#my other options were jesus but this is funnier

[wolfythewitch]

Giggling

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Let's Call It Funny

Prompt: Hi! If you know about those gen z peter parker posts, could your write something based on that? With Steve Getting It (tm) because fatalistic nihilism in humor tended to show up during the world wars and we’re seeing a reflection of that now? Sorry- I just think it’d make great options for steve and peter bonding, and dad!tony but actual emotions (gasp!) You can totally ignore this if you want!

Don't ever apologize for giving me such a great ask

Read on Ao3 Part 2

Warnings: uhhh gen z humor

Pairings: none! all found family in this bitch

Word Count: 2529

Here’s the thing about humor. It’s not necessarily that one generation is any funnier than another, it’s just that high school kids are perpetually the funniest people alive. Something about being in a pressure cooker of an environment with a bunch of other people whose bodies are changing in new unpredictable ways whilst having very little say in how their lives go creates humor. Gasp of shock, right?

So basically what Peter’s trying to say is that he’s fucking hilarious.

Come on, not only does he have the default high schooler stuff, he’s also gay, which gives him an instant bonus. He’s trans, which opens up a whole new subset of humor for him to explore. He’s neurodivergent as fuck, and we all know that makes people funny as hell. And if that weren’t enough, he’s severely traumatized and he’s Spider-Man.

Peter Parker is funny as hell.

What is truly devastating—and really, it’s their loss—is that so few people seem to appreciate it.

Ned gets it. Ned’s not someone Peter would expect to not get it, just because hey, it’s Ned. They’ve met each other in the hallways and been like ‘hey! You’re still alive! Congrats on having a body!’ Only for the other one to go ‘hey! You’re alive too! I wish I had an intangible form!’

Because bodies are stupid and evolution really fucked us over but at least we’re not horses.

A solid 50% of their interactions are just quoting John Mulaney and Bo Burnham bits back and forth at each other. Peter’s never gonna forget the day they both had detention and had to watch that stupid Cap PSA—it’s propaganda, you Nazi fuckwits—and something reminded them of the ‘horse loose in a hospital’ bit and they just did it. Full out. Stood up and did the actions and everything. The rest of the room was either trying to do it with them—and failing, because they didn’t have nearly enough practice—or looking so confused. The security guard—Paul, he’s great—just looked at them blearily after they finished and went:

“I mean, you kids are right, but you’re not supposed to talk in detention.”

Well, excuse them for trying to make it more entertaining for everyone.

MJ gets it. If Peter’s being honest, he learned most of his humor from her. She is the master and it is an honor to study in her wake. He’s definitely hijacked the asking whether or not anything’s actually meaningful existentialism jokes and they’ve wormed their way into his day-to-day repertoire.

“Why are you late, Mr. Parker?”

“Time is a social construct, Mrs. B, none of us are ever late or early except in the subjective spacetime paths. The limits of our sensory perception make it so we can’t tell if anything is real, let alone whether or not they conform to some arbitrary definition of ‘time.’”

“…just sit down, Peter.”

See? It works.

Aunt May gets…worried.

Sure, they’ve actually talked about when Peter needs help and wants to reach out and when he’s just making jokes off the cuff because hey, humor’s a great coping mechanism or it’s just a joke and not that serious. Peter loves his Aunt May, so so so much, and the last thing he wants to do is really worry her. And she’s gotten pretty good at figuring out when he’s just joking and when he’s spiraling.

Sometimes, though…

“Peter,” Aunt May calls from the kitchen, “did you remember to stop by the store on your way home?”

Peter freezes halfway through the door.

“Peter?”

He swallows. “…no.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am too stressed and consumed by the swirling pit of blackness deep in my soul to remember my head is connected to my body, let alone remember to go to the store.”

Silence.

“…Aunt May?”

“Do you want to drop off your stuff and then go to the store?”

“…yeah, please.”

“Love you, Pete.”

“Love you!”

“Try to remember that you’ve got arms so you can pick stuff up.”

“Got it!”

See? It’s fine.

The Avengers don’t get it. Like, at all.

Natasha and Clint like, sorta get it? They make the same jokes all the time when they think Peter can’t hear them, which—come on, you guys are super spies, surely you know people are gonna hear you when they’re gonna hear you. Natasha will make a crack about something, Clint will laugh and shove her shoulder. It’s their dynamic, we get it. But when Peter does it…

“Hey, Baby Spider?”

Peter sticks his head up from the ceiling. “Yeah?”

“Where’re you crawling off to?”

“I’m gonna go hide in the garage.”

Natasha blinks up at him. “Why?”

“Because if I get crushed by the airlock doors then I won’t have to do my paper tomorrow.”

Silence. Natasha’s mask is too good for Peter to actually see what’s going on with her, let alone from this angle, but silence isn’t good.

“Nat—oof!”

Something blurs out of the vent nearby and tackles him down onto the couch.

“Clint!”

“Nope,” Clint mutters, wrapping Peter up in a hug as Natasha comes to join them. “You’re staying with us now, Pete.”

“Guys, I’m fine.”

“Peter,” Natasha says softly, “don’t joke about that, you’ll make us worry.”

“I don’t wanna do that,” Peter mumbles, “but it’s fine.”

“Coping mechanism, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s got too many brain cells to do that,” Clint says, ruffling Peter’s hair.

“Stark has a lot of brain cells, you see what good that does him?”

“Hmm. Guess you’re gonna have to stay awhile, Pete.”

There are worse fates. Definitely.

Thor just kind of gets confused by it. He acts like Peter isn’t going to be absolutely fine because there’s no need to do anything like that. No, Peter, you don’t have to put the bleach in first into your cereal, there’s plenty of milk left over. No, Peter, you don’t have to throw yourself off the roof because your laptop is freezing, Stark has so many just lying around. No, Peter, you don’t have to pack a rucksack and run away to the Alps and live like a recluse, come here and get a hug.

Peter suspects Thor’s playing dumb on purpose. The man is smart as hell, there’s no way all of this is flying over his head. And honestly, it warms his heart a little bit when he sees Thor’s sincere, concerned look when he thinks Peter’s not looking.

Banner and Rhodey just kinda shake their heads and move on. They’re used to it. They live and work with some of the most dramatic fucking people in the goddamn universe, they’re used to a little bit of extra humor. Occasionally one of them will give him a look that says he’s pushing his luck, but that’s not often. Less often now ‘cause he knows what he can get away with. He’s also seen them hiding smiles behind their hands or poorly disguised coughs. They’re not as slick as they think they are.

Tony.

Tony is the fucking worst.

Peter can’t get away with so much as sighing too hard before Iron Dad™ is swooping in all soft words and concerned touches. Jesus. You’d think he’d get it, he uses humor as a coping mechanism too, goddamnit, why is he so worried about Peter?

Okay, fine, he knows why.

MJ’s over at the Tower, having another one of her ‘sketch people in crisis’ appointments with Natasha. Peter is coming off of a 32-hour caffeine rush and is violently wishing for death. Tony is in the kitchen doing…something.

“Hey, do you think bleach would make a good smoothie?”

Tony wheels around to see MJ pulling a glass out of the cupboard.

“Kid—“

“Sounds like a filling breakfast,” Peter groans, “can you make me one too?”

“…I’m legitimately concerned,” comes Tony’s mutter.

MJ ignores him. “Who’s the bitch on your forehead?”

Peter rubs absentmindedly at the massive knot on his head, courtesy of a wall that rudely decided to move at the last second while Peter was attempting to walk through a doorway. “He’s called DJ Braindeath and he’s my only friend in the world.”

“Peter—“

“Oh did you meet him at the furry convention?"

“Technically it’d be a buggie convention.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?”

“The pantry doesn’t have good coffee, I’m going to Starbucks.” MJ grabs her bag. “You want anything?”

“A will to live?”

“Peter, what the fuck—“

“Oof, I’ve only got like…20 bucks.”

Peter lets his head drop back to the counter. “Then just leave me here to die.”

“Can I have champagne at your funeral?”

“I’ll be dead, I won’t fucking care.”

“God, I wish that were me.”

Then MJ’s gone and Peter gets treated to a 20-minute conversation with a very concerned Tony Stark that he doesn’t remember most of because hey caffeine crashes aren’t fun.

He definitely does it on purpose sometimes just to wind Tony up. Like there’s this one incident with an interview he does as Spider-Man and he gets asked what he thinks about Tony Stark’s newest intern, Peter Parker.

“That boy’s an embarrassment, just…complete failure. Can’t speak without stuttering through every other word and self-esteem issues all over the place. Also looks like he got dressed in the dark.”

The reporter had awkwardly moved on to another question. The interview aired later that day while Peter was at the Tower. Tony sat next to him on the couch about halfway through.

“You look good, Pete.”

Peter had mumbled halfheartedly, only to hear the reporter ask the same question.

“See, that’s the problem with having a secret identity, you don’t…” Tony trailed off as he heard the answer.

Peter snorted as Spider-Man finished talking. “Say that to my face, you bitch, get a real job. At least I don’t look like someone vomited silly string all over my spandex.”

“Are you okay?”

See? Fun.

The only one he’s made a conscious effort to not be this funny around is Steve.

Because, okay, here’s the thing. Steve’s disappointed look has no effect on him anymore. He’s immune, motherfuckers, he’s had detention too many times for it to still work. Here’s the other thing: Steve doesn’t actually use that tone of voice that often. It’s this meticulously crafted image he plays up in interviews because it catches all the bad guys so off guard when Captain America is suddenly swearing a blue streak at them and telling them to go fuck themselves in, honestly, quite creative ways. The sincere Steve Rogers disappointment and concern still very much works. Also doesn’t help that Steve does caring so fucking well, like…who gave him the right to say a few things and hold Peter like he’s something precious and do the quick one-two punch of saying a super sincere compliment and following it up with ‘I love you.’ Who did that? It’s rude. Stop it.

And yeah, Steve’s the resident Mom at the Ready. It’s a risk to even sit on your bed looking sad ‘cause here he comes, wearing something snuggly and saying ‘hey’ in that stupid, stupid compassionate voice. So Peter knows he’s just gonna end up crying from too much soft if Steve actually gets concerned. Which won’t be fair because he’s gonna try and explain that he’s fine and it’s just his sense of humor while crying. Yeah, like that’s gonna be believable.

So he’s trying not to but damnit it’s hard.

Then he walks into the kitchen one day to see Steve struggling with the toaster.

It’s one of Tony’s new prototypes—which means that anyone struggling with it is so fair—and from the looks of it, it’s managed to not only burn the bread to a crisp, but also mangle the slices beyond recognizable shape.

Peter’s not paying that much attention. He’s on his phone, heading towards his spot in the corner with the beanbag chairs and definitely doesn’t recognize Steve as he goes.

He only plops down and hears someone declare, in a completely deadpan voice: “There is no point to existing at all.”

“Oh, mood.”

He doesn’t think much of it. He doesn’t even know who said that, that’s how hyper-focused he is right now. He hears the others come in and feels Clint plonk down next to him.

“Hey, Pete.”

“Sah, dude.”

“Just vibing. Did I do it right?”

“Yeah, man you’re going great.”

“You teach Thor ‘yeet’ yet?”

“We’re getting there.”

“Steve,” he hears Tony call from the kitchen, “what the fuck did you do?”

“Language.”

“Don’t fucking talk to me about language when you’re making toast that looks like a goddamn welder’s table, what is that?”

“Your prototype’s work, I imagine.”

“How did you even—“

Clint chuckles next to him as the two of them start fondly bickering. Peter’s too busy speedrunning the five stages of grief in his head.

Did…did Steve say the thing about there being no point to existence at all?

No…no way.

He must be imagining things.

Then, of course, there’s a chime on his phone.

Ned: Did u do the bio hw?

There was bio homework?

Ned: yeah, due at noon

“I now know why God abandoned this timeline and when will death come to take me?”

The room goes silent.

Shit.

“Peter,” Clint says, “it’s gonna be fine, you can do bio homework in your sleep—“

“Are you okay?” Ah, that’s Thor.

“Kid—“

And Nat, and Tony’s probably rushing over here as he speaks.

Then there’s another voice.

“We can only pray the reaper arrives early for his appointment with us, kid.”

Peter’s head snaps up.

Steve.

Steve fucking Rogers raises a coffee cup at him in salute and takes a sip. He makes a face.

“…that was definitely salt,” he mutters, before shrugging and downing the whole thing.

…what?

Peter’s still staring at him until he catches his gaze and winks.

Oh, fuck yes.

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Tony says, hands on his hips, “explain.”

Steve just gives him a look. “I grew up in the Great Depression, Tony, and I was in the army. You don’t think I have a fatalistic sense of humor?”

“Plus the fact that most of my generation is resorting to types of humor found when death and stress are so ever-present that you have to joke about it says something,” Peter adds, “doesn’t it?”

Steve raises his cup again. “See? He gets it.”

And just like that, the bond between Peter Parker and Steve Rogers was written, formed, and sealed in salt and existentialist depression.

“There’s two of you,” Tony mumbles, “oh my god, there’s two of you.”

“Oh, you just wait ’til Buck and Sam get back.”

Peter can’t fucking wait.

[ur-jinji]

Hello! I saw that requests were open again and felt an urge to send one in. I hope you’re well! I was wondering if I could request a Zuko x Reader with the kissing prompts 24 and 27?

a/n: thank you kind anon i hope you’re well too!! also this is a lil spicy request hehe i’ll do my best

24: hands on hips, pulling the other into a soft kiss that turns heated

27: heated kisses that keep getting interrupted by someone else

tongue tied

zuko x f!reader modern au

navigation // atla masterlist

summary: when things get heated between you and zuko, you two can’t seem to escape interuptions

It was hard to ignore the stares Zuko was giving Y/N all night.

They and their friends were sat in the living room of his family’s vacation home, on break from their college semester, carrying on and laughing as the night grew older. The sound of the waves hitting the shore outside was muted by the constant chatter and giggling. But Y/N found herself getting quiet when she saw Zuko consistently peering at her with a look on his face that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. They were sat on different couches, but the looks and growing tension were hard for her to ignore.

“I think we should play a card game,” Aang suggested.

“I brought Cards Against Humanity!” Sokka replied, jumping up from his spot on a recliner chair, completely forgetting Suki had been on his lap. She collapsed onto the floor, gaining a few laughs and a concerned look from Katara.

“Hey, watch it, asshole,” Suki said teasingly to her boyfriend, who offered her a hand to help her up. They began to make their way out of the room, and Aang and Katara jumped up from their cushions on the couch.

“I’m gonna get some more snacks,” Katara announced before making a beeline to the kitchen, Aang following close behind. “Let’s all meet in the dining room in five!”

That left Y/N, Zuko, and Toph.

“I can’t even play that dumb game,” Toph stated, crossing her arms.

“You can, Toph. Just put down a random card. It’s funnier that way,” Y/N spoke up as she stood up. “I’m gonna go on the balcony to get some fresh air.”

Y/N snaked around the coffee table. She slid the balcony door connected to the living room open, and closed it behind her. She sighed and walked further to the railing, looking at the view of the moonlight on the ocean. She buried her face in her hands, feeling a blush creep onto her cheeks thinking about Zuko.

Almost on cue, she heard the door behind her slide open and close, followed by a footsteps. Y/N lifted her head up, letting her arms fall crossed on the railing. Her eyes landed on Zuko.

“Wanna talk about why you’ve been staring at me all night with that look,” She asked as he joined her at the railing. He leaned one arm against it, his body facing hers. She copied him, and arched an eyebrow.

“Maybe I like teasing you,” He smirked, shrugging.

“Mm-hmm,” She hummed, tapping her shoes against his. His eyes flickered down to her lips as he scooched closer, his fingers grazing her waist. Y/N smirked in reply to his touch and inched even closer. Zuko craned his neck down and his hand slid down to her hips, pulling her in to kiss her softly. She responded quickly, kissing him back eagerly. The pace began to quicken as Y/N’s hands moved off the railing to wrap around his neck, tightening her grip to deepen the kiss even more. His hands gripped her hips tighter.

“Y/N! ZUKO! WHERE ARE YOU!” Sokka’s shrill voice shouted from inside. The pair flinched and separated, breathing deeply trying to catch air. Y/N leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Zuko’s lips again before spinning away and walking towards the door. He followed her a few moments after. They made their way into the dining room where everyone was sat around the table, waiting impatiently.

“Where were you guys?” Katara asked curiously.

“Oh, just looking at the moon. You guys should check it out later,” Y/N fibbed, sitting in between Toph and Aang.

