#ive only see the first episode time to try to avoid spoilers like the plague

[kneworder]

character trait i wish i didn't share with richie jeremovich is that i fully understand where he's coming from at the end of the first conversation he has with carmy like even if cooking isn't fun for carmy and even if it's literally tearing him apart it's still passion and it's still purpose and living without a strong sense of those things is so frightening and disheartening that sometimes you find yourself wishing you had something you cared enough about to work yourself to death over it. ok. anyway.

[marlahey]

time only heals if we work through it now

a chicago pd fic pairings/characters: rising upstead, jay + hailey friendship if that’s more your speed episode tags/spoilers: set during and post 6.22 (reckoning)  warnings: a lot of angsty avoidance of talking notes: this is the first really creative thing I’ve produced in like three months so please be gentle lol. title courtesy of the jonas brothers song ‘hesitate’ which I love and also stole from my friend grace. love you.  read on: ao3 // ff

i.

Jay is always the last person she touches before they breach a door. 

Depending on who goes first (usually her, though she never knows if that’s out of respect for her abilities or old ranger habits) there is one hand on the shoulder, (usually his) a final, I’ve got you, before the doorframe splinters or groans and anything can happen on the other side. After their bricks shatter the glass, she is first through the stash house back door. And until they’re back at the precinct unloading their spoils, Hailey’s heart seems to live in her ears, a roaring soundtrack to the story cloaked entirely in black and spoken in aggressive shouts. Though it’s not nerves, not more than the standard I really don’t want to get shot, it feels like everything is muffled beneath a pressing reminder of everything they stand to lose. “That was a five hundred thousand dollar rip,” she marvels aloud. “...that we can’t tell anyone about.” “And if this whole thing doesn’t work,” Jay says in that dry tone of his, “We’re gonna go back to writing traffic tickets.” Levity feels like the only way they can look at the possibility of their failure head on. It’s too much, she thinks, to consider how everything might change for the unit if they can’t bring Kelton down. And for them. The second thought is a little harder to bear, though it’s an admission Hailey makes only to herself. “Your sergeant at organized crime take you back?” she asks. Would he take me, too? “No,” he replies around a laugh. It’s nice to hear him laugh again. “He holds grudges. He was so pissed when I left. Besides, I’m going where you go.” Jay says it so matter of factly that Hailey has to stop and look at him. “Yeah?” He keeps her gaze. “Yeah. It’s hard to find a good partner.” Something’s happening inside her chest, that thing she’s been trying to ignore for months now. “That sounds good to me.” Her cheeks can’t hold up a smile too long. “We both know Kelton won’t let any of us stay together.” Jay’s jaw sets, but before either of them can say anything more, the rest of the unit reappears and it’s back to business. Later, Hailey thinks. Think about this later. ii. Later, of course, there’s no time to think. The first shot pops off – barely muffled – her hand lands instinctively on her gun but it’s useless; the next four tear through the van like it’s made of butter. “Get down!” Before she can even gasp, Jay is yanking her down to the floor. Only instinct and training keep her from hitting her head. He peels away; she can’t catch her breath. Hailey gives up on her gun. The unmistakable weight of a vest falls open over her back and then Jay’s arms are around her again, dragging her closer, tight around her shoulders and her neck, forcing her head down against him. The part of her brain that says, this might be it is shouted quiet by the rest of her brain that says, Jay’s here. He’s got you. Debris and dust and light hail down; he growls and it jolts her out of her panic. She wants to tell him that one vest isn’t going to cut it. She wants to tell him that by holding her this way he’s exposed – his arms, his hands, his head – she wants to ask him if her ears are ever going to stop ringing – and then it’s over. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than eight seconds, but it felt like years between one heartbeat and the next. Does Hailey look as different as she feels? Jay’s solid warmth pulls away again and she wants – for a split second – beyond all reason or logic or anything resembling professionalism, to fold herself back into him. Where she’s safe. His hand is on her face, calluses rough against her cheek. Hailey can see his mouth moving, forming the syllables of her name, but she can’t hear yet. “You good? You okay?” She can’t speak yet either it seems; Hailey just nods, almost frantically. Voight’s voice from outside the hollowed van sounds as though it’s coming from underwater. “Jay! Hailey! You good?” “We’re good, we’re good!” Jay shouts back, and she jumps; her hearing is back, now dialled up to eleven. Are we? “Do not exit till we get the all clear! Who’s got eyes?” Jay’s chest heaves with exertion as he pushes up to his elbows above her. Adam is audible through the radio on the table, miraculously unscathed, but she can only just understand him over the tinny sound still in her ears. Wilson is down. Dread curls like a root in the pit of her stomach. Hailey has to swallow before she can speak. “Jay,” she says, and that’s all her mind can come up with. His hand lands on her shoulder, squeezing gently. I’ve got you. Hailey finds her eyes glued to his stomach, where she knows the scar of a