#like almost Every character in this series is some form of fucked up asshole thats the fun!! but only peoples faves are allowed to be jerks

[spacedlexi]

"i could keep going about wellington/alone but then its gonna start getting psychological" ooooh you want to get psychological 🌀🌀🌀 oooooh you want to share wellington/alone clem analysis 🌀🌀🌀🌀

oooohh you know i always want to get psychological anon

i feel like the wellington/alone endings are the two strongest endings for both s2 and clems character. i feel like s2 is about her learning to stand on her own. learning what she wants. learning to let go. to recognize the unstable person kenny has become (and that jane isnt so great either). bonnie tells clem to start thinking about what it is She wants, to not just follow others (who repeatedly let her down), and that maybe theres another way (ie: be the one calling the shots for once). its about clem believing in herself and her ability now that shes spent an entire season carrying the cast on her back, and fighting for respect from those same people who dont give it to her because shes still just a kid (a kid who has proven herself to be incredibly capable)

imo the kenny and jane s3 flashbacks are pretty weak and just feel like we’re dragging out their characters past their expiration dates (plus all the “youre such a good mom, clem” talk they both do really irks me 🙄 theres a difference between a character actively choosing to become a guardian and a character being told what a good guardian they are (when theyre still a child themselves with an actual adult still present). alone clem has no one to rely on but herself and she Wants to look out for aj. she needs him as much as he needs her because he gives her something to fight for. hes all she has left). kenny being so happy and talking about boats is wild to me after everything he does in s2. and so is jane killing herself before even trying to induce a miscarriage. They both still die and clem still ends up alone anyway. why not make her active in that decision? so, can she shoot or not? will she stay with someone she knows isnt completely reliable? or will she stand on her own?

honestly narratively i like the alone ending a lot for s2, because it feels like her fully realized arc for the season. being able to stand on her own, to make the hard choices. knowing what she wants for herself, or at least what she Doesnt want. wellington is just better for her and ajs wellbeing so i consider it the "good" alone ending since the actual alone ending is the hardest position clem is left in. wellington ending kenny knows hes no longer fit to take care of her, recognizing the unstable and violent person he has become, and again clem is put in the position of making the choice to stand on her own. also wellington was what her and christa were looking for since the beginning, so narratively it still feels fulfilling for a clem who couldnt pull the trigger. i think it would be really hard for her to shoot kenny, so while i like the alone ending, i also like her not being able to make the call in time, paralyzed by choice (you dont have to shoot to still get the alone ending, just choose to walk away, but if shes going to walk away id rather her do it at wellington). either way its a choice she'll have to live with, and i do like the idea of her having regrets for not being able to make a choice in the moment, and letting jane die because she just couldnt shoot kenny. and how that perceived failure impacts her decisions in the future (like with the javi david fight in s3, her actions being impacted by her choice in s2)

which all ties in nicely to: the implications in regards to vi shooting minnie to save clem in s4. a clem who couldnt shoot and a vi who could. the fear clem would have in that situation, knowing she herself couldnt pull the trigger on someone she cared about to save someone else she also cared about. i think a clem who shot kenny would still have that fear, knowing the position vi is in at that moment, but a clem who couldnt shoot i think emotionally carries more weight. it emphasizes her uncertainty in what violet might choose (or fail to choose in time. because its not necessarily about choosing not to shoot. its will she hesitate long enough for it to not matter? just like with jane and kenny). which just makes it all the more satisfying when vi IS able to make that choice in time, and is able to save them both in the process (something clem herself only learned after s2)

[oviids]

pls share some of your spn fic recs 🥺🥺

ok, a few things first:

followers and mutuals who do not have supernatural brainworms, kindly avert your eyes

i don’t normally rec or even read much fanfic any more but this is a CRISIS ok (cont.)

there is so. much. content for deancas out there and i have incredibly high standards, several ancient ao3 bookmarks, can speedread, and want to spare you guys the experience of wading through it all.

i also have a section for spn femslash since I was pretty into that back in the day (sadly a lot less fan content for this :/)

I don’t really like au’s or pure smut (I honestly usually just skim or skip those scenes) so if you’re mainly looking for that kind of thing this probably won’t be very helpful to you. jsyk.

i’m not great at describing stuff but i’ll do my best, i’ll also try and add tw’s when neccesary.

i wil try and keep updating this with any other decent fics i find, feel free to rec stuff too since i’m like 7 years behind.(edit 1/25/21) this is getting looooong so i’m going to start making another list on my spn blog rather than update this one

(edit 1/3/21) since this has gotten pretty long i’ve added rating/approximate word counts and marked my particular favorites with an asterisk.

Dean/Cas fic:

So Says The Sword*** - explicit/85k. FUCK its good...au/time travel where dean is not pulled out of hell by cas and says yes to becoming the michael sword. honestly could serve as an alternative to actually watching the show, if you want to get into dean/cas without actually doing that to yourself.