The game started, Aang went first, the card being “Coming to Broadway this season; ________: The Musical.” Everyone threw down their selected cards face down in a pile. Aang cleared his throat and scanned the cards.

“Coming to Broadway this season; ‘Dying of dysentery: The Musical’, ‘Depression: The Musical’, ‘A bag of magic beans: The Musical,’ ‘Scalping: The Musical’, ‘Old people smell: The Musical’, and ‘Peanut Butter Jelly Time: The Musical,” Aang read, earning laughs after he read each card option. He thought for a while.

“I don’t know why, but ‘Dying of dysentery: The Musical’ really stands out,” He chose. The room was silent, everyone looking around to see who was going to claim it.

“Must be Toph,” Y/N said, grabbing the winning card and handing it to a satisfied Toph. The room filled with groans and complaints that their cards weren’t chosen. Then came Y/N’s turn. She picked a card off of the pile, which read “What’s a girl’s best friend?”

The group placed down their selected cards, and she picked them up to read them aloud.

“Okay, what’s a girl’s best friend? ‘Powerful thighs’, ‘The gnawing sense of dread’, ‘The invisible hand’, um ‘Sexual tension’..... ‘Another goddamn vampire movie’, ‘A Bop It™️,’” She said. “Jesus, this one’s hard.”

She glanced up and gave Zuko a quick squinted look, knowing he put down ‘Sexual tension.’ He sent you a smirk.

“I’ll have to go with ‘The gnawing sense of dread.’”

Suki cheered, claiming the win, and snatching the card from Y/N’s hand, which earned many groans.

About an hour later, the game came to an end, and somehow Toph ended up being the victor with her randomly chosen cards. The group of friends dispersed throughout the vacation house. Y/N found herself in the hallway upstairs, waiting for Sokka to be done in the bathroom.

“I’m gonna be a minute!” He shouted when she questioned how long he would be. She groaned loudly to be dramatic and started to move down the hallway. The sound of approaching footsteps caught her attention. She turned her head towards the source and saw it was Zuko.

“Oh, look who it is. Mister “a girl’s best friend is sexual tension,” Y/N teased, leaning her back against the wall with her arms crossed,

“Yeah, I figured you’d like that one,” Zuko replied as he moved in front of her. He stretched an arm out over her head, his hand pressing against the wall, looking down at her. The girl smirked before reaching to grab his t-shirt, gripping the loose fabric at his chest, and tugging him down. Their lips collided, the kiss deepening immediately. Zuko’s hands found their way to her hips, pushing her against the wall and pressing his body against hers. They carried on for a few moments, so distracted that they didn’t hear the opening of the bathroom door a few feet away.

“Oh!” A shocked Sokka voiced, startling Y/N and Zuko. “Ew! What is this!? When did this happen!”

They quickly pulled away, looking like deer in headlights at their disgusted friend. They had no words.

“Nothing? You guys have nothing to say to explain yourselves!?” Sokka said, his face twisting in distaste. “You’re animals!”

Sokka spun around on his heel, speed walking down the hallway, and the pair already knew that he was going to spill the newfound drama. Zuko looked at the girl, smiling nervously and rubbing the back of his neck.

“Wanna just go to my room?” He offered.

“Yeah, that’s probably our safest bet to get away from the judgement,” Y/N replied, following him to his room.

[a-froger-epic]

aww freddie drabbles yay!

here's a few, choose whichever you like :)

- freddie and roger in high school/uni and a meet cute

- freddie and brian composing

- freddie babysitting john's children and singing vocal improv to them (i was that anon yeah, the one who sent it in first)

Alright, seeing as I've already just done Freddie+kiddies and I was talking about a "She's All That" AU on the server to you all (I am so sorry, I realise you're too young to know it, BUT watch the music video linked below and you'll get the idea) Also this turned into a Roger drabble instead because it was funnier that way 😁

Here's a High School AU Froger meet cute "She's All That" style!

*queues Sixpence None The Richer 'Kiss Me'*

- - -

Crystal could be such a prat, but this time Roger didn't mind almost being knocked off his feet as his mate and the rest of the water polo team swooped in on him from behind.

True to form, Crystal jumped on his back and almost sent him stumbling into Kelsey, who Roger had been talking to, all while looking for a good reason to stop talking to her, because while she definitely had a killer rack, and he'd spent more time than he'd like to admit perving over her Insta, most of which prominently featured her arse from one angle or another, she was also incredibly, painfully dull. She'd spent the last ten minutes talking about her holiday in the south of France, although the entire story had mostly consisted of detailed descriptions of her parent's yacht. It had a fridge with an ice cube dispenser, several gaming systems and a flatscreen tv, Roger now knew.

Luckily, she decided to take her leave as his noisy mates arrived and he waved her goodbye, admiring her Instagram-famous derriere as she walked away.

He wasn't the only one. When he tore his eyes away, most of his mates were still oogling her.

"Oi!" Roger elbowed Gery, who happened to be standing right next to him and was gaping open-mouthed, in the ribs. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

On the other side of him, Crystal gave a low, appreciative whistle. "So," he grinned, "did you ask her to prom or what?"

Roger snorted, crossing his arms. That had been the plan, of course. Ask Kelsey to prom. And he'd meant to. He wasn't afraid. It was just that, for all her good looks, and despite the fact that she was the most popular girl in their year by far, he just... hadn't really felt like it, once he'd started talking to her.

"Nah," he said with a shrug. "Still considering my options."

His water polo team mates stated disbelieving.

"Mate," said Gery, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Are you for real? That girl's a ten out of ten and I heard," he dropped his voice a little, "she's proper up for it, you know?"

Crystal slung an arm around Roger's shoulders, shaking his head. "What are you thinking? You're the most popular guy in our year, she's the most popular girl, you're bloody perfect for each other, innit. And we're all fuckin' jealous, mate!"

Roger grimaced, throwing him a look. "Whatever. I could go to prom with whoever I like and," he grinned, "they'd be popular by association."

"Oh yeah?" Crystal raised his eyebrows, grinning back at him.

"Damn right," Roger assured him, "anyone in this school, you wanna bet?"

As the rest of his team mates headed off home, Roger, Crystal and Gery walked toward the parking lot where they'd left their electric scooters - and Crystal's hoverboard.

"D'you know," said the very same, a lop-sided grin on his face, "I do wanna bet."

"You what?" Roger blinked at him, not sure what he was talking about.

"I bet," said Crystal, and the grin on his face turned very smug, "that there's no fucking way you can make anyone popular just by going to prom with them."

"Oh yeah?" said Roger, feigning non-chalant confidence.

"Yeah." His friend stopped and stretched out his hand, eyebrows raised. "Seriously, wanna bet?"

Roger Taylor was many things. He was a drummer and lead singer in a teenage band that was definitely going to make it big. He was the captain of the water polo team. He was going to ace his A levels because no matter what some people thought, he wasn't an idiot.

He also most definitely wasn't someone who shied away from a bet.

"Sure thing." Roger shook Crystal's hand.

They continued across the school yard, with Crystal trying to spy the perfect candidate.

"Oh, shit, look! What about her?" he snickered, pointing to Brianna May, who had her fingers buried in her wild mass of curly hair and was sitting at a table, bent over a book as though trying to memorise the contents of it.

"Nah," said Crystal, before Roger could comment. "Oh! What about Deaky?"

Gery guffawed.

"Yeah, right." Roger turned to follow Crystal's gaze, to where a girl with an undercut stood, wearing ripped black tights, shorts and a flannel shirt, her hand around her girlfriend Ronnie's waist. "That's cheating, pick someone who's available and also," he gave Crystal a look, "no lesbians."

"Yeah, fair enough," Crystal conceded. And then, his eyes lit up. "Oh shit, oh yes."

Roger followed his friend's line of sight and stopped, eyebrows drawing together in a frown. Struggling to ascend the stairs from the arts classroom in the basement, juggling several sketchbooks, two canvases and an easel, was Freddie Bulsara.

"You're not serious," Roger scoffed, turning to look at Crystal, fully expecting him to burst out laughing any moment.

But Crystal only nodded, still smirking in Freddie's direction. "Oh yeah."

"No way!" Roger protested, glancing back at Freddie, who had managed to fall over with all the things he was holding and struggled to get back up, wavy strands of hair that had escaped from the bun on top of his head obscuring his face. "He's a bloke!"

"So?" Crystal's grin was positively wicked now. He gave Roger a look and a shrug. "It's 2021, innit. You said you could take anyone to prom and they'd be popular-"

"How d'you now he'd even be interested-" Roger started, but cut himself off. Yeah, he didn't have a leg to stand on with that question. Freddie was definitely not straight and their whole year knew it. "Listen," Roger rolled his eyes, regretting what he had got himself into, "I can deal with fat, I can deal with ugly or socially awkward, but a guy and plain weird? Come on!"

"A bet's a bet," Crystal waggled his eyebrows, and Roger turned to Gery for support, who held up his hands.

"Hey, you made that bet with Crys, not me!"

"And now you're losing time," Crystal pointed out, nodding in the direction of the skinny boy in the paint-stained jean overalls who was hurrying toward the school gates now.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Roger took a deep breath and went after him, Crystal and Gery on his heels. Freddie stopped by a bench right beside school gates, in front of a girl who had been sitting there waiting. She rose to her feet, taking the sketchbooks off him to lighten his load.

"Hey," said Roger, when he was close enough to be within war shot. "Freddie, what's up? You got a minute?"

Both Freddie and the much younger girl who Roger was pretty sure had to be his sister turned to look at him. The girls eyes went wide, as thought she couldn't believe Roger Taylor himself was speaking to her brother, but Freddie's eyes narrowed. In all fairness, Roger though, he had never had a go at Freddie or made fun of him, although some others did. Some people who he hung out with and considered friends.

"What," Freddie replied curtly, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. His eyes darted to Crystal and Gery, who were standing right behind Roger, and his expression darkened.

"Just thought we could... have a chat," Roger tried lamely, and heard Crystal supress a snicker.

Freddie stated at him for a long moment, eyes full of suspicion.

"I'm alright," he said, and turned back to his sister. "Come on, Kash, let's go."

And with that, he swept past Roger and his mates and walked out of the school gates, followed by his sister, who cast Roger a dreamy smile on the way out.

"Or you could just..." Roger watched them go, shaking his head in disbelief. "...embarass me, why don't you?"

Jesus Christ. This was going to be one hell of a mission.

[himbeaux-on-ice]

Who are your top five NHL teams and why?

Ooooo this is fun! Thanks anon!

Short list:

Habs ❤️🤍💙

Pens 🐧

Canucks 🌈🌊

Caps 🦅

Leafs 🟦🍁🟦 (no really! I know I don’t talk about them much but its true!)

Over-wordy explanations/backstory for my relationship to each of these teams below the cut for those interested!

Montreal Canadiens. My dearly beloved Nana, who half-raised me, is a lifelong diehard Habs fan who grew up listening to their games on the radio and then later as an adult watching them duel with the Leafs on Saturday nights on a black-and-white tv (also a BIG Carey Price stan). Needless to say she rubbed off on me immensely, and I remember saying to myself at some point “well, if that’s Nana’s team, that’s gonna be my team too” and it stuck for life. I also had a friend in middle school who was a RELIGIOUS Habs fan who also worshipped at the altar of Jesus Price in those early 2010’s, so I heard a LOT about all of that every lunch break as he argued with friends who were Pens and Bruins fans lol. We went on the Bell Centre tour during the annual 9th grade French class trip to Quebec, and while I was mostly focused on getting to the gift shop to buy Nana a souvenir, I swear my friend’s eyes were the size of quarters the whole time lmao. (Would LOVE to go back now that I care a lot). Basically the Habs are the closest thing to a local NHL team our region has bc we get their broadcasts (though people choose their own team allegiances for various random personal reasons), and I grew up absorbing through osmosis both the legends of yore and the latest updates on whatever Carey and PK and the lads were up to. (Also I’ve been quietly in love with Price myself since at least the 2014 Olympics lol. My first best fav ❤️) Bottom line the Habs are My Team, the “I’m gonna be here even when it sucks, even when players move on, this is attached to me in a way I can’t quite explain” team that every hockey fan has in their heart. GO HABS GO!

Pittsburgh Penguins. If you were an elementary school kid in Nova Scotia when Sidney Crosby was first released and up through the 2010’s, you had two options: love him, or hate him, but you better accept you’re gonna be hearing about him a LOT. I settled on “vague fondness” and followed Sid from a newspaper-scanning distance and vaguely rooted for him because when he brought the Cup home it felt like we all won. And like I said, lots of passionate Pens fans in my grade school classes to hear from (he’s also the only non-Habs player my Nana likes lol). Then I got into hockey properly last year and learned about Geno beyond just knowing his name, and my chronic affection for large loveable Russians got combined with my longstanding vague “I hope the Penguins win” feelings and my “time to get the full story on the Sidney Crosby’s Penguins narrative I only ever watched from a distance” research, in a manner not unlike the creation of the PowerPuff Girls ([chemical X] etc etc lol) to create a potent adoration for this team that rocketed them to second place in my heart. Also the fandom is just so damn fun and makes such great content, and that definitely feeds my level of engagement with the Pens!! Sometimes, when I want an emotional pick-me-up I watch one of their last 3 championship films just to remember what joy and optimism is — I would love to be present as a real-time fan for another adventure like that. With how much I know about them and how much I care, they’re my #2 for sure. I love those flightless fucks!!

Vancouver Canucks. So I started watching live NHL hockey games last summer around I think game 2 of the Habs’ first round series against the Flyers (I saw Price’s “Miracle Save” on twitter while following along bc I was intrigued by the fact that they made it through the play-ins, and was like “OKAY NOW I GOTTA SEE THIS SHIT LIVE”). That was really fun! Riiiight up until the Habs got eliminated. :/ And I was like “well, shit. I’m enjoying this hockey thing too much to stop now. who else is still around I can root for?” And the Canucks were the last Canadian team still in it, and there was buzz about their miraculous first-round win but also uncertainty I believe Markstrom had *just* got injured. So I started watching, ended up witnessing the Bubble Demko Miracle unfold live, had my heart charmed off me by “whatever the hell those two lil blonde bitches have going on” and a delightful underdog story, and here I am. Hitched to the Canuck wagon whether I enjoy it or not. Here for whatever happens! (Doesn’t hurt that I love me some Elton John too 😉)

Washington Capitals. I’m a person who is more likely to be really engaged with a team that has super interesting personalities, characters, and narratives around it — and my GOD are the Capitals good for that. I absolutely definitely started down this road with that mic’d up video from the 2018 final of Ovi telling Nicke “after me, I give it to you baby!” re: the Cup. Like I can pinpoint that there was a day I saw that for the first time in a gifset, squinted at the screen, said “you’re fucking with me...”, went to youtube, watched it be for reals, and was like “well. now I need to know more about ALL this.” After watching games and learning more about the team, I really enjoy the Caps’ “big dumb found family of stone-cold total weirdos” energy, their fun collective chemistry, their Cup story, etc. And oh BOY the fandom is fun during game lb’s! I love all the in-jokes and player nicknames, our delight with the quirks of our colourful wonderful broadcast crew (shoutout Wine Uncles & Co), the way we cheer for record-breaking milestones like they’re a first NHL goal! Being a fan of the Caps AND the Pens can be a bit awkward sometimes, and the team certainly has its blemishes, but my heart is big enough for two Metro teams for sure, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Toronto Maple Leafs. So like, as you can imagine from my previously described upbringing in Hab Land, “haha Leafs suck” is a punchline I have long been familiar with and trained to recite. I got a solid 3 days of laughter and entertainment out of the whole Zamboni Driver Saga last February, oh boy did I ever. But the thing is.... I have the Leafs to thank for the fact that I watch hockey now. See, the entire reason I started paying proper attention to the playoff bubble last summer was because one day, I happened to see the phrase “WHAT IS HAPPENING” trending at 16k tweets on twitter, and clicked on it like “huh?”. Turns out the Leafs were in the middle of their miraculous 3-minute comeback against Columbus and the country was losing its mind. And when they won, I was like “huh... the Zamboni Team is doing THIS??? I may have to start paying attention to this playoffs thing, because if they go All The Way I think that might be the only thing funnier than the Zamboni Incident”. Aaaaand when they immediately lost the next game and were eliminated I was like “lol, sounds about right” and was then immediately distracted by news of the Habs winning the play-in round. So then I spent several months watching playoffs and forgetting about the Leafs. And then one day in early October, looking on YouTube for more hockey to watch after the playoffs ended, I stumbled across something called a Hat Pick, and boy I actually enjoyed this shouty man’s sense of humour and takes on the game... and then when I ran out of Hat Picks and Dangits I watched some Trade Trees, which pulled back the curtain on the business side of the game... and then I discovered LFR’s, which were good background noise for doing tasks... and then I was recommended the episode of the Steve Dangle Podcast about Mitch Marner and The List... and next thing I knew I was listening to more of this podcast, because I found Steve and the guys to be insightful and funny and there was no hockey to watch, and I was trepidatious about accidentally stumbling into the more toxic corners of hockey fandom if I branched out for other content... and, well. If you spend enough hours listening to people passionately analyze every facet of a team, shout and cheer over a team, make fun of that team, nearly cry over that team... it’s really REALLY hard to not start to care about it. Leafs analysis was basically how I learned most of what I’ve learned about hockey this past year! And kudos to Steve and Adam and Jesse, their passionate investment in the Leafs and great content has got ME invested in the Leafs mainly because I want to see things go well for them. I want Charlie Brown to kick the football! I love a triumph over adversity story! Also, I think if the Leafs did Do The Thing it would basically be the combination of “Cubs win the World Series” and “Raptors are the champs” and I wanna watch the city of Toronto go fully apeshit from a safe distance. I don’t adore many their individual players as much as I do some other teams higher on this list, and I still laugh far too much when things go super comically impossibly badly for them, but I am actually pulling for the Leafs!! I want to see it all pay off for them. I want them to go all the way. Gimme that “LEAFS WIN!!!” (Unless it’s against someone above them on this list lol)

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

macgyver strictly business liveblog

@sybilius @believerindaydreams my arm has been twisted

the first twenty seconds of the MacGyver theme is just what my actual real-life makerspace job looks like. cbs all access won’t let me take screenshots so this will be a text-based endeavor 

the improbable pile of weapons trope...i scream 

do you think the head chairwoman of H.I.T. effectively utilized girl power by being the head chairwoman of an international league of assassins?

