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1plus1kiyoomi · 4 years ago

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Chapter 20: This Time I’ll Stay

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[masterlist] [kia’s slambook]

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You hold the white item in your hand, staring at the two red straight lines on the small screen-like box. Tears run down your cheeks, a wide small on your face. All types of emotions washing over you like a big tide. Your trembling hands take your phone off the marble, calling the first people who you want to share it with.

“(Y/N)? What’s wrong?” Akaashi asks you worriedly, hearing your sobs over the phone. Kenma joins the call, shocked to hear your short breaths.

“Why are you crying?” You hear Kenma shuffling on his bed. “Do you want me to go to you?”

“Keiji... Kenma...” You call them, crying even harder, the happiness in your heart overflowing. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m jus-”

“You’re what? You’re worrying me so much right now.” Keiji sounds like he’s mad so you stop yourself from wailing to be able to talk.

“I’m crying,” you say, not able to form sentences properly.

“Yes, you are. Why?” You feel Kenma roll his eyes even if you don’t see him.

“I’m pregnant.”

There is silence for a while until you hear Kenma’s chuckle. Keiji then follows. Your cries are tampered with laughter even though nothing is funny.

“Congratulations. I didn’t expect another child from you this early,” Keiji tells you, Kenma humming in agreement.

“Me, too. I can’t believe I’m pregnant again.” You hear a small gasp from the side, making your head whip to that direction. You see Kia standing at the doorway of the bathroom door. She’s staring at you with her mouth gaped and eyes widened.

“Mama’s pregnant...” She mutters, taking slow steps back. She runs out of the room and you quickly follow her, knowing what she’s going to do. She goes to the living room and opens the drawer where Kiyoomi keeps her phone that she uses for emergency calls.

Speaking of Kiyoomi, your fiancé, is in another city in the country for game. He’s supposed to go home the day after tomorrow. You plan to tell him that day, in person.

“Kia, put your phone down. Now.”

“No. I have to tell papa.”

“Kia...”

“Mama...”

“Kia, no.”

“Kia, yes.”

“It’s a surprise for your papa. We’ll tell him together.”

“No surprises.” Kia shakes her head, pressing the number 2 button in the dial pad for a long time. You hear the ringtone from a far so you quickly grab it from her hands.

“Kia?” You hear Kiyoomi speak from the other line, you push Kia’s face away with your empty hand, the other bringing the phone to your ear.

“Omi,” you speak awkwardly.

“Why are you calling me using Kia’s phone?” He asks in suspicion.

“My phone died and I had an urgent question, but it’s okay now,” you reason. “Good bye, baby.”

“(Y/N) wa-” You end the call. You look at Kia and she is glaring at you.

“Papa has to know!” She whines, folding her together and pressing them on her chest.

“He will, when he comes back home.”

2 days pass by fast, especially if you have to constantly stop Kia from spilling the beans to her father who calls at least 5 times a day. Kia waits for Kiyoomi to arrive, standing by the front door. You also stand behind her, securing that she won’t say anything. The door finally opens, KIyoomi getting surprised to see the two of you standing like dogs waiting for their owner to come home.

Kiyoomi lifts Kia first, then gives you a kiss. “Why are the two of you so tensed?” He asks you as the three of you go to the living room. You watch Kia, giving her ‘don’t-you-dare’ look.

“I’ll make dinner. Go take a bath,” you tell him, ignoring his question. You kiss his cheek, taking Kia away from his arms. He raises an eyebrow at you, but goes to the bathroom anyways. You sigh in relief when he’s not in sight, thinking that you are able to keep the surprise from him.

But Kiyoomi knows, because of Akaashi.

Sakusa was on a break, sitting on bench. His phone rang, so he checked who was calling. ‘Akaashi?’

“Hello, Sakusa-san,” the former setter greeted. Before Sakusa could even say anything back, Akaashi continued, “Congratulations on baby number 2.”

“What?” Sakusa cleared his throat, his mind going blank. Did he hear him right? He said baby number 2. He was sure he said that.

“I don’t think (Y/N) has told you yet,” Akaashi laughed awkwardly. “Can you pretend that you don’t know until she tells you? She’ll kill me if she finds out I told you before she did.”

“Okay,” Sakusa let out, still in shock. The call ended, but his phone was still on his ear, his body not able to move.

“Hey, it’s time to go back to pratice,” Atsumu called him, but he didn’t answer. The blonde setter goes to him, waving a hand in front of Sakusa’s face. “Are you dead?” Suddenly, the dark haired spiker pulled him into a hug. “What the fuck? Did you reprogram or something?!”

“Thank you for being a good setter to the team,” he told Atsumu, patting his back. “Do you want to eat out dinner later? Just to relax before our game tomorrow.”

“Is the world ending?!” Atsumu gasped dramatically.

“No, not at all. I think the world is doing great to be honest,” Sakusa responded, showing off a smile. Atsumu froze on his spot while the other man went back to the court.

The practice started once again, Kiyoomi playing better than ever. He was smiling the whole time, his teammates were creeped out. “Why is Omi smiling like that?” Bokuto whispered to Atsumu. Hinata leaned in also, wanting to join their conversation.

“He even hugged me a while ago,” Atsumu murmured back, side eyeing Sakusa.

“I’ll ask for a hug, too,” Bokuto claimed. He walked close to Sakusa, then poked his shoulder. “Can you give me a hug?”

“Sure,” Sakusa responded with no hesitance, taking Bokuto in for a hug. The grey haired man was astonished. After that, Bokuto went back to the other two, still stunned.

“Is Omi dying? Why is he so nice? Are his days getting counted,” Bokuto blurted, dazed.

“Maybe he’s repenting for all his sins, so he can go to heaven,” Hinata added, agreeing with Bokuto’s theory.

Sakusa heard all of their words, but all he could feel is happiness. He couldn’t explain what he emotions he were experiencing. All he could of at that moment was the growing child inside your stomach, your child.

Sakusa finally comes out of his shower, acting like usual but inside he is screaming. He already wants to tell you about the names he has come up with. He is so excited to shove it to his teammates that he’s having another child that will no longer consider them as boyfriends.

“Omi, you’re spacing out,” you point and he shakes his thoughts out of his head.

“Ah, sorry,” he says then continues to eat. You notice his little mannerisms: constant tapping of fingers on the surface, bouncing legs, hair running through hair. All of that means that he wants to say something. ‘Does he know?’

After dinner, he puts Kia to bed, you watching closely. He looks so smiley and excited. You lie down beside him, and he looks like he’s going to burst. Now you’re sure he knows. “You know, don’t you?”

“The what baby?” He asks innocently, suppressing a smile. You pout and he starts laughing. “I can’t do this anymore!” He comes to you, protectively wrapping his arms around you.

“How did you know?” You ask him, burying your face on his armpit. He smells good so you sniff even closer. ‘It’s kicking in. The weird pregnant things.’

“That’s a secret,” he chuckles. He pulls away from you and you whine, your nose wanting to smell him. “Don’t you want a kiss?” You kiss him then stick your nose back to his armpit. “This is already weird and it’s just the start!”

“Shut up. I was supposed to surprise you.” Your voice is muffled but he hears you clearly. His hand rubs circles on your lower stomach, his lips planting a soft kiss on your forehead.

“Can we name him Kin?” he blurted out so you snicker at how excited he is. “What? Don’t you think it’s a cute name?”

“We’re not even sure if it’s a boy. Why are you so excited?” You push your upper body up, so you’re looking down on him. A pout forms on his lips, squinting his eyes at you.

“Are you not excited?” He pulls you back down. Your face is pressed on his chest, his hand returning on circling your stomach.

“Of course I am!” You reply to him, hugging him tightly.

1st Trimester

“Are you done yet?” Sakusa yawns, holding your hair for you while you vomit on the toilet. The moon’s still shining yet you’re already in the bathroom throwing up. “Why do they call it morning sickness when you throw up any time of the day?”

“If you’re gonna complain you should not have asked for another child!” You growl at him. He sighs, not wanting to argue. He knows that when he says anything in disagreement, you’ll start crying. Your hormones are playing with not only you, but also him.

You feel less nauseous so you stand straight, panting. He gently pulls your hand, leading you to the sink. He takes your toothbrush and starts brushing your tooth for you. He insists on doing that ever since the first time you experienced morning sickness with him around. He thinks it’s disgusting but it’s the least he can do for you.

“You want to eat something?” He asks as you spit the foam out of your mouth. He wets his hand and wipes the foam on that got stuck on your chin.

“Are you really asking me that after brushing my teeth?” You complain as he wipes your mouth with a dry towel.

“I don’t want you to go to bed with an empty stomach,” he reasons, fixing your hair. You hum, thinking about his question. So far, you have not been having weird cravings yet, which Sakusa thanks for because he won’t feed you disgusting combos of food.