Fata morgana.*  - teen/6k, pst s9 finale. very bela centric and i love it, she finds cas looking for dean in hell.

Redemption Road -misc/600+k. an incredibly long fic from a collaborative writing group back in the day. canon divergent from the end of s6 on, has a cool take on godstiel and the leviathans, as well as the lovecratian mythos connection. ngl when i reread it i only made it about 28% in but imo the casual reader can actually stop around there, the rest concerns a lovecraftian apocalypse that is still good (i think i don’t remember it very well) but not required to enjoy the first half. if you prefer i have an ebook version i can send you on gdrive.

Someone Who's Feeling For Me* - mature/45k, s12. they run into lisa braeden and dean thinks cas is into her while cas thinks dean still likes her. treats lisa way better than the show ever did and the miscommunication is pretty funny rather than annoying.

a turn of the earth - mature/95k. time travel fic where cas from s10 keeps showing up in deans life from a few years before s1 to right before the hellhounds take his soul.  slow burn, good character study, and at one point cas punches the dad in the face and it rules.

On the Wings of War - teen/85k, canon divergent s5. dean accidentally becomes the Horseman of War. plays fun, fast and loose with biblical lore, michael has some rights.

Named - mature/95k, alternate s5. EXTREMELY blasphemous in a fun sexy way. manages to predict metatron almost to a T. there’s one major character death and its literally jesus christ, everyone is very sad about it and it sets the rest of the story rolling. an alternate interpretation of cas’ mission to raise dean from hell which had me on the floor. ngl its kind of misogynistic at points, but its from 2010 and tracks with late oughts-2010 spn (sorry anna the author did you dirty here:/).

The Girlfriend Experience - explicit/15k. uhhh i don’t normally rec or even read smutty stuff unless someone i know is specifically asking for it but this has stuff like sam trying to be a good ally and dean thinking holding hands with cas is ‘kinda gay :/’ minutes after having gay sex with him.

i crippled your heart a hundred times - explicit/19k, s8. cas confesses his feelings and dean spends a long time getting his head out of his ass about it. truly hits different after the actual confession, despite being written six years early it feels like its actually what could have gone down more or less if the writers weren’t talentless demons who hate us.

My Roots Take Flight** - mature/125k. reverse au where cas is a hunter and dean’s an angel...OR IS IT???? an alternate retelling of s4. tw for briefly being set in a psychiatric hospital/the hospital being mentioned somewhat frequently throughout the fic, plus more references to torture in hell and heaven than usual.

The One Thing You Can't Lose* - teen/4k.you know those posts about how cas is a super-strong super-tough ancient warrior but he just lets dean tug him around because he likes it? thats it thats the fic.

Hands, From Which All Things Are Built - teen/14k, post s8′s ‘goodbye stranger.’ cas is on the run with the angel tablet but keeps in touch with sam and dean by text, he and dean still manage to be terrible at Actual communication.

Autrement, Danger - or, The Account of an Exceedingly Long Day - mature/30k, post s11. a monster that takes the appearance of your soulmate leads to some wild miscommunications and dealing with years of repression, also dean gets to see cas’ true form which is always cool. tw for non-graphic mentions of underage sexual assault/sex work.

Down to Agincourt - mature/explicit/900++++k, endverse continuation. endverse!cas survives his encounter with lucifer and discovers another time-displaced dean from s7. i’ve only read the two of four parts but its really good, veeeeery slow burn, has a lot of fun oc’s and takes a rather surprising but (imo) entertaining and intriguing turn into Hellenic history and mythology. usual tw’s for endverse/endverse!cas but nothing graphic, it’s actually pretty light-hearted (relatively speaking of course).

Nothing Equals the Splendor** - explicit/8k, THEE finale fix it fic you’ve been waiting for! posits that the entire final episode was just a (very bad and lame) djinn’s vision.

like moses and batman and james dean - explicit/31k, post s8. explores dean’s trauma and internalized homophoba from his technically canon experience with sex work and its impact on his relationship with cas. the sex work itself isn’t really shown in any detail but it’s still a relatively heavy fic.

Crazy Diamonds - explicit/25k, s4/alternate s14. fresh-out-of-hell dean and dean from 10 years in the future are displaced from time and sent to each other’s present.

where the weeds take root - explicit/30k. au where the men of letters kick them out of the bunker and they accidentally move out into the country, get over their codependence and semi retire. featuring chicken coop building, sam volunteering at a dog shelter, gardening, and blissfully mundane domesticity.