“I owe macgyver a debt...of honor.” “there’s no room for honor in our business” (MURDOC MAKES CONSIDERING FACE)

!!!! the acrylic knife!!! i want one!!!

IM SORRY??? THE FUCKIN ELABORATE DINNER DRIPPING OFF THE TABLE???? THE CUPID?????? THE WINE?????? “DO YOU LIKE IT? TRY THE FOOD IT’S VEGETARIAN?” SORRY THIS DESERVES ALL CAPS YELLING I JUST????

so macgyver is a defense contractor? that’s what i’ve gathered Phoenix is? 

murdoc sometimes u gotta. balance out how fun it is to kill someone with a certain method with how effective it actually is. maybe standing in the bed of a pickup with a grenade launcher, while very dramatic, really gives your target a fuck of a lot of time to roll out the other side of the car (also macgyver why did you feel the need to make a three point turn. just. reverse. very fast. go!!!) 

ah the whump, with a side of amnesia 

this camp looks a lot like where i worked last summer. i miss canoeing :( murdoc just helping himself to food and bouncing up and over the counter made me chortle. why can’t murdoc kill in a quick and easy and direct fashion (i know the answer is bc this was on cbs primetime and aired in 1991) but would it not be kinder to simply shoot macgyver instead of letting him languish with a concussion and amnesia while hoping he bleeds out from the one dramatic cut on his face? out in the middle of nowhere, where you have cut the phone lines?  

“the guys my dad sends are flashy, not like you” im YELLING but this kid has a point the mullet is a lot to deal with 

“definitely murdoc’s handiwork, i could fix it if i only had some duct tape” the RELISH that murdoc-pretending-to-be-macgyver delivers that line with. also the whole doctoring the ID card, this implies murdoc carries a wallet-sized photo of himself at all times, for emergencies? i can’t imagine H.I.T. issues ID cards. well no yes i can actually but the first option is so much funnier. murdoc’s lil tactical backpack is great. what the fuck is even in there??? 

i don’t. i don’t know that it was necessary to do a flying leap through the door and down a big hill when the door was open but then again i’m not calculating my every move for maximum dramatic effect to impress my crush

macgyver staring at the shotgun like “do i...know how gun work???” is very funny to me. also this whole hostage thing seems weird i know they have another twelve minutes of episode to fill but this doesn’t seem like murdoc’s style. what i want to know, i think, is if this was written on purpose or if they just happened to have abandoned mine access that week. also hey wait a second right before the kid bike rides off. that’s an entirely different shotgun. what are they pulling here 

ohhh there’s quite a lot of explosives in the tactical backpack. leaving the pocketknife pointing the way u dramatic little shit. also murdoc going “u don’t remember me and now it’s not fun :( have this elaborate escape room i have prepared, SURELY that will make you remember me?” is also a lot. to deal with.

sorry. hold up. the melting the shot to glue the wire down to the shotgun as an improvised brace to keep tension on the wires is clever yes but murdoc apparently had the time to woodburn a sign that says R.I.P. MACGYVER?????

why’s he got a crossbow. why not just use the already established pistol, which he has fired once. what the fuck is happening in this weirdly staged fight holy SHIT murdoc doing a situp from under those fake rocks is the funniest shit i’ve ever seen what the FUCK is happening what a disney villain ending

syb u were right that’s the dumbest fuckin conclusion possible to the abusive-dad b-plot they are NOT safe not even a little bit 

anyway jesus fucking christ what a ride. i’ve only got room in my life for one long-running richard dean anderson show at a time and right now it’s stargate, but i see the appeal of *waves hand* whatever the fuck that was 

[griffins-fanfic]

Finding Midnight-Chapter Two

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Ships: Moxiety, Background Logince

Warnings: none that I know of

Summary: shenanigans continue, featuring Midnight being a sassy little shit

AO3

[[MORE]]

The vet was very kind. She told them that Midnight, shockingly, didn’t have anything wrong physically except for malnourishment. She gave her a vaccine, then suggested a meat-based wet food diet, checking Midnight’s weight regularly to see if she’s gaining weight at a healthy pace, and told them to come back in three weeks for a booster shot.

They were on their way with Midnight in a carrier and headed to the nearest pet shop. Midnight fell asleep on the walk there. Virgil had a sudden spike of worry as they walked through the door, wondering if cats were even allowed in there. But, he spotted someone with a leashed Great Pyrenees at checkout, and figured that if that giant ball of fluff was allowed, then the kitten the size of Virgil’s hand wouldn’t be kicked out.

Patton had the shopping list, but he was quickly distracted by the rodent aisle. Virgil took the list and walked over to the aisle with all the collars. He set the carrier down on the ground and picked a couple options from the shelf. Then, he crouched down and looked into Midnight’s eyes.

“Alright. What about yellow?” he held up the yellow collar. It was an eyesore, but he had to give Midnight options. Silence from the kitten. “Blue?” It nearly perfectly matched Patton’s favorite shirt, which was a bonus in Virgil’s mind. Still silence. “Purple?” Quiet, then one tiny mew. “Alright, purple it is.”

They moved to the beds, finding Patton already there, holding up a medium sized pink bed. He turned to Virgil and showed it to him. “This one!” He said.

“Isn’t it a little big?” Virgil asked.

"She’ll grow into it. I don’t know. I was drawn to it.”

Virgil chuckled. “Valid. Let’s see.” He studied the list. “Food, litter, litterbox. Probably some sort of scratching post.”

“And lots of toys!” Patton added.

“Divide and conquer? I get the food and litter, you can get the box and toys.”

Patton nodded and started skipping off to get the stuff. Right before he turned the corner, Virgil shouted, “Make sure she can get into the box!” earning a thumbs up. He then swung around to the front of the store to pick up a cart and went over to the food aisle. There, he located the brand recommended by the vet and picked up a few cans. Then it was over to the litter. There, his phone rang.

“Hey,” He said.

Logan’s voice came through the phone. “Virgil, it’s Logan.”

"I know, caller id exists.”

“Correct. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I will be unable to attend movie night this week. Please give Patton my apologies.”

“Will do. You’ll make it next week, right? Pat will be disappointed if you miss two weeks in a row.”

“Of course. As long as we are not required to watch another one of those abominations that Roman likes to call ‘classic Disney movies.”

Virgil laughed. “I’m putting a blanket ban on any Disney movie made before 1970 from now on.”

“Perfect. Farewell.”

“See you next week, L.”

As Virgil found the most budget friendly litter, the thought that he should probably warn Roman about the cat before movie night crossed his mind. He quickly ignored it. It would funnier to drop the idea of the cat on him when he got there.

He met up with Patton at the checkout line. As he eyed Patton’s basket, he was relieved that he had been payed recently. He considered asking Patton to maybe give up a couple of the toys, but he just didn’t have it in him.

It wasn’t until Patton pulled out his debit card that Virgil realized why he had gotten that many items.

“Pat, no.” He started, but was quickly shushed.

“I’m not going to ask you to pay for this much. Look, the newest freelance job just finished, and now I have a little bit of money to burn. Don't fight me on this.”

They finished and started their trek back to the apartment. “Hey, have you told Roman about her yet?” Virgil asked.

“No, what are you planning?” Patton said, squinting, his usual face of suspicion.

“Nothing!” Patton knew him too well. “Just don’t tell him until movie night. I wanna surprise him.”

They arrived at the apartment and set their haul down on the kitchen table. Virgil's arms ached, and he could see that Patton was rubbing his shoulders, grimacing. Virgil set the carrier down, letting Midnight loose to sprint around the apartment again.

He picked a bag and started pulling things out of it, looking through all the toys Patton had bought.

"We need to get her a tag." Patton said, joining him in going through the stuff. "Oh! You should have a photoshoot with her. Get all your fancy photography stuff out."

Virgil shrugged. "I don't usually work with animal subjects."

"I mean, it's our child! It's gotta be different." Virgil blushed slightly at the suggestion that they were co-parenting. "And you could post it on your Instagram!"

Virgil had an Instagram that he posted some of his photos on. It had a couple hundred followers, and brought in the very few commissions he had done so far, but recently he had been pretty bad at keeping up with it.

"That's certainly an idea. Did you get two of the same toy?" Virgil held up two nearly identical feather wands.

Patton grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. I couldn't decide which color to get."

Virgil smiled back. "Dibs on the black one."

Patton pulled something else out of the bags. "This is a puzzle toy. You put a treat in this." He pointed at a tiny box in the middle of the toy, "and she has to solve a small puzzle to get it."

Virgil inspected the toy. "Are you sure we should be teaching her how to solve puzzles?"

"Why not?"

"She seems like she's gonna grow into a little shit. I don't think we're equipped for a cat who's both a little shit and intelligent."

"Do you really think-ow!" Patton jumped and grabbed his ankle. "She scratched me!" He yelled. Virgil hadn't even noticed that she was back in the room.

"Oh jeez. Are you bleeding?"

Patton flopped down on a chair. "I can't believe! Betrayed by my own child!"

"You've been spending too much time with Roman. Can you go get a band-aid, or are you too injured to walk?" Virgil teased. "I'll set the scratching post up so she'll stop using you as one."

He carried the scratching post into the living room, setting it up under a window. Midnight came running to the post as soon as it was ready. Virgil crouched down and looked her in the eye. "I know you're energetic and you probably never had a healthy way to express it, but we've got all these toys for you for a reason. I love you, but hurting Patton is where I draw the line." He dropped his voice down to a whisper. "Cause I love him more." She meowed in response. Virgil was satisfied that she had gotten the message.

Patton announced his presence by walking into the living room and immediately banging his elbow against the doorframe. Virgil looked back at him. "Jesus Pat, I think we need to do less cat proofing and more Patton proofing."

"The world needs to be me proof. Do I need to reprimand her or did you?"

"I think she understands. Do you want to help me with taking a couple photos of her?"

Patton's eyes lit up, causing Virgil's heart to jump. He had wanted to help Virgil with his photography since it was revealed that he did it, but Virgil had a hard time working with other people, so he hadn't accepted the offer yet. "Get the collar on her and take her to my room. I'll start setting up."

Virgil went into his room and grabbed his photography box from his closet. The box contained two white sheets, one for pinning on the wall and one for laying on the ground, his portable lights, and his tripod. The camera was kept on his desk, he spent an entire paycheck on it once, he wasnt about to put it somewhere it could get broken.

Patton came in while he was rummaging around the box. "Shut the door so we can keep her contained, and come help me pin this sheet."

"Ok! I brought one of the feather wands just in case."

"Good idea. Now get your tall ass over here and pin the top of it. I have it marked where the pins need to go."

"How do you do this by yourself?" The marks were made at 6 foot, and Virgil, in all his 5'3" glory, definitely wasn't tall enough to reach it without help.

He shrugged. "chair."

"Are you talking about your desk chair? Virge that could get you hurt!"

"Yeah, I have enough bruised forearms and knees to prove that."

Patton's face set in determination. "Well, now you have me to help you. You'll never have to worry about injuring yourself for your job again as long as I'm here!"

"Thanks, but it's not my job, Patton, it's a hobby.*

"It'll be a job one day, I'm sure. I mean, you have a gift!" Patton hit the space bar of Virgil's laptop in a flourish, revealing the background that Virgil had set. It was from the one wedding he had done, a photo from the reception. The two brides were doing the first dance, one of them looking at the other like she was the entire world. It was a beautiful moment that had Virgil tearing up from behind the camera.

"That photo, and that's just one example, is perfect!"

Virgil blushed at the praise. He quickly cleared his throat and set his mind back to the task at hand. He was about to melt and wasn't sure what he'd do if Patton kept spilling compliments from his lips. Probably kiss him. And that was a bad idea. A horrible idea. Terrible no good brain giving him all these idiot very bad ideas.

He turned his attention to setting up the lights, plugging them in and adjusting them. Next, the camera. Patton was stretching his arms up to reach the marks, shirt lifting up to show a tiny strip of skin. Virgil ducked his head down and continued fiddling with the tripod, face as red as a cherry.

Finally, the only thing he had left to do was get the subject ready. Who was currently attacking his comforter. This was going to be a mess. He sent Patton into the kitchen to get treats.

"What kind? We didn't buy her specific cat treats?"

"I don't know. Some lunch meat or something. Just go." Then he turned to the cat. "Alright. Now, this may be a hard thing for you, but I'm going to need you to behave." Midnight yowled at him in response. "Point taken. Just don't fuck up my equipment and we'll try to get through this." He finished the lecture by picking her up and plopping her on the sheet. She immediately attempted to scramble off of it, but was intercepted by Virgil.

Patton came in then, carrying a few pieces of ham on a paper plate. Virgil sighed. "Great. You're back. Can you tear a couple pieces of that and put it on the sheet? She won't stay on it long enough for me to take a photo.

They proceeded to fill Virgil's SD card with tons and tons of photos. Midnight playing with the feathers, Midnight flopped on the ground, Midnight mid leap, every single pose a cat could do, there was a photo of Midnight doing it. About 45 minutes into the photoshoot, Virgil fiddled with the tripod, raising it up to human level. He then gestured to Patton. "Get on there."

Patton looked shocked. "Me? But I'm not camera ready."

"Shut up, you're always camera ready. I want to get a couple of photos of her with her pa, obviously. That took another 30 minutes, and left Virgil wore out. It was a decently short shoot session, compared to some jobs he's done, but Midnight was undoubtedly one of his worst clients, so he was exhausted.

Patton started taking down the set as Virgil plugged the card into his computer and starting looking at the photos. He stopped at one. In the photo, Midnight was curled up in Patton's arms, obviously content, and Patton had the softest look on his face, he wasn't looking directly at the camera, he was looking just above it, but other than that, it was one of the best photos he had ever taken.

"Oh wow." Patton sighed out behind him, causing Virgil to jump. "That's beautiful. You did a really good job."

"Uh, thanks. But you know, it was pretty easy when I had the two best clients in the world."

They ordered pizza and munched on it as the two of them went through the photos, choosing the best ones. Then they put on a dumb Netflix movie, ignoring it in favor of laughing at Midnight's antics.

As Virgil passed by Patton's room at about 2 in the morning, he saw Patton asleep, his curls the only thing visible above his quilt, Midnight curled up on top of him, purring in her sleep. The annoyed thought of "of course she wouldn't use the bed we bought specifically for her" crossed his mind, quickly shot down in favor of him just admiring the sight. He stood there for too long, staring, only snapping out of his trance when Midnight stretched out, letting at the smallest mew he had ever heard. He fell asleep that night the most content he had been in years.

(Taglist, ask to be added or removed)

@whymustibedraggedintofandomhell @kosmicsides @ananonsplace @thatgaydemigodnerd @serenitythepanther

[woildismyerster]

Hello! I love your writing so much! I was hoping to make a request, because no one makes my heart flutter like Kevin G. I thought maybe Kevin and the reader both have feelings for each other but are oblivious to it, so someone asks the reader to the spring fling and she accepts, and after the mathlete’s competion Kevin goes to the dance and confesses his feelings and just super fluffy? Thank you so much! Love your blog!