“Just ice cream,” you finally answer, and he nods. The two of you go to the kitchen quietly, not wanting to wake Kia up. You take a seat at the dining table while Sakusa scoops an ice cream for you. As he hands it to you, the soy sauce bottle catches your eye. Something inside you tells you that you want it, so you point at it, but he doesn’t get it. “Soy sauce.”

“No,” he tells you in disgust. You feel yourself tearing up and Sakusa immediately grabs the bottle and hands it to you. You clap in excitement, pouring a good amount of soy sauce on your ice cream. Looking at you makes him want to vomit but at the same time the smile on your face warms his heart. ‘7 more months.’

2nd Trimester

You and Kia wait for Sakusa outside the gym. You are scheduled for your 18th week ultrasound today, and Sakusa insisted on going with you. You’re finally gonna find out about your child’s gender and he doesn’t want to miss any ultrasounds. He wants to make sure you and your child is healthy and in great shape.

“Are you excited to spend some time with Mu-chan?” You ask Kia and she excitedly squeals. Kiyoomi decided not to bring Kia at the appointment with you so you can surprise her at her birthday which is in a week.

You see his teammates come out, and Kia greets them one by one. Sakusa and Atsumu finally arrive, so you and Sakusa head out, parting ways with Kia. Before you leave Kia, Sakusa threatened Atsumu that if something happened to his daughter, he’ll drag his body around the court during practice.

“What do you our baby will be?” Sakusa asks you, intertwining his fingers with yours. He plants a kiss on the back of your hand, his eyes on the road.

“To be honest, I feel like it’s a girl,” you answer.

“You know what that means,” he teases and you let go of his hand. “What? You said we’ll not stop trying for a son.”

You stay silent, the smile on his face halting your anger. You can tell he’s excited and it’s hyping you up, too. It feels like you’re through your first pregnancy again. You arrive at the hospital and you walk to the clinic hand in hand.

A nurse greets you and heads you inside the clinic where the OB is waiting for you. She gives you a hospital dress and you change into it. You lie down the reclining chair. The doctors splatters gel over your lower abdomen, the coldness of the fluid making you giggle. Sakusa is standing beside the chair, his fingers playing with your scalp.

“Oh... you see that? Your baby is a...”

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“Happy birthday, Kia!” Everyone cheers after singing for her. Kiyoomi lifts her, then blows the candles of the cake with her. It’s her first birthday with her father.

“Before we start eating, we want to tell Kia what her sibling’s gender is,” Kiyoomi announces. He takes a box where either a girl’s clothes or boy’s is in. Kia excitedly rips the box open, gasping at the item inside the box. She lifts the dress up, showing it to everyone.

“A baby sister!”

Third trimester

“Kiyoomi!” You scream, your voice echoing through the whole house. He rushes to you and sees the liquid dripping down your legs.

“Shit! Shit! The baby is coming! The baby is coming!” He panics. He calls your midwife, notifying her about your condition. He runs out of your shared room and heads to Kia who is scribbling in the living room. “Kia, your sister is coming. You know what to do.”

Kia immediately takes her phone out of the drawer, prepared on what to do. She and Kiyoomi has been practicing for weeks for your birth. They panicking but prepared. Kia calls her grandparents first, telling them you’re finally giving birth. Next, she calls Akaashi and Kenma. Then, she goes to you, helping you calm down by holding your hand. She’s telling you bedtime stories and rubbing circles on your stomach from time to time.

While Kia is comforting you in your room, Kiyoomi’s in his bathroom, running a bath for you. You have opted for water birth at your home, which Kiyoomi had convinced you to do since it was said to be less painful than normal birth.

Your pregnancy have been nothing but smooth thanks to Kiyoomi. He never complained about your mood swings or 3AM cravings. He went to every appointment with you despite his busy schedule as a pro-athlete. He and Kia were there all through-out and you couldn’t be more thankful.

Minutes later, your midwife arrives, helping Sakusa transfer you to the tub. You take your dress and panty off, then wear a comfortable sports bra. They guide you into the tub, making sure you don’t slip and fall.

Kia waits on the bed, just like how she was trained to. She wants to go to you and hold you because she know you’re in pain, but she’s afraid that she’s going to be a nuisance to your delivery.

“Omi, can Kia go in the room?” You request in between pants, the contractions getting even stronger. He nods and calls her in. She slowly goes to you, sad that you are crying because of hurt. She caresses your sweaty forehead, then plants a kiss on it.

“You can do it, mama,” she cheers you up, grinning at you. She’s trying her best to calm you down and it magically lessens the pain. You hold onto her tiny hand, Kiyoomi standing by your side the whole time.

3 hours later, you hear voices from outside of the bathroom. You take a glance at the doorway and see your best friends waving at you. You manage to let out a smile, your weak hands waving at them. The Sakusas have also arrived, not wanting to miss the opportunity to see the new family member. You hear Akaashi’s parents voice, and it soothe you.

“Do you want me to join you in the water?” Kiyoomi asks, brushing your hair off your forehead, his other hand has been holding you for hours now. You nod eagerly, letting go his hand. He takes his shirt off and gets in the tub with you. He positions himself behind you, his legs on your sides. You lean your back on his chest, your skin contacting with him. He intertwines your hands again, placing it over your bulging stomach.

Kia enters the room with Akaashi and Kenma, a drink in her hand. She holds it out you with both of her hands. “It’s your favorite juice mama. Drink.” You take a sip from the straw, the drink hydrating you. Then she holds it out too, Kiyoomi. “You too, papa. You’re working hard, too.”

“You’re working the hardest, Kia,” Kiyoomi tells her, patting her head. You can’t speak now, but you definitely agree. Kia is just a child, but she’s trying her best to understand what’s going on. She’s comforting you as she knows you’re in pain. She’s helping Kiyoomi in handling the matters just like how she promised him. She’s working so hard for you, Kiyoomi, and her soon to be born little sister and it’s all paying off.

After a few more hours, you see your baby’s head. Your midwife tells you push, so you do. But it’s painful, it hurts so much. You stop pushing, crying hard due to too much pain.

“Baby, you can do it,” Kiyoomi whispers into your ear, holding your hand tightly. He kisses the top of your head, wanting to take the pain you’re feeling. If he could, he would definitely transfer the pain you’re feeling to himself. But he can’t so he’ll try his best to soothe you. “Look. Our baby’s almost out. Don’t stop pushing...” You gain motivation from his words and with one last push, your baby girl’s finally out.

The midwife catches your child quickly, then brings it on your chest. Kiyoomi’s arms wraps around your stomach, looking down at your child that is on top of you. The midwife gives him a pair of umbilical scissors. He gets to cut the umbilical cord for the first time ever. It’s something has been looking forward to. He tears up as his cuts the cord.

“Omi... she’s finally here,” you cry, hugging your newborn.

“Yes, she is. And it’s all because you did a great job.” He kisses the top of your head again, his hand softly landing on the back of your child. His hand is wider than her back it’s scaring him that she’ll hurt him.

“What are you going to name her?” The midwife asks the two of you. You stare at your child, waiting for Kiyoomi to answer.

“Mina. Sakusa Mina.”

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Kia finally wakes up from her nap, missing the rest of delivery. She quickly gets up, her blankie still in her hand. “Is my sister here?” She asks Kenma and Keiji who are in the living room. They nod at her with a smile.

They lead her to Kiyoomi’s bedroom where you are sleeping in. Mina is on the crib beside your bed, also sleeping. Kiyoomi sees Kia enter so he gently wakes you up. You had told him that you didn’t want to miss Kia and Mina’s first meeting. “Kia’s here.”

“Kia, come here,” you pat on the space beside you. She slowly climbs up the bed, not wanting to hurt you.

“Where’s the baby?” She asks you softly. You look at Kiyoomi and signal him to take Mina out of the crib. You put a support pillow on Kia’s lap, your daughter nervous and excited to meet her new sibling.

“Mina... your big sister is here,” Kiyoomi coos at the newborn as he lifts her out of the crib. Mina squirms, waking up. He puts her down on the support in Kia’s lap.

“Kia, it’s your little sister. Mina,” you tell Kia, softly petting the side of her head. Kia stares at the baby on her lap. The first thing she does surprises you and Kiyoomi. She places her blanket over her little sister, then softly cups Mina’s small cheeks. Kia places a gentle but tender kiss on her forehead. She starts crying, and so do you and Kiyoomi.

“Hi, Mina. I’m your Kia-neechan.”

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Facts:

Newborns has been hearing sounds since way back in the womb. Mother's heartbeat, the gurgles of her digestive system, and even the sounds of her voice and the voices of other family members are part of a baby's world before birth

Water birth might help you relax and help you feel more in control. Floating in water helps you move around more easily than in bed, too. Some science suggests that the water may lower chances of severe vaginal tearing.

Only 5% of babies are born on their due date. 50% are born within a week of the due date. 90% are born within 2 weeks of the due date.