No Resting Place - teen/6k. djinn dream fic, switches back and forth between cas’ dream of being married to dean and retired from hunting to the aftermath when he wakes up. tw for brief mention of suicide since, y’know, djinn dream.

any port in a storm - mature/52k. post s8 finale. cas and dean have to pose as a couple going through a rough patch for a case and actually deal with their emotional baggage, cas struggles with being human and metatron is up to stuff.

all this and heaven too* - explicit/7k. in the author’s own words ‘...a love letter to every trans person who ever projected onto Dean Winchester.’ absolutely unzipped me emotionally and theologically, its just. so good. tw for very brief mentions of internalized transphobia/dysphoria.

Because it is* - mature/6k, finale fix it. killing chuck does not bring back anyone back and the winchesters spend a very long time dealing with what they’ve lost, cas and dean SOMEHOW still manage to have signifigant communication issues even after the confession. tw for suicidal thoughts/brief attempt.

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit* - teen/4k, s6. when cas fell for dean it automatically soulbonded/angel married them, shenanigans ensue when dean finds out during the angel’s civil war. funny and actually written back when s6 was airing so cas is still (or at least pretending to be) kind of an OP asshole which is fun.

Rinse, Repeat - teen/3k, s8. angsty character study of cas as he’s reprogrammed and trained to kill dean. not really dean/cas since its just cas’ pov of canon events but its beautifully written and ends with him snapping out of it through the power of love (also now a canon event!).

Emergence - explicit/59k, canon divergent after s11. dean meets a hunter he only recognizes as their friend claire novak’s missing father, but soon realizes he might be the answer behind the mysterious void in his memories and feelings (aka everyone’s memories of cas are completely wiped away for three years).

Cuckoo And Nest - explicit/10k, early established relationship/character study, cas tries to figure out how he fits into dean’s life and space in the bunker.

Build a Home* - teen/20k, canon divergent s12. sam and eileen are cute and turn the bunker into men of letters/hunters hq and everyone but cas moves in, mutual miscommunication issues and pining ensues.

Down in the River - teen/5k, early s8, cas prays to dean in purgatory while sam and dean try to figure out a way to get him out.

Teaching Poetry to Fish* - mature/52k, ?? BC through the entire series/canon divergent s14 and 15. retelling of crucial scenes throughout the shows timeline from cas’ pov, feat. actual fish and poetry.

the minor fall, the major lift - gen/4k, post confession/finale fixit. dean goes into the empty to save cas and runs into several old friends (and enemies).

With the Kisses of His Mouth* - teen/3k, gen later seasons. dean and cas keep kissing by accident.

Remaining Grace - explicit/109k, alternate s6. au where cas asks dean for help with raphael and dean, of course, does. tw for temporary major character death/semi-graphic depictions of alcohol withdrawal.

The face of heaven.* - teen/10k, au, dean is a regular guy and cas is a fallen star (think ‘stardust’, kinda).

Stories Are Made of Mistakes*  - teen/5k. newly human cas has trouble getting used to a human body and humanity in general, but still figures out that he and dean are A Thing before dean does.

Hurry Up And Wait - mature/21k, canon divergent s12. a fairyland and quite possibly LOTR related case comes up and dean goes full fanboy, mary is introduced to the wonders of the peter jackson adaptions, many references and comparisons (including between cas and dean’s ‘friendship’ and arwen/aragon). also charle is still alive and has just been doing fairy stuff this whole time.

There Are Many Things - explicit/28k, s9. cas is extremely lonely/touch-starved and trying to figure out this whole human thing, as well as where he and dean stand after being kicked out of the bunker.

It's A Long Life to Always Be Longing - teen/40k, post s11 finale. amara helps dean by putting him in a magical coma so he can finally get some much needed rest and show him possible futures for him, sam and cas. meanwhile sam and cas go on a roadtrip (or several) to find componets for a spell to wake dean up. really good sam and cas friendship, they actually talk about their shared lucifer trauma and stuff.

Non-Photo Blue - gen/2k, s4/5/alternate s5. fifty moments from cas’ memories of dean.

Tall Grass - explicit/57k, canon divergent post series. cas becomes the ultimate plant dad. feat the wayward sisters gang, cathartic character growth, fun oc’s, domesticity, and lots of actual botanical info-dumping.

on vessels - no rating/gen/2k. established dean/cas, cas tells dean about how he used to imagine what it would be like to have him as his vessel.

search for tomorrow on every shore* - teen/11k, post-finale (extremely derogatory). some angels in jack’s new heaven act out and dean gets temporarily resurrected in 2003 and runs into his younger self.

Architecture of the Minotaur’s Heart - explicit/45k, very canon divergent post s1. dean’s new house seems to have a life and mind of its own, while in his dreams he sees glimpses of a world and apocalypse that never came to be and an angel that looks strangely like his mysterious neighbor, cas. loosely inspired by the book house of leaves (which i highly recommend for fans of weird horror).

