions that were made in the show were based in ignorance in a way that shows more than just simple negligence or laziness(especially given the attention to detail in everything else). The things they leave out or change in the Maroon War plotline for instance are not small details easily missed. They are big, giant waving flags. They are things that are irreplaceable to still have the same events and stories and tell them respectfully. 

It shows an insane amount of privilege to, for instance, write a show airing during a time when the Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the American conscience, include black characters and black storylines, and yet not include a single black voice on their creative team. 

In a show that centers a gay man’s love and his journey in attempting to process the horrible things done to him and his lover because of it, we are given just forty minutes of the entire show dedicated to their relationship - and just fifteen of those minutes actually feature the lover! 

(Relatedly, the entirety of the gay romantic rep is two kisses, and a forehead touch. That’s the entirety of your gay intimacy representation. And yet there are in the first two seasons alone - because that’s all I’ve clocked so far - something like twenty seven minutes of scenes involving a naked or half naked woman. Five minutes of that is explicitly wlw sex.

Again, I just want to reiterate this because it’s important in recognizing bias. 

There is fully twice as much female nudity in the first two seasons, as the entirety of the time the two gay characters have together on screen. )

Steinberg is a perfect example of how a lack of understanding why the diversity you are representing is important, matters. I dislike Steinberg because he, just like every other straight white cis man I have known, profited off of marginalized voices without including them or creating with them in mind.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. You cannot create something - especially something as back breakingly, intensely a labor of love as Black Sails - without putting several pieces of yourself into it. But those pieces color your narrative. They will expose things about you that you don’t even realize. And it’s in these places we are weakest, and why a diverse group of writers with a diverse group of experiences can help a piece be stronger. But for whatever reason, John Steinberg thought that he could make art with only people who looked and thought and experienced like him. 

The lack of representation behind the camera in Black Sails was evident in front of it and yet Steinberg is out here getting to pretend like he created the most inclusive groundbreaking show that ever existed. It is important to me, personally, to acknowledge that. And that it kind of makes my skin crawl in the way all media made by straight white (cis)men makes my skin crawl. I wish I didn’t have to feel that way about my favorite tv show just because it was created by a man of privilege, but here we are.

SO. I hope that helped? Feel free to take what you want and leave what you don’t! 

Below the cut is a more in depth look at things that I think show what I’m talking about, but that up there ^^ is the gist. <3 |D

SURPRISE!

The Maroons and the Maroon War

So the first thing I want to point out is that the Maroon War was a real thing that happened. It lasted ten years, and resulted in the most substantial victory the Maroons ever achieved against the British. Not only that, there was in fact a KICKIN’ badass female leader of the maroons named Queen Nanny, who is to this day honored as a national hero in Jamaica. While they weren’t able to drive the British out, the outcome of this war led to a mostly self-governing Maroon population in Jamaica from the mid 1700s on. This was a long term fight that had a very tangible and real outcome, even if it didn’t end in the destruction of colonialism. 

And what is this war turned into in Black Sails? A white ‘madman’s revenge’  that is doomed to failure after six months.

That, my dear pirates, is a problem for me. (And those familiar with my brand of spiceyness know that I do not ascribe to the ‘Flint is a Madman’ trope, but that IS what Steinberg ascribes to, what he seems to have written the show thinking.) 

There was no narrative reason to include the Maroon War in the narrative of Black Sails. The Maroon War didn’t happen until a decade after the Golden Age of Piracy, and aside from Silver’s wife being a black woman there is no mention of Silver ever having contact with them. To me, this feels like the choice of a showrunner who found a cool historical event and saw a chance to up the stakes of their white male heroes while getting in some sweet sweet POC rep. 

Except that they then took the major events of the Maroon War and gave them to their white characters, Flint and Silver. 

Here’s the thing. If you’re going to take a piece of culturally important history and use it for your show, you NEED to have sensitivity writers. You need to have people who are at least familiar with those events and who care about them to do them justice. Have an expert come in and read your script or go over your ideas. Or just like. Hire a black writer. Hire ONE black writer. As a treat.

The important Maroon figures, Nanny, Cudjoe, and Quao, all get sidelined or ‘sexified’ and then used as plot points for the white characters. Nanny gets split into two women - the older mother queen and Madi, the young naive warbent visionary. Quao(Mr. Scott is the closest, or Kofi possibly) gets killed off because the writers realized they didn’t exactly have a place for him in their writing. Cudjoe(Julius) gets a few scenes and one good speech but his entire role in the war gets given to Silver. And THEN. That sexy Queen Madi figure gets used as emotional bait for Silver and then has to learn he has betrayed her and destroyed the hope and freedom she had wanted to bring to her people. 

Gross, pirates. Gross.

Anne Bonny/Max/Mary Read - a heads up, this section includes a semi in-depth discussion of both Max and Anne’s sexual assaults. If that bothers you, the paragraphs talking about that begin with a ***

COOL NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT LESBIANS. Words my 20 year old self would never have imagined coming out of my mouth. 