bullet should have lived beneath his shirt. As they haul each other mostly upright, the vest slipping to hit the floor with a solid thump, her fingers brush the spot of their own accord. “I’m okay.” Jay touches her hand with his own and Hailey pulls away, feeling oddly like she’s been caught. “I’m okay.” I thought he was dead. Her breath shudders on the way out; the next is better. Hailey can feel the weight of his stare, as familiar as the kevlar. He starts, “You sure–” “I’m good.” She meets Jay’s gaze to prove her point. He just looks back, some of the adrenaline fading from around his eyes, and it’s a little too easy to fall back into the routine. Upton and Halstead: partners in Intelligence. She nods once and he lets go, shifting back only enough to sit heavily against the desk with a sigh. Hailey doesn’t think; she just follows him down to the floor, suddenly too bone-weary to care that they’re pressed together from hip to shoulder. She finds her eyes glued to the kevlar vest still splayed half-open at their feet. We almost died. He probably saved your life. You’re alive. “Think we have to write up the cost?” Jay asks sardonically, gesturing at the side of the vehicle riddled with holes. Hailey just snorts. He doesn’t say more and neither does she, suddenly content to come back down to earth in comfortable, relative quiet. It’s hard to tell how much time passes this way, though Hailey just lets herself be in it a while. Give us a break. But soon enough, sirens and tires and clamouring voices fill in the silence. Someone thumps on the side of the van– “All clear!” – and if Jay notices her flinch, he doesn’t say anything. Hailey takes one last deep, steadying breath and pulls herself to her feet. “I’ll take Wilson’s body, you check in with Voight? Maybe we can get lucky with his phone.” “Sounds good,” Jay replies. A uniformed officer pulls the door open; she has to squint against the light. He touches her shoulder again, just once, and lets her out first. iii. She knows something’s up the moment he appears at the top of the stairs. When she follows him into the break room and asks what’s going on, Hailey is half-expecting Jay to lie, for her to have to work a little harder to get at whatever it is that’s bothering him. “I have no idea.” And he doesn’t, she knows; it’s the same not knowing that’s been plaguing half the unit for weeks now– ever since Eva. While Kim and Kevin may be more content to politely pretend they can’t see the furtive looks Voight, Adam, and Antonio have been exchanging, it prickles beneath Hailey’s skin– and now, clearly, it’s come to a head with Jay too. “Voight just left and he said–” Jay breaks off and it takes everything in her to be steady– “he said something about me running the unit.” The root of dread coils tighter. Hailey follows Jay’s gaze out to the bullpen, where the announcement of Kelton’s victory still plays, and then back. “We lost.” She hasn’t seen him look this way in a long time– not since he almost died and she was almost too late to save him. Hailey takes a deep breath. Jay’s not wrong. So what’s left? “Kelton is who he is,” she says firmly. “His time for reckoning is coming.” He scoffs a little, more out of frustration than anything. “Not in time for this unit. For us.” Us? Her heart stumbles. “We’ve only been partners a couple years,” she starts, going for more levity and probably failing. “You’ll forget about me just fine.” Hailey forces a smile, but she can’t hold it up against the way Jay’s looking at her now, too open and unguarded to handle. “Hailey…” He does that thing where he laughs with just one corner of his mouth and trails off, shaking his head. Jay opens his mouth as if to speak. She thinks, not now. I’m not strong enough. Hailey knows him, and he knows her; Jay doesn’t say whatever he’s thinking– because he won’t (or can’t) give voice to whatever their partnership has become. She tries to smile again. Maybe she’s the one who can’t let him. “We’ll be alright,” Hailey says, and wills it to be true. iv. Kelton’s reckoning occurs through blood and bullets; theirs could also be counted in shell-casings and scars, but at least she and Jay have survived. So far, at least. With half the unit out of commission (speaking of things Hailey can’t look at head on), Voight’s strangely dark premonition comes to pass. As the most senior remaining detective, Jay assumes command of Intelligence. All their attempts to reach both Antonio and their sargeant go unanswered, which only carves deeper frown lines in Platt’s face. (She’s taken herself off the front desk to help them and pulled her best patrol officers up into the bullpen. Kim takes responsibility for them without being asked; Hailey mirrors Jay’s immensely grateful look at the routine grunt work being taken off their plates for the time being.) Whoever had killed Kelton had been careful; there’s evidence of a break-in but absolutely no DNA that isn’t their former mayor’s. It’s also hard to decide whether it’s a relief or not that the potential list of killers is long, since Jay had pointedly avoided eye contact when he told them that both Hank and Antonio were in the wind. I’m going to do what needs to be done. Voight’s last words to Jay keep replaying in her mind, but Hailey can see that they haunt her partner. Chicago, as difficult and often corrupt as it already is, feels truly rocked by this – the Ivory Tower calls for an update seemingly every time the unit tries to come up for air. CPD’s new interim superintendent is not exactly sympathetic to the strain the 21st district (and arguably the entire force) is now under; as the days wear on with few leads, Jay takes fewer and fewer breaks and stays behind later and later. Is their city just