Kevin is seriously a Good Boy.

It seemed like a societal flaw to trap members from the world’s most hormonal, unstable people group in a building together for seven hours every day.  You weren’t sure that bring in such close proximity brought out everybody’s civilized side, and the current school year had proven that point.

Teenagers are emotional.  Teenagers are devious.  Teenagers will stab each other in the back for something extreme, like for the greater good, or for something trivial, like to get the last fruit roll up.

That being said, you weren’t one to talk.  Your mad crush on Kevin Gnapoor made you as irrational as the rest of them.  You didn’t tell people, but these were rapid animals.  They could smell it.

Regina had thrown it at you in an offhanded comment while you worked on a group project with the two of them.  Kevin shot you a look, as though to tell you that laughing would only make her worse.

Tyler had noticed it right away, and though he didn’t tell anyone, you could feel the way he watched all of your interactions like a soap opera.

Marwan noticed later.  He thought that you had terrible taste, but he smiled while he said so.

Norbury reminded you, as sarcastic as ever, that there was a Mathletes competition the night of the dance.  She told you that you would fail her class if Kevin ditched to go to the dance with you.

Kevin was probably a whale or something, because he couldn’t smell the smitten on you at all.  At.  All.

It would have been funny if that didn’t allow you to pretend that you stood a chance.

“I mean, a female Doctor?  The feminists are taking over!”  Tyler had put on a nasally voice, and none of the rest of you hesitated before joining him.  “I’m an adult virgin!”

“If only we’d had developed senses of humor when Vine was alive,” Marwan mourned.

“The world couldn’t have handled all of this,” Kevin said.  He spun in leisurely circles in the computer chair.

You snorted.  “Right, that’s it.  It isn’t that you aren’t funny.”

“I’m hilarious, son.”

“Say something funny.”

Kevin grinned at you, head tilted back so he could see you upside down.  “Couldn’t possibly say something that’s funnier than your face, Y/N.”

The others cupped their hands over their mouths.  “Ooooooooh.”

“Wow,” you said.  “You’re right.  That’s totally Vine material.  You’d have been rolling in dough by now.”

“I’d be making it rain,” Kevin said dreamily.  “The ladies would be going wild.”

“If only you were old enough to hire a prostitute,” you deadpanned.

Tyler laughed.  “She got you there, man.”

“I’m tall,” he protested.  “And any honey would be willing to bend rules to get with Kevin G.”

“But here you are, single as ever,” you said.  You gave the chair an extra boost, sending him spiralling.

Kevin spread his arms, smacking Marwan in the side with every twirl.  “I’m not ready to settle down.  I’m enjoying my options.”

“It’s a Friday night,” Marwan pointed out.  “I’m not seeing any options here, unless you count Y/N.”

The four of you were sitting in Tyler’s basement, with Twilight Zone reruns playing in the background.  The boys weren’t so much as texting any girls, let alone wooing them.

“Y/N does not count,” Kevin ceded.  “Unless she wants to go up to Tyler’s room.”

“Sure,” you said sweetly.  “C’mon, Tyler.  Give me a full tour.  Show me everything.”

“Ouch.”  Kevin stopped the chair to give you a cocky smile.  “I think I could give you just as good of a tour, babe.  Kevin G can show you what you wanna see.”

“Believe me, you can’t,” you lied.  It was an easy lie to give, and it didn’t feel like it costed you much.  Tyler’s eye roll, maybe.  Marwan’s huff of disbelief.

All Kevin did was put a hand over his heart.  “You don’t mean in.  You’ll come around.”

“Try again when you’re making it rain.”

“I will,” he promised.  “But you’ll come crawling back before then.”

“Fat chance,” you said, and the grin on his face made you wonder if he knew how flimsy the words were.

“Y/N,” he said eagerly.  “Y/N, girl, lovely lady -”

“Kevin,” you sighed back.  “Kevin, bro, man ho -”

“Woof,” he grinned.  “That would be offensive if it wasn’t my dream.”

You closed your English book and gave him your full attention.  “What’s up?”

“We should go door to door tonight to collect cans for the food drive.  I want that pizza party in homeroom, yo.”

Tyler looked up from his lunch, surprised.  “I thought that you and I were -”

“Nope,” Kevin said smoothly.  His body jerked, and there was a thump under the table.

Tyler winced, leaning down to rub his foot.  “Jesus Christ, fine.”

“Y/N, let’s do this thing,” Kevin said.

You grinned.  “Alright, let’s win a pizza party.”

Tyler shot you a pointed look.  You pretended not to notice.  Kevin was too busy charting a collection route to see the dopey smile on your face.

“Y/N, I swear to God, I’m going to kill someone if you don’t put Kevin out of his misery soon,” Tyler said earnestly.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s driving me insane.  He doesn’t talk about anything else, and his raps are sappy, and he’s so busy trying to prove a point to you that he won’t share food with anyone else -”

You snorted.  Your class didn’t win the food drive competition, but Kevin bought a pizza to share with you at lunch anyways.  When Tyler and Marwan tried to get in on the action, Kevin said that it was only for the people who went collecting.

“You’re being dramatic,” you said.  “Kevin’s always weird.  It’s why he’s a good friend.”

“He’s too busy being a good boyfriend to the girl he isn’t dating,” Tyler mumbled.  “You have to fix it.”

“By doing what?”

“Tell him that you like him.  Lie, and tell him that you don’t like him.”  Tyler rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest.  “I don’t care.  But you have to do something.”

“He doesn’t like me,” you said patiently.  “You’re being stupid.”

“And you’re being blind.”

You grinned.  “Believe me, Kevin would make a move if he felt something.  He’s never had any qualms about speaking his mind before.”

Tyler gave a non-committal hum.  “Tell him that you like him.  He’ll be stoked.”

“Or I won’t tell him, and I won’t be disappointed when he tries to let me down gently.”  That seemed like the far superior option.

“Because doing nothing is way better,” Tyler said.  “Totally.  That’s, like, the epitome of good seduction techniques.  Do absolutely nothing and hope that something changes.”

“Yikes.”

“It’s the truth.  Either you tell Kevin how you feel, or you try to move on.  Waiting hasn’t helped so far,” he pointed out.

That was true.  You were as single now as you had been when you first started noticing how incredible Kevin was.  Tell him, or move on.

Tell him.  You felt sick to your stomach when you imagined the horrified look on Kevin’s face when he realized that there were some decidedly not-friendly feelings mixing in the friendship.

Move on.  It didn’t feel any better to picture dating somebody else.

Okay, so both options felt awful.  That made things a little easier; you could go all Into The Woods on this and wait for something to decide for you.  You would wait for some sort of sign, and let that be the deciding factor.

You waited for a sign, and when it finally arrived, you felt worse than ever.

“If we rap all of our answers at States, the other team will be too intimidated to win,” Kevin insisted.

“Or they’ll answer everything before us,” Marwan counted, “because we’ll be wasting our time trying to freestyle.”

“That’s a personal problem,” Kevin said.  “I don’t need time.”

“Y/N, tell Kevin that his idea is dumb AF.”  Marwan didn’t bother looking at you, and you didn’t bother giving Kevin an apologetic grin.

“Kevin, that’s a bad plan.  Winning will make you cooler than a rap will.”

He deflated for a second, but the smile returned with vengeance.  “We’ll be hot stuff when we win,” he agreed.  “You’ll have to keep your distance, unless you want to burst into flames on contact.”

“I won’t see you that night.”  You sighed, all exaggerated disappointment, in the hopes that they wouldn’t hear the real disappointment that mingled with nerves.  “I’ll be at the dance.”

“What?”  All three of the boys gaped at you, but Tyler looked the most surprised of all.  “I thought you were coming to the competition.”

“I was, but then I got asked to the dance.”

Tyler’s eyes were the size of dinner plates.  “You’re going on a date?”

All faces in the room reflected varying degrees of horror, including you.  You could only hope that a smile would mask that fact that you really didn’t want to go on this date.  “C’mon, guys.  It isn’t that crazy that somebody would want to date me.”

“No, not crazy at all,” Kevin said, his face a few shades paler than it had been before.  “Who’d you sucker into hanging out with you for the night?”

“Seth Mosakowski,” you said.

Kevin gave a scathing snort.  “Dude, he made out with Karen Smith last year.  They’re cousins.”

“Good thing I’m not his cousin, then.”

“He’s an idiot,” Marwan said.

“Good thing I’m not, then.”

“You don’t even like him,” Tyler said emphatically.

You looked at your hands.  “Good thing he likes me, then.”  The words were saturated with bitterness, and it seemed like the mood got to the guys.  Smiles were rare for the rest of the afternoon, and they never belonged to Kevin.

Dances were trippy places.  It seemed like every moment was blending together, even the moment you were living in.  The next morning, you were sure, the entire night would be a messy blur of dim lighting and warm bodies.

You were hoping so, at least, because you weren’t sure that you wanted to remember this date.

Seth was nice, and it wasn’t his fault that this sucked serious balls.  It wasn’t his fault that you didn’t like his long, pointless stories.  It wasn’t his fault that you didn’t understand the inside jokes he had with his friends, or that you weren’t interested in learning them.  The only fault you could see in him was that he wasn’t the person you wanted to be there with.

“So we were in math class,” Seth said.

You hummed in acknowledgement, though he probably couldn’t hear you over the newest Ed Sheeran song.

“Jason was making a bang list for the junior class.”

You glanced back at the gym doors, wondering if it was too early to take your third bathroom break of the night.  A tall, dark head of hair was wading through the clumps of students, and everything felt clear for the first time all night.

“He ranked Taylor Wedell over Gretchen, but only when he knew Cady was close enough to hear and report it back to her.”

You waited until Kevin get near enough to hear, and called his name.  His head whipped toward you, warm grin plastered on before he even realized it was you.  It faltered when he saw you, followed up by something that made you ache.  “Looking pretty fly, G.  Mathletes jackets are super vogue.”

“Y/N,” Kevin said, a little strangled.  “You look amazing.”

“I know, right?”  Seth grinned.  “How goes it, Gnapoor?  You must have missed the memo - we were supposed to look good for this.  You wore the wrong outfit.”

Kevin’s smile was back.  “Mosakowski.  I was surprised to hear that you asked Y/N out; the two of you aren’t related.”

“Seth, can you leave us alone for a second?”  You gave him a sweet smile, flicking Kevin an irritated look.  Neither one looked pleased, but Kevin had the sense to look nervous.  “I have to ask Kevin a question about some homework that’s due Monday.”

“Text me later,” Kevin said.  “I’ve got a thing over there.”

“Over where?”

“Anywhere but here,” he mumbled.  “Have fun, Y/N.  Seth.”

“Not likely,” you mumbled while he brushed past.  You felt him pause, surprised, but you didn’t look back.

Kevin:  Norbury’s class.  five minutes

Y/N:  Why?

Kevin:  homework

You told Seth that you had to use the bathroom, and he didn’t question it.  You couldn’t tell if he truly believed that your bladder was a waterfall, or if he just wanted time away from you too.  It hardly mattered.

The classroom door was cracked open, but the light was off.  You loitered in front of the door for a minute, wondering if you should go in, until a hand reach out, grabbed your wrist, and yanked you through.

You gave a startled scream, but Kevin’s hand pressed against your lips.

“Jesus God, Y/N.  We aren’t supposed to be in here; don’t get us caught.”

“Don’t manhandle me, then,” you snapped back.  You had to stifle a grin at the sight of him, even with the irritation fueling you.  “If you thought that I had actual homework questions, you are going to be sorely disappointed.”

“If you thought that I was dumb enough to miss the fact that you were lying,” he replied with a wry smile, “you are going to be sorely disappointed.”

You took a few steps back and settled against a desk.  The room was too dark, too quiet, for you to stand that close to Kevin without imagining things that probably never happened outside of teen porn.  “What’s up?”

“You said that you were having a bad night,” he said, closing the door.  “Ya boi is saving you from a bad date.”

You did smile at that.  “How sweet.  What are you doing at the dance?  You had States.”

“We already won, so we thought we should come over.”

“Funny,” you said.  “It’s weird that you’d come to a dance, and then lock yourself in a room with me instead of actually dancing.”

“I don’t think it’s weird at all,” he said.  In three long strides, he came to your desk, put his hands on your waist, and kissed you.

Moments in the evening had been blurring before, but now everything was perfectly clear.  You were aware of everything - the lingering taste of an orange creamsicle that he must have had on the way over, the sound of corny music playing in the distant gym, the scrape of his teeth against your lips, the bite of the desk into your thighs.

If this was the sort of thing that only happened in teen porn, you didn’t want to be living anywhere else.

“Why the hell,” he mumbled against your lips, “would you go to homecoming with Seth Mosakowski?”

You snorted, giving the hair at the base of his neck a sharp tug.  “It’s not like I had a better offer.”

“I had a competition today!”

“You still showed up,” you said.  You pulled back a little, settling your arms around his neck in a loose hug.  Kevin was smiling, bewildered and hopeful.  

“Because I knew you were here,” he said.  

“You came to the dance, just to watch me on my date?”  

“Something like that.”

You looked pointedly between the lack of space between your bodies.  “You are a terrible casual observer.”

He kissed you again.  “I can’t stand by and watch Hick Central steal my girl.”

“Your girl?”

“I bought you a pizza,” he said, rubbing his nose against yours.  “I really thought that we were almost there.”

“You should have asked me out.”

“I thought we were almost there,” he said again.  “It was an unspoken thing, Y/N.”

You looked at the ceiling, thoughtful.  “I don’t remember agreeing to anything.”

“Babe.”

“Maybe I’ll have you as my classroom hookup, Seth as my dance partner, and a couple other guys on the side -”

“Bruh.”

You beamed.  “Hey, if nobody’s asking -”

“I’m asking,” he said.  Kevin wiped the smirk away, until the hope was all there was.  “Let’s go out on a date.  A real date - a spoken thing.”

“Are you sure that you can give up your man ho ways?”

“I can’t,” he teased.  “But I’m only a ho for you.”

“Awe, babe,” you said, snorting.  “I feel like that was supposed to be romantic, but it somehow wasn’t -”

He kissed you again, all smiles and happy sighs, and you responded in kind.

[elizabethrobertajones]

13x07 Watching Notes

Should probably not have multiple scenarios where I snark out loud and then the very next line of dialogue is that snark but innocently delivered.

Heyooo it’s not our Christmas cliffhanger though!

Expectations: It has literally just occurred to me right now sitting down to type out my expectations that this season's *entire* main plot so far has been "the spawn of satan is cuter than we expected".

I'm still trying to wrangle the idea of how you get hours of Buckleming plot twists and slow exposition out of this, although introducing 18 different angles for them to tackle the problem and returning us to the AU world is a good start to have at least 4 plot threads going and hey I feel like this episode is supposed to be a breather for having too many Jack episodes in a row which makes it even funnier that they're gonna have to deal with the absence of something but who knows maybe he will show up before episode 9. If not they may genuinely be tricked into considering narrative negative space in some form or another, at least by the actual omission of Jack from the episode, despite the fact it has to be about him.

There's like at least 3 individual ways each arc might go terribly, and I'm typing this as pre-yoga thoughts while trying to do my NaNoWriMo and I watched Brooklyn 99 already this morning, and essentially I'm pretty much just bracing against "Oh god this new sleep pattern is the worst and it has ruined nearly every episode this season for me" migraines. So I'm just gonna be super chill because the stress of this ridiculous bed at 8pm awake at 5am thing is killing me without bad writing on my favourite show.

So, instead of modelling a worst case scenario, here's a best case one: it's crowded, the pacing is bad, there's some bizarre lines of dialogue and no room for any character interaction and the sneak peek already showed us the sum total of Destiel interaction but in hindsight with the rest of the episode that's actually a plus, and aside from that there's no rape or catastrophic bad decisions or characterisation that just makes our guys look like idiots because the villains aren't that smart and they're still outwitting them or something. Cas wasn't even mentioned in the episode description if I recall and I would like to think that is because he gets Buckleminged in the way where they forget he exists so he's in 2 scenes and just kinda stops at some point and that's the last we hear of him for a few episodes but at least nothing happened to him :P

(It HELPS that the bad decision of the year seems like it should be Jack and Kaia ganging up in 13x09 and this is just a plot filler episode where they can't blow everything up from sheer incompetence, since the main plot is still Jack, and all Buckleming can do is escalate stuff but not so much we find Jack, so they're mostly running free with Lucifer, Michael and Asmodeus on the playground they've been permitted to keep them distracted. On the other hand, that does not lend itself towards 'storytelling structure' whatsoever. So I may derive some fun from mentally re-writing this episode as it goes as well.)