Specifically, I want to talk about Max, and Anne, and their backstories both involving extreme sexual trauma at the hands of men. And then Mary Read and the once again sexification of female characters.

(Actually while I’m here another criticism I have of Steinberg is that his writing does not seem to recognize how queer people existed in the past - again, likely because he didn’t have any gay historians to be like ‘actually buddy that doesn’t make sense also why is Anne not dressing as a man? If you want to fuck with anything and insert modern day terminology and ideas into this show, make her non binary and REALLY piss off the hetties.’)

(This same ficitonal gay dramaturg who is definitely not me has also questioned John Steinberg repeatedly about where Mary Read is, unsatisfied with the answer ‘well we wanted her to be hot so we made her a sex worker and then had Anne have to rescue her but then we realized it would be weird not to include her actual character so we gave her a five second cameo at the very end of the series and also made her like 13.’)

Anyway! So my main point in bringing up Anne and Max is the sexual trauma they are exposed to in the show, particularly being that they are the two primary wlw in the show, who Steinberg has said he views as being completely gay, and what THAT whole unexamined idea looks like. 

***Max. My dear Max. There was literally no reason to have her be repeatedly r*ped(and for the love of god there was even less reason to make it that gratuitous and graphic). Max being assaulted like that did not add anything to the gravity of Eleanor’s betrayal. The traumatic event was being tossed aside by Eleanor, and that could have been just as emotionally damaging without the sexual assault. And the only reason for her to be continually assaulted was to bring her and Anne together. 

***The reason imo that Max’s r*pe plot was added was because it was the only thing these white straight men could come up with that felt emotionally damaging enough to them. The act of betrayal itself wasn’t enough, the act of being thrown away, of having a lover put your life in danger because of her own ambitions wasn’t enough, they needed her to be r*ped to really drive home the point. 

***Anne, on the other hand, is never shown being sexually abused, but we are given an explicit account of her own traumatic history and how Jack saved her from this vile beast who was passing her around to his friends.

But here’s the thing pirates - that never happened. According to every account we have of Anne Bonny, she chose her husband, and married him against her father’s wishes. They were probably relatively happy until her husband started being a pirate spy and Anne started cheating on him with Jack. 

And yes, when they were found out. Her husband had her beat. That’s not fucking cool, and if they really wanted to go the damsel in distress route they still could have had Jack ‘save’ her from that. But at no point was she sexually abused by her husband(at least not in any accounts I’ve read.) 

You know who did likely sexually abuse her or at least manipulate her and Mary for his own benefit? If you guessed our Rat man Jack Rackham, you would be correct, because when he found out about Mary and Anne’s (supposed, but probably real) relationship, it’s implied he extorted both of them into fucking him to keep their secret from the crew. 

The addition of sexual abuse to Anne’s past isn’t done to be true to her character and was in fact explicitly untrue. Now of course I don’t know the reasons why they chose to do this, but I can guess. Just as with Max, the most traumatic thing a male writer can think of for a female character is for them to be sexually abused.

And the most disturbing part of this to me? The parallels it has to the real world of why straight men think lesbians exist. These characters who would be called man haters in present day are given these incredibly traumatic man-centered histories. It brings up something very uncomfortable in me about particularly wlw sexuality being viewed as a reaction to trauma at the hands of men. It’s just gross, I dont like it, and honestly there is no fucking excuse for it besides a room full of white straight men writing this bullshit. A room that Steinberg chose, because they fit his ideas.

In Fact heck, the women of Black Sails in general

***I honestly struggle to think of a single female character who I think was treated fairly in Black Sails. Miranda and Eleanor are killed for taking sides and not understanding their partners, Madi is betrayed in the worst way possible, Max is given a pseudo empowering ending but has that fucking terrible start. Idelle ends off fairly well, but tied to a man she may or may not have any actual feelings for, in what is essentially a political marriage. And Anne has her entire identity tied to a man who will be dead in two years as she is robbed of any agency whatsoever without him. (Oh, and the whole r*pe thing. And also her support for Max’s r*pe or death until she started having fee-fees. Who wrote this stuff. >_>)

Even though the characterization of each and every one of these women is PHENOMENAL - and again I will repeat that I absolutely LOVE these characters as they exist in a vacuum. I think they are well rounded, real, feeling people given motivations and drives and FEELINGS and they SHOW THEIR ANGER and i LOVE THEM. 

But the show punishes them for it. Miranda is essentially fridged to move Flint’s storyline along, and to make room for Silver. Eleanor is killed for the emotional damage it will cause Rogers. Madi is placed at the center of a conflict she explicitly says she is willing to die for and then not only is her entire cause taken from her, but when she tells Silver to fuck off he - in possibly the most predictable white man move ever - says ‘no i will stay until you change your mind. I will never leave you. I don’t care about your choice in this matter, I will wait forever for you. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll follow you until you love me. papa, - paparazzi.’ 

And I touched on this before, but I want to talk in more detail about what is possibly my hottest take to date, the sexification of Mary Read and Queen Nanny, as they are presented in the show. 