full of monsters? Are they only pretending to fight a darkness that already exists inside of them, rooted and watered by the horrors of this job? There has to be light somewhere, Hailey thinks, as she buzzes herself up the stairs in search of her phone she’d left behind. The solitary glow of her partner’s desk lamp lighting the Intelligence bullpen is perhaps a bit too on the nose. Voight’s office is still shuttered and closed; Jay refuses to work in there, even though his paperwork pile is already twice the height of hers. “You good?” he asks, beating her to the punch. Hailey nods, reaching into her drawer and holding up her cell. “Just forgot this. What are you working on?” Jay sighs, dragging a tired hand over his face. He’d tell her he needed a shave, she knows, if she pointed out the two-day scruff. She doesn't. “I hate reports,” he complains. It’s a familiar conversation. Hailey feels an abrupt urge to smile that she hasn’t had in at least a week. “I dunno how Voight dealt with all this red tape all the time.” He didn’t, a lot of the time, she thinks. Hailey doesn’t say that either.   “Have you been home since yesterday?” she asks instead. “You were already here when I got in this morning. You haven’t eaten.” The scratching of pen slows. “What day is it?” “Wednesday.” Jay’s jaw flexes just slightly, his version of a wince. “You gotta get some rest Jay,” Hailey goes on. “You can’t keep this up. You’re gonna be dead on your feet.” “I’m fine,” he says. The stubbornness in his tone is familiar, too. “We have to get this right. Intelligence isn’t safe just because Kelton’s dead.” “We’re a team,” she counters. “You don’t have to do this all by yourself.” A shadow creases his face. Hailey knows there’s some things about his last conversation with Voight that Jay didn’t tell her, that his relationship with their (former?) sergeant is longer and more complex than even Adam’s was. Is. But she won’t back down. “Finish that and then I’m taking you home. You can ride with me tomorrow and get your car after shift.” Years or months or even a few weeks ago, Hailey would have considered what their co-workers would think at the sight of them arriving together. Besides the fact that neither Kim nor Kevin would say anything (Platt is probably another story) tonight she finds she doesn’t care. Her partner opens his mouth as if to argue, but Hailey just shrugs out of her coat and settles across from him in her own desk chair. She can be stubborn too. After a long beat of silence, Jay exhales slowly and his pen resumes its task across the page. Hailey forces herself not to look up from her phone, but every so often she can feel the weight of his stare. He doesn’t often accept support; even the spoken value of their ‘beer and talk’ arrangement sometimes isn’t enough to get Jay to cave. Hailey would cave though, for him. She’d do nearly anything if he was the one asking. Hailey has to resolve, right then and there in the silent and mostly dark bullpen, to never examine that truth too closely. “Okay,” Jay says sometime later, pulling her out of a mindless game of Crossy Road. “I’m done.” He leans back in his chair with a long sigh. “Tell me we’re doing the right thing here, Hailey.” You know I can’t tell you that. Though the unit and the district may have their suspicions as to the timing of Kelton’s murder and Intelligence leader disappearances, no one dares speak them aloud. Hailey squares her shoulders and meets Jay’s eye. “We’re doing our jobs.” It’s not an answer, of course; his scoff calls her out. But when Jay speaks again, it’s full of a quiet desperation she’s only heard a handful of times since they became partners. “I just hope I’m wrong.” Hailey doesn’t bother pretending. “I think we’re all hoping that too.” She picks up her coat and he follows as she hoped he would. “We can only do our jobs. The rest is for someone else to decide.” Jay possibly (probably) disagrees, but he just ushers her through the gate. As Hailey turns out of the district lot, he props his elbow against the window and tilts his head against his hand, staring out at nothing. She finds her attention drawn, almost unwittingly, over to him as the late night lights of Chicago pass them by. He looks so far away, even with the scant distance between them. So she reaches out the only way she knows how. ”Molly’s? I could use a drink.”  Jay stills; Hailey braces herself for a refusal. Please just let us be us. “We can drink at mine,” he says. “I know I have a bottle of something kicking around.” She squeezes the steering wheel a little in relief. “Sounds good.” When they arrive, he holds the door open for her to enter first. “Sorry about the mess.” There’s a somewhat rumpled blanket over the back of the couch, half a newspaper on the coffee table, and Jay’s beanie dangling from a hook by the door. “This is a mess?” He laughs dryly. “Old habit.” Hailey drops herself onto the couch as he disappears into the kitchen. She hears cabinets and the clinking of glasses and wills her shoulders to relax. Jay isn’t the only one taking on more than usual; she’d never hear the end of it if he caught her not taking her own advice. A minute later, a heavy glass of amber liquid lands in front of Hailey with an audible thump. Jay pulls the blanket from behind his back and tosses it unceremoniously into her lap. “You’re always cold,” he says when she just looks at him. “Don’t even try to deny it.” Hailey just busies herself with the throw and her glass so she doesn’t blush. “Thanks.” She holds her glass out; Jay clinks against it with a silent nod. There’s gratitude in his eyes. Hailey just smiles gently and hopes it’s enough. The scotch burns on the way down and she thinks, you’re alive. You’re alive.  