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Hi I'm back and I have tea and preemptive paracetamol and look I not do crap like this lightly but the only thing wrong with me is sleep and yoga but glug glug glug down the hatch, I'm not fucking around, migraine. I swear to god if I even see a HINT of you...

-

I should also mention that my only prep for this episode was watching Tall Tales last night with my mum because we're lightly re-watching season 2 and I thought you know what look how far that fucker has come that he's just one of the show's regular directors now or something. I forgot that completely this morning so I'm amending my expectations (it WAS annoyingly early in the day) to add that Speight hasn't directed a Buckleming yet but I'm interested to see how he handles it.

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The episode starts with Mary cheerfully punching Lucifer at least 3 times in the face. I am still extremely proud of her for doing that but overall disappointed that it's led to her banishment to be a Buckleming character this season, which has been a fast way to ruin characters.

We get the entire first minute of the recap in Buckleming POV, aka they write the corny villains - and specifically a lot of Asmodeus point of view, his summary of the situation and what needs doing, having graciously inherited this throne, and comments on where Lucifer is as a sort of trailing off, well that's not my concern if he's gone. Only at the minute mark does the recap flip around to something genuinely ABOUT Jack as we've been seeing him, rather than trying to sell Jack as woooo Lucifer's scaaary son. Suddenly Jack's own identity crisis and him leaving.

Maybe it's just because they were trimming for time, but they cut the "all of you" from "I know I'm going to hurt you" but they also left the focus on Sam. I am mostly amused that by removing the clarification - which has been a theme of the season - it reduces that moment to a bare minimum surface layer, as if to say bye bye writing depth hello random action.

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I had a burgeoning theory last year from one episode or another that pretty much everyone is lampooning Buckleming while letting them get on with writing their stuff, and trying to run loops around them in basically any other way.

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There was something going on on screen involving a lot of stock footage while I was digging around in my bag looking for my 3DS assuming this was gonna be a Lucifer scene. I still think they're softening him up to kill him, but that's something I have to hope. One of the other non-redemption options is that they need to make him at least halfway manageable if he is gonna end up working with Cas or something. There is something vaguely appropriate matching Buckleming dialogue to Lucifer melodramatics, but unfortunately I really can't give these writers or that character much of a chance so while I'm happy to let them take him to play with over on their bit of the story like a chew toy to keep them off the stuff I like, it is annoying this is all the canon of the show I like >.>

-

One or the other of Buckleming really really dislikes God and organised religion though, and that does often lend the interesting thing to an episode where for some reason as soon as religion is involved the writing actually gets halfway decent.

One thing Lucifer says that catches my interest is his idea the universe is written without irony, when tbh that has literally been his downfall in season 5, and in general the universe is ironic to the WINCHESTERS to whom the universe is actually happening to, and there's the whole Dean is the centre of the universe thing, and THEN there's Billie's line about how sometimes the universe is poetic, coupled with how Dean got Cas back entirely through dramatic irony. I can't remember if Chuck commented on dramatic irony. Anyway Lucifer sucks, the story doesn't happen to him and he doesn't have the resources to read it. Metatron *thrived* on that sort of thing.

-

I like the visual of Michael standing with the sun behind him - it gives him absolutely the divine look he'd love to have, and I just wish he didn't have randomly shirtless Lucifer taking up some of that visual. If someone doesn't make a gifset chopping Lucifer out to just enjoy that image, I will make one, perhaps.

Something else to enjoy about this: they locked Mark P in some sort of medieval torture device and no matter how comfy you try and make it, there's obvious limits to that, so I will enjoy that he had to do that.

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Michael sees that Lucifer is scared of being locked up and caged, which actually is... accidentally or not... a pretty clever callback, although it wouldn't have killed them to have Michael deduce this on screen, because in 9x18 Dean - Michael's vessel - deduces that Gadreel - a blatant Lucifer parallel in many respects while obviously not in many many others - is terrified of being caged again.

Of course that exchange is one of the single most fascinatingly well-acted exchanges of the entire show which on my umpteenth viewing still knocks me completely flat so it's not a FAIR comparison, but it is an interesting one.

-

I like that Michael think that the main universe is already paradise - in comparison to his shithole, definitely, because it still has pretty stock footage. Thematically interesting since obviously paradise is a bit of an issue with what people want...

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LOL Wanek's ridiculous "concrete bunker" set... The camera pulls back and there's a massive Jesus on the wall and Lucifer's hanging behind him screeching and it's like... That is an inanimate lump of wood and I can see it rolling its eyes at you.

In the earlier moments out here in the AU we saw the church from 8x23 poking up out of the rubble, and whether this is the same one or not NOW, because I think it was a bit too buried to be this one, it conjures the memory of 8x23, and that one was interesting specifically because Jesus wasn't there - the cross had only his hands and feet remaining and the rest had been torn down. Sam was inserted into that empty space because he was doing the big heroic world-saving sacrifice that from one direction of pure irony the episode was named after (since he decided not to do it/the real motives for his sacrifice were way more interesting than him going through with it heroically anyway etc) but it was another Sam and Jesus moment, like in 5x22 where he more straight-forwardly sacrificed himself.

(And jeeze you watch one episode with the guy and now I can't get him out of my head - remembering in 9x18 Gabriel snarking about how he died for their sins and then making one of the few Jesus references on the show. Jesus is usually extremely absent from this show, so actually having him on screen is very interesting)

Anyway I am pretty sure this is almost entirely to remind Lucifer what a great big fucking drama queen he is being about this all and of course he's sacrificing for nothing.

-

Blah blah promo scene.

They have the photo of Jack from Mia's security camera which means no one has snapped a cute picture of him on their phone yet, Cas included. Disappointing.

-

Now, I'm pretty hesitant to get into characterisation in BL episodes, and Dean just generically wryly comments on how powerful Jack is which could mean anything but Sam then says he might be covering his tracks and then Cas, who has to be written sympathetic to Jack, comes through the door saying that it could mean Jack is in trouble with the various forces that want to control him. Sam's comment coupled with Cas's interruption seems to make it much more likely that Sam's comment is to be taken as vaguely unnerved/suspicious of what Jack can do, and that he's doing things like that Dean implies. That Jack learned so fast he might be able to cause a fair amount of destruction but conceal it from them and if they're trying to track him, Sam is expecting destruction.

-

Dean also came from the kitchen with coffees so why is Cas coming from the back of the Bunker... I'm gonna have to assume he was until just now lounging around in Dean's bed and Dean was like I better go get coffee and help Sam and Cas was like yeah but thanks for the 'sorry your son ran away' sex i feel a lot better and Dean was like no problem babe, and probably gave Cas one of those ridiculous shoulder nudges in the most no homo way ever before he got up to find where they threw his underwear an hour earlier, and Cas just kinda chilled while Dean was getting the coffee so as not to be suspicious by piling in on Sam after taking the exact same length break from the search but then they fucked it up and still managed to enter the scene within 30 seconds of each other.

Yeah, that's probably it.

-

I just saw the list of guest stars wander by and took 3 emergency gulps of my tea at that combo of Osric and for some reason DHJ because file that under genuinely unexpected :P

-

PS: I know we knew Kevin would be back this year but the fact I managed to find Kevin thematic stuff in the last 2 episodes in a row still feels important to me as storytelling rather than foreshadowing.

-

Anyway Cas tries to tell Dean the angels don't like him, and Dean volunteering to go with him because "i could go with you" is a thing and they keep doing it to each other and ow

-

Blah blah we could work a case. Are you serious? I really seriously hope this is not literally Buckleming's thought process about wtf do we do with Sam and Dean this episode after establishing maybe 4-5 other plotlines we need to handle away from them. I hope it turns out to be directly main plot related, whatever they stumble on, but we already now have them in a position where any involvement with the main stuff will be them stumbling on it or it coming to them. See above: ways in which the main characters are automatically made to be stupid. Subtle things, like not being able to imagine a way in which Sam and Dean are resourceful enough to even start to find Jack which doesn't involve googling things.

I mean we have no clue what you're doing with this random witch seeming case, why can't you bring a detail foreward if it's from the main plot to give us a clue. And if it's not, tell us something connected to it which will at least make Sam and Dean interested in it as a lead? Even if they're not right about why, put them on the trail because they're good at their jobs!

-

Anyway hi Asmodeus? As soon as we clear the promo scene etc I start assuming everyone is Asmodeus

I mean, in this case it literally is. but you can't trust anyone these days.

He needs to have his equivalent scene to sitting around in the Bunker googling, which, which is to say, the same type of minions who brought Crowley or Lucifer news are now coming toadying in to tell Asmodeus news, and the only difference is his name is harder to spell.

He's trying to do the same thing reaching out to Jack that we saw Lucifer trying to do last season, to Dagon. There is always the possibility that Asmodeus just isn't powerful enough to get into Jack's head from this extreme range when he has no idea where he is. Loser.

This minion seems to be mistakenly labelling Jack as "the Jack", maybe not as a mark of respect but more misunderstanding what he is, that he's not a thing, that that's his name...

-

Asmodeus asks who's protecting Jack, and cut to the image of Jesus again. I don't know about him, but tbh it could just be that Jack is protecting HIMSELF and they've massive underestimated him to do that. Jesus on this show represents a lot more of the personal autonomy saving yourself thing.

Also hey as long as we're not seeing Jack, we're getting that gosh darned hole in the narrative that he represents while he's missing. Is this actually a lesson in subtlety?

-

Michael meanwhile is enjoying tormenting Lucifer some more because blah blah sole purpose in life and what do you even do when you win.

Lucifer appears to have claimed to be a god in the SPN verse and Michael's like, here you're pathetic, and I'm like, mate, he was pretty pathetic in the main SPN universe too

-

There's some cool crosses on the walls which are trying to help, bringing light into this church.

-

Yeah where is Mary anyway - I wasn't gonna ask, but then Lucifer seemed to imply that Michael was keeping her around.

I mean sheesh the easiest way to get Mary around is to just have her in the scene still lurking but then film it as if it's almost entirely from her eyeballs POV if she doesn't have anything else to be doing right now - having her witnessing this theatre as the person from the main SPN world who's come over here.

-

KEV

-

Awwww he's gone a wee bit off the rails in this world, seeing as he'd have had to be helping Michael and reading tablets the entire time and also the entire world appears to be destroyed.

-

I don't know why Lucifer's having a personal reaction to Kevin unless I totally forgot something but they were literally never in the same seasons as each other although weirdly both in 11x21 so obviously must just be angels would know all the prophetsand which one was currently active... Maybe he's just surprised that in the AU Kevin survived even longer than he did in the supposedly better world.

Well there aren't any Winchesters in this one and Lucifer always underestimates them, in this case positively re: likelihood of getting Kevin killed :P

-

Oh great they're powering down Lucifer a bit. Well that should make him much more irritating.

I mean mostly because everything makes him irritating.

But it means the show wants him around some more but they can't have him at full power because it's just inconvenient so now they're finding a reason to water him down so they can have him around dragging his heels and complaining. I suppose it might make some comparisons to Cas, who's on a smidgen of left-over grace, but again, see also: eye rolling wooden Jesus, there's no way you can redeem Lucifer and not by comparing him to Cas.

Metatron got some sort of treatment but he was nowhere near like Cas even when he was done being redeemed and he still had to be killed off doing a heroic thing rather than let him stick around.

I'm just grinding my teeth and I already got part of the way through the next scene but UGH

-

So hey thinking of random versions of other characters why is DHJ's magnificent facial hair making a cameo return role on this side of the interdimensional nosense? You can't just grow a beard and start hunting witches on the down low on the winchesters' turf.

I'm assuming including DHJ's names in the credits was specifically some sort of nonsense now

specifically monsters going around looking like other things.

Maybe it was a shapeshifter Ketch punched a few weeks ago. It's only been a few weeks since he died, you know.

Maybe it's Asmodeus.

Maybe it's maybelline

The plot reason for the beard had better be hilarious.

-

I like Daniella the Beret Witch. For some reason I thought she looked tons like the witch Sam and Dean were looking at on the CCTV but when I went back to look I actually spotted her in the background watching them and waiting to make her move, and she doesn't look like the one on the CCTV at all so I guess my brain clocked her and filed her away because she was sitting around in a huge scarf, sunglasses and a beret and my brain didn't want me to not pay attention to her in case she was useful.

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Kevin's weirdly pristine but still grey hoodie is making me giggle. He looks like the AU has barely touched him and Michael's even dirty and ragged.

I'm not sure I even want to touch random morality discussions from Buckleming. Lucifer says Michael is pure evil, Kevin says "aren't you Satan?" and Lucifer really hasn't done anything ever to make us actually want to root for him. Like sure Michael is the much worse bigger bad in the show's rankings but that doesn't make Lucifer less quanitifiably evil. Michael's way more complex because Lucifer is the big cartoon evil that Sam had to originally fear, the "what if I am actually evil" character mirror that obviously Sam isn't but it meant Lucifer needed no character complexity other than whiny manipulative interpretations of how he'd been mistreated where he could protest he had a side. Michael is waaaay more complex just in the like 2 episodes he actually talks in season 5 because he's "what if Dean was the big bad" and he's not evil, he's just 100% black and white morality rigid "good" in the sense of punishing evil, to the point of not questioning an order to kill his brother, and not even having a particularly "cool motive still murder" approach like Cain, but literally just like well okay then I guess I will kill my brother. How to make DEAN evil, or to personify the darkness that lives in him.

I mean I am massively simplifying but dear lord Buckleming if you read my notes this is the baseline direction you need to be writing these characters from and I am trying to HELP.

I am genuinely feeling like you're mistaking "apparent fan favourite because they make a lot of memes about him, Lucifer" as "this must mean people genuinely like him because he's Lucifer" and any possible reason I would find him interesting as a villain who was held up to just kinda exist and be himself doing his awful things contrasted to Michael who was just around existing and doing his awful things, is all just draining away down the toilet. Like you've got Lucifer lodged in there and you're flushing and flushing around him >.>

Anyway I'm going to take this entire scene as 100x more ironic than it was probably originally intended to be, that Kevin is not exactly right about Michael (and lol, Michael being the Dean parallel just kinda using Kevin all the time for random spells and always having him on the hook for doing things for them) but he's sure not wrong about Lucifer, Lucifer protesting Michael is evil because he's mistreating him and has destroyed this planet sure isn't WRONG but it's not a "so therefore I must be right"

And I kind of think the level of subtlety this writing is at is that "Michael is a dick and therefore Lucifer looks better in comparison"

But that's not how any of this works

*insert Jesus eyeroll*

-

*pats poor overworked manic AU!Kevin's hair*

I wonder if he's actually going to be able to do it

it would be HILARIOUS if they waste Lucifer's grace on this

-

Hey he did it, I'm proud of you AU!Kev. He always manages to do the thing :P

Okay not good that Lucifer has just been thrown back because A: Mary is still trapped over there, I assume for the much more important emotional arc stuff to do with rescuing her especially in the parallel to getting Cas back and all this stuff for Sam's arc and all

But UGH the writing of Lucifer is just really annoying me on so many levels and punting him back into the main SPN universe depowered and humbled by his brother, just annoys me so much.

Like I don't know how much more less enthused I have to be about Lucifer having struggles.

Boo hoo

-

Last season Dean got mistaken for homeless after he got hit with the memory spell, and was offered cash to make him go away.

he handled it considerably better than Lucifer.

I am just gonna assume this random woman is Asmodeus.

Lucifer probably ought to go grab that cash he was offered...

-

Oh wait here's Asmodeus, torturing some poor bloke called Karl who apparently works at the motel from last week.

I'm impressed they managed to track Jack that far, tbh

The question is, is there an actual memo that the Winchesters are camped in an old, heavily warded, impossible to map or locate MoL bunker, or is that something you only find out after you tail them for a bit? I mean Jack might not be there any more either but it would be a start :P

I feel extra skeevy about this scene because Asmodeus is being a total moron for starters by not checking Karl's level of clued in to this, and so he's this white plantation owner coded guy in his shiny white suit, torturing a black guy who isn't even on the same level as him for info he doesn't have, and could in no way be resonably expected to know. So it's doubly cruel. Although in some respects Asmodeus's coding makes this gratuitous violence a commentary, just like Buddy and Dave being collosal douches to women in the last few episodes was called out in many ways simply by their existence and coding as collosal douches.