Max is to Anne what Mary Read is, historically. She is the lover that Jack Rackham discovers with Anne, and then he joins them in their bed. They form a triumvirate that upholds Jack at the expense of the women. But for some reason, Steinberg didn’t want to just include Mary Read as an actual character. For some reason he needed to make Anne’s love interest a sex worker who was in need of saving (and who, coincidentally, we never see working the brothel after she becomes lovers with Anne, because she is now a madam. :) Gross.)

And Madi. My dear sweet fucking Madi who didn’t fucking deserve any of this bullshit send tweet. 

So, historically, Queen Nanny was the Queen, spiritual advisor, and the military tactician of the Windward Maroons. She would have filled both Madi and the Queen’s character roles(and Flint’s, but who’s counting. A BLACK GAY LEAD? Inconceivable. I digress.) But, I guess, because they were wishy-washing with Silver’s sexuality or felt they needed to give him a female love interest because of Treasure Island, or because they were leaning a bit too hard into the gay shit and needed to backpedal, they took Queen Nanny and split her into a character who is for all intents and purposes powerless in the war and Madi, who is young and naive and does not have any real world experience outside of the Maroon camp.

Because that’s sexy, or something. They could have had the Maroon Queen be a fucking badass lady who works and fights alongside Flint and Silver and one ups them and teaches them shit and has her own ideas about where the British can stick it, but instead they made her into the perfect caricature of a female monarch, letting the big strong men handle the dirty work or something. Because white male power fantasies. 

Just let women be powerful and not nubile and let them have character arcs over fucking thirty and let them be CENTERED in their own. fucking. narratives. 

God damnit Steinberg.

James Flint, mlm extraordinaire

Oh, my love. My most amazing child. The light of my life. My purest cinnamon roll. 

~~And now we’ve come to the dreaded Silverflint criticism part of our programming. Please please know and remember this isn’t a criticism of people who ship Silverflint. As I said up top, Your Tomato Is Not My Tomato and that’s cool. Please don’t take this next part as an attack on Silverflint as a fandom ship.~~

My criticism of Steinberg as it relates to Flint is related to:

What a romantic/sexual relationship with Silver being the basis of the tension and plot means for Flint in particular as a gay or mostly mlm man. 

Refusing to confirm Thomas and James being alive at the end and honestly the whole finale in general but like I’ll try and focus.

The major problem I have with Silver and Flint being coded as in love with each other is the implications there in terms of gay men’s relationships to other men. 

From every corner, men are inundated with the idea that any close relationship between them must be gay. That intimacy cannot exist unless there are sexual feelings involved. That a relationship cannot be close, deep and soul shattering and life altering, unless one guy secretly(or not so secretly) wants to bone the other dude. That two men cannot value each other as partners or friends or truly know each other unless they are gay.

Seeing both of the meaningful relationships Flint forms with other men be sexually coded feels a bit the same way as Anne and Max’s sexual assault plotlines does vis-a-vis being wlw. (Even with Gates, Flint never spoke about Thomas or his plans - Silver is absolutely the closest person to Flint besides Thomas and Miranda.) And this is just as true for Silver. Having both Flint and Madi - the two people he trusts - both be people he’s in love with also just feels. I don’t know. 

It feels like a confusion between male intimacy and male love that is so so familiar to me as a gay man I could choke on it. Where they wanted these men to have a deep and really lasting connection, but could only figure out how to do it if they were in love. Friendship wouldn’t have been enough - only romantic and sexual love is enough for the gay man(or men, at all).

Just because it isn’t queerbaiting doesn’t mean it’s good rep, and I would have liked to see truly deep male friendships that did not center on sexual attraction - particularly for Flint as a confirmed mlm(and Silver too, if you’re counting him. The same arguments for why I dislike Flint being paired with Silver are also true in the reverse.) 

Even if both Flint and Silver were confirmed mlm I still would have LOVED to see a platonic relationship between them. In fact I would have loved that EVEN MORE. Men! Who fuck men! Not needing to fuck each other to be important to one another! Who made this. Very delicious. 

But because there weren’t any queer writers on the show, writers who understand this kind of struggle that gay and mlm men face, they thought ‘oh, let’s also have them be in love with each other. More gay rep is better gay rep, right?’ False. THOUGHTFUL gay rep is better gay rep.

Okay and here’s my last thing. The fact that Steinberg refuses to say whether or not the explicitly mlm men are alive at the end of the show - that the words he specifically uses are ‘up for interpretation’ is. Fuck, it’s gross, okay? It’s fucking gross. 

I have been around enough men, enough people in power, enough people with leverage who also know how to play the field, to know that when someone wants a group’s support but does not agree with them, their go to phrasing is that it is ‘up for debate’ or ‘up for interpretation.’

Say the gays are alive. Steinberg refusing to acknowledge the reality of the ending of his show to maintain his own sense of artistic integrity is what, honestly, really sets me off about him and I don’t care if this is a nuanced take.