The most popular day for babies to be born is Tuesday, followed closely by Monday

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#haikyuu smau #haikyuu x reader #sakusa smau #sakusa x reader #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu sakusa #haikyuu series #sakusa imagines

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annoyed-galaxy · 4 years ago

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Arrival Aftermath

Mass Effect really said "give me your heart strings" with the Arrival DLC. There was a lot to unpack during it and Lyris Shepard needs immediate therapy. Just some small stuff I wanted to write because yes, angst and fluff.

Your galaxy is in sight. You final days are at hand.

I will die never having seen the Reapers’ blessing.

You’ve taken them away from me. I will never see the Reapers’ arrival.

You have become an annoyance Shepard.

Prepare for the Arrival.

The voices floated around in her head, in the mixer in her hand, in the oddly colored liquid that poured into her glass and down her throat. The stars sped past her as she drunkenly stared out of the view port. Each star she imagined getting brighter and brighter before consuming their systems in a massive explosion.

What the hell happened out there, Shepard?

Even as she had filled out the report while Chakwas examined her for any wounds, she really couldn’t have described what happened. God, what if she was going crazy? Was the countdown accurate? It had to be. The Collector General wouldn’t haven’t appeared otherwise if it wasn’t. The Alpha Relay had to be destroyed. Since the keepers at the Citadel had been reprogrammed to ignore the Reapers’ signal, the Alpha Relay was the closest choice they had.

But now it was gone. The Reapers wouldn’t be able to make it across the galaxy to consume the life they wanted through FTL. It would take them years. One star system destroyed to save trillions of lives. It was worth it. She could have warned the colonists within that system, but there were under two hours left when she activated the Project. There was no way three hundred thousand people could have evacuated in time.

Still...maybe she could have saved some of them. But they were batarians. They wouldn’t have been grateful for her help. She was human. They would’ve probably cursed at her, claiming she destroyed their homes for nothing. After all, literally no one else wanted to believe her about the Reapers except for those working with Cerberus.

Maybe they were all insane. Maybe Saren was manipulating them all.

Lyris shook her head and threw back another shot of the awful tasting, yet strong, liquor. She just committed mass murder. She has killed many people in her life, but never quite the way as destroying a mass relay and causing a supernova-like explosion. If Ashley was right and God did exist with Heaven and Hell, Lyris knew she had a one-way ticket straight to Hell.

The door to the port observatory opened as Lyris poured herself another shot. She could have sworn she asked Kasumi to give her some space. Maybe so much time had passed that Kasumi wanted her room back. But that wasn’t the case as Lyris saw in the corner of her eye a familiar shape grab one of the stools by the bar and place it next to her.

She had been with Garrus long enough to learn his turian facial expression of worry and concern. Shit, it felt like just an hour ago she was holding in a laugh at the obscene metaphor he had made. She felt something touch her leg and looked down to see his hand resting on her thigh. The guy must’ve done some research on human contact, that’s for sure.

Lyris didn’t say anything. How could she? She had committed mass murder for what may or may not have been a real invasion and possibly thrown her entire race into a war against the batarians. She had officially reached the status of a monster. Yet, Garrus was sitting next to her, staring at the stars, slowly caressing his thumb in comforting circles on her thigh.

Lyris downed another shot before offering the glass to him. “Want one? It’s dextro-DNA friendly.” She loved the way his mandibles lifted away from his face whenever he chuckled. Turian facial expressions were so interesting.

“I’m good. Someone has to stay sober to make sure you make it to the toilet when you throw up,” he replied. She could hear the joking tone in his voice layered with worry and concern. Probably more about her mental stability rather than physical injuries. Chakwas had cleared her of all those when she got back.

“Your loss,” Lyris shrugged and took another shot. The events of what happened at the asteroid hung over them like a thick cloud. A knife could cut through the unspoken tension between them. She sighed and then finally put her hand on top of his. “Look...I don’t want to talk about what happened,” she whispered, looking down at their hands. For someone with only two fingers, his hand was still bigger than hers.

“I know. I want to ask about it, but I figured it’s probably best to just...be here,” he replied, his dual-toned voice quiet.

She smiled a little bit. “You’ve been doing some research.”

He chuckled. “Humans have different emotional needs compared to turians.”

“That tells me you’ve been considering more than our little tiebreaker,” Lyris nudged him with her elbow.

He finally turned and looked at her. He wasn’t wearing his lens so both of his eyes were clear to her. Eyes, no matter the species they belonged to, spoke millions of words, expressed thousands of emotions. They truly were the window to the soul. This was especially true for Garrus whose eyes looked at her with such a fierce emotion, she couldn’t quite place her finger on it. “I told you before, you’re the only damn friend I have left. I care for you. I know that what you did was something you didn’t do lightly. Shit, we all know you’re not afraid to punch your way to an agreement but destroying an entire system? That’s not even on your level of extremes.”

She couldn’t tell if he was trying to be comforting or guilt tripping her. “Ouch,” was all she could say.

Garrus sighed and she felt his hand shift under hers and grab it. “I didn’t mean it like that, Shep. I just mean...you’ve been through hell. You’ve done a lot of things that most of us could never do. I’m just concerned if this was one of the final straws. I feel like you’ll break at any moment. Even before you died, when we were busy fighting Saren and the geth, I could tell you were dealing with some deep shit beforehand.” Garrus looked down at their hands. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

She didn’t know whether she should cry or smile. Someone in this galaxy was looking out for her. She squeezed his hand. “I’ll be okay, Garrus. I promise. Just...stay by my side.”

His mandibles moved slightly in which she interpreted as a smile. “I can do that.”

She was not mentally stable at all. She knew that. But just having someone next to her, making sure she could still push on even after she dragged herself from hell...the future looked promising. If she died on this suicide mission, then so be it. But if she lived...she would have something to look forward to.

#mass effect #mass effect 2 #mass effect legendary edition #mele #mass effect arrival dlc #mass effect shepard #femshepard #shakarian #femshep x garrus #garrus vakarian #mass effect fic #fanfic #writing #my writing #G-W76 #OC: Lyris Shepard #GalaxyPlaysMELE

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smolbeandrabbles · 5 years ago

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Video Games - Nolan Sorrento x Reader (Ready Player One)

GIF CREDIT: X

Author’s Note: Well this was one scene long until I listened to this song. So, you’re welcome!

I always come back to this end scene for Nolan, and in all honesty it’s one of my favourite things to think about, so thank you @primadonna-girl23 for finally giving me a reason to write it! I hope you enjoy! Thank you for your request! 💙💜

Video Games - Lana Del Rey

Disclaimer: RPO characters not mine / gifs not mine / lyrics not mine. I tend to like writing Nolan like this, and I will live and die by it!

Premise: There’s nothing you love more than playing video games with Nolan. But hes good, and he doesn’t lose. All you vow is one day someones gonna beat him, even if you have to wait for another generation to do it for you...

Words: 2771

Warnings: Small swears / insulin warning

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Swinging in the backyard Pull up in your fast car whistling my name Open up a beer And you say get over here and play a video game I'm in his favorite sun dress Watching me get undressed take that body downtown I say you the bestest Lean in for a big kiss put his favorite perfume on Go play your video game

Singing in the old bars Living for the fame Kissing in the blue dark, playing pool and wild darts Video games He holds me in his big arms, drunk and I am seeing stars This is all I think of This is my idea of fun Playing video games

It's you, it's you, it's all for you Everything I do I tell you all the time Heaven is a place on earth where you Tell me all the things you want to do I heard that you like the bad girls honey, is that true? It's better than I ever even knew They say that the world was built for two Only worth living if somebody is loving you Baby now you do

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This may well have been one of your favourite past times. Sure, you were dating Nolan Sorrento, who at any point in time – as the CEO of IOI and with the millions he made – could whisk you down town in one of the many sports cars he owned to a bar, or a club, or restaurant, where all the stars hung out, or on some expensive getaway to anywhere in the world; heck, Nolan and his money could get you anything, and often did… But there was really nothing better than sitting in his living room trying to kick his ass at retro video games. You failed more times than you won, and sometimes you thought he let you win just because of the pout on your face, but you didn’t see how you could enjoy anything as much as this. With the sometimes God awful graphics, and the very most the consoles could really do was occasionally vibrate the controller (which made you shriek and him cackle the first time it happened) these games were a far cry from the OASIS – and yet you preferred them. These old restored gaming systems and the various disks and cartridges that came with them, along with movies from years gone by, were Nolan’s pride and joy. The 90s into early 2000s were his vary favourites; staples from his childhood. But he had right through until the latest editions – just before this type of gaming became nearly obsolete. You could play them in the OASIS, of course, but Nolan didn’t see the point when you could get the real experience by putting your mind to fixing things. Essentially his only past time before he’d become CEO – and now he didn’t have a lot of time for things like that, but he could escape to play them. Sometimes you just liked to watch him on single player go through something a little more strategic – but he’d let you pick out what his character looked like, or maybe who they would side with, or the conversational track that he’d go with. And you liked the times Nolan would go quiet for just a moment and then almost shudder, and say something like, “Oh my god the soundtrack!” which made you focus on it for the remainder of his playthrough.