*

She wakes with a start; the blanket slips from around her shoulders (when had that happened?) and Hailey’s mind flashes back to the kevlar vest on the floor of their ruined surveillance van. But she blinks blearily and Jay’s apartment returns, quiet and dark. And when she turns her head, she’s surprised to find him slumped beside her, still holding his empty glass. Something aches deep inside her chest. Hailey sits up carefully. Leaning forward, she wraps her fingers around Jay’s glass and pries it gently from his hand. Before she can do anything more, his eyes snap open, bright and wild; Jay seizes her wrist in an iron grip before she can even reel back, and Hailey’s heart leaps up into her throat. “It’s me,” she says, as quiet and calm as she can manage. “It’s just me.” “Hailey,” Jay breathes. The hair on the back of her neck rises. He releases her. “Shit, sorry.” She just shakes her head. “I can’t believe I fell asleep.” “You and me both,” he replies. Hailey musters a faint smile. “I should–” “Stay.” Jay isn’t touching her anymore, but he may as well be for the way all her limbs suddenly freeze in place. Hailey sees a flash of that open expression from the break room, before everything truly went to hell. “It’s late,” he continues. “You’ve had a few.” “I’m fine, Jay.” It’s not a lie, exactly. But her body won’t stop betraying her. They haven’t been this close since the van. It’s like she suddenly stopped knowing how to be around him. Jay swallows; Hailey watches his Adam’s apple bob and hates herself a little. “I’d feel better if you stayed.” She can only stare. How can he be so inarticulate one day and so unselfconscious the next? Hailey wishes she could blame the alcohol, or the hour, but Jay is a Ranger; he’s asleep to alert faster than she can blink. “We can stop by your place before we go in.” “I keep an emergency go bag in the car,” she blurts, unthinking, and Jay exhales a laugh with just one side of his mouth. “Of course you do.” This is a bad idea. “Are you actually going to sleep?” she asks, “If I stay?” Jay’s jaw works. Gotcha. “Probably.” Hailey rolls her eyes fondly. “Gotta work on your poker face there, Halstead.” He chuckles and leans back. “Pretty sure it’s no use with you.” It’s so frank and honest that her stomach pitfalls. Hailey stands then, handing the glass back to Jay and feeling abruptly silly for playing hot potato with it. “Be right back.” When Hailey returns, Jay is in sweats and a t shirt, putting sheets on the couch. It’s the most dressed down she’s ever seen him. “I just washed the ones on my bed,” he says with a smile. “Promise. All yours.” “I’m not kicking you out of your own bed,” Hailey protests. “I’ll take the couch. You’ll barely fit on it anyway.” Jay goes to counter, but she musters her best don’t fuck with me glare. His lips twitch like he wants to laugh; he just puts a pillow down. It feels downright domestic, standing in the bathroom with him and brushing her teeth. The part of Hailey that wants to fidget in her pajama shorts and t-shirt struggles with the rest of her that is always a little more instinctively relaxed around her partner, in a way – if Hailey’s being honest with herself – she had to work for with Adam. Besides the disaster that was Booth, Jay makes no demands of her, never asking for more than she’s ready to give. They’ve disagreed before, certainly, on cases. But never morally – never fundamentally – or in a way that spoke to the core of their personalities clashing. Hailey supposes that’s the upside of dragging each other’s demons into the light and finding support in looking right at their own darkness. “Sure you’re okay out here?” Jay leans on the doorframe of his room and watches as she slides beneath both the throw and another blanket he’d insisted on leaving out for her. “Beats a concrete basement floor,” Hailey quips. He makes a face and she laughs lightly at him. “I’m kidding. Jay this is fine, really. Go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.” Jay looks at her a moment longer, before apparently deciding against whatever’s on his mind. “Night.” Hailey lies awake for longer than she’d like to admit, but he doesn’t have to know that.

*

The smell of coffee draws her into awareness. Hailey tries to sit up quickly, suddenly too mindful of Jay potentially catching her asleep and vulnerable again. But there’s no sign of him until she’s folding the blankets carefully into a small pile on one end of the couch. Jay emerges from the kitchen with two mugs and offers her one, which she accepts with a grateful, “Thanks.”  Hailey pulls her legs up to sit cross legged, leaning back against the arm of the couch while he shifts to face her. It would be too easy, she thinks, to shuffle forward a little and be touching knees. Somehow it seems more intimate than being locked in his arms with nowhere to go. “Get any sleep?” Jay asks, eyeing her over the rim of his mug. “Yeah,” Hailey admits after a moment of thought. “Actually. You?” She can see the edges of a smile: the corner of his mouth, the gentle crinkle of his eyes. “Yeah, actually.” There’s something inexplicably tender in his expression, despite the fact that she can’t see half his face. Hailey suddenly wishes she could flee, but just wraps both hands around her cup and drinks instead. “Bathroom’s all yours,” Jay says. “I’m just gonna get dressed.” The rest of the morning passes in the same quiet camaraderie that settles in during a long sting. By the time they’re pulling back up to the precinct, Hailey can almost pretend the last 12 hours were just a strange dream. She and Jay are early enough to work that not even Platt has arrived quite yet; the buzzer of the gate up to Intelligence feels almost jarring in the quiet. Hailey can see Atwater’s desk before they hit the top of the stairs. She’s almost there; they’re almost back to normal and then– “Hailey.” His fingers brush her elbow and she turns. Just behind her, Jay is just below as well; they’re very nearly the same height. The air feels close, like it did on the couch, and the van, like something electric is rising, or a flash flood that might just sweep her away. He glances down then up, as though suddenly boyish and bashful. It’s somehow difficult to imagine any other version of Jay that isn’t calm and confident. His jaw flexes. She sees that same look, that almost lost, vulnerable, and open one that always catches her off guard; she’s unmoored and the one thing that usually grounds her is the same thing knocking her off balance. Jay’s just looking at her, like he wants to speak but he knows that the truth – whatever the Truth is – might be the thing that shatters them both to pieces. She thinks, tell me. She thinks, don’t. And then Hailey stops thinking. She just leans forward and slides her arms around Jay’s neck, letting herself fit between the open edges of his jacket. He stiffens, but before Hailey can jump back over the enormous line she’s just crossed, Jay pulls her in. His arm wraps around her so far that she’s sure he can feel her ribs against his fingertips, while his other hand touches the back of her neck, so lightly at first that Hailey shivers. And then Jay tightens his grip and she’s suddenly safe again, despite everything. Hailey hooks her chin over his shoulder; he turns his face into the curve of her neck. She can only keep breathing as Jay sighs, so deeply that Hailey can feel his whole body rise and fall against hers. The whole world seems to have narrowed into sensations: fingertips tangling into her hair, calluses on the nape of her neck, warm breath over her collar. Hailey closes her eyes. You’re alive. She pulls back first, if only because she risks never moving again. She also risks crying, with the look in Jay’s eyes. But Hailey manages a smile and puts her hand on his shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s get to work.” As she turns, Jay’s hand touches her own. He squeezes, just once. Hailey returns the pressure without looking back and Jay releases her, following her up into the bullpen. It’s not enough, she thinks, a little selfish and foolish and desperate. But for now it has to be. 