Like yes, death of the author. I honestly don’t care if he thinks they’re dead or alive. What I care about is that he thinks he can get away with being clever and leaning hard into a story is true/untrue’ - doesn’t realize what the implications of that are, and didn’t when he was writing, and didn’t have anyone else in the room who would think about it either. 

ANYWAY. So this is....my long drawn out explanation for why I do not like Steinberg. Uhhhhh tune in next week for more of my totally unpopular opinions!

[qwertyfingers]

we know that bobby only watched ds9 and dean watched the tos movies for sure which implies he's seen tos as well (plus he calls jack spock). so what do you think everyone's favorite trek is? sam is without a doubt a tng fan first and foremost. i think out of all tos movies cas prefers the wrath of khan because he Feels Things when kirk and spock do the ta'al through the glass. charlie has definitely seen some trek (we've seen her llap), do you think she's into tos first and foremost? anyway let's talk about star trek nights in the bunker.

OKAY SO I HAVE. MANY MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS. SORRY THIS IS SO LONG.

like. like of COURSE bobby only likes ds9 of course he does i could have told you this without the show becuase like. bobby is That Bitch. i think rufus will have watched TOS at least because leonard nimoy worked hard on linking jewish faith and practices into the vulcan lore and i think that would mean something to him. bobby will catch rufus smiling at him sometimes while they’re watching ds9 and ask him what all gruffly and rufus will smirk at him and say something about sisko with jake and bobby with dean and bobby will just cough and take a swig of whiskey and rufus will raise his eyebrows but let it slide. rufus definitely makes a comment once about dean&cas being like jake&nog that totally flies over dean’s head but bobby is all knowing eyebrow raise about.

i think cas and jack would really like discovery. while it has some issues with inconsistency, pacing, being a little dark, it also does better than the other TV treks at utilising the nature of film as a medium to instill a sense of wonder, at space and the world, and that’s something they’d really appreciate. i have my own issues with disco, but an obol for charon is as close to the central core of trek that disco ever gets. cas and jack also like that one in particular because they like listening to all the different languages being spoken. they all love michael (everyone loves michael). cas’ faves are stamets and reno because they’re mean and gay, jack’s fave is tilly because she’s excitable and bright and he latches onto that. dean likes reno because she’s got spunk. sam’s fave is airiam and he will never forgive them for killing her off. sam, cas and dean all feel an uncomfortable kinship with both ash and culber - they’ve both been the one with monster teeming under the surface, controleld by something not themself, but they’ve also all spent that time in hell/purgatory, separated from everyone they love.

thinking about episodes that would really get to them all, darmok is. THE ONE. i have a whole unfinished essay about darmok as the platonic ideal of star trek; the perfect distillation of everything trek is SUPPOSED to be about. it doens’t always get there but by god it tries! that speech michael gives in the disco s2 finale - “There's a whole galaxy of people out there who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find that person who seems farthest from you and reach for them.” - that’s what darmok is about!!! it’s all about a situation where real communication seems impossible, where everything we know about talking and learning has broken down. and picard says, okay, i will find another way. i can’t relate to you, you can’t relate to me, but by god i’m going to try. we all meet people we have trouble communicating with in our lives, and often, those people will not care about changing their own ways to accommodate us. for people with autism, adhd, psychosis, the list goes on, this is a very common occurrence. it’s exhausting and frustrating and alienating. darmok is all about crossing that barrier. about reaching for someone through a world of difficulty and learning how to talk. learning how to share something with someone who seems out of our reach. it’s beautiful, it’s heartwrenching, it means more to me than i can easily put into words! 

anyway i think the bunker fam would experience a lot of emotions watching it together. there’s defintiely a lot of hugging eachother, sam cries a lot and won’t look at anyone until after the episode ends. jack just asks a lot of questions and talks about his progress learning sign language with cas. dean snakes his hand into cas’ halfway through and doesn’t let go. doesn’t show the emotion on his face, but he clutches harder at the emotional beats. cas runs his fingers through jack’s hair and thinks a lot, and decides not to say anything unless dean talks first. its just a Lot for everyone. 

dean def makes them marathon all the TOS and TNG movies. it’s an experience everyone needs at least once. i think you’re right about cas and TWOK with the ta’al through the glass, but also ‘this simple feeling’ and the hand hold would make him feel crazy. bones being the one that spock entrusts with his katra DEF makes dean feel some type of way because as much as destiel is kirkspock-coded, dean IS bones, and seeing spock trust bones so completely despite how at odds they were when they first knew eachother would dig deep into dean’s psyche and make him more than a little bit nutso. the movies are way too long for jack so he mostly sits and plays animal crossing while they watch and looks at the screen when everyone else gasps or when something exciting is happening that holds his attention for a while. sam’s fave is nemesis precisely because it’s terrible and he loves how camp it is.

dean has definitely seen all of trek. i refuse to believe someone who watches as much tv and films as dean wouldn’t sit and watch the whole shebang. i think he’s probably seen TOS and the TOS movies more than the others because its easier than sitting through 7 seasons, but i think rather than that being his favourite he’d just have really strong opinions about the best episodes of each one? like if you asked him what his favourite is he’d say you can’t answer that because they’re all so different from eachother