The Distance Of The Setting Sun - explicit/17k, post s5. established dean/cas relationship, team free will finally takes advantage of cas’ abilities to go on vacation around the world.

diamond star halo - teen/5k, s11. dean lets cas use him as a temporary vessel while he recovers from rowena’s spell, sam is a long-suffering third-wheel.

Make Known** - teen/16k, s6/7. dean struggles to understand how cas could have become his enemy and whether he ever truly knew him in the first place.

blunt little instrument* - mature/1.4k, post finale. dean finally confronts his father in heaven, very cathartic.

my heart a compass*** - teen/10k, post confession. the empty forces cas to re-experience his most regretted moments while dean tries to snap him out of it and bring him home.

A Crash Course in Someone Else's History - teen/11k, s6. cas from the very start of s4 is brought forward in time by s6!cas to distract the brothers from his and crowley’s plans.

The Cuckoo Father - mature/8k, s7 au. the woman who found cas in the river post-leviathans does not marry him bc he was sent to her by god or whatever, but actually identifies him as jimmy novak and sends him back to claire and amelia.

The Dead Dean Clause* - teen/5k, post alt s5 ending. team free will celebrates surviving taking down lucifer by getting blitzed, cas lies to a cop and gets an impromptu driving lesson. title/description sound dark i know but it’s actually very funny and light.

Suck It, Judy Garland - mature/20k, s12 (after the ‘i love you...i love all of you’ episode). cas and sam have to pretend to be a couple for a case and dean is NOT happy about it.

By Daylight and In Dream - teen/16k, s5. pre-dean/cas, dean invites cas to use his dreams to hide from the other angels. tw for very brief mention of a memory/dream of alastair sexually assaulting dean.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - mature/22k, post-canon. an actually happy (if sometimes bittersweet) heaven endgame written several years ago, though some details are rather eerily similar to the show’s ending.

heaven is a place on earth* - teen/2k. dean’s pov of some of the times cas left him behind throughout the show, and one alternate ending where he finally gets to stay.

I Cleanse The Mirror - teen/20k, alternate s6. dean’s body is stolen by an ancient elemental and his soul has to hitch a ride in cas’ vessel.

an exploration of gender; angelic*** - mature/4k. *oscar isaac voice* lets get into angel gender politics!! aka cas is trans.

Zenith - explicit/33k, s9. after 9x06 an angry witch curses cas with the ability to see supernatural beings and human souls.

La cucina. - gen/3k, alt s9. dean goes wild helping a newly-human cas find out what kinds of food he likes, or the early s9 domesticity we deserved!

Dean Winchester, Cocksucker at Rest***** - teen/7k, post-finale. john and mary finally come over for dinner and john reacts to dean/cas in a rather predictable fashion. SOOOOOOOOO good omg, its so funny and a little sad and very very cathartic. part of a series that has a few other really good short fics.

The Way You Didn't Go - teen/5k, s15. coda to 15.09, dean has nightmares about the moc!cas timeline.

On Drowning - teen/28k. dean saves cas after he nearly drowns, they both try and deal with the physical/mental fallout (aka the fic where thee iconic “you only touch me when you think I’m dead or dying” originates). tw for realistic depictions of drowning/triage/misc medical information.

The Thirty-Six Questions That Lead to Love* - mature/13k. claire has dean and cas pretend to be her gay dads for a case and they play the titular 36 question game, get mistaken for swingers, and birdwatch, among other things.

Assorted F/F stuff:

Deep Breaths* - mary/ellen, au where mary said no to azazel’s deal and let john stay dead, still becomes a milf.

Like Rebel Diamonds - krissy/claire, they become hunter gf’s on the hunt for cas to kick his ass for taking jimmy. not-so-stealth dean/cas as well.

To Ash and Bone - anna/ruby, same author as the previous fic (p much all of her stuff is good from what i recall). au where ruby is a witch and helps anna when she’s cursed.

Holy Clockwork Angels - jo/ruby, STEAMPUNK au with very cool worldbuiilding.

At Day's End - jo/anna (my fucking KINGDOM for more jo/anna content, the dean/cas parallels are allllll there), au where they are both at the camp in the endverse and gfs.

these posts - ok so not actually a fic but i’m now obsessed with this hannah/meg dynamic.

Tagelied - mary/ellen, the true story of how ellen got into hunting before angels interfered.

Hell's Bells** - meg/abaddon, alternate s8/9 where meg survives crowley’s attack with sam’s help and teams up with abaddon (who she has a sk year old crush on) to take back hell.

The Ecstasy of the Rose - anna/ruby, anna travels back in time to escape heaven and becomes a signifigant part of ruby’s old human life.

Angel Underground - anna/jo, kind of an urban fantasy au with a very intriguing premise (sadly its very short, i’d love to see more if this ‘verse).