[drsilverfish]

The Riddle of the Sphinx: 14x12 Prophet and Loss

First, thanks to @verobatto-angelxhunter  @gneisscastiel @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks  @mrsaquaman187  for inviting me to guest this week, as part of their ongoing SPN #Metafest project @metafest  

along with several other guests:  @bluephoenixrises  @poorreputation @agusvedder @amwritingmeta   @savannadarkbaby @prairiedust  and

@norahastuff 

I’m going to guest meta about the Riddle of the Sphinx.

Here is creepy Tony Alvarez drowning his first victim. 

Despite an opening dose of Bucklemming torture-porn (ugh - although tbf there was a narrative point, as the drowned girl was a mirror for Dean, just like the slain first-born son and the dude who almost got barbecued were - more on that later...)... So, yeah, despite that, I was thrilled to see this in the visual narrative architecture - the Sphinx Machine Shop, where Tony does his mangled prophecy induced killing.

The Sphinx, as you know, is a fearsome part-woman, part winged-lion beastie, in Greek mythology, who was famous for guarding the entrance to Thebes and asking travellers to solve the answer to a riddle in order to gain safe passage to the city. If they failed, she devoured them.

She is tied in mythology not just to puzzles and their solutions, but to fate...

Here is the Sphynx of Naxos, from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi (560 BCE)

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_of_Naxos 

The Temple of Delphi was the site of the Oracle of Delphi, who was the High Priestess Pythia (a transferrable role) famous for her prophesies, which came to her in trance-states, supposedly from the God Apollo.

You see the link to SPN’s own Prophet role here.... 

The Sphinx also, famously, appears in Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex, which became the basis for Freud’s also famous (and relevant a bit later) “Oedipus complex”. Sophocles didn’t invent the myth, but his telling is its most famous rendition. 

Despite his other misfortunes, Oedipus doesn’t get devoured by the Sphinx, because he solves her riddle, a popular rendition of which is: 

“What goes on four legs, on two legs, on three, and the more legs it goes on, the weaker it be?” 

The answer, is - a human (baby, adult, old person with a stick).

Oedipus’ story is a classic story about fate, just like Appointment in Samara (re-worked in an SPN episode, 6x11, but originally an old Mesopotamian tale) which @mittensmorgul  and I were talking about just recently, in relation to themes of fate vs free will in SPN (specifically in relation to the role played by Death - see here for the discussion:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182454009599/mittensmorgul-drsilverfish-mittensmorgul  )

Oedipus’ story is a (f-d up) family drama - rather relevant to our very own Family Winchester [no, NOT because this is all about either of the boys wanting to sleep with Mary Winchester - thanks Dr. Freud - although, come to think of it, Dean did say she was hot in 4x03 In The Beginning :-)]  

14x13 Lebanon promo shot 

When baby Oedipus is born, his father King Laius receives a prophecy that his son will grow up to kill him, and so, he sends a shepherd to expose the baby on the mountainside to die, before that can happen. The shepherd however, not being an asshole, saves the baby, and raises him secretly as his own.  

Oedipus grows up, and he eventually learns from the Oracle at Delphi herself (see above) that he is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Believing the shepherd and his wife are his true mother and father, whom he loves, he leaves his home in the mountains for the city of Thebes, determined to defy the prophecy.

On the way, he meets a quarrelsome old man on the road, they fight, and Oedipus kills him:

When he gets to Thebes, he finds the King has been slain, by persons unknown, and the town is at the mercy of the Sphinx. Oedipus, by guessing the Sphinx’s riddle, obtains safety for the town and is, in gratitude, appointed King himself and given the widowed Queen, Jocasta’s, hand in marriage.

All is well for a bit, until a plague descends on Thebes, and Oedipus is told that to save the city, he must avenge King Laius’ death. So, he goes sleuthing, with the extremely relucant help of his seer Tiresius, and to his horror, discovers that he is the one who killed the King (that old dude on the road to Thebes all those years ago), that he is the King’s true son, and has, therefore, killed his father and, in marrying Queen Jocasta, married his mother and committed incest, fulfilling the prophecy he set out to escape from. He promptly blinds himself in horror. Poor ancient Greek dude. 

The Chorus laments the power of fate

O heavy hand of fate!          Who now more desolate, Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire?          O Oedipus, discrowned head,          Thy cradle was thy marriage bed;

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31/31-h/31-h.htm  - Project Gutenberg translation of Oedipus Rex. 