VOY - bride of chaotica, non seqitur, macrocosm for the favourite episodes. seven, janeway and tuvok would be his favourite characters. he think toms a bit of a knob but also feels a kinship with him for the similar brand of bab dad-ism but he wouldn’t be able to put that into words. he’s also a fierce defender of threshold being a good episode (he’s right for that)

DS9 - our man bashir it’s our man bashir. he doesn’t dislike ds9 but its very plot heavy and he didn’t care for it when he was younger. rewatching it after living through multiple supernatural wars he’d probably appreciate it more. i know for a fact he cries every time there’s an episode about sisko being a good dad. jadzia and garak are his faves

TNG - he LOVES q. he also absolutely will not be caught dead referencing how much loves q after cas comes into his life because sam will do the little brotherly knowing eyebrow raise at him and he will die of embarrassment. he regularly references ‘there are four lights’ because he’s a fucking nerd. he has made cas watch elementary my dear data and fistful of datas a half dozen times each at LEAST. cas KNEW how dean was going to be about the cowboy hat he’s defintiely got into full cowboy getup at home just for watching movies and in cas’ head star trek is fully to blame.

TOS - oh there are so many good TOS eps to choose from. obv he loves most of the series becuase TOS has MANY banger eps, his favourites are probably like. mirror mirror, amok time (baby dean defintiely had some kind of crisis watching it for the first time; i know the rituals are intricate). i know deep in my bones that dean watched the conscience of the king (introduction of the tarsus iv massacre) once and then spent his entire teenage years writing fic about that in his head, whether he posted it or not. dean related too much to those experiences of shared hunger. city on the edge of forever is one of everyone’s faves for a reason (and i’m STILL mad we never got a closer take on that episode in spn it could have been so fun). 

ENT - he definitely thinks enterprise is stupid and he’s not wrong but he has also definitely watched it and been very repressed about the whole thing. mans was like oh i feel a kinship with malcolm reed the obviously repressed queer man. i will never examine this feeling ever again thank you <3 he also makes fun of archer for being obsessed with, of all sports, water polo. shran is his favourite character because he’s a little shit and makes him laugh, and t’pol, because t’pol is a badass and he’d appreciate that. i can’t remember the title of a single episode off the top of my head though lol.

i can see what you’re saying about sam being a TNG stan. i’m conflicted though, I feel like TNG’s generally the favourite of 1) obnoxious nerds who think knowing trivia facts makes them smart, 2) men desperately trying to seem masculine and 3) people who’ve watched it three times and have extremely complex thoughts on the personhood and rights of robots. i could see sam fitting into the third group, but people who are in it for the robot feelings are a coin flip between voyager and tng being the fave, and i just have a feeling that voyager would be his favourite. i know kid sam is getting gender envy watching voyager in shitty motels while dad and dean are out, trying to find the words for it. his first semester at stanford he talks a friend into giving him the janeway haircut and rides that high for months. sam’s favourite characters are seven and EMH. 

sam and dean have definitely had dozens of long drawn out debates about philosophical topics in star trek. do the holograms deserve rights and if so which ones. are the romulans and vulcans still meaningfully the same people. was spock right for trying to foment reunification by going undercover on romulus. can the borg be redeemed. etc etc.

i haven’t seen any of picard at all so i can’t comment. i also think sam and dean probably read a lot of the trek books? they’re pretty common to find in secondhand bookstores and cheap, would have been even cheaper back in the day. sam probably doesn’t care for them much, dean has a few solid faves though. i’ve only read the disco books so i can’t comment anything specifically (besides the fact that i think dean read dead endless and cried like a baby), but some of the TOS and DS9 books are gay as hell and i know dean was eyes emoji-ing that shit. 

[female-overlord-3]

Bring Them Home  Ch 15 Smash

This fic is slow going with everything but going. Kept this baby as a draft until I wrote the next chapter :D

Alex, Michael, and Isobel bond and talk! Enjoy 💛

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They get their 3 hours and a little bit more until Michael finally becomes the voice of reason.

"As much as I want to spend the rest of the day with you, I need to check in with Sanders and do my actual day job. Plus Izzy is nothing but greedy for all the attention on her."

Alex just gives him a look before dragging Michael back onto the bed and rolling to be on top.

"This is a once in a blue moon lazy day for me Michael. You give me another hour and then I'll be satisfied."

Their first hour was the nap after their call, Michael carrying a dozing Alex to his bed so they'd be more comfortable. The second was Michael thoroughly massaging Alex's full body after Alex does his at home PT routine. The third was them switching between kissing and talking.

Michael wouldn't mind the third hour becoming 2 straight hours of more talking and kissing. He also doesn't think he can move because Alex is pretty much the ideal weight for holding him down.