Clover, Flame - billie/mary, billie was always the reaper that showed up to take mary after her death(s) over the years.

Drag Me To Heaven - anna/ruby, a variant on the ‘last night on earth’ thing with dean.

Come Home* - jo/anna, canon-divergent au where anna is the new waitress at the roadhouse and helps jo set up a (probably not really) haunted house for halloween.

[wizarddykefag]

I just finished the Trollhunters book and I have some thoughts...

I understand that they took a single novel and turned it into an extensive, multiple season show. But there are some crazy changes to the storyline and characters in general that make the show almost nothing like book other than the two having the same name.

The whole book takes place in a single WEEK. Are you really expecting me to believe Jim, a kid they’ve repeatedly called scrawny and can’t even do gym (ironic), helped defeat GUNMAR, who’s supposed to be this crazy unstoppable creature, with a single week’s training? And yeah yeah it’s “in his blood” but NO NO it doesn’t work like that.

Aaarrrgghh!!! Being a FEMALE troll?? Why would they take that out in the show when the cast and the majority of the trolls are already predominantly male?

The trolls in the show are predominantly make of stone but in the book they’re flesh and blood. Basically anything we’d deem a “monster” is called a troll? Why not just call them something else Guillermo??

Blinky had a massive amount of tentacles and a lot of trolls in general had more than two arms. This is honestly a super cool concept compared to the show which makes the Galadrical’s basically the only ones with multiple pairs of arms. Honestly thank god we didn’t have to see tentacle Blinky bc the amount of fan porn would have been ten times the amount there is now.

There’s no mention of Blinky having a brother but the trollhunters have such a sense of family love and loyalty. (Like they sing a troll Christmas song to Aaarrrgghh!!! to get HER out of a trance) It’s beautiful and I wish they wrote more about the troll parents and their adopted boy, Jack.

JACK, the character they completely kerplonked in the show. Honestly the man is kind of an asshole... You can say it’s because he lived with trolls for forty years, but then explain why Blinky and Aaarrrgh!!! are nice. Like the guy is in a thirteen year olds boy but he has the mind of someone who’s been alive for sixty and you can TELL he’s fed up with life.

Jim and Jack kind of mush into one character in the show and honestly I think it makes the team dynamic a lot better. Cutting out family angst and drama with his dad to leave room for...

...a complete gender swap of parents? I guess I get that it’s easier for the general populace to take pity on and maybe even relate to a single mother but it’s also hard being a single father?? If you wanted to empower women then you should have left Aaarrrgghh!!! a female bc she has more badass in her pinky then Gunnar’s entire army is all I’m saying.

Steve... okay they did a really good job making me hate Steve I’m the book. Steve in the show was more of a nuisance than someone I actually rooted against. But every time he showed up in the books I wanted him fucking dead guys you don’t understand

But it was cool/lame that they threw in that he was a changeling at the VERY end. First, how would Tobes know to check him and ONLY him (honestly he was such a vile person that yeah okay I get it) but SECOND why throw it in as a last little thing?? boo👎 I wanted to see him funcking tormented and beaten idk

It was kind of lame that the book didn’t go into much detail about the changelings since it was such a big thing with Claire’s brother in the book and Strickler being one and a main character in the show. I guess it makes sense bc he’s not even a thing in the book but still lame.

They called Tobes TUBS and that made me sad

Tobes was snubbed a lot in general and it was really shitty. Like yeah he’s supposed to be the comic relief but THATS JUST IT his character made the book depressing bc you have these two unpopular kids with no other friends and one of them gets this big adventure thrown on them and kind of casts the other aside? Was his life as a fat bullied orphan not tragic enough guys??

Claire in both is a total over the top badass but somehow in the books she’s even MORE so. Other than the whole “boohoo my parents make me wear make up and dresses” thing. No parent forces their child to wear make up (while simultaneously making them take fencing lessons?!) Mr. writers and was that really the only “tragic” backstory you could come up with?

But there is redemption for her when as soon as she’s freed from Gunmar’s meat heap or whatever she IMMEDIATELY jumps up and starts helping the other kids break free before the others start. Like it’s almost implied that they weren’t going to break the other kids out just Claire. YIKES.

Also she’s a badass with a sword and climbed up Gunmar’s sixlimbed body and it was awesome.

ALSO also she fucking ROASTED Steve in front of everyone and it was AWESOME 10:10

The gumgums are not as spooky/badass as the show and I’m not sure if the show drones are better or if Gunmar babies literally falling out of his body mid battle and growing to full size in minutes is more sick.