Still not nice to watch on screen, especially without even more specific reference to Asmodeus's doucheyness because the stupidity of this dialogue is not helping.

Like did the minions just bring Karl to him and say hey we tracked the Winchesters and Jack this far, he might know more?

Like...

This is the sort of basic intelligence test fail here, that they're not over-thinking this scene in the specific details that you need to not have your main villain parade around displaying total idiocy over.

Like why the Winchesters would book into a motel under "Sam and Dean Winchester and Jack the Nephilim" and then Karl would know that and know what that means.

You can't just drag a normy into the Hell Main Office and torture them for info about Jack when they have no clue who that is.

He literally

can shapeshift

into anything

Go to the Stampede Motel, turn into a pretty girl in a low cut top, and lean on the motel check in desk until you know what you were after.

I'm no longer impressed they found Karl, I'm AMAZED.

-

Why did they kiiiiill him

-

Lol Asmodeus is so hammy

what's he sensing

Has he figured out Lucifer is back?

-

Meanwhile: Sam and Dean voluntarily go to a creepy cabin in the woods with a witch. This is not quite as stupid as Asmodeus was just being.

-

I am loving the plot development that David Hayden Jones has returned to the show as himself to find Rowena. Like dammit, you were a really cool character I had no interaction with but we coulda had some screen magic for all you know. You may or may not be in this episode as a surprise appearance which as Lizzy said putting MY name in the credits is the "hey it's that guy" fuckery to distract from the fact there's some bigger fuckery at foot (like... aside from the fact I was back to back with OSRIC FUCKING CHAU) because you don't *just* randomly put my very recognisable name in the credits at the start of the episode with Osric unless it's because something's up. So heeey here I am, I'm looking for Rowena, because dangit Ruthie deserves another chance to be in this show.

-

Daniella is also really slow to realise that Sam just said she was going to be bait. It took until Dean repeated it for her to realise.

-

She's really pretty though.

-

She starts choking like several moments before the gas hits her

-

... is that DHJ?

-

I mean we're getting a close up on his face but I literally. Do. Not. Recognise. Him.

I remember rambling at some point in my watching notes in season 12 when his face was being particularly hilarious after I'd seen con photos of DHJ that Ketch is one of the most effective character disguises I've ever seen for an actor's face. TBH it's the same weird different face thing I get from Alex Calvert - that he's all clean shaven and filmed as a wee nougat child in the show but he has an instagram of unrecognisable smouldering glamour shots, often with scruff. DHJ has a beard and that's his face, and part of the Ketch look was being clean shaven and crammed in a tight collar which is an incredibly British upper class twit look, and even in other clothes later the illusion lasted... But add a beard and stop grooming his hair and he just turns into some other person entirely.

-

Ah well, Dean gets to punch DHJ with Ketch's accent again which must be satisfying for him.

-

Did they take DHJ back to the Bunker? Really?

-

Oh he doesn't have the tattoo

LOL he's his "twin" "brother"... Obviously.

Yeah okay whatever you say, DHJ.

-

elizabethrobertajones Hey what if DHJ was actually Rowena

mittensmorgul oh god, don't give them ideas

-

ALSO if you have an "evil twin brother" you would generally assume that this sort of thing would happen a lot and you'd try and clarify sooner? I bring up my twin like every other time I talk about myself.

Also this is a ridiculous concept I refuse to engage with

-

I mean, thematically, wowsers. Fits right in with Buddy and Dave and things that look like other things

-

ALSO DHJ has been going around torturing witches so it's not like he's been the good twin

-

ALSO WHY IS HE HERE?

-

Apparently he's a hitman hunter

-

I suppose it's kind of like Bela but I do find it really strange.

Like how does anyone even know to hire him if no one knows monsters exist? Who is pointing him at these things?

Insinuating himself into situations like Bela to get work maaay be a way to do it, like if the Winchesters showed up in town and immediately told the sheriff what was up and then offered their fee as contractors or something. Pfft.

Pfft.

-

And then he's like "we hunters" because he's trying to bond with them or something

-

To google!

-

It's convenient he kept a beard his whole life

-

Oh okay Sam stole hard drives from the BMoL and is using their actual data.

-

I like the side by sides of their report cards where the prop people literally did them backwards from each other. "*More effort required!" they say about Alexander, and "Excellent work!" for Arthur.

-

Dean isn't buying it

-

LOL they dumped Ketch's corpse into the waste canal.

Do you want a haunted Bunker? That's how you get a haunted Bunker.

-

Anyway Dean is like NOPE don't believe it and Sam's like... there's so much proof... and then he goes in to question DHJ again and DHJ is like... you literally saw me get shot in the head last season, you don't trust that? And Sam's like no I had to concede that Dean had a point that we really can't trust anything and I guess Cas did just randomly come back or something and we have horrific problems with the white men on this show coming back again for completely random reasons that make no sense so you had better bloody well actually be re-introducing Rowena into the narrative even more dramatically than the warning Billie gave about the red-headed witch that Dean probably didn't tell me about now come to think of it, but I'd still like to see her again because we had a sort of weird thing we never really talked about going on...

-

Also are they keeping DHJ in the store room that showed up for the pencil scene but isn't the other store room? It looks like a different part of the Bunker repurposed.

-

Sam mis-reads Ketch, maybe because he never knew him as well as Mary or even Dean saw him. DHJ is like dude I played him for a year and psychoanalysed him and his crush on Dean in multiple interviews, so trust me when I tell you all his character exposition.

The stuff about being loyal to Heaven - I mean the BMoL - and being a company man echo what Ishim said about old Cas in 12x10

-

DHJ like, I did so much character work in those interviews, and I never got a chance for Ketch to be sympathetic so let me offer some more insight on him now you have me in the worst interview chair ever.

Also, don't go into pop culture journalism, Sam

-

"If he were here, he'd admit regret to some of the things he did to your family"

Yeah unless you have a magic twin link (well... not unlikey tbh with random ass canon pulls) you're either Arthur Ketch or just DHJ enjoying doing interviews about Ketch to a twisted and weird level and I'm sort of gonna have to do an intervention on this for him.

-

CAS

-

NEW PLAYGROUND

-

New angel!

mittensmorgul dumas? that's the name the superwiki has linked, but her page is blank

elizabethrobertajones Heh 3 musketeers again first in the off-brand nougat now that

-

"If we had him he wouldn't be imprisoned he'd be put to work"

SHE WANTS NEW ANGELS

I don't freakin blame her

But Jack shouldn't be "put to work" either - he would have to want to do it.

Awww Cas getting protective over Jack before I'm done typing that of course this means Jack would be forced to do it and the angel says "No other choice" because of course she does.

As usual heaven isn't comic book evil but its purposes in the name of "good" are super shady. Even if Jack was pure evil himself, Heaven enslaving a powerful nephilim for its own purposes would be dodgy.

-

Btw I am still torn about Cas's compulsion to care about Jack but on the other hand I am really enjoying Cas generally existing and being alive - and wait a minute she didn't even ask about how he was doing that - so I'm pretty much enjoying the surface level about Cas and Jack right now. Because of course I see the good in Jack that he DOES need protecting, so however Cas ended up on this, at least he is doing the right thing and taking the right stance.

-

"Castiel, he's not your pet. He belongs to all of us."

-

Uhoh, Cas is probably going to get grabbed.

*surprise*

Hey he did pretty well considering he's fighting 3 angels and is much weaker than them.

-

Oh boy, here's Lucifer. This is gonna go great.

-

Does Cas or Lucifer need to start this with the "you're supposed to be dead/in the AU" first?

-

Lol, Cas is the first person in this entire damn episode to actually ask a relevant question, and it's one we already know the answer to

*waves a little flag for Cas though*

Hey and then Lucifer asks about Cas being alive, what do you know.

He then calls Cas "cowboy" and pretends like Cas wouldn't kick his ass.

I am pretty happy about the "cowboy" thing :P

-

Lucifer has found a tan jacket somewhere, specifically one that looks like the one Jack was wearing but maybe a bit thicker, more like Cas's new coat. He's trying to edge in on this family and I can only assume this is not even a veiled metaphor for the douchey biological father wanting to be all interested in his son's business.

Lucifer in a tan jacket makes me think wolf in sheep's clothing.

-

He does, however, shelve the issue of child custody for now, and he appears to be genuinely freaked out enough about Michael to make that a priority and tell Cas about it, because if you want help against Michael, we've had 2 references to Team Free Will in short succession and that was a phrase coined specifically to spite Michael...

I don't think Lucifer should be allowed in, remotely, because it's become a family term, but the imagery is interesting anyway that he is trying to leech off the success of TFW to accomplish the goals he could never do himself. Especially because it was blatant in season 5 to everyone but him that Michael would kick his butt since he already did it once before and nothing has changed, 12x12 confirmed Michael would kill him slowly, and now meeting an AU Michael, he discovers that yep Michael sure is stronger than him, even when he was the last strong archangel left, and then Michael took that from him...

-

None of this, however, makes Lucifer sympathetic or good, just self-interested in not dying, and who is better at not dying than Cas?

I mean he wasn't even expecting to see Cas here, I guess he was going to a heaven portal to try and get them to listen?

-

LOL Kingdom Beer sign over Cas and Lucifer having a chat in a bar.

Cas looks Weary.

"I came back from the dead to deal with THIS? Please take me back to yesterday when it was fun kinky cowboy times with Dean."

-

I'm glad Cas isn't remotely friendly to Lucifer and is quick to remind him about how killed he got last time they hung out. Lucifer continues to be whiny and annoying about it all, unrepentant for killing Cas over petty nonsense.

-

LOL Lucifer is like "this Michael is much more powerful"

buddy. dude. go watch 12x12 then get back to me about how whooped your butt would have been. I mean go look at that lovely painting of him whooping your butt that was in 12x12 and unrelated to the fact he had that fucking lance in the first place.

-

Anyway he's trying to convince Cas to use his influence on Jack to get them to be the ultimate team up but they're fundamentally incapable of doing that because they're the 2 rival dads for Jack and blatantly symbolically being shown as that in these costumes, and that's one of the huge thematic things.

-

Cas like "You are the Weakest Link, goodbye."

-

I love Cas being so snarky, so maybe Lucifer being around is good in some respects, that it makes Cas this snarky because he has something to bounce off as awful and despised as Lucifer. Not even Crowley got THIS dismissive treatment, because they had emotional baggage that was of a whole different sort, whereas Cas and Lucifer have been opposite mirrors the whole time since season 4

-

Lucifer is emphasising how he and Cas are the big cosmic powers around here, with Jack. Hm...

Lol Cas is like "I'm calling my guys who deal with these things" and Lucifer bangs his head on the table in despair. I guess this is like the boy who called wolf except that instead of calling wolf he was literally going around eating all the sheep and was banned from being a shepherd for life and locked away and got out and ate more sheep and was locked away and got out and ate more sheep and got locked away and THEN came back like oh hi something's gonna eat all our sheep.

-

Lucifer then says Cas needs him and that he needs Cas and they all need Jack.

So Um I guess "Need" is The Worst Word right now :P

-

"Jack. Your son's name is *Jack*" *pats Cas's hair*

Pfft themes "is he a chip off the old block?" "thankfully, no. he seems to favour the mother"

Theeeeeeeeemes

-

Cas squinting when he lies - I don't think that's his lying tell because he does it too much, but perhaps uncertainty. The fact he squinted so much in the reintroduction huggy scene last episode feels to me less like lying and more like no clue what was going on and how mad he had to be about his humans sacrificing for him to come back.

-

Laughing at all their labelled phones lying around permanently charging. I think this is the first proof we've ever seen that they have a Bobby phone bank, but I can't imagine who would rely on the Winchesters to answer the phone when they need proof of ID :P They're like ALWAYS being abducted or disappearing on cases.

Or dying.

-

Okay so the phones are more just for their personal IDs for the cards THEY give out and they're just getting a call back from the motel for some reason, I suppose because Jack was with them (seriously. Dean gave the motel the name Jack? I have to assume Jack said his name before they could re-name him on the fly and so he was registered as a guest there as Jack the Nephilim because why the fuck not... Berens has a magic skill of un-fucking Buckleming canon but it seems Buckleming's skill is fucking up poor Davy's, in 12x13 and 12x17 and now here...)

ANYWAY jesus christ Asmodeus is stupid. "Evil Colonel Sanders" literally walked in and abducted Karl in person which means that his stupid ass questions weren't even because his minions brought him the guy and presented him in an idiotic way, but our shapeshifting villain wandered in and took Karl, himself in person with his own freaking face that the Winchesters KNEW and is extremely memorable, and took his prize.

...

DHJ better turn out to be Asmodeus even though I think their screentime overlapped and this makes no freaking sense since he has some established history wandering around attacking witches before they caught up with him.

-

I'd rather have a time plothole than a stupid plothole :P

-

Anyway DHJ is hanging out with them in the library eating a sandwich because... um

reasons?

At least he's in chains.

-

Oh my god I said that sarcastically moments before Sam said it sincerely and then pointed out there's no bathroom in the armoury

what the fuck

-

Like I said up top: as stupid as the villain is, your main characters have to be about as dumb as they are, either only just enough to outwit them, or more stupid if they get outwitted...

Poor Sammy, he was having such a fantastic season

-

Dean just straight up pretends Mary is phone when DHJ asks because why the heck would you monologue your sad life story to the bad guy, and give him emotional leverage over you? Especially when he ASKS because "Alexander" should have no knowledge of Mary or care about her, but then he also shouldn't know the DHJ interview details of Ketch's inner life.

-

YAY Dean and Cas are talking and Dean phoned Cas probably just to hear a sane voice because Cas is managing to weave around being Buckleminged, so far, possibly just because he was not in the opening half of the episode, and then this was a really important conversation they couldn't fuck up so probably got supervised.

-

elizabethrobertajones tee hee Cas standing by the gents to take a call from Dean wait hang on ... I'm not even being jokey I literally just had that moment in the chat with you :P *rewinds* Longing retcon Confirmed Oh dear that is hilarious I don't know if that's the moment you wanted me to see or not but I'm delighted :P

elizabethrobertajones Cas was standing away from Lucifer ready to take Dean's phone call and had to have walked off up to a minute before he called, but most likely in that time when Dean was like UGH I need to talk to Cas and hear the one sane voice in this episode and Cas was like... Brb I... have to use... the 'Gents' and got up and wandered off to take the call eat it, 12x10 and that "where's my phone" moment I mean Buckleming introduced it to fill a plothole so why should they not use it to cover more plotholes at their leisure

... did Speight know? I mean he coulda been like what the heckeroo, and added Cas getting the call and legging it from the table.

-

The only other option I can think of is Cas decided he may as well just get up to "go pee" because Lucifer is so annoying that pretending he needs to go to the loo buys him 5 minutes to let his migraine subside.

-

Also what the fuck DHJ was wandering around the bunker so he could use the bathroom. I am confused. Is this actually like... being hinted at. Like, "hey children, please remember who does and doesn't need to use the bathroom in this episode"

-

Omg

Cas like "I would *like* to see you too" is he literally pretending he and Dean were canoodling on the phone as a cover?

-

I hate everything

-

Anyway need/want blah blah I have been over that a lot lately :P Cas is using his DESIRE to see Dean to get help, by Lucifer saying he NEEDS Cas.

-

"Smooth was never your strong suit" oh my god Lucifer also thought Cas was pretending to be flirty too what is going on

why has this episode confirmed all the headcanons about Cas being the most shittiest phone sex guy ever

of all the things.

why.

-

DHJ wants to go because he misses being in on the action with the guys

-

Like. No, go take your sandwich and sit down.

-

Dean is sad about Cas always getting killed by Lucifer and stuff when he does stupid things.

-

Cas's "ugh stop talking Lucifer" face is a whole layer more existential misery than dealing with Crowley... I think he was secretly fond of Crowley or at least enjoyed hating him, whereas Lucifer is just EXHAUSTING.

He's needling Cas for attention.

-

LOL randomly Asmodeus as if Cas's headache wasn't bad enough, now we got thunder and lightning and very very frightening...

Pfft.

-

bahahaha Lucifer called Asmodeus the dim bulb

I mean he's not wrong, Asmodeus has been completely idiotic all episode. And of course, narratively, his "evil plans" are just self-interest which will endanger the entire world because even if Lucifer is a twat, he has a point about the coming danger of Michael, and Asmodeus just refuses to see the danger, which is all kinds of various political commentary, and using his era aesthetic to say this kind of thinking is such a throwback...