Then the small touches start. One hand moving to his neck as a thumb swipes up and down his throat slowly before it moves to sink into his curls. Fingers gently digging into his scalp as lips press randomly across his torso and above. Michael is in actual heaven as he loses time to Alex's devoting touches until his left hand cramps and he lets out a hiss from the pain.

Lifting up Alex gives him space to do whatever he needs, his face pinched in worry and flickers of guilt at seeing Michael cradle his hand.

"Do you need a heat compress or acetone for the pain?" Alex quietly asks but Michael shakes his head.

"It'll pass. Give it a minute."

Hesitantly Alex reaches for it and let's the tips of his fingertips rest ever so lightly on the ridges of the scarred skin that Michael barely feels as Alex traces it. Michael lifts his hand up to feel the pressure and warmth of Alex’s hand but Alex snatches it away.

“Doesn’t it-” Alex's voice was quiet and a bit hoarse. “I don’t want you to hurt. I was trying to-” He stops himself again with his words stuck as old guilt starts to consume him.

Sighing Michael sits up but keeps his hands to himself.

“You think we’re ready to talk about this?” He waves his left hand between them.

He gives Alex a good minute to breathe through what he’s feeling right now before slowly inching his right hand to the thigh resting next to his.

“I am but that’s cause I made peace with it a long time ago. If you’re not then we can put it on hold for another time but you didn’t do this to me, you’re not a monster or violent like him. I’m not gonna lie, it reminds me that there’s bad in the world, that it’s cruel and doesn’t care but,” His hand has traveled up and cups Alex’s cheek. “It also reminds me that there are kind people like you who somehow left me a medical kit even though I didn’t see you for a week because you were hurt too. That wanted me to get help and go to the hospital but found an alternative when I kept telling you no.”

Alex’s eyes fall closed as he leans into Michael’s hand.

“You’re lucky your antibodies are immune to human infection and diseases.” Is the only thing he can say.

“Pretty nice that my form of power boost is just 5 bucks a bottle too, though my personal brew is much better.” Michael raises his left and holds it in front of Alex. “You didn’t need to go and make us a matching set but of course you had to one-up me.”

All he gets is a soft noise from Alex who’s finally reached for his left hand, both of his cradling Michael’s like it’s precious as he brings it to his chest to lay right over his heart. The steady thump is a song he’s missed.

“You could’ve healed it but you didn’t want to. You wanted to remember the good and the bad.”

Michael snorts at that. “I mean Max only offered like once but it also would’ve become a thing if people found out. Even though I didn’t know how much your dad was actually watching us, I didn’t want to give him anymore reasons to start snooping around. Hey you think he knew before and that’s why he went psycho?"

He asks it like an actual question, one of pure curiosity because now with everything they know it might actually be true.

"Maybe but I knew regardless he'd do something to anyone I brought home. Sure it was like an open secret but I tamed it down around him, the eyeliner and punk was just the easiest way to be proud but on just the edge. It helped that he hated both."

Michael watches as Alex's face pinches again.

"Would you heal it now or like a partial one?"

Smiling Michael just rubs his thumb against Alex's chest.

"Don't know. Depends really."

He pulls Alex back down and holds him close, soaking up as much comfort and the feeling of safety, love, and peace.

Of course not 10 minutes later there's a honk and a mental nudge from Isobel.

"Nooooo." He groans and buries his face in Alex's hair.

Alex agrees and presses closer as their phones start ringing.

"How is she calling both of us!"

There's a knock at the door then the sound of intentionally loud footsteps that stop at the window of their room.

"I promised lunch."

"We could be having really kinky sex right now Iz."

"Oh that reminds me I need to find a new playmate. Alex we're going to a gay bar. I want to see if me going all obsessed over Rosa was a me thing or his and I need a wingman who gets me."

Michael makes a face and holds onto Alex tighter. He doesn’t want Alex going to any bar without him.

"In my professional opinion it might be too soon and you're technically still married but screw it let’s go have fun." Alex pauses and reconsiders his words. “Actually if anything Kyle might be more game then me. I may be out and proud but I kinda dislike people… and crowds now.”  

He gives Michael a deep but short kiss and starts to wiggle free. Michael makes a valiant attempt to keep him in bed which is funny because earlier he was trying to head out for work and be responsible. He flips them over and tries to distract Alex with more kisses and he can feel Alex starting to give in when Isobel knocks on the window.

"We still game to blow up stuff or was that just the land around the cabin? Also will someone please let me in!"

They both groan and finally scramble out of bed to put pants on. Michael turns to face where the front door is and glares at it until it opens.

“It’s open.”

“Lovely. I’ll bring my stuff in.”

Michael slips down to slide on the sleeve then prosthetic for Alex before waddling closer to wrap his arms around Alex’s waist so he can bury his face in a very warm stomach.

“No bar without me. Someone’ll snatch you up.”

The vibrations and sound of Alex’s quiet laugh is nice.

“I was being honest about not really liking bars Michael and I'm only a tiny bit better about people. Have no fear everyone will be flocking to your sister.”

Silently Michael stands before climbing into Alex’s lap and latches onto him like a koala.