But on occasion Nolan would put in a multiplayer game and throw you a controller; and you’d either get to help him, or try to beat him. And it was fun to lie back on the sofa between his legs, head on his chest – tongue stuck out in concentration and yell expletives every time he beat you. “You can do better than that!” He laughed again and you smacked his leg, “You’re infuriating!” He gave you nothing more than a teasing grin; “Oh, I’m trying very hard I assure you!” “OH! SHUT UP!” But you were good humoured about it, and Nolan still laughed when you resorted to cheating, attempting to block his view or distract him from time to time. Which he used to say would serve you right if you still lost; sometimes he’d pin you between or under his legs so you couldn’t move, and you thought he was doing a little too much Kegel. Sometimes Nolan would even beat you with one arm around your waist, holding you close to him as you balanced on his knees so he was playing one handed, just to prove he could – or he’d give you a ten second head start. You had to admit that he was good, but he was also an expert – Nolan knew these consoles inside out, and he’d grown up doing this. So, no surprises there either. Today this wasn’t the plan, you were supposed to be going out on a date – judging by the fact you were wearing a sundress, and he was in a nice shirt and pants. But on the drive out of town Nolan had started telling you about games he’d been reprogramming, and fixing up and some new ones he’d managed to get hold of. That information didn’t come with a price tag, but you could imagine the expense – and before long you found that more interesting and you were on your way back home. But this was a little more casual, and after getting bored of losing to him for the umpteenth time, Nolan let you play it for yourself. “Y-You sure!?” “Mhm…” He popped the cap on his beer, “I’ll help you out!” You smiled sweetly; “Don’t you want to play it first?” “No…” He gave a shrug taking a sip, “I played it enough as a kid – you don’t even know what this game is, time I taught you. It’s one of my very favourites…” And so he did help you navigate around – or point out little hidden pieces of game play or items you would have surely missed, occasionally he’d take your hands and the controller in his to assist with some of the harder stuff where you insisted you didn’t have enough fingers to work it all out at once – but Nolan watched that smile on your face grow every time he did so, and felt that maybe you were asking for his help on purpose. Eventually you sighed gently; “I love doing this with you…” “What? Hanging out on my couch playing retro games and skipping dates?” Nolan chuckled, taking another swig of beer – he was surprised there was any left considering your practice of taking it from him when you thought he wouldn’t notice. “Don’t say it like that…” you tipped your head back to catch the amusement on his face; “This is nice and relaxed… And we’re together, how is it not a date?” He tilted his head both ways; “I dunno, I guess I kinda like taking you out…” Nolan paused thoughtfully, “I’m not saying you’re wrong though, this is… I could get used to it.” “Get used to it?” You paused the game and rolled over to face him, “Careful what you wish for Nolan Sorrento!” But he still laughed; “That doesn’t sound like it bodes well for me. Ah, I think I could put up with you for a while.” “Thanks!” But you were laughing along, until you bit your lips together, “I…Think I could probably get used to this too.” He stared at you for a little while, almost in adoration, before he leant forward, touching his nose to yours before kissing you. You closed your eyes to him, content, before wrapping your arms around him and deepening the kiss. Sorrento eventually broke it, arms still around you – before chuckling nervously, a faint shade of pink dusting his cheeks; “Aha… Okay, before we get a little too used to this… I say we don’t waste that beautiful dress, and you let me take you out for dinner?” You giggled, stealing another kiss – “Okay! Dinner it is!”

***

That feeling never changed, not through dating moving from months to years, or moving in with him, or getting engaged… then married… and not even the stage you were at now. You were getting better; you could actually beat him at these games now – and Nolan was only ever impressed. He enjoyed it when you won as much as you did, because of how happy you were that you’d actually beat him – and the excitement on your face; the way you’d start screaming sentences when you were nearly there. Or how he’d manage to reign it back (even if you still won), and you’d scream “NO!” so loud he thought eventually someone might knock on the front door to see if you were okay. Luckily it’d never happened. Right now you were supposed to be helping him on a campaign, but you were much more interested in watching what he was doing and snacking. “Are you actually gonna help, or…? Cuz I can go back to single player if you’d rather.” “No.” You said through a mouthful of Chex, “I’ll help, just give me a second.” He chuckled, and you held up the bag to offer him one, which he thanked you for. Truth was at 7 months pregnant you’d rather sit here quietly, head in his lap and watch him. Whilst you were sitting eating and watching Nolan do all he could in the mission solo, you’d balanced the controller on your stomach and every so often, as your baby moved, the controller wiggled around on its precarious balance. But that only made you laugh. This position was at least comfortable for you; and usually you sat like this to watch movies too – where Nolan would cuddle you close and rest his hands over yours on your stomach; where his face became a lot more interesting than whatever you were watching. Nothing really compared to the way he lit up when your baby made a noticeable movement, and would pretend he wasn’t welling up – but you knew Nolan was, he couldn’t hide that from you – though he tried. However Sorrento accidently ran himself into the levels boss fight before you were ready; and to let you know something important was about to happen, the controller vibrated. “AH-!” You gasped which caused Nolan to jump, “Shit! Sorry!” But you laughed harder; “Not only was the vibration kinda startling…Ooh-! Okay! I don’t like you right now!” You took his hand and placed it over your stomach as you were given a third little kick; “Ooops!” He laughed, “And I’ve got you into a boss fight!” “Oops-!?” You folded your arms, “I should just let you die!! If this continues all night-!” Nolan cringed, “I’d really rather I didn’t die – besides if you get attacked that controller is only gonna vibrate more, you realise that-!?” Well, that made you pick it up pretty quick. “You are okay though, right?” “Yeah. I guess.” You grumbled, “If I can’t beat you, the baby will!” Nolan chuckled before scoffing; “Yeah, that I’d like to see-!” *** “THAT’S NOT FAIR!!” “Come on its two against one how is that not fair?” “THE COMPUTER IS HELPING YOU!” “Yeah and it’s pretty useless! You two should have this-!” “BUT IT ISN’T FAIIIIIIIIIIIR---!!” “What, you think I’m gonna let you win-!?” “REMATCH! PLAY FAIR THIS TIME!” “You’re on!” You were sorting a few things out in the upstairs bedrooms when you were met with yelling from the living room. You laughed to yourself; this was the kind of argument that had transferred from you and your husband, to your husband and your children. And Nolan was still the one winning. You walked out onto the landing; balcony overlooking the living room to watch them. Your two eldest boys were sitting on the floor, having clearly just lost another match, arms folded and sulking as they threw glares at your husband, sitting cross legged on the couch with your little girl – your youngest – curled up in his lap silently watching the whole thing. You couldn’t help but smile at the scene; just another weekend in the Sorrento household… “What are you guys doing!?” They all looked up at you “Dad’s cheating!” “What-!? I’m hardly even trying-!” That made both the boys gasp and look back to him; Nolan laughed like he’d just said something he shouldn’t have and grinned at you. You rolled your eyes, smiling, and made for the stairs, “Alright hold on I’m coming…” By the time you were downstairs they were seemingly settled again into another round, although even as you padded over you could see Nolan was probably going to get himself another win. There was a smile on his face that had only appeared since you’d had children, and his laugh this time was absentminded as they both ganged up on his character. For that he turned immediately to your daughter, and indicated to her which buttons to press to help him with the powered-up finishing move. Which had the boys yelling about cheating again and Nolan and her laughing at them. And for a minute you stood back, heart full watching them all. But especially Nolan – things had been hard at IOI for him lately, and it wasn’t exactly going as planned. But when he sat here with his children, it was like everything else was forgotten; he was laughing and happy, and you didn’t think you’d ever seen him this happy – not for a while – and he was relaxed. Today he was dad, not Sir, no matter how exasperatedly anyone was saying it. Your eldest spotted you in the corner and called you over; “Moooom! Can you beat him for us!?” They had heard of the famed times when you’d managed it, but it’d been a while. Nolan’s head swivelled and his eyes narrowed at you; “Oh! If you DARE--!!” You held your hands up; “Hey, I’m not taking sides-!” Nolan clapped as your boys groaned; “Ha! That’s my girl!” “Okay, Dad, one more round.” “Oh god, no, don’t you get sick of me beating you? I’m getting too old for this-!” Nolan chuckled, then he exited back to the games’ main menu to set up a multiplayer quest, handing the controller over to your daughter as you settled onto the sofa next to him. His voice lowered as he lifted her from his lap onto the floor; “Go on sweetheart – show ‘em how it’s done.” The controller was a little big in her hands but she beamed, “Play nice boys!” But he knew they would, as they lay on their fronts waiting for the game to load up again for them. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek gently; “I love you daddy!” “I love you too…” She ran off to join her brothers and he watched her go – that smile somehow bigger. You tsked “Such a daddy’s girl.” Nolan scoffed, but then agreed; “Yeah. Probably.” He held his arms out for you, watching the boys help their little sister with the controls for a moment with pride. You snuggled into him, head on his chest and he kissed your forehead – “I mean, of course I love you.” You giggled as he continued pressing kisses into your skin; “Oh that was never in doubt Nolan Sorrento!” You sat in silence for a moment – Nolan was watching the game play, and every so often would suggest strategy, as he’d used to do with you. You instead watched your kids help each other out on the floor, everyone content with life for now. Exactly how it should be, before you voiced your question, looking back to your husbands blue eyes; “Why don’t you let them win?” His smile was mysterious for a moment as he looked back to you; “Because one day they’ll beat me, and I’ll never win again!” then he grinned, “Besides, I like that they’re kinda in awe of me at the moment, and as long as I can keep that up and help them in the harder levels, I’d love to.” He placed his hand to his forehead to a moment; “…God, I’m dreading the day that don’t need me…” You shook your head, before placing a gentle kiss to his cheek; “Don’t say such silly things, they’ll always need you – you’re their father.” That smile was back, and Nolan pulled you closer to him for another kiss, before you heard the kids all cheering at beating another level and had to both laugh. Yes, for now all was right, and long may that continue.