A reference to the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx is extremely pregnant right now in the SPN narrative, for two reasons:

1) Fate vs Free Will

2) The Ghost of John Winchester

1) Fate vs Free Will

Dean thinks his interpretation of the book Billie handed him in 14x10 Nihilism - apparently the only death of his in which AU!Michael doesn’t take over his meat-suit and burn the world - means he has to sink himself to the bottom of the ocean, in the Ma’lak (angel) box and that’s “fate”. 

Like Oedipus, there is no escape. 

However, 14x12 tells us two things. Firstly, by analogy - the prophecy is wrong. Alvarez thinks he is carrying out the prophetic Word of God TM by recreating a twisted version of the Plagues of Egypt sent by God in Exodus:

1) The slaughter of a first-born son

2) Drowning in the Red Sea

3) Fire out of Heaven

(all of which are mirrors for what Dean thinks is his “fate” right now: death of a first born son; being drowned forever at the bottom of the ocean in the Ma’lak box; being consumed by the AU Archangel Michael’s Heavenly grace/fire).

But it’s a garbled message, received as a result of Prophet Donatello’s comatose scramblings. 

Secondly, screw prophecy - against the odds, Dr. Sexy of the Lord (yeah - you know Dean thought it) is able to revive Donatello, thus preventing further scramblings (aka wrong prophesies). 

CASTIEL: “Dean - if there is a spark, a hope, then I have to try.... you taught me that!” 

I loved that line, with its resonance all the way back, like a skein of blue grace, to the Apocalypse Mark One, when Dean convinced Castiel, in Zacharia’s (also due to return in 14x13 Lebanon) “green room” in 4x22 Lucifer Rising, to disobey Heaven for the sake of humanity (Yes, Dean, an angel did fall for you...). 

In other words, just as the Winchesters beat their “fate” to be “angel condoms” for Michael and Lucifer last time around, by “tearing up the script” and “making it up as they go” (4x22 Lucifer Rising) thanks to the help of rebel angel Castiel, so they can do so again.   

2) The Ghost of John Winchester

In the SPN world’s worst kept spoiler, we know John will return next week in 14x13 Lebanon. We’ve been meta’ing about the ghost of John Winchester haunting the SPN narrative for... forever.  

Here is some meta of mine on the subject from S12:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/158388550099/john-winchesters-ghost-and-the-haunting-of-s12 

John is explicitly recalled, during the brothers’ (beautifully rendered) car conversation in 14x12:

DEAN: “You ever think about when we were kids?”

SAM: “Maybe, yeah, sure, sometimes, why?”

DEAN: “I know I wasn’t always the greatest brother to you.”

SAM: “Dean, you were the one who was always there for me. The only one. I mean, you practically raised me.”

DEAN: “I know things got dicey, you know with Dad, the way he was... and I just.... I didn’t always look out for you the way that I should of. I mean, I had my own stuff, y’know, and in order to keep the peace, it probably looked like I took his side quite a bit. Sometimes, when I was away, you know it wasn’t cos I just ran out, right? Dad would, he would send me away, when I really pissed him off. I think you knew that.”

SAM: “Man I left that behind a long time ago, I had to.”  

AU!Michael, I’ve been arguing since the start of the season, is a mirror for Dean’s self-repression and for John Winchester. See:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/179463975289/shirtlesssammy-14x03the-scar-meta-writers

John was one of the major causes of Dean’s self-repression, as illustrated in the convo above, where it’s clear Dean had to grow up too fast to become a substitute-parent to Sam, where he was often obedient to their father to “keep the peace”, and where he was also often, unreasonably, punished by his father in the process (such as, as we already know, when he was sent to Sonny’s after stealing food for Sam in 9x07 Bad Boys). 

According to psychoanalysis, we always internalise psychological constructs of our parents - Freud calls them imagos. So the Riddle of the Sphinx, for Dean, is how to kill (or rather, lay to rest) the ghost of his father (whom AU! Michael is a mirror for) and with it, the self-repression which has wounded him so much, psychically, since childhood, without letting it kill him too.  

Nick, of course (general shudder) also serves as a John Winchester mirror in the episode - his obsessive revenge quest for the slaughter of his wife (aka mirror Mary Winchester) by Abraxas, led to something she never wanted - damage to innocents along the way (aka mirror innocents, Sam and Dean). 

To Conclude

The answer to the Sphinx’s riddle, the one that helped Oedipus avoid being devoured by her was.... humanity.

Light Sphinx, 2015-2016, Mixed media (inc. foam, hand stitched fabrics, LEDs, beads, synthetic hair), 74 x 32 x 54 cm by Tarryn Gill

https://tarryngill.com/Light-Sphinx-Shadow-Sphinx-2015-16 

Dean IS the symbolic representation of humanity (which is why Amara was so fascinated by him, and let’s not forget Metatron’s words about Castiel in 9x22 Stairway to Heaven  - “He’s in love with.... humanity”).  

Our first-born Winchester son just has to believe what this episode showed him -  prophecy can be wrong.

His “fate” - to die, to drown forever, to be consumed by holy grace/fire, to remain trapped by the ghost of his father, by his own self-repression, by AU!Michael, by the Ma’lak box (aka, in subtext, the closet) is NOT the “Word of God”.

And killing one’s father doesn’t (as it did for Oedipus) have to mean damnation, if, the way one does it, is symbolically, by laying his ghost to rest in one’s heart and mind (hello upcoming SPN 300 14x13 Lebanon).