“Jesus I forgot how clingy you are.” Alex teases as his hands settle on Michaels sides. “Not that I mind.” He adds.

Leaning back to face each other, Michael gives him a dramatic pout. “You’re hot stuff and people will absolutely flock to you. I can’t stop people from looking but I can at least stop them from touching.” He eyes Alex’s neck hungrily and starts to lean down but a hand in his hair stops him.

“Ah and the marking thing. You sure you’re not a vampire?”

“It won’t be like-”

The unamused look Alex is sporting just makes Michael grin smugly. “You made it go around my whole neck. You gave me an actual hickey necklace Michael and it lasted for a whole week. No hickey necklace.”

“What about like two where everyone can see?” Michael questions and his eyes stare at the perfect spot. “I’ll keep them small.”

They roll over with Alex keeping him pinned down.

“You and I have a very different idea of what small is. No hickeys or marks until we go on another date.” He kisses Michael’s cheek before rolling off and leaving to go see what Isobel’s up to.

Michael mopes and gets dressed slowly. If the hoodie he has on is unusual for him well it’s Alex’s fault for leaving it in the room. In the closet and folded up top but Michael found it so finders-keepers.

“Michael you're staying 20 minutes so you can praise me while I break stuff with my mind." Isobel eyes the sweater and frowns. "Are you having a mental breakdown? That's the only time we wear hoodies." She comments and takes a step closer, ready to bring Michael into a hug for comfort which kinda confuses him.

"Um no. I'm good Iz. Just claiming one of my rights to wear something of Alex's." Michael pauses before taking his own step forward in concern. "Are you good? I know I haven't fully been there for you with everything but if you-"

Isobel rolls her eyes at him.

"I'm a big girl. It's been…. A lot but Alex and the others have helped in their own way. I do know breaking all this stuff will feel good so come on teach me how you do it." She says as she pats his shoulder then heads to Alex's backyard, Michael quickly following her.

"You're sure?" He asks. "I know we all have a tendency to avoid actually talking about our shit so if there's anything you want to then I'm here."

The tight line of Isobel's lips hold for a few seconds before dropping as she sighs.

"I'm still mad and hurt. Also sad because I- this whole mess started with him and I was just a tool he used. I was finally starting to feel like I could be myself but even that's a lie. First it was thinking I was the one who killed everyone and that sucked but finding out the actual truth was worse." Her voice wobbles a bit before she takes a deep breath to steady it. "I know I'm not okay and we're all dealing with our own shit but for once I don't feel totally alone. I'm gonna try and be a better sister to you because you've always been there for me Michael, you carried what happened that night with you for a decade so I wouldn't have too. I've let myself follow whatever Max decided because we got to grow up together and I thought he was right, that he was protecting us and the normal life we had."

She swallows and her eyes dart away.

"And he was but that meant you were left out because you never got our type of normal. So I'm gonna work on being there for you too and making sure you're included. Now let's go break stuff."

Michael grabs onto her hand and squeezes it. Isobel squeezes back and both their eyes are a bit misty but the smiles they wear are bright.

They see Alex a couple yards out, placing items from the box Isobel brought around his open backyard.

“Whatever you break you also clean up so I would suggest a tarp or something.”

Michael swaggers over and latches onto his side, nuzzling into his neck.

"Of course gotta keep the place clean. I'll go grab one." He leans to take a sip from Alex's milkshakes but it's moved away.

"You hate mint."

Michael blinks at him and can't help how big his smile turns.

"I don't mind it when it's from you." His eyes land on Alex's lips in an obvious request.

Michael's curls slap him in the face.

"Ow Iz why!"

"What? I'm just practicing my power." Her sickly sweet voice and eyelashes fluttering says anything but.

Michael rolls his eyes and pecks Alex's check. "You get thirty minutes and then I have to head to Sanders."

A hand slides into the back pocket of his jeans and he's pulled closer to Alex's side.

"Whatever you don't break or wanna leave to burn will be our bonding time."

Isobel's eyes light up at the offer.

"You really weren't lying about getting to explode shit! Like actual explosives?" She grabs onto Alex slowly and starts tugging him back to the house so he can show her.

Michael doesn't let go and they all walk back inside relatively easy for the three of them latched onto each other.

"More like I have the basic materials needed to make bombs which you would be surprised on how easy they are to make." Alex comments as Michael gives an understanding nod.

"Though I do have some minor explosives that are probably closer to fireworks which are easier to clean up after and that can easily be stated as such."

Alex slips out of their arms and goes to the small closet hidden behind the bathroom, the three of them bring all the goods to the living room.

"Does this mean I can use you as an excuse to come here instead of my mother's Fourth of July barbeque? I'm always stuck talking about nothing and everyone keeps expecting me to be pregnant. Do I look like mother material to you?"

She's settled in Michael's lap as they hold each other comfortably. Michael rests his head on her shoulder as he chuckles.

"Hmmm you're more Aunt material. You'd spoil my future kids rotten but also make sure they know how to talk circles around people the second they learn how."