---

Thank you for requesting! Thank you for reading! 😘💜

@3134045126 @happyskywhale @wltz-bby #MendoTagSquad

#There will never be enough Nolan Sorrento on my blog #Nolan Sorrento #Ben Mendelsohn #Ready Player One #Nolan Sorrento x Reader #Linzi Writes #Linzi Writes Requests #Smol Bean Drabbles #137 #This is kinda how I wanted to end him #Him her and 3 kids #Evie #Lorena V.

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inviouswriting · 5 years ago

Text

Heights

The lovely imagine of Aymeric actually holding Kiya on his hip comes from @windup-dragoon she was super nice in doing that for me. :3 I know the outfits are all over the place. Please bear with my randomness.

I think I had more fun in writing this out today.

“Kiya, My Love, By the Fury... why do you have that thing again?” Aymeric looks up as his wife is dangling from the claws of the magitek contraption that dropped her at his feet a few days ago. Kiya just beams bright at him.

“I own this. It is mine now.” Her answer is quick, and Aymeric shakes his head. Seeing her held by such a machine, it unnerves him. Kiya seems so proud though. As she would be if she commands such a thing.

“How do you own this? Where did you even get it?” Aymeric sees her brought close to him, still hovering in an almost bounce. He sees that Kiya is held by her clothing like a kid caught on a peg.

“I took it of course!” Kiya sways her tail a little.

“Where do you intend to keep it?” He had to ask where she plans to keep something like this.

“Ishgard.”

“Nay!”

“Please! You love me!”

“Right, I love you. I do not think the people would take to such a thing in the city.” Aymeric sees her face, and Kiya folds her arms.

“Ishgard!”

“Kiya! Heavens. Why Ishgard? Where IN Ishgard would you house it?”

“The Vault. More than enough space there.” She had thought this through. He was not going to dissuade her from keeping it.

“My love. The Vault is not a place for Mounts.”

“Would you rather I keep it with the chocobos?” Kiya clasps her hands together. She makes the expression he has a hard time saying no to.

“Kiya, it can’t be in the city. It will terrify the people.” Aymeric stands his ground, trying to resist her charm.

“I am more terrifying than this thing!” She banters, and eyes him wearily. They both wear matching expressions. Aymeric shakes his head. Kiya thinks and brightens her expression.

“I’ll keep it here at Camp Dragonhead then.” She bargains.

“You really intend to keep this contraption?”

“This contraption, is mine. Of course I intend to keep it.” Kiya folds her arms, her mind made up.

“Oh how I love you. I believe Emannellain would have the final say of that one.” Aymeric reaches his arms up to her, Kiya takes his hands and holds onto them. The magiteck claw raises a bit, and to Aymeric’s surprise he is being held by his beloved’s hands just a few feet off the ground.

“Kiya! Let me down!” Kiya instead smiles at him, and for the first time Aymeric sees wildness to her green eyes.

“Kiss me first.” Kiya says, and Aymeric sighs, yielding. He pulls himself up to her and gives her a swift kiss. When he parts, he sees the gentleness in her irises. Kiya motions for the claw to lower, and Aymeric’s feet rest just above the ground. Much more comfortable not being too high off.

Aymeric also found something else about his beloved. She has a strength he never knew she had for her petite size. Able to hold a tall man like him suspended at their hands for a little.

“You still can’t keep that in Ishgard.” Kiya pouts, and once Aymeric’s feet firmly rest on the ground he pulls her out of the claw’s grasp and into his own.

“I was only jesting with you.” Aymeric tilts her head back to stare into her eyes.

“You tease me far more than I do you.” Aymeric leans in and gives her a gentle kiss. A shared moment, but their silence broken by Emmanellain.

“What is that thing!?!” The young lord came out of the keep to see what all the shouting was for. His eyes are greeted to the giant allagan contraption hovering there, whirring and to anyone looking menacing.

“Oh! Emmanellain! Aymeric says I can keep it here!” Aymeric grabs hold of his lover, and holds her under his arm.

“I said no such thing! I said to talk to Emmanellain!” Kiya hangs limp on his hip, and makes a face.

“Old Girl, as much as I am grateful to you. Please reconsider!” Emmanellain pushes Honoroit in front of himself as if the smaller elezen will be enough to keep it at bay.

“But!” Kiya feels disheartened over the fact no one but her is excited over the allagan technology being here.

“Think of how useful it can be! It can move cannons and such without the people straining themselves. You could lessen your burdens~” Kiya bargains, her words honeyed to the ears. Aymeric shifts Kiya in his grasp, hearing her lay on the charm to someone else. All for a machine to stay somewhere.

“She has a point.” Honoroit goes to their friend’s defense. He would find it welcoming. Albeit creepy, but it meant the people and soldiers would have less trouble in moving heavy equipment around.

Kiya please with her hands and eyes. Aymeric keeps staring at her, and sighs. Emmanellain on the other hand, sees the opportunity of lighter work. Kiya knows how to play him.

“You sure that thing is tame?”

“Very sure! Cid reprogrammed it. It won’t go stray.” She confirms, hopeful at a place to keep the hand.

“Alright, it can stay, and be useful here.” Emmanellain sees Kiya’s face brighten up. Aymeric on the other hand once it was confirmed that the contraption can stay, begins to walk with her back towards the Intercessory.

“Kiya, my love. Be glad I love you endlessly.” Aymeric says, seeing how Kiya’s face is brighter. She beams a smile and he looses his train of thoughts in his fluster. She is radiant when she wants to be, he feels her tail wriggling happy.

“I think it is you who should be glad I love you.” She corrects him as they pass the threshold. Aymeric sets her down on her feet.

“We are both lucky, but pray, please. No more allagan technology like that.” He asks her. Kiya nods.

“Okay.” She agrees, and is lifted into his arms only to be thoroughly kissed breathless by him.

They both hear a yell, and leave the Intercessory, to see Emmanellain caught up by the claw and held by the neck of his armor. Aymeric glances down at Kiya, and she looks up sheepishly.

“It is tame~” Aymeric shakes his head and goes to lend a hand to the young lord. He does find himself laughing a little. Kiya seems fond of it, but he worries she will bring other things. Much like how she is permitted to ride on the back of Midgardsormr.

The oddities she has snared, and gained through her travels. He does wonder if he will see some of them as they begin their honeymoon.

#aymeric #ser aymeric #aymeric de borel #ffxiv aymeric #kiya shinikami #miqo'te #aymeric x kiya #emmanellain #emmanellain de fortemps

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mittensmorgul · 5 years ago

Note

About that human!Cas meta. Why is there an assumption the empty would leave him alone if he was human? We already know the empty can get into heaven at will, and so being human would not save Cas from his deal.

Human!cas anon: I wont deny I have trouble with this endgame because his human narrative in s9 hits several of my depression triggers and I've never been able to get those cut away from the idea of human!Cas. Its a somewhat silly reason to dislike that endgame notion, but having had a time in my life where much of what happened to s9's human!Cas happened to me, I find it difficult to understand the appeal of putting him back into a position that last time was bewildering, painful, and unhappy

Hi there! I assume this second message is from you, as well (they’re adjacent in my inbox and there’s not another human!Cas anon within the same region of my inbox). Apologies if I got the wrong one. :)

I’ll start by saying I’m not sure which human!Cas meta you’re referring to. There’s... an awful lot of it, but I assume you mean something I either wrote or reblogged today regarding 15.02.

I’ll next clarify that we just don’t know how the Empty Deal would be affected by Cas being human as opposed to angel. We’ve also potentially seen a perspective shift on the Shadow’s motivation behind making that deal with Cas in the first place. We DO know that the Shadow wanted Jack, but at that time, Jack was only a human soul. What changed the Entity’s mind and led to it accepting Cas’s deal? Cas’s plan for returning Jack to life.