-

I think this might be the most confused Cas has ever been about if he should stab someone or not - if he actually WANTS to defend Lucifer. Not really, but Asmodeus seems like a bigger problem because at least Lucifer isn't trying to kill him.

-

I hope this just randomly gets Asmodeus killed.

Or Lucifer

-

Asmodeus just called Lucifer "screwable"... do they even know what they said? :P

-

EEEP there was a Margiekugel sign and it just flickered off

-

"Nick's bar" pfft because Lucifer?

-

It seems like Sam and Dean are too late and Asmodeus already made off with everyone?

I hope Cas is okay

being held captive by that idiot seems like a fate worse than death. You're going to get villain monologues all day.

-

Anyway fight fight fight

-

Good fight.

-

Where did DHJ even come from?

-

that was a ridiculous nonsense about how he escaped. I also will die if he took Dorothy's bike and not his own left stashed there. Also he nodded at Dean like hey you didn't cavity search me like you should have, which... Is he actually Ketch?

-

He's actually Ketch

Of course that means Dean knows him very well and trusted his gut instinct on knowing Ketch to prove that he was not, in fact, the actor David Hayden Jones, chillaxing on set and being weirdly cheerful about being beaten up by the Winchesters.

-

Pfft he used Rowena's charm to get alive again

-

Well she better be fine if they're gonna use her like this.

-

"Is she?"

-

LOL Ketch ninja'd out of there

Oh good it wasn't Dorothy's bike

Considering how they use Rowena, DON'T use Mary, etc I'd have taken Dorothy's bike as a personal insult. I guess Ketch rode his over to the Bunker before 12x22.

-

I mean at least this means Ketch remembers he got shot and then also he revived in a sewer where he belonged because he is garbage.

-

Wait. He set up this whole thing in like a month or so TOPS since he got shot? If he’s been chasing witches has he even had TIME for a side business?

-

Oh boy, Asmodeus using Cas's voice to talk to Dean.

BAD HELLO DEAN.

That "see you soon" is also way too cheerful. It should be as much of a tip off as Cas begging Dean to come help him in the previous call.

-

I hope Dean sees through it.

Though it's so Buckleming-y I don't think people should be mad if he doesn't because this was them doing a smart!Dean episode.

-

PFFT of course they team up - colonialism from all sorts of fun angles!! The ultimate trashy white guys in suits team up.

-

Thanks Buckleming!

-

Man, I need a whole pot of detox tea now. I don't even have closing thoughts.

[itsbenedict]

So today I spent approximately all day (to the exclusion of even the exercise i was supposed to do on my off day) playing Miitopia. Yeah. I got that thing and played it. I got through the first third of the game, hoping to do so before one in the morning but failing to do so because AGH

I’VE NEVER FELT SO MUCH PURE AGONY AT THE SIGHT OF A FORK ON THE ROAD THAN I HAVE WHILE PLAYING THIS GAME. WHY DO I NEED TO PLAY THESE FEATURELESS LEVELS THREE OR FOUR TIMES BEFORE THEY’RE COMPLETE. HAVE MERCY.

i’ve got a bunch of miis but also a bunch of roles i still need to fill- friends with OC miis, please send QR codes my way if you’ve got them

anyway here comes miitopia screenshot dump/adventure log

the autofilled streetpass pick for the tutorial character was so good that i didn’t bother changing it. “Carefree Guide Introducing Player Character To The Starting Town”, go.

i only had one granny available, so i guess helen’s gotta be here instead of doing something funnier later

i got malky’s DISTRUST miis all up in this. here is Mizushima Yuu scaring the daylights outta me

or i guess Heterodyne Yuu, because there were only so many characters i had available who were inventors and also potentially moms. sorry, agatha, them’s the breaks! you gotta deal with this kid!

designated pronouns can kiss my ass, harold

later oshiro rewards me with 10 gold for saving his entire face. what a fuckin cheapskate this guy is.

who let this man run a town???

then again, i could say that for pretty much any of the miis in my collection, so, alright monsieur voltaire, you are the least unqualified candidate here! congratulations!

AND THEN A FINAL BOSS ATTACKED

evil intern Mell W. Kelly is moving up in the world!

(...i’m gonna be honest, i was planning to make myself the Dark Lord and put someone else in as player character, but then i saw the pop star outfits and couldn’t resist.)

look at her. she’s so happy to be terrorizing the planet. helen would be proud.

then i got to choose my class, and... there really wasn’t any other choice.

look how fucking rad the male pop star’s starting outfit is??? i’m living the karamatsu aesthetic. hell yes.

shortly, my first party member joins me! i was planning to have him show up later, but the team i had planned for the first leg of the journey... well, i didn’t know that all the classes weren’t unlocked from the start, so my dream team is going to have to wait.

so instead, i recruit a space pirate.

welcome to the party’s Thief, Peter Vonn! with the amazing ability to Stab Everybody At Once.

also jesus christ the way i set up the eyes causes BIG PROMBLEMS with certain expressions

the third party member is...

Lisa Bradley, aka Paladin, from Strong Female Protagonist! It... turned out there wasn’t exactly a proper Paladin class, so the joke fell a little flat. but still! she’s gonna win!

then Mell came by to blast us into microscopic debris, but 

SHSL Philosopher is basically the same thing as “Great Sage”, right? the party’s verdict:

(if you haven’t read Strong Female Protagonist, Paladin is being an entirely in-character amount of gay right now)

(if you haven’t read Parhelion, Peter is being an entirely in-character amount of gay right now)

anyway, then it was time for the fourth party member to show up- but i realized that all the lesbians in my collection who weren’t underage, which would have left Lisa high and dry. i ventured forth to Mii Central to find a community-created perfect match

ms. pauling gets to be a cleric because there’s no “assassin” or “bureaucrat” class so far, and my party needs a healer badly. she’s going to room with Lisa and they are going to be the world’s deadliest power couple.

so that’s the party for part 1! me, Peter Vonn, Paladin, and Ms. Pauling. Kind of a motley crew, honestly! but i made it work.

oh, and. here begins the unintentional but in hindsight inevitable story of how i get ruthlessly seduced by a space pirate.

 a space pirate wearing a purple duck costume. Vonn, please.

Vonn, please.

VONN, PLEASE.

VONN, YOU’RE TOO SMOOTH, STOP

VONN, HOLY FUCK

anyway those things happened over the course of the plot, wherein we eventually reached the castle. the castle had guards. the initial selections were...

questionable.

for the guard who blocks your progress and won’t let you pass, i, uh. made a decision.

because. of the line where he goes. y’know. on the bridge. to the balrog? that one? that line? is the joke? i’m. sorry.

for the other guards...

a cushy job, except for the part where you get beaten up by demons later! sorry about that one.

at one point i got a haircut and it was FUCKING fantastic. i didn’t know that these weren’t permanent and only lasted for the scene where you show them off, and you would not BELIEVE how disappointed i was.

then we met the king, and i didn’t have any great ideas for him- so i went to Mii Central and looked through the popular choices again. and i found one that turned out to be on the popular choices list for a REASON

i also met the princess, but i’m not going to show her just yet, because for the love triangle, i decided to go with a certain infamous trio of podcast adventurers, and i’d like to preserve the mounting sense of dread as the identity of the princess is discovered via process of elimination

here’s number one:

it is SO hard to make a mii for Magnus Burnsides when the mii maker doesn’t have any fuckin sideburns options whatsoever

some miscellaneous scenes from the adventure:

workout sesh feat. matching outfits. god damn, vonn. how do you set these things up?

Vonn finally becomes a pirate

the game had me be like “haha just kidding” after this but, no, come on, this is exactly in-character, thank you very much

also i got the best outfit in the fucking game

fuckin. look at this. i’m ripped as hell, wearing a teal lamé outfit feat. suspenders and no shirt, carrying a rainbow microphone, makin’ bedroom eyes at Peter fucking Vonn. what has he done to me. what are these powers he has.

and then we meet the snooty asshole prince- which is to say,

“expert swordsmanship” here meaning “keeping the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom decoratively strapped to my back the whole time”

and now that you know who the two princes are, i have some bad news.

AHAHAHAHAHA GET DUNKED ON MAXIE!!! GET DUNKED ON!!!! I GOT YOU! I’M A THOUSAND PERCENT SURE I FUCKIN GOT YOU!!! GUESS WHY I WENT AND BOUGHT THIS FUCKIN GAME? SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS MOMENT, GET WRECKED

anyway then i won and stuff. but at what cost, etc. etc.

[thedemonconstantine]

adventurepunks​:

“Oh Johnny boy I think you and me would have strangled each other long before advanced age becomes a thing we joke about.” Zatanna rolled her eyes at his playground teasing. “Homo magi. Like humans are homo sapiens and a lot of my friends are homosexual so you watch that tongue of yours should you wanna keep it wagging. I too for a minute thought I might be into girls as well as boys, still not entirely pushed that option aside.” Curious? That was a thing. Bicurious…adjecent.

“I did. As I said I was young and a lot less burdened. It was… I wish I could say complicated but it wasn’t. Your partner and you have a crush on the same guy, the guy also fancies you both, you cry about it, you shout about it and then realize that king size beds exist and you never were conventional people anyway”

“Counting you…eleven people know my true lineage excluding my family members. A fair few more know I can wield true magic. I don’t hide it, don’t advertise it either.” Being so obvious about it was in itself a way of hiding it for everyone loved a secret, most didn’t find a reason to gossip about the stage magician’s illusions for it sounded more like praise than a conspiracy.

“And you ain’t telling no one you know either.It puts me in danger with the wrong sort of people in the adept circles. If the average adept is a conduit for the arcane I am a nuclear reactor and all kinds of nasties want my power reserves” Her tone might be light, might be teasing but it was a genuine danger she was in.

Her mother died being a arcane battery..or would have.

“Gotham. It will always be Gotham. On Earth anyway” 

“What about you. I am gonna guess you really are an LA boy. Rubbing elbows with the glitz and the glamorous”

“Or you are about to be surprising again and say some remote city in Iceland or something and shock me”

“Hah! Look, aah don’t care if you or your friends are all cattywampus, the only real insult aahm dishin’ out is if you’re fuckin’ stupid. Laike Gary.

Bless his little gold heart the guy’s got one but HELL he’s stupid,” Jack groaned into the palm that was rubbing away at his face.

“Huh. Well aah’ll be. Never pegged you for the adventurous sort. Then again we keep on surprisin’ each other now,” Jack continued to scribble on page 27 of tomorrow’s directorial, clipping the pen between his teeth and pulling out a red colour pencil from his pockets to draw arrows on the thumbnails to change camera direction.

“Aah think this looks bedder. We pan from here to here, and then wham! Close up on Misty here now for her reaction and zip, raight over here for yours, like a…a fast pan instead of scene change.

Funnier this way, what do you reckon?”

Jack seemed to really love making pictures.

“So whut, all three of you jumpin’ into bed at about the same fuckin’ time? Geddin’ it on?” His face was all cheek though instead of looking at her, Jack still had his head down and poring over his scripts.

“Yeap, yeah, sounds about raight. Where aah come from, the really powerful fuckers don’t need no advertisin’, they just are, and then before you know it, it’s too dang late.

Frau Totenkinder, Mother Birdie, Mrs Someone…

…Lumi.

“Huh, seems like all the scary ones are women,” Jack mused to himself after scoffing at his own memories.

“Hah you don’t gotta worry about that. Aah’ve got bigger thangs on mah plate. Laike how to ged fuckin’ Misty to not fuck up her lines tomorrow! Sweet Jesus we wasted a good forty on footage over her stumblin’ today!” Jack slapped his own face with his notes to groan into it.

“Is that the fuckin’ city with all the loony guys and gals prancin’ around in costumes? Is the water aahm tellin’ you!”

Jack tutted and turned another page and crossed the whole thing out.

“Aaaaaah this is shit. Cut, cut, cut!

Yeah, yeah. Aahm just here cause this is where movie magic happens y’all. Aah don’t laike being followed all the dang time. Aah already told you why. You know why.

Aah do miss the countryside. Sometimes my hometown.

Don’t fuckin’ miss mah momma though. Shrivelled up bitch that she is…”

[a-classic-fool]

Hamilton Chicago Cast Analysis, or I Try to Explain My Feelings About Aaron Burr

This past month I got to see Hamilton in Chicago, which was just about as incredible as you’d expect, and because I am the sort of person who has a Lot Of Thoughts about things and also the sort of person who has a Lot Of Feelings about Aaron Burr, I wanted to word vomit about how acting choices change Burr’s character. 

  (Of course, when babbling about Burr’s character, I mean musical Burr, not historical Burr. I enjoy historical Burr too, but largely for the “what the fuck are you doing” factor; obviously, musical Burr isn’t and, for the sake of the narrative, shouldn’t be an exact replica of his historical counterpart.) 

  (Also, when I saw Hamilton in Chicago, I saw Daniel Breaker as Burr and Miguel Cervantes as Hamilton, both of whom are excellent actors and beautiful singers. My only real points of comparison are Leslie Odom Jr.’s Burr and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton as they exist in the cast album, clips online, etc.) 

From the beginning of the Chicago production, I was listening to Burr and thinking, “This is so different. How is this so different? What is so different about this??” I didn’t really know until “Wait For It”; right at the end, Burr closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and held his hands palms-down at his sides, visibly calming himself and visibly reminding himself to, essentially, wait. He believed that he needed to wait in order to get ahead and so he made a conscious, strategic choice to do so. LOJ’s Burr wouldn’t have done that, because he did not need to remind himself to wait; waiting was what he did. It was who he was.

  The other really telling moment for me was during “Ten Duel Commandments,” when Burr says “Okay so we’re doing this.” DB’s Burr said this with a lot more humor and bemusement and a lot less resignation than LOJ’s Burr. It also came across like a joke or an aside to the audience, whereas LOJ’s Burr delivered his asides (“okay so we’re doing this,” “this should be fun,” “sweet Jesus”) as though he were making comments to himself. They weren’t Burr's asides to the audience so much as they were Burr’s asides to Burr. LOJ's Burr of course interacted with and addressed the audience (or the listener, in the case of the cast album), since Burr is the narrator, but there was almost always the sense that he was holding something back, maybe even from himself and certainly from us. 

I think these two moments say a lot about how differently DB and LOJ play Burr. DB's Burr is not cautious because he is a fundamentally reserved, cautious person; he’s cautious because it’s a choice. He’s slicker. He’s funnier. He’s more charming and more open with both his anger and his sorrow. You can see him make calculating political decisions (going immediately to Madison and Jefferson after Hamilton’s rejection in “Schuyler Defeated”). He plays his cards close to his chest, but he plays them that way because it’s a strategy; it’s how he gets ahead. It becomes something he does, rather than something he is. His caution is external rather than internal; he’s cautious because that’s how the thinks he can succeed, not because that’s how he thinks he can survive. The tragedy of his taking the fatal shot in the duel is that after so much careful calculation, so much strategizing, he makes this reckless, wild choice; he waited too long, his career fell apart around him, and he finds himself in the wreckage with seemingly no other options. 

  On the other hand, LOJ’s Burr is solemn. He is serious and sad; from the clips I’ve seen and from what friends who’ve seen him in the role have told me, he’s also unbelievably still on stage, until "Room Where It Happens." Everything about him is directed inwards, and because of this quiet sophistication, there is always the sense that a million things are happening somewhere deep inside his head. Campaigning exhausts this Burr (“honestly, it’s kinda draining”) because his is not a political temperament, but he wants power, he wants influence, he wants to be able to do what Hamilton can do. In the moments when we get a sense of what he’s feeling (“Wait For It,” “Room Where It Happens,” “World Was Wide Enough”), this mixture of sorrow and fury comes bursting through the cracks in his caution and his fear, and it’s powerful. Those moments are for himself; we’re watching him sing “Wait For It,” but he’s singing for himself. His anger is so different, too; when he gets mad (“Your Obedient Servant,” “World Was Wide Enough”), his rage is icy and cruel and seething, and it goes deep. In the end, when LOJ’s Burr pulls the trigger, the tragedy is that in the single moment when it mattered the most, he resisted his fundamental impulse to wait. He acted contrary to who he was as a person, to everything he believed, and paid the price. The most painful moment in the cast album for me is when Burr yells “WAIT!” after realizing Hamilton threw away his shot; Burr didn’t wait, and he can’t go back in time and make himself wait. The one time he truly, truly should have waited is the one time he didn’t. 