Jim wasn’t specifically chosen to be “the” troll hunter bc there wasn’t just one it was a multiple bloodlines from ancient hoarded of human trollhunters. So the whole big giant plot of Jim being the “first human hunter” is a big FARCE

Overall the book and show are both good on their own. If I had a way to form opinions on both without ever seeing the other I’d say they’re both spectacular. But having seen the show first I can’t help but compare every aspect of the book to it and unintentionally get upset when things don’t go the same way in both. Personally I think the show is better but that may only be because there’s simply more content. If the book were a series maybe my opinions would have been different. NOT THAT MY OPINION MATTERS. Overall part 2 I love the Trollhunters franchise and I want to see more of these characters!!

[bettycrocker]

actually let me try and explain this a little more coherently. usually if you want to set up a bad guy in any kind of media, you want to foreshadow in some way shape or form that they plan on doing something bad to the main cast. there is a show dont tell rule with these kinds of things if you want them to be more realistic. we know murdoc was destined to be an asshole because of his grungy looking design, sharp toothed grin, off putting aura, the whole satanist thing that would have been a ‘evil’ trope around the time gorillaz was made, etc. they constantly set him up as a character who if he were a real person youd probably want him dead.

now we look at ace and they’ve literally just set him up so far as a character who looks sharp and smug, he’s still got that sweet talker in him from the ppg days, he dresses like hes in his early 20s still but really cares about how he looks like REALLY cares, he’s constantly got a toothy shit-eating grin on his face, by all means all of these images when youre glancing over them for the first time scream SWINDLER which is usually something you associate with villains.

glancing over the images a second time they’re trying really hard to show that he does have some kind of soft, maybe even goofy side to him. king 2d hes got those fucking star shades and a goddamn party blower. at the tracks with noodle, hes smiling and having a great time and she’s clearly happy to be hanging out with him. his picture with the islander woman pin-up background he’s got fucking tan lines around his goddamn eyes showing that he almost never takes off his sunglasses probably because he thinks they make him look cool af when he looks kind of like a huge dork with them on. every image he’s got that smile on his face but its not an inherently nefarious smile its more or less a permanent grin hes got going on because it shows off what a smug ass bitch he is.

the only ways he could really be seen as a villain from a design standpoint is the greasy, slightly gritty and sharp look they have going for him. he looks like the type of guy youd meet in an alleyway to buy crack from. and knowing that he keeps the weapons on him but never actually uses them to threaten others shows even more how much of a pussy he is. if it were murdoc he probably would have threatened those dudes with the knife after popping their basketball and make them fuck off from the court. ace just stood there super confused as to why they were mad at him and then probably fucking left because didnt want to be yelled at more. if he were angry at them for not getting his joke i guarantee they would have happily animated it.

now the only other say hint that he could be “””evil””” ive seen is in the noisey interview where they talk about how ace rolls up in the car from the evil dead series and beckons russel and 2d to come to the car with a “spindly” hand. spindly totally gives off creepy vibes but its just describing how weird his hands hard in fact they really avoid showing off ace’s hands in a lot of the art and the only time we really see them is when he pops the basketball, so it might have just been a description in case artists wanted to draw him but it might have been a spooky scary “be wary of him” thing.

i lied there is one more hint that he could be up to no good and that is the now now demon days recreation album cover. when i did icons from the album, i got weird vibes that ace was the only one facing left. thats the only way ive seen that they could be referencing hes up to no good. everyone is facing right but hes facing left, its supposed to draw your eye to him and make you feel weirded out and make you uncomfortable which is an easy way of saying “hey bad dude here” but it might also just be a coincidence and that its just referring to ace being only temporarily there.

the only one i can say for sure that ace is a threat to would be murdoc in all honesty and that would legit only because he wants to officially replace him as the bands bassist. that might end up being a plot point in the lore it might not be its super hard to tell but this is just how i see it right now from a character design standpoint. i do get some shifty vibes but at the same time theyre fronting him as a character you can enjoy and youre supposed to like him because hes flawed, stupid, tries too hard to look cool, is probably stoned a lot of the time, and yeah.

[tumblunni]

OH MAN GEEZ IM FUCKIN EMOTIONAL ALREADY black butler: book of circus spoilers below:

oh god, the ways they expanded the story for the anime are SO FUCKIN SAD I kinda like that they made it so you actually do see the circus crew kidnapping children this time. I mean, I dont think its made to make them any less sympathetic, but it definately reminds you that the playing field is even here and they’re morally complicated rather than just poor innocent victims of mr evil protagonist. Also its REALLY GORY and REALLY PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR

Its so messed up, seriously These poor kids are being sent to kidnap other kids, by a creepy asshole murder pedophile fuck. And they dont know WHY theyre kidnapping kids, they don’t know what happens to the ones they hand over. And they’re all JUST FUCKING KIDS, they’re fucking children who’re all heavily disabled in different ways and LITERALLY owe their life to this horrible villain man. And they dont know why they were saved and why these other kids are.. going.. somewhere else. And they really dont know whether to trust their ���father’, but its pretty clear they all have their suspicions that the kidnapped kids might be dying. But they dont have anywhere else to go if they disobey their father, and he’s fucking with their heads so they all feel like they’re the only onw with doubts and they cant even question it or everyone will turn on them and they’ll get kicked out on the street again and never see any of their siblings. And they all VERY MUCH know what its like to be dying on the streets. And this time they’d had a chance to know what its like to have prosthetic limbs and medical help and be able to eat three solid meals a day and wear pretty clothes and have a family. Having all that taken away will hurt even more than if they’d never known what it’s like..