Something has been weighing on me for a while, which I’ve written about recently, that Billie, the Shadow, and Jack are Up To Something™, and HAVE been for a really, really long time. We just haven’t been able to see it...

I think this potentially goes back to the beginning of Dabb Era, and the introduction of Billie in 11.02. She’s been patiently working for a very, very long time to bring about that meeting we saw in 14.20. Because Jack is literally possibly the only being in all of creation who potentially has the power to deliver a smackdown to Chuck.

So... Did the Shadow actually want Cas in the first place? Or was the deal he made just a convenient way to secure Cas’s position in their Grander Plan, as caretaker to Jack with a heavy personal stake in bringing Jack to a point where he’d be ready and willing to accept his role, to help Billie and the Shadow save creation from its creator?

I kinda hope that’s the case, actually, because that does NOT negate the narrative and personal significance of Cas’s deal, but it reframes it into something that the Empty could potentially nullify once the Bigger Objectives of the narrative have been achieved, you know? And this could symbolically occur through Cas willingly surrendering the part of himself that the Empty has a claim on-- his angelic nature itself.

Which Cas has been struggling with and against since the start of his tenure in the story. This has always been Cas’s journey-- even in s4 he struggled with rebellion from Heaven, with “doorways to doubt,” and human emotions and free will.

And I’m very sorry you identified so strongly with Cas’s pain during early s9. But Cas’s journey both before and after that has been understanding what he’s been through (even long before the narrative began, as Naomi mentioned that he’s been a frequent customer of Angel Reprogramming Services going all the way back to biblical times).

I personally feel like his human arc in s9 was agonizing not because of what he experienced, but because it was tragically cut short by his own personal feelings of duty, leading him to the “barbaric” choice to steal another angel’s grace (a process which very nearly literally killed him, and was directly responsible for the deaths of several other angels). And yet for CAS, there are aspects of his humanity that he mourns, there are aspects of humanity he can’t fully process with his grace. For all he suffered as a human, he clearly misses it in a lot of respects.

And even those born human in Supernatural, none of them have had particularly happy lives, you know? What was it Dean told soulless!Sam in 6.09:

SAM: Yeah. Okay. Look. Brings up a question. So, say you got a soul and you’re on a case, and your brother gets abducted by aliens—DEAN: Yeah, then you do everything you can to get him back.SAM: Right! You do, but, what about when there are no more leads for the night? Are you supposed to just sit there in the dark and suffer, even when there’s nothing that can be done at that moment?DEAN: YES!SAM: What?DEAN: Yes, you sit in the dark and feel the loss.SAM: Absolutely! But couldn’t I just do all that and have sex with the hippie chick?DEAN: No!SAM: It’d be in the dark.DEAN: No you couldn’t because you would be suffering, and you can’t just turn that off for the night.SAM: Why not?DEAN: Because if you had a soul, your soul wouldn’t let you.SAM: So you’re saying having a soul equals suffering.DEAN: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.SAM: Like, the million times you almost called Lisa. So you’re saying suffering is a good thing.DEAN: I’m saying it’s the only game in town.

Well, that’s a cheerful definition of what it is to be human, isn’t it? But that’s been every human on this show’s essential baseline for like... ever. So... why would Cas willingly choose that? Because like Cas himself told Sam in 10.03 (yes, he was talking about being a demon, but the way he spoke bore the pain of personal experience, of what this experience was like as an angel too):

SAM: What the hell are we doing to him, Cas? I mean, even after I gave him all that blood, he still said he didn’t want to be cured, that he didn’t want to be human.CASTIEL: Well… I see his point. You know, only humans can feel real joy, but … also such profound pain. This is easier.

Cas basically told us that he also can’t feel real joy. Because you can’t have joy without pain. This is why the show has always framed “paradise” where there’s no suffering as... not a good thing. Free will and the ability to choose one’s own path through life is also something that only humans truly have (or would, if Chuck stopped messing around in their lives.

I think, after everything they’ve all suffered through for the last 15 years, they all deserve to finally earn out their own joy. They’ve certainly all suffered enough for it. But the show has been telling us for years that Cas’s ideal of joy is far more human than he’s ever been willing to accept. I have a whole tag about this, and why I feel this way. And it’s not based on Cas’s disappointing and painful experiences as a human, but his longing to experience humanity again with the knowledge after the fact of what he’d lost.

#spn 15.02 #spn s15 spoilers #you learned it from the goats #that's my human cas tag if you feel up to reading about it #so much of it is hopeful and positive and i hope you're able to find some hope in it too :)#Anonymous

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bazingaholmes98 · 6 years ago

Text

Prompt: Tony finds out Harley didn’t survive the Snap.

A/N: Well hello there my marvel lovelies i felt like feeling sad, so here ya go. This is my first attempt and Tony so please, please, PLEASE let me know how I could improve this and in my defense I’m hella sleepy to proof- read this but I need the angst out of my system ;-;

@afuckingshipper @my-babies-are-ash Cause y’all wanted to be sad with me :)))

Dull voices buzzed around him, and gentle pats rained on his back. At some point, he registered Pepper hurling abuse at him, as she clawed at his ripped jacket, when a yelp informed him that her hands had found the deep gash in his side.

Tony didn’t see what the fuss what about though. Another corpse to the corpse pile - humanity had borne through worse and come out okay. Then why did this feel shittier than all those?

Oh, that’s right. Cause you could have stopped this. Ha.

Tony’s mind spun out of control as he collapsed onto some fine linen, the pain on his side slowly devolving into a dull throb, as a reassuring voice above him announced that the nanites will heal his innards in no time. Tony thanked the voice and grabbed at his nanite housing unit on his chest, asking for a computer to reprogram it.

He could see Pepper snarl at him from somewhere and Nebula’s beady eyes consider the red head expanding before her in anger. Tony sighed at Pepper. Please, he willed his eyes to say, not now. Baby please not now.

Pepper seemed to understand, but her anger was too profound, too volcanic to muster sympathy, as she stalked out of the room asking for Happy to commandeer for his idiot boss a god forsaken laptop. Tony felt his heart sink - he wanted to run after her, hug her, promise her that he would never leave like that, even if it mean that another half of the Universe was going to dust.

Then why didn’t he? Why did he just readjust his back rest to receive the laptop that Happy was handing him?

“What are you doing?” Nebula asked softly from the shadows, the hood covering her blue visage. Everyone seemed to be taking her presence pretty lightly. And why wouldn’t they - everyone had other shit to care about. And apparently they all needed Tony’s attention, he observed as his phone logs and emails seemed to be blowing out of control.

“Friday get rid of this drivel,” he raised his head to face Nebula, as he slowly unhooked the nanite compartment from his chest, “Just taking stock. Seeing what we have lost. The world’s in chaos outside, and we can’t…” the words seemed to stick in Tony’s throat. What could they do? They couldn’t bring them back? It was the only way, Tony… bullshit Stephen and you know it, Tony’s brain seemed to be shouting. There is no way this is how they come on top. Not like this.

He snapped his mouth shut and quickly attached a cable to the unit and began to furiously type away - the nanites started to weave and shape themselves into his HUD. His brain was racing at a million miles per hour, the incomplete sentence hanging over his heart like a guillotine.

We can’t what Tony? Come on you vivacious prick can’t you complete a goddamn thought without spiralling into… there we go, go on panic you stupid, stupid fuck…

Tony starting to hyperventilate, as deep breaths pained his side. Nebula’s dark eyes remained fixed on the human, her deepening sadness masked effectively. She could feel the words in his mouth, stuck there because of denial. “They’re not coming back. So we gotta think of something yeah?” she finished flatly.

Tony nodded and continued typing away as the Iron Man mask slowly took shape on the hospital bed. He stared at the mask’s blank eyes.

The suit and I are one.

Prophetic. I feel just about as empty as this tin can.

“They aren’t coming back” Tony repeated blankly. Nothing could bring back the dead, especially those that were literally already dust. So why was he quickly rapping away at the laptop keyboard, trying to get Friday online?

It was like that time he was in his garage, in his car, sifting passionately through old reports about Vanko, trying to find out more about his assailant, and as the webs lifted, he remembered feeling an uneasy peace.

He could do with a little peace, however intangible and ridiculous that might sound. As if on cue, the eyes lit up with the familiar blue, and Tony slipped the mask on his head.

“Good to see you again, Boss.” Friday’s cool voice declared as soon as visor hissed in place. “Based on the reports and the events of the last month, I had estimated your safe arrival to be nearly 0.1%”

“Missed you too Friday,” Tony thought, as he was painfully reminded of JARVIS. “Alright what’ve we got?”

“It’s not good, boss.” Friday said, sounding tentative, “Governments are in disarray, they’ve been shutting borders left and right, nuclear threat is at an all-time high, even though Wakanda tried to....”