"Their first words will be aunt Izzy or some variation of that. I'm not picky."

Her tone is casual but her eyes don't leave Alex who's gone quiet.

"I'm not saying a hard no to possibly being a surrogate but in a few years ask me again. I'll be back, just need to use the bathroom." She glides off of Michael's lap and out the door.

Michael doesn't pay her any mind and flops back to lay back on the bed.

The thought of having kids have been an off and on thing for him. Sometimes he doesn't because he's not even human and not the stablest person, being in the system didn't do him any favors. There's so much entailed with it that if he ever did he's worried the poor kid will turn out worse than him, that Michael won't have or be able to provide what they'll need. Then there are days he'd love to be that parent for someone who needs it, to be who he needed as a kid. Save at least one kid from a bad situation. Have the type of family he's sometimes let himself dream and barely hope for.

Sometimes it's just him raising a kid alone but other times Alex is there too, both of them sharing the love they have with someone else who might need it. Alex would never be like his father and would give their kid everything they needed no matter what but also make sure they have boundaries and morals and good life lessons.

"Would you want kids Alex?"

Michael voices once he's brought back to the present.

Just because he wants kids doesn't mean he needs them. He knows better than anyone that you gotta be committed and ready for that type of responsibility.

There's always the future but for right now he just wants to get his mom and people free, to deal with Noah, and to be with Alex.

"In another life… yes but I'm not sure about this one." Alex gets this nervous look on his face before sighing. "I'd have to think about it."

That's pretty much on par what Michael knew he'd say.

"Do you- I mean obviously you do but I'm not-"

Michael uses his powers to tug Alex to him. He takes Alex's hands and gives a light squeeze.

"I do but not now or for a while. I want to get my mom out and deal with the insanity of our lives first then enjoy being with you. I would like them in the far far future but I don't need them. I'm not letting some punk take all your attention until I've gotten my fill."

Alex clings to him and nods.

"Okay."

"As of now I love you and my meddling sister. You can come back in Isobel."

She walks in stubbornly with her head held high.

"I didn't mean to bring up future kids. You did that all on your own Michael and I'm sure you'll both be amazing uncles when Max and Liz figure their shit out. Max will finally have a reason to quit the force and stay at home to write like he's always wanted while Liz works on saving the world and all that jazz."

She grabs all the explosives quickly and carefully to do something with her hands.

“I mean who wouldn’t want an adorable hybrid of me though right, the world would all but perish under our reign. I’m sure i’d be a good mom though… with time and everyone else’s kids as a trial but like you guys said, now is a horrible time.” Her voice lowers to something almost hushed. “I’m sure plenty of kids need a home once i’m ready so all we need to do now is learn and be as prepared as possible.”

Michael smiles fondly at her as he stands and wraps an arm around her waist, pressing his forehead to the side of her neck.

“There’d be nothing stopping you once you decide your ready Isobel.”

Alex leans into her other side and they all just take a moment to breathe together.

“When we’re ready.” Alex voices with hope and it brings a smile to all their faces. “Does that mean we’re ready to go blow stuff up now?”

That gets a laugh.

“Come on all this emotional talk is ruining the mood. I’m ready to see how much control I need to learn to beat Michael!”

The three proceed to smash, break, and explode the contents of Isobel's boxes while enjoying their lunch.

Isobel is a bit shocked and proud of how much control Michael has on his power. A bit jealous too but she’s only just started. She finds it sickeningly sweet how awed Alex looks when he looks at Michael but the kind one he gives her makes up for it.

“How did I not see it?” She asks them. Her tone is light with wonder. That she never saw how much love just poured from them. It’s been a decade and she’s only finding out now.

Both Alex and Michael sigh but there’s less of a haunted look in their eyes.

“Shit timing and even worse communication.” Michael voices and then he’s at Alex’s side. “It’s hard to have something when everything’s going against you.”

Alex nods with his face set in a hard look before it clears.

“We kept it to ourselves cause it was safer but now there’s less bullshit to fight against.”

Isobel hurts from even the idea of what they’ve been through, the flashes she’s gotten from Alex flickering before she lets it all go.

“Well you’ve got someone else on your side.” she stands tall again, stronger and more solid with this certain topic worked through. "I'd happily melt anyone who's brain keeps giving you guys trouble. I'm sure I can make it look like an aneurysm."

She’s trying to be reassuring but the pained and overwhelmed look on Michael's face makes her feel unsure, like she's miss stepped somewhere.

It's only when Michael launches at her and holds her in a crushing hug, that his mind is so loud it's screaming at her by being in contact, that she understands.

Michael's always been so strong and never truly had anyone who he felt he could rely on, to truly rely on. Alex probably now with everything known but not really anyone else and that hurts Isobel all over again.

They should've been united from the start. They should've been together, able to rely and trust each other without doubt.

She holds on tight to him and lets out a sigh when Michael’s mind quiets, Alex’s presence closer being the obvious reason why.

Isobel is going to have a talk with Max about Alex and about Michael. Alex is right that they need to all work together to figure this mess out.