Freud believed the resolution of the Oedipus complex (for boys) was identification with the father (and no, we don’t have to concur with Dr. Freud). Dean has actually been on an oppositve journey, to get out from under his father’s shadow.   

The Jungian solution, which the S14 narrative is offering to the metaphorical Riddle of the Sphinx, is, to turn around and embrace the Shadow-self (the parts of oneself one has repressed) and in so doing, to evolve - to become more fully human.

So, a final salute to Jerry Wanek and team, and the ever wonderful SPN set dressing narrative, for The Sphinx Machine shop!

NB:

You can read my Jungian Meta series here, if you’re interested:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/180906003584/the-shadow-14x08

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/181122764984/14x09-the-spear-jungian-decoder-ring-edition

 http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182299438269/jung-and-deans-journey-towards-self-integration

And if, you want to read more of my SPN meta in general, go visit my blog and look under the “Meta” sidebar tag: http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/tagged/Meta 

Plus, if you want to read lots of other people’s fabulous SPN meta, go check out the “SPN Meta” sidebar tag: http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/tagged/SPN%20Meta 

Thanks for having me @metafest !

DrSphinx out.  

[sunshine-captain]

do you have any good star trek novel recommendations? (tos please!!)

Yes! I do! I’ve been meaning to make a post about this for…so long, whoops, but I’ll answer this ask instead! (might still make the post someday, idk tbh. I probably should though because since I have so many Trek books I haven’t read yet, I might like more enough to rec them, haha.) Okay, anyway… (By TOS I assume you mean the original Enterprise crew, I hope it’s okay that not all of these actually take place during TOS, aka the five year mission.)

Sarek by A. C. Crispin You might have seen me mention this one the other day on my blog; I really love it. It takes place post TUC, Amanda is dying and Sarek is uncovering a plot that’s way bigger than anyone realizes at first… Also there’s some stuff about Jim’s nephew Peter (from the episode with the farting flying pancake aliens? lol.) and yeah, it’s a great read. All the parts with Sarek and Amanda are lovely and sad and the plot is interesting and it’s just all around enjoyable.Definitely recommend.

Collision Course by William Shatner This is the other one I mentioned on my blog already, and this one is probably my favorite Trek novel. Spock is nineteen and Jim is seventeen when they first meet, and they’re both too smart for their own good and get into trouble and…well, all the things you expect from Jim and Spock. It was originally supposed to be the first in a series, but for various reasons, there probably won’t be any more (CRIES) but this one is so good. And it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger so it’s okay. I especially enjoyed tbh how Bill appreciates what an effect Tarsus would have had on Jim (this is only three years later, after all) and it’s still very visible on lil’ Jim. Not a spoiler, bc a reference is made to Tarsus on…literally the very first page. Lol. Anyway, this one is really fun and sometimes sad (bc Tarsus) and just really great! Also, at least one of the plot twists genuinely surprised me, which is rare… I normally see them coming a mile off in Trek novels. ;) (Which doesn’t usually take away from my enjoyment, tbh!) But I really appreciate when they can surprise me.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (novelization) by Gene Roddenberry You knew this was coming. This is an absolute must read if you’re a Spirk fan, tbh. I’m not all the way through with it so far, about halfway done, but I can tell you it’s a much better way of telling the story of TMP than TMP. Lol. The movie has this simple feeling and Jim rushing to Spock on the bridge and saying his name like a prayer and other things, but it also has all those dreadful special effect sequences. And the novel has its own gay to offer. I don’t necessarily agree with the way Gene wrote Jim (in fact, it’s been forever since I picked it up but I distinctly remember being bothered by it), but…yeah, at least borrow a copy from someone and witness the gay parts for yourself, haha.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (novelization) by Vonda McIntyre I’m going to go ahead and say right now that if you’re going to read the novelizations, go for the ones by Ms. (Mrs? idk) McIntyre. She wrote 2, 3, and 4. I haven’t read 3 yet, but I have read 2 and 4 and I like that she actually adds in scenes and stuff that weren’t in the movies. It makes me feel like I’m actually getting something additional for my time even though I’m reading a novelization of a movie I’ve already seen. I like this one, because there was quite a bit that wasn’t in the movie (I have a hunch the extra scenes, at least some of them, might be based on the script? because the scene with Sulu’s great….something or other grandfather as a child meeting Sulu is in the book, and I know they tried to put that in the movie but never managed to. anyway.) But yeah, there’s actual stuff in there that’s not in the movie! that’s the way it should be. Also…she ships Saavik/David pretty clearly. :P Like I said, haven’t read TSS novel yet, but I know she was working it into 2, and it’s mentioned in 4 as a thing. Anyway…good stuff! This is the one where the whole “Vulcans get drunk on chocolate” thing comes from btw :))) (Avoid the novelizations by JM Dillard! Avoid!!! I’ve read them and they’re not good.) (Oh and pretty much everything I’ve read by Vonda McIntyre I’ve enjoyed, she’s a good Trek writer.)