So I sympathise with them, I really do. And I really believe they could have been rescued, and could have been redeemed, and ultimately we shouldnt be blaming them for what they did, only blaming the man who forced them into it and gave enough illusion of choice that they were able to feel guilt about it... BUT STILL that was REALLY FUCKED UP AND DISTURBING AND SAD AND DISTURBING AND SAD

seriously they PUT ON A FINAL CIRCUS SHOW for every single kid they kidnap part of it is about luring them in so they trust them, but also it seems they take it way too far for it to just be that. They almost got caught because they spent so much time doing their performance for this poor lil matchstick seller girl! and its equal parts heartwarming and DISGUSTING because this poor kid is like.. I dont even know if they drug their victims or if she was just going insane from having to see them killing the policeman that tried to save her they’re just horribly gorily fighting the policemen, stabbing a fucking knife through some guy’s eye, and the kid is sitting there having a complete mental collapse, laughing as if this is all part of the show. And we get this twisted vision of her point of view, seeing the nice clown man doing a funny show smacking mr teddy bear with a mallet, as the dead body of the policeman falls at her feet. And then they bundle her into the carriage and thats just the end. We dont find out what happens to the kidnapped kids, any more than the kidnappers know... We just got to learn so much about this poor kid, and that poor policeman, and have a bunch of heartwarming moments of them becoming friends, and then she just turns the corner for like five minutes and the policeman is like ‘wtf is that flute music’ then sees a fuckin ENTIRE CIRCUS IN AN ALLEYWAY and gets stabbed through the goddamn eye trying to reach the kid in time. And she’s so out of it that she couldnt even see him. His last thoughts were probably seeing her glassy eyes staring right through him... And we know that he had a daughter that this street urchin reminded him of, and we know she had a sick little brother who really needed the money the policeman gave her, and an abusive mother that’ll probably be forcing that poor brother to go out panhandling now her daughter is gone.. And just... GAHH my fucking emotions my sadness and also A LOT OF FEAR so much blood

and I KNOW HOW IT ENDS i know that the kids don’t fuckin go to a happy place with a nice new dad and ‘father’ only spared those few kids so they could be pawns he could manipulate into capturing more kids, and test subjects for his evil science team’s freaky bullshit and they dont even KNOW that they’re test subjects! they dont know that their prosthetic limbs are MADE FROM THE OTHER KIDNAPPED KIDS WHO NEVER CAME BACK god, im already imagining how they’d fuckin animate the poor ringleader guy throwing up as he realizes his arm is made from someone else’s bones and then he just DIES they all just die horribly in service of this disgusting fucking child murderer pedophile that they thought was their father half of them never learn that they were the villains all along, the other half get to know it just in time to despair utterly as they’re killed off too

and evil bastard’s trump card that kept them all obeying him it DIDNT EXIST he fucking held it over their heads that their other siblings were still out there somewhere, at his ‘orphanage’, and they had to work with him so he could send money back to them so they could all be happy too when really he’d killed them long ago, and for all we know they could be the ones that joker’s prosthetic arm was made from T_T and ciel’s fuckin only chance to do something to help the people he completely failed who all died hating him and thinking he’d betrayed them, that they were the good guys and he was the villain... that last chance was a fucking lie he tried to save the ‘other kids’ and the fucking ‘orphanage’ was an empty abandoned building full of nothing but maybe a stray doll they left behind before they were all horribly murdered so we just end on our protagonist being the absolute villain of this arc, and the actual villains being sympathetic kids, and him laughing like a madman as his last chance of redemption blows away on the wind

oh, and he fuckin personally murdered a bunch of kids too, even though he didnt kill all his villain friends with his own hand. he found some of the kids in the lab that were test experiments, the few who hadnt been killed yet. the few who’d had to watch potentially HUNDREDS of friends be dragged kicking and screaming to that operating table, and see every second of them being eviscerated into pieces. And ciel just sees himself in them, they’re all so catatonic that they cant even see him and all he can see is himself and he knows from personal experience that a kid can come back from that, but he knows how much of a monster he’s become and he thinks the kids would be happier if they could die as they are instead of losing themself so he just sets the whole building on fire and i end up crying for him even as he’s committing a horrible act! fucking moral ambiguity: the show