“What about SHIELD? Fury should’ve been…” A cold icy realisation began to explode throughout Tony’s abdomen, and suddenly he felt like he wanted to vomit. Director Fury never seemed like the kind of guy who could just blink out of existence - Tony had always imagined that he would go out in an explosion, Viking Style, with the rain of heaven shining off his bald head. A beacon of hope to those who deemed themselves irredeemable.

So why didn’t he mourn him?

“He’s dead.” Friday said confirming his worst fear.

“Compile a list of my contacts who are alive. I need to know who we can get on right now.”

The list was small, pathetically small. Nat, Steve, Bruce, Thor, and Clint were alive. He raced his eyes across the list, looking for other potential additions to a team, trying to ignore the glaring loss of a Peter Parker on that list or the way his heart dropped like a turbulent plane as his eyes grazed the words “May Parker”. Not even that Lang dude seemed to be alive, or Pym, or his daughter, or…

“Friday,” Tony whispered, “Friday, where’s Sam Wilson?”

“Deceased, boss.”

“T’Challa?”

“Dead.”

“Sergeant Barnes?”

“Dead.”

“All right fuck it, give me all the dead folks.” Tony groaned, his stomach flipping and somersaulting unpleasantly. The list was frighteningly large.

“Maria Hill.” He croaked.

“Dead.”

“Wanda? The Maximoff kid?”

“Dead.”

A child. That pompous shit Steve had said so himself, she was just a child. She didn’t deserve this, did she? If only he had listened - What good did... ah, fuck it never mind. He was too tired to think about lost causes.

The face of a young boy wrapped in a poncho suddenly popped into his head, and before he could stop himself he blurted.

“Harley. Harley Keener, Teness-”

“Dead.”

Nebula gasped at the speed with which Tony hurled his mask off his face, a gust of air exiting his already empty lungs, as he collapsed back into the bed, his face a sunken shell. The light twinkle that nebula had seen return when they had landed on Earth faded - to Nebula, Tony’s eyes were like the stars snuffed out by violent black holes, a black hazy void of dreams wisping about his doleful round eyes.

Just a child.

“Tony?” Nebula noticed a dark man wobbling into the threshold, his gaze concernedly surveying the broken man on the bed. He seemed friendly enough, but Nebula inched closer to the bed, unsure of whether her intent was to protect Tony from the intruder, or Tony from the all-consuming darkness growing within his heart.

Tony continued to stare blankly at the wall ahead of him, as Rhodey stepped gingerly over to his friend. Relief washed over him when he saw Tony alive and well - watching Bucky disappear in front of Steve had made him paranoid for the months that he waited to hear from Tony again. It made him mad - it was like Afghanistan all over again. But seeing Tony’s expression - he recognised it from that time Rohdey had come to shout at him about Monaco in the garage. It was one of utter defeat. The face of the man free-falling out of control - his eyes were tinted with red, his face a bruised, battered mess. A man who had nothing more to lose, and would like nothing to change that state of affairs, thank you very much.

“Tony,” Rhodey said softly, his arm grabbing Tony’s shrunken form. Tony’s lip twitched and Rhodey tried hard not to hug him in the tightest hug he could manage and tried to put a smile on for his best friend. “Yeah man, that was some Afghanistan type shit. How many times have I gotta tell you that doughnuts ain’t good for you?” he chuckled, his eyes constantly on the lookout for any sign that he might collapse.

Tony managed a smile, as he grabbed Rhodey’s forearms and gave them a little squeeze as if trying to put all unsaid feelings into that little gesture. He was truly glad that his best friend was alive. But that solace quickly gave way to the image of Harley’s cold form wrapped in a poncho seared into his mind. That image slowly dissolved to dust in front of him, like Peter, like Quill, like fucking Strange. The smile slipped off his face.

He wanted to cry but no tears came. His brain continued to whir and click - it felt like shit, trying to get Friday back online, ignoring Pepper, hunting for those alive to form a team or a plan or something… it hurt cause that’s what always happened when Tony tried to feel hopeful. He would just end up hurting himself or someone he loved.

Tony wished to God that Stephen was right. Tony wished that he could find hope in Stephen’s affirmation that this was the one plan that would succeed. Tony wished that he could continue fighting, continue saving that little spark of hope that seemed to reside in some gold titanium armour within his body.

But for now, he was all out of wishing and lungs seemed to be getting even more airless than usual. Faces of the dead swam into his vision - people he had failed. The unlucky ones hand picked by the lottery of the Universe.

“I had estimated your safe arrival to be nearly 0.1%”

Funny how his luck seemed to be work in the worst possible way. The Universe seemed to be running his life in an entirely different casino - a casino where every chip was rigged to screw you over.

“So you’re just going to leave me here, like my dad?”

“I’m sorry.”

He was breathing heavy, his brain spacing out as Rhodey’s arm caught his slipping form into a hug. His eyes were screwed shut as his heart hammered against his chest, a little voice in his head crying out desperately

“Oh God, What do I do? What do I do?”

But while there was a comforting voice at the other end of the line in Tennessee, here it was just Rhodey’s cries for a doctor and his own relentless sobbing.

#tony stark #infinity war #robert downey jr #angst #mcu #harley keener #peter parker #t'challa #black panther #rhodey #pepper potts #war machine #nebula #james rhodes #marvel #steve rogers #wanda maximoff #pepperony

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squiishiichaos · 6 years ago

Text

Tekketsu University AU: 1

“Hey, Yamagi, wake up!”

The lump of human flesh groaned into his pillow, turning onto his stomach and disappearing further beneath the heap of blankets. Inside the nice, warm cocoon of cotton heat, it was hard to imagine why anyone—let alone his kind, caring roommate—would dare wish to awaken him from his slumber. Not after he had spent literally days the past few weeks pulling all-nighters to complete the paper part of his future thesis project while his rowdy roommates enjoyed their time off partying and relaxing.

But when he felt the fiend prod his side and roll him rather easily onto his back, he figured that the reason was probably good enough to face his wrath and possibly viable—enough so not to bloody his face with a mobile suit.

Wait…

Mobile suits?

Oh, “fuck! What time is it?” His jump from the covers clearly startled his two roommates, throwing them back a couple feet as he clambered out of bed and went about locating his discarded jumpsuit. He slipped into the tan material with a moan of effort, falling back onto the comfortable sheets of his bed as his two roommates watched in amusement. He rolled his one visible eye. “Can you please focus? This is important!”

“You know, I’d sympathize with you if it hadn’t taken three tries to finally get your ass out of bed.”

“And whose fault is that?” His blonde roommate—Takaki—had the audacity to look alarmed. It quickly shifted to offense.

“I don’t like what you’re implying. Are you blaming me for you not waking up on time for class? Because I will have you know that I have been up for an hour already while you repeatedly hit snooze.” He crossed his arms over his chest, shifting his weight in a very sassy manner. Yamagi had the good sense to just roll his eye and finish doing up his jumpsuit, grabbing his extra pair of gloves off his desk and getting out of bed again. He briefly took a moment to jostle his hair around a bit more before deciding that there really was nothing more he could do.

He let out a sigh and turned on his other roommate—Ride. “What time is it?” The fiery redhead looked at the nonexistent watch on his wrist with a green-eyed look of disdain.

“Let me see here, looks like it’s about time for you to get the hell off our backs and drag your ass to class. I’m not your maid; I shouldn’t be getting dragged in here to rouse your ass from beauty sleep just because Takaki here is too chicken shit to do it himself.”

“Hey!” Seniority be damned, the redhead sent an emblazoned look at the offended blonde, knocking him another couple notches off his horse.

“Shut up, you know it’s true!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s rude.”

“So what? It’s true!” Takaki rolled his brown eyes to the heavens and apparently prayed manners into the youngster living in their dorms.

And faced with a headache that could not be put to words, Yamagi decided it was as good a time as any to dismiss himself quietly from the scene. He managed to get his boots on and almost out the door before their voices were yelling after him. Luckily, some of his other dormmates took the liberty of telling them to shut up—saving him the time and effort of that failed escapade. He instead used that to propel himself as quickly as he could to his first class of the new semester, ready for whatever work the Old Man had waiting for him afterwards.

Truth be told, he liked his work.

As a mechanic for the Tekketsu School of Robotics and Mechanical Science, he got the privilege of working with some of the most advanced machinery the human mind had crafted in the last century. He was personally in charge of running diagnostics on all of their mobile suits and mobile workers—and more recently, their Gundam Frames—giving him a hands-on experience with all the finest technology this school had to work with.

Well, most of it. There were still some mobile suits even he didn’t have access to.

Even still, the ones that were available to him were more than enough to sate the need to keep his hands busy. Despite how labor intensive and exhausting maintenance could be at times, he enjoyed every minute of it. There was something about the robots he worked with that he bonded with. Ever since he was a little kid, he’d been fascinated by the ones he watched rampaging and rough housing in the Robotic sporting competitions, and that fascination had slowly grown into an obsession. From there, it had just been fate that Tekketsu happened to work with the objects of his dreams.