Dwellers In The Crucible by Margaret Wander Bonnano Margaret Bonnano is another writer I just generally recommend bc I like all the stuff by her that I’ve read, too. Anyway… okay so let me say that this book’s main characters are not Jim and Spock. I know, I know. But wait!! It’s so worth a read!! Jim and Spock are in it, not much, but when they are they’re literally so married and explicitly confirmed to be t’hy’la… :)) it’s great. okay anyway. The main characters are a human named Cleante and a Vulcan named T’Shael. They are ladies. THEY ARE GAY AF. OKAY. THAT ALONE MAKES IT WORTH A READ. it’s so glorious.I mean the book only says they’re friends but…in the same way Jim and Spock are friends in canon. they’re super freaking gay. and also there are like a thousand incredibly obvious parallels between our human and vulcan lady and Jim and Spock. it’s fun. also Sulu goes undercover as a Romulan. :D yeah, just…read it. it’s great. (it made me angry at one point. I’m still angry. but I recommend it.)

Ishmael by Barbara Hambly This one was, for me at least, just a genuinely good read. I really enjoyed the plot. So…Spock goes back in time to 1867, not willingly I don’t think. And he gets amnesia. So right there are two tropes I ADORE (time travel and amnesia, I don’t care, I LOVE THEM.) He lands in North America, in Seattle if I remember correctly. And that’s the plot pretty much. Haha…okay, there’s a Klingon plot, the Enterprise crew searching for Spock, Spock trying to adapt and hide he’s an alien while bonding with the members of the community he lands in. Also Jim and Spock’s reunion is a bit gay. (Warning for spoilers if you click that? it’s pictures of when they find him near the end, so. Yeah.) I just really enjoyed the book in itself, the plot and everything. Fun!

Enterprise: The First Adventure by Vonda McIntyre In light of the tv series called Enterprise, the title of this one might be a little confusing… But it’s most definitely TOS and has nothing to do with Enterprise, haha. The premise is that it’s the first voyage of the Enterprise with Jim as the captain. And the mission is…to transport a theater troupe. It’s ridiculous and so silly, I know, but it’s really fun. There’s a winged horse, a really un-Vulcan Vulcan (I think he’s Spock’s cousin? I don’t really remember tbh), Spock heckling the theater troop, Uhura being a good friend to Janice…that’s all I remember off the top of my head, but I remember really enjoying it when I read it! 

Unspoken Truth by Margaret Wander Bonanno Remember what I said about those two writers? Lol. Okay so this is a Saavik-centric book. I really love Saavik, okay? So, as you might know, Saavik is half Vulcan, half Romulan. Well in this book (actually, in a bunch of books, by at least three different writers, it seems to be her accepted backstory in the novels) she was the result of a terrible experiment by Romulans, and when it didn’t work out, she and a bunch of other children were abandoned on a planet called Hellguard, and…some really horrible things happen. Anyway, Spock saves her, mentors her, and Amanda and Sarek basically adopt her (literally, she calls them mother and father, IT’S MY FAVE), well anyway, years later, either after or during TVH, she learns things are happening to the survivors of Hellguard…and the story goes from there. This was really good! Intense tbh. I loved it, but then, I love Saavik. If you don’t like her… But if you do, you’ll enjoy this one!!!!

Doctor’s Orders by Diane Duane Diane Duane is another must read author. All her books are excellent. In all honestly, I don’t remember too much about the plot of this one, but I know I liked it! Dr. McCoy is like “you can’t make me take command on the bridge” and Jim is like “uh actually I CAN” so he does and of course on McCoy’s very first day watching over the bridge Jim goes AWOL and shit starts going down. Poor Bones. Also, there’s some crazy aliens in this one, but they’re interesting!

The Vulcan Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah This one has such misleading cover art, lmaooo. At least, the version I have. There might be others… Anyway. Patients at a hospital on Vulcan keep dying and stuff, and then Amanda is in trouble. Lots of Sarek and Spock and Jim and Bones interaction. It’s a good one. (It’s been soo long since I read this one, too, sorry. But again, I know I enjoyed it!)

Uhura’s Song by Janet Hagan I love the alien species in this one. They’re like giant cats, and I love cats. When I read it, I got really into the planet and the species and their culture. The plot is that an old friend of Uhura’s is from this planet, and they “exchanged songs”…songs are a big deal in their culture. Anyway, there’s a plague threatening everyone on the planet and humans, too, and they think a song might hold the key to curing the disease, so they all go down on the planet to try and find it.

Strangers From The Sky by Margaret Wander Bonanno The plot to this one is…kind of hard to describe. Okay. So the parts with Jim and Spock go back and forth in time, part of the time being like, post-all the movies (I think) where they’re old friends (and really married, they’re just like. Margaret Bonanno has this way of inserting this really easy, casual intimacy they have with each other, and calling it friendship when OBVIOUSLY they’re married af, but either way I love it) and part of the time being very early on when Jim hasn’t been in command for long and he and Spock didn’t care much for each other (I mean personally I think they liked each other quite well from the start, but I’ll let it go, lol)… And then there’s a book. In the book. That everyone is reading and obsessed with and Jim starts reading it… It sounds weird, I know, but the book in the book is the story of the first time Vulcans came in contact with humans, long before the OFFICIAL first contact, it was when Vulcans crash landed on Earth and were discovered by some humans… I fucking love Vulcans, so that is obviously a great point of interest for me. Lol. Anyway when Jim reads the book he has nightmares, but then he discovers Spock has those nightmares, too, and it’s more than ‘just’ a book. Probably sounds bizarre but I really enjoyed it. ….and doesn’t every Trek plot EVER sound bizarre af when you try to describe it?

That’s all I’ve got right now!! This got so long I’M SO SORRY TBH BUT I HAD TO BE THOROUGH.