and god, even this episode’s goofy friendship fun parts were horrifying too! it starts off with the whole ‘ha ha ciel doesnt know this kid is Doll, cos she ~looks like a boy~ when she’s not in costume’ random stupidness but its still cute cos she’s being so kind to the newbie, and you can learn a lot about her character from it how she’s trying to be all smiley and goofy and giving him candy and saying how she’d never even tasted it before, and now he can stay here and be her lil brother and never get hit by anyone and never go hungry and she knows the goddamn price she has to pay for all this, and she wants to keep ciel innocent of it she doesnt know he’s already just as corrupted, and he’s really a spy sent to take them down and then just DEAR GOD THAT SCENE THAT IS NOT OKAY but it was absolutely fucking necessary I think, to keep the moral ambiguity and not make us just hate ciel forever she fuckin.. accidentally triggers a ptsd flashback in the poor kid he’s never been homeless before so he doesnt realise its a group bathroom, and then freaks out and tries to run. but she’s just teasing him as part of her cool big sis persona, and doesnt realise he has an actual reason to be scared. So they end up fighting and she accidentally reveals the scar on his back to everyone the fucking brand that was burned into him when he was kidnapped and enslaved and the episode just ends with our usually unflappable protagonist curled up in a ball under a towel, shaking and crying and his only comfort is the demonic butler he’s using to enact his revenge, and all he says is just ‘you’re better than this, you’re a badass’ ciel never really has any form of actual sympathy, does he? the only person who knows about what happened to him is this morally ambiguous monster minion guy. and the whole hook of the series is that we never really know if Sebastian actually gives a shit about ciel or any of the other humans, or if he’s just waiting for the poor kid to fuck up and leave an opportunity to devour his soul. I wanna believe that Sebastian does have some sort of fatherly affection for ciel, or at least they both care about each other in a sort of.. mutually evil way. But even if thats true, its not like sebastian is gonna really be any good to talk to in a time like this. he;s just gonna sass ciel for showing weakness. he just has this fuckin motivational speech of ‘yo ciel youre a fuckin evil bastard, remember? get up and continue your evil bastard ways’. and somehow it actually kinda works and actually kinda feels affectionate in context :P BUT STILL SERIOUSLY POOR CIEL he could have turned out a lot better than this if he had someone in his life who could actually give him a goddamn hug but I guess thats not really what he wanted, even though its what he needed instead he wished for the power to enact revenge on the one who killed his family and enslaved him and he set off on this long horrible path of becoming an evil bastard to track down this other evil bastard when he’s only fuckin ELEVEN and he’s happy to throw away his soul, and doesnt care if sebastian betrays him in the end and he burns in hell forever, as long as he can stop that evil bastard from doing the same thing to more children and this arc is so fucked up cos he failed so horribly to stop some OTHER evil bastard from doing the same thing to more children and he’s become so twisted and antiheroey and cynical that he missed his chances to redeem those poor other twisted kids, and maybe he could have done better in stopping the real villain if he had.. and the only fuckin thing we got out of this arc was that the bastard kidnapping these children was a copycat criminal of the one who did it to ciel, so we at least finally have one clue that might lead to a resolution someday but EVERYONE DIED and ciel’s even more fucking traumatized! and he’s jumped off the deep end and become full antihero evil bastard and all the character development he had during the arc has been negated and fuckin completely reversed cos of how it ended and he lost a bazillion friends and he was betraying them the entire time, and they died resenting him, or resenting him AND learning that he was right and they’d been working for the villain all along, and then he couldnt even save their other siblings cos they were long dead and just THIS FUCKING ARC IS SO FUCKED UP GAHHHHH

I guess sometimes you just wanna watch depressing cinema, yknow? I do hope that someday this series actually ends with at least a bittersweet ending, not an equally fatalistic one that means everything was all for nothing. i want the poor circus kids’s deaths to actually mean something...

Also, randomly and incidentally, I want the giant creepy pedo incesty shipping fandom to die in a fire. Before I even started watching it, Black Butler was famous as ‘that pedo anime’, everyone acted as if Sebastian x Ciel was canon and they kept teasing it in every episode or something. BUT NOPE. NONE. NICHT. NON. NAG YDW. Where the FUCK did they even get it from, seriously?? We don’t know if Sebastian is gonna betray ciel or not in the end, but im PRETTY FUCKING SURE that he doesn’t have a boner for a fucking ten year old! I know the idea of a demon servant is a common romance novel thing, but seriously wtf is wrong with you... I know I’m mad that this arc ended so horribly, but still I feel like the various moral ambiguity discussions are super interesting and I would have regretted if I’d never read any of this manga just because of some awful fanbase members.

ANYWAY IN SUMMARY bunni cry over episode