Sadly, though, no obsession was going to fix the fact he was late for class. And by the time he barreled into the classroom and managed to quietly collapse into his seat, it was already too late. His teacher—Eco Turbine—had noticed. “Yamagi Gilmerton, just in time for my first lecture of the semester. What’s your excuse for tardiness this time? Got locked in the hangar with your inventions again?”

“I’m sorry, Miss, I overslept.” His one visible cheek took on a flushed appearance at the glare she sent him, unamused by his lack of respect for her class. Not that it was on purpose, of course. He had never been a big morning person, even less so when his respectable roommates decided that going to bed at three am on a school night was acceptable behavior.

In spite of the terrifying dread building in his stomach, she once again released the tension coiling behind her pursed lips in a reluctant sigh of resignation. “Don’t make a habit of it this semester, okay? You still need to pass this class to get your thesis published, don’t forget that.” He nodded his head, sinking deeper into his seat. Almost immediately, the kid sitting next to him smirked, rolling his eyes in amusement.

“Way to go, hot shot.” Eugene commended him, leaning back in his seat and ignoring everything their professor said. Did Yamagi ever mention that he really didn’t like pilots?

Especially ones like Eugene. “You should really pay attention.” The boy scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“As if! It’s your job to make sure the machines are in tip top condition before they go out on the field.”

“But if something goes wrong out on the field, I won’t be there to assess it.” The blonde scowled.

“Like hell you won’t. Everyone knows you’re practically attached at the hip to your machines.” The way he said it made it sound like he should feel insulted, but he hardly took offense to the statement.

“And if I wasn’t, half of you would probably be dead.”

“Yamagi!” He inwardly groaned at the little grin Eugene sent him, turning to the professor and offering a sheepish smile. This time, she wasn’t so pleasant. “If you can’t pay attention, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.” He bowed his head in a defeated nod, sinking deeper into his seat. She let out an annoyed huff and turned back to the smartboard. “Now, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted: the most important thing to check before engaging a mobile suit equipped with the Alaya-vijnana system is,” the limiters, he silently answered. Limiters were the whole point of the neural lobe between the suits and the pilots. While on, the user had decent sensory connection with the suit they were controlling, but off allowed them access to spacial awareness of things that weren’t inherent to the human body. Thrusters, for one.

“…the limiters have been disengaged, it is unsafe to hook a pilot up to them. The amount of information that could leak into their brains is enough to lobotomize the user and potentially paralyze parts of their body. It’s always standard practice to allow the pilot to determine the limitations of themselves and their suits, and the ability to engage and disengage to whatever level of their liking. However, in the case of some suits, there are stall mechanisms built in as a safety to keep information overload in control.” Barbatos and Gusion, for instance. Even though Mikazuki—Barbatos’s pilot—had been adamant that he remove all limiters. Akihiro, thankfully, was a bit smarter than that.

“I don’t get the point, though,” one of the pilots in training—Hush—complained. “Of limiters in machines without the Alaya-vijnana system. Shouldn’t they be running at full capacity to make up for the lack of spacial control?”

“The problem with that,” Yamagi interjected, “is that the Alaya-vijnana system can be transferred and installed into any working mobile suit in service these days. Without pre-existing limiters, the engineers would need to go back to the basic coding of each mobile suit to reprogram them in.”

“So? That’s what you guys do.” He rolled his one visible eye.

“No, it’s not. We’re in charge of maintaining and fixing, not remodeling.” Beside him, Eugene scoffed.

“Yeah, right. If Shino asked you to—”

“That’s enough!” Yamagi had never loved Eco more than he did just then. Her dangerous eyes settled over each of them in a glare potent enough to silence them all into a symphony of quiet. “Now, if you’re done fighting, do you mind if I continue my lesson?” All of them nodded and she huffed again. “Good. Now, where were we…”

“I can’t believe how long that took.” Yamagi groaned, collapsing into his work station with a sigh of relief. He was quick about removing his books and slipping on his work jacket, adjusting his gloves and grabbing his trusted tablet. He scrolled through the listing of odd jobs remaining for the maintenance crew, looking for something that interested him. Some days, there were oddities found with the machines that needed special work, and other times—like today—all of them were random jobs that they were all used to doing for the various pilots on the team.

He sighed and chose one of the jobs at random, rushing over to one of the mobile suits and securing the elevation cables to his belt. He quickly scaled up the Grazer, reaching the cockpit and hooking up to the mainframe. He scrolled through the various diagnostics and data coming in through the transfer, digesting the sequence of code and highlighting any errors he spotted in the algorithms. Guessing by the amount left behind by the last technician that had played with this model, he assumed Ride was the dumbass who hooked in last. He rolled his eyes at the idea of the kid half-assing his work—again.

It was no surprise to the rest of the crew that the redhead wanted to be a pilot. Who wouldn’t?

In their school, pilots were treated like heroes. Their dorms were all doubles and singles, dressed up in lavish layers of silken sheets and comfortable beds. The maintenance team lived in suits of six or more, all of them situated in tiny bunkers with rotting beds and hardly enough space for one, let alone five. The pilots got to spend classes out on the field in mobile suits running drills and sparring, having fun in preparation for another match. The maintenance team spent grueling hours inside the sweltering hangar, suffocating in the smell of sweaty men, and looking at more lines of green against a black background than eyes in the jungle at night.

The pilots ate grandiose meals made by some of the best hands this place had to offer. The maintenance team might as well have eaten stools. The pilots all had lovers and fan clubs and supporters. The maintenance team didn’t have time. And while the pilots were well respected and loved by the community at large, no one ever noticed or appreciated them. They were just the hands behind the scenes, always working, always busy. Hell, Yamagi spent more time studying and fixing than he ever did with his friends. He didn’t have time for anything else.

Not when their heroes didn’t exactly have respect for the time, money, resources and energy that went into keeping their precious machines functioning. Half the time, their best pilots came back with their suits in a state of absolute peril. No matter who they faced or who they fought, it was always the same. They were ruthless and competitive, and if that meant losing an arm on the machine, then so be it. It had to be done.

Except that it didn’t.

He sighed again and went about reprogramming the limiters and engaging the locks in the system.

This Graze model had been a gift from the dean of the school—Mr. Naze Turbine himself. After the stunning victory the boys had against their former coach’s new team, he’d figured it was a good prize to offer. And looking at the mastery that went into designing the mechanics of the mech, he could understand why. Someone had taken a lot of time out of their lives to make this baby perfectly fit for workers like Mika and Akihiro. It had durable armor and many of the limiters were disengaged for the alaya-vijnana system, and the structure greatly resembled the make and model of the Grazes that Eco and Lafter had taught the boys on originally. He had no doubt that whoever worked this particular piece of metal would be very proud of the results.

Speaking of which. He scrolled through the list of details regarding the make and model, skimming past the credits and settling on the schematics regarding the use within the school. He stared at the letters staring back at him on the page, burning into his eyes and crushing what little hope he had left for the world.

N O R B A S H I N O

He gulped down the saliva pooling in his mouth and looked at the statistics of the machine again. He double checked the formulas and codes again and again, looking over every letter and number and character. He rechecked every single piece of the mainframe until he was absolutely satisfied with the results, making sure that there were no discrepancies or errors. And then he rechecked again.

Once that was done, he set the tablet into auto, running a protected diagnostic as he toiled with the gears inside of the cockpit.

He could tell from the smell of hot metal that someone had recently finished replacing the old controls with the Alaya-vijnana system. This particular mech had been customized for an integrated system, allowing the user to switch between different modes of control. In the first, the pilot could set the data siphon to focus on spacial awareness alone while the controls were relegated to the manual efforts of the user. In the second, the two parts were shared equally between the manual controls and the Alaya-vijnana. In the third, the machine was set to an auto pilot of sorts in which the mobile suit reacted to the thoughts of the pilot based on the information wrought by the machine.

Knowing Shino and his habit of berserking into the rampage of games and fights, he really didn’t like the idea of leaving the suit on auto-pilot. He knew that the moment the idiot took a seat in the cockpit and felt the rush of steel adrenaline in his neurons that he’d likely rush headfirst into a challenge without the slightest bit of concern. And as much as he would love to see how fast and strong this Graze could be, he also didn’t accept the image of his favorite pilot coming in beaten and bruised every time he went out to spar with Mika or Akihiro. Lord knows he was already foolish enough.

He let out a deep breath and turned back on the limiters, going through each of the manual checks he’d done and the few performed by the system maintenance. He quickly fixed any error codes and told the system to replenish the fuel in the tank, unplugging his tablet from the model and disengaging the reactor. As the mech powered down, he quickly climbed from the cockpit and took a closer look at the physical structure of the mobile suit.

It wasn’t that impressive, really. Unlike the Gundam Frames—seventy-two world class mechs made by only the finest hands in the world of robotics and technology—Grazes were the mass-produced assembly line