It’s also true that how Hamilton is played affects how Burr comes across. LMM’s Hamilton is constantly manic with energy, with desperation, with need. Even during his final monologue, when he’s become tired and gray with the weight of his life, he’s still a little bit manic. MC’s Hamilton is a little quieter. He’s cocky, he’s arrogant, he’s passionate and overzealous, but the reserve absent in Burr is present in him. I believed the other characters when they said he wrote like he needed it to survive; he is tightly coiled and a little bit on fire, always, like a low thrum rather than a constant buzz. I adore LMM’s Hamilton and I think LMM is pretty incredible in general, but his Hamilton always felt like a very different person than the character I imagined when I read Hamilton’s letters. MC’s Hamilton, though, felt very much like the Hamilton I imagined. He was still hot-headed, he still had no idea how to talk less, but his pain and trauma dampened him and weighed on him from the beginning. I kept thinking abut how historical Hamilton spent months in bed after the war; as a trauma survivor and someone with PTSD, I connected immediately to the growing ache that built up in MC’s Hamilton as Laurens died, as Phillip died, as his life crumbled around him. 

  I think what results from all of this is that the relationship between Hamilton and Burr changes. LMM’s Hamilton and LOJ’s Burr are foils of one another; they are both brilliant, prodigious men who are motivated, primarily, by fear. They’ve both been orphaned and abandoned at a young age and they are both working, as best they can, to avoid feeling that pain ever again. Hamilton does this by working, without rest or pause, to create a legacy; if he can’t be forgotten, then he can’t be abandoned, and no one will ever discount or ignore him again. (I think this is really supported by realizing that “Non-Stop” comes right after the Laurens Interlude; loss and abandonment result in mania, result in a desperate need to create something that cannot die.) Burr, on the other hand, manages his fear by waiting; if he is careful and cautious, if he waits for what he wants, then he can understand the world, he can avoid mistakes, he can create the life he wants. If he refuses to be reckless, then he can’t be blindsided by pain or by loss. His caution is not a political strategy, “Room Where It Happens” is not a strategic decision; his caution is the armor he wears to survive. Ultimately, with LOJ’s Burr and LMM’s Hamilton, the ways Burr and Hamilton are different serve largely to illuminate the ways in which they are the same. 

DB’s Burr, on the other hand, because he was so much more strategic and so much more political, seemed more like an antagonist than LOJ’s Burr did for me. Played against MC’s more reserved, more internal Hamilton, his Burr becomes Hamilton’s opponent first and foremost; Burr and Hamilton are playing a long, slow game of chess, always working against each other, each move bringing them closer and closer to the inevitable checkmate. They start Act I wary of one another but still friends; as we move through Act II, the gap between them gets wider and wider and it seems hard to believe they were ever friends. They have nothing in common. They are so unlike each other. Their relationship is defined by the ways they are different, not the ways they are the same.

[francogchoi]

Gratefully Free

January 6, 2019

“Life as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. “ 1 Peter 2:16

Living free lives was always so amusing to me. I never really got the concept, but all I understood is that through Jesus we are made free. So if we were to live free lives we are given the option to do anything without pretense, which will show the transformation of an orphan to a child of God. With pretense, an orphan’s heart may be shown, where they can as if they are free, but in reality are just scared to be left, rejected, denied, betrayed, hurt, or any other fear a person can have that hold them away from the freeing blood of Jesus Christ. 

“If the Son sets you free, then you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

I named this post “Gratefully Free” because if we take freedom and the overcoming of the world as works that have been accomplished by us, then we can no longer show grateful freedom. No one can be more grateful than receiving a gift without the cost of our expense. When God came down to Earth to live our very own lives, He was focused and put everything on the line for our very souls. How can we take those things for granted? 

Using our freedom to cover up our evil has been something that I tend to catch myself doing. I always seem to find a way, while using scripture, to justify my evil and wretched heart. I have trouble admitting to the evil and the demons in my life and, just like Satan tempted Jesus using scripture, I find myself tempting myself with loopholes in scripture that just doesn’t exist. Why do I have to justify myself for the sake of my guilt, when Jesus died on the cross for that same exact guilt? It baffles me how dull I perceive the cross when it has fought all my battles for me. It is as if I go back to fight those battles by choice at this point. What is even funnier is that I say that I live by my “life verse,” but every time I hear it, It gets deeper and deeper in meaning.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

[meditationadvise]

What’s Up, Doc? 15 Life Lessons On Spirituality From Bugs Bunny

' Exactly What's up, doc?' Ends up there's even more to that little concern than fulfills the eye. And also obviously, Pests Rabbit has got a whole spiritual collection of knowledge bigger than his set of teeth.

Check out the write-up listed below from the Huffington Message by Vaishali. It's an outstanding read and will make you laugh like you would not believe.

What's funnier is that these life lessons from our long-eared friend are pretty insightful:-)

Everything I Required to Understand About Spirituality ... I Gained From Bugs Bunny!

By Vaishali from the Huffington Post

Some individuals have actually located themselves influenced heavily by such famous religious numbers as Jesus of Nazareth, or the historic Buddha. Others discover convenience in the words of Gandhi or Lao Tzu. For me there has actually been just one character over the years that has stayed petrified in sheer excellence, one voice that comes puncturing through the illusion of everyday life and also its challenges, the one that has actually always been there for me: Bugs Bunny, my spiritual sign of selection! Apart from constantly entering the last word, Pests consistently comes via every convoluted circumstance an animated creativity could throw at him, totally unharmed, never any kind of even worse for the wear, never ever a hare misplaced, continually grinning, and also ever confident. After a life time of researching different religious practices, I still have not located a much better embodiment of transcendent wisdom compared to Bugs. He has actually taught me everything I should learn about spirituality to attain enlightenment.

If you do not know just what reality is, do not take it seriously. There is no truth more absorptive than Pests Rabbit's, and also he never takes his belief concerning reality seriously. This is his obvious strength as well as power. Insects is constantly senior to the drama that surges on around him, since truth exists to offer Bugs, Pests does not exist to offer reality. Brings an entire new meaning to wascally wabbit, don't it!

Question authority initially, after that ask good concerns like, 'Just what's up Doc?' In the 'know thyself' pursuit, expedition is absolutely important. It is constantly Emotionally in style to examine any type of and also all dogma. Discovering the nature of truth is exactly what we are all here for, as well as just what far better means to undertaking because quest compared to by asking, 'What's up, Doc?'?

Deal with your adversaries by providing them, a full-on kiss on the lips. Bugs lives a life without worries and fear. He went beyond every dispute from Elmer Fudd to Daffy Duck by giving his villain a complete kiss on the lips! Bugs brings an entire brand-new definition to 'Love overcomes thy adversaries!' (It likewise keeps them confused.)

Choose a spiritual symbol that is additionally an effective cross cabinet. ( Allow's encounter it, with a butt like Pests, you can truly use anything!) I want a spiritual icon that has gone beyond the traditional male/female duty limitations. I want a spiritual icon that knows exactly what it resembles to wear both the constrictive female underwears in addition to the combustive man vanity. Who far better compared to a transgender enjoyable caring Bugs!

Be adventurous! Be horrendous! Be Pests! Spiritual growth always happens outside the box. All great spiritual teachers like Insects Bunny have lived outside the restrictions of cultural limitations and also prudish sensibilities. Attempt to be your original self! Risk to be genuine and also to life. Dare to be brave! Dare to be outrageously Bugs!

Know when it is 'Wabbit Period' as well as when it is not. Bugs understands when to his choice his fights. Bugs knows when to declare, 'This implies battle!' as well as when to run (or hop). Understanding when it is the period to enjoy or plant, recognizing when it is time to emerge from the bunny hole when to stay below ground meditating, this is the concealed, higher mentor of Hare Krishna!

Always leave 'em laughing. Bugs constantly leaves ya laughing, because Insects understands that the only point any individual truly has any kind of control over is their perspective. We do not constantly get to choose when we discover ourselves gazing down the packed end of Elmer's hunting rifle, but we always obtain to choose our reaction to that reality. If there were a much more enlightened response after that leaving 'em chuckling, Insects would certainly have designed it!

There are no tiny cartoon characters, only tiny people. The influence that people have in our lives is most impressive. Often it is individuals that have the tiniest walk-on duties in our lives that impact us most profoundly. There are times when that unidentified individual, who passes us on the road with a smile and also well wanting, lifts our day to its highest experience. No contact is tiny, some have a shorter direct exposure time than others, yet all have limitless potential.

Live to be over fifty years old, with just one gray hare. You are only as old as you think you are. Bugs proudly announces he mores than fifty years old with just one grey hair! Only you determine your inner age. You select your degree of daring exhilaration as well as interaction to life. You select the number of gray hairs will certainly determine your action to life as well as love. It's your choice.

You can't kill a toon. Resilience is the name of the game, and it is constantly in vogue. Most of us involve the planet to exercise growing past what has harms us. No person can do that without the power and commitment of resiliency. Durability is just what makes children such powerful self-healers. Resilience is exactly what makes our life worth living. Resiliency is the excellent spiritual style accessory that never goes out of style.

Always enjoy a cartoon before the main feature. Have a perspective finder in your life! When the little things that show up in your life annoy you, experience them as an opportunity to expand beyond just what infringes upon you. In this way, when you truly require it, you will certainly have that ability completely established. If you see whatever that concerns you as a chance to a richer life, when the 'major occasion' of your life turns up, it will certainly bring you and also cultivate internal richness, not unlimited suffering. Popcorn, younger mints and soda, as constantly are, optional.

Take life gently - as well as Insects seriously. We invest method to much time taking our unreasonable concerns seriously as well as our Divinity lightly. Our divinity existed before our life battles and also will certainly exist long after them. Only love is genuine, and also we do not have love, we are love. Bugs advises us to see our love-self as powerful, and also our life difficulties as an interesting animated joke.

Carrots are divine, you get a loads for a dime. It's magic! Bugs sees every one of life as magical. Even the tiniest most mundane things or event in life is imbued with special wonderful top qualities, since Bugs knows he makes the magic within himself. Pests recognizes he IS the magic. All you have to do is insurance claim it!

Monsters are such interesting people! Bugs is constantly unconditionally accepting. Bugs has accepted some of one of the most dangerous computer animated monstrosities ever before created, as well as he lovingly replies to them with the knowledge that: 'beasts are such intriguing individuals!' Pests experiences all life creates as benefiting his benefit, aiding and assisting him in his personal growth. No animal, no matter just how fiendishly packaged, is anything much less compared to interesting and also right here to empower him!

Bugs is a karma totally free religious symbol. No one has been eliminated incapacitated or tortured in the name of Pests. Nobody has ever before shouted, 'die in the name of Pests!'

Do you understand how tough it is these days to locate a religious symbol that numerous countless individuals have not been eliminated in the name of? Regarding the cumulative awareness is concerned, Pests has no blood on his white gloved paws. There are no kids available recovering from an Insects abusive youth. No youngster has actually grown up with a person spruced up as Bugs, slapping their hands with a leader and also screaming that they 'Obtained it WRONG!' Nobody will rot in hell for all infinity for taking Bugs' name fruitless. And absolutely nobody has actually been terrified for publishing a satirical anime of Pests. Insects can be openly as well as courageous embraced by all. Insects is beyond corruption, exploitation, fraud or licentiousness. Verily, I say unto you, 'If you do not see Pests in all, you do not see Insects in all.'

Taken from the Huffington Post, written by Viashali.

[douloseyes-blog]

my great...God story?

At some point in this blog I will have to tell my story. Because it is fair to you to know. That now you have come to my life the seeds were sprouting, the waters were streaming, I was an oasis in a desert. But at some point you will have to know, then, what was it like before...this happened? Before...God happened to me?

By happen I don’t mean God crashed into me like the car of a sleeping driver, or that he hit me like a truck or that I was struck by lightning. By happen I mean, I was existing, I was breathing, I was choking, I was walking, I was crippled, I would stand, though I was apart, I was loud, and then my voice became faint, and my voice became fainter and fainter within me like a head trying to keep its head above the waters of a and God met me there.

Right now I’m just in this breakthrough when everything I had been taught about Christ had pushed through the dirt and began to gloriously sprout and start to blossom in its most majestic ways, and I said, “A-ha!”, and I had clarity and took hold of a direction.

But even in those moments of clarity where I saw very clearly, I would have these moments that, outwardly, if I told you about it, I won’t expect you to understand so easily, because they just seem to contradict the breakthrough I just told you about. I’ll give you some examples.

When I said, “God, I’m taking hold of this direction”, I felt so happy and God was so happy and smiling on my life and I was running and I felt off the ground. I had dropped my agenda and said, “God, I’m dropping my guard. I’m dropping my agenda. I want YOUR agenda.” Even when he didn’t answer so quickly, I said, “I want YOUR agenda. I’m not tacking it on all the other agenda I have. I want YOUR agenda. Even if it costs my greatest ambitions, even when it costs my ambitions, I will trade my agenda for YOURS.” I was so desperate. And I kept running to God. And then when it got more stable and clearer that this is what I wanted, I became convinced within myself that this is really what I wanted. I wasn’t praying for God to tell me what college course to take because I could have all these options and God would still approve. In short God could approve 7 courses and it would still be my choice which one to take. So I chose a course and then I prayed about it. But I think that when people are worried or praying for a college course it’s really just a symptom of a deeper need for purpose in life. I hope to learn about it about people one day. When I said to God that I was gonna take hold of “this direction”, I wasn’t asking about what I wanted for college I was talking about wha God wanted for the rest of my life - for this last year in high school, for the next few years as a teenager transitioning into 20s, and as a carrier of His message. When I was stubborn about this, take note: it wasn’t to convince God. Praying persistently has nothing to do with convincing God. What could you convince God about that He doesn’t already know? God already knows what’s in my heart even when my words don’t get it right. Praying stubbornly I guess benefited me more than I expected because it filtered my desires. “God, you know I’ve been praying for this and that, but I realized really that the only thing that I want is to make your Kingdom my first concern. I’m tired of being self-serving Christian. I’m tired of sitting at my home waiting for a miracle that is never gonna come until I put one foot in the Jordan River. I’m tired of this. I want a change. I want to go for you.” And of course I know I have God’s approval. I mean, even if you didn’t feel like God was happy, why would you depend on that? You just persistently made the Kingdom of God your first concern, you let go of your agenda to get God’s agenda. “Lord, see what Jesus has done in me. Now I want to live my life as a Thank You gift.” Of course God WILL ANSWER.

Now did God answer?

So now we will come to the interesting part.

The question is not if God will answer.

The question is, “are you ready for the answer?”

So now that is where I find myself in these ironies.

You may notice that I said so many times about how I have taken hold of the direction of God. The funny part is that I don’t really have the details of His direction. The funnier part is the irony of taking hold of this direction is actually doing it with an open hand.

What?!

Crazy!

Well, yeah. What makes God different from all the other gods? God is so complex, He is so ironic, and all the other gods are 2D.

So let me now just describe the thing about the hand.

So, I say, I am taking hold of this direction.

That means I will drop my agenda.

What does dropping anything look like? Well you certainly don’t let go of a rock with your hands closed. You open your hand.

“God, I have let go. Now what?”

I realize how scary that is.

I realize that this PHASE, whatever you call it, calls for trust I have never made the choice to have before. I mean, waiting for God with an open hand is very new for me. It will be new for everyone who makes the choice to do it. Because our hands are USED to holding on to something. Even when these things we usually hold on to aren’t really tough enough or reliable enough or keep slipping away or keep breaking. Even when it wasn’t healthy, we don’t let go. “Well, if I let go, then what do I hold on to?” Many people are afraid of letting go of something in exchange for what God has in store simple because they can’t afford not having the sensation of holding on to something. It’s uncomfortable. And we just want the familiar. So, conclusion to that part. That’s the phase I’m in. I’m waiting with an open hand. I can’t believe that God stories - I used to just read them, and now God is taking me to that chapter where you just gotta trust, just like many great God stories do have that phase where they just talk about not knowing what or where or how or when. I’m not used to trusting or I don’t even understand everything about faith. I feel like there are so many cliches and I can’t wait for God to reveal to me in fresh ways in my own language what these great men and women talk about. Nevertheless, it’s my God story. Something that perhaps, one day, the world will read about, just as how I had read about the great men and women of faith who have deeply impacted my life.

“I don’t think the way you think.  The way you work isn’t the way I work.”      God’s Decree. “For as the sky soars high above earth,  so the way I work surpasses the way you work,  and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies  and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,  producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth  not come back empty-handed. They’ll do the work I sent them to do,  they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

Isaiah 55:8-11 MSG

photo: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiT-LDFnPXVAhXJu7wKHUUsCeQQjhwIBQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fexplore%2Fhand-photography%2F&psig=AFQjCNHCTruKa4DLdqFj5NDtQyl-alVCdA&ust=1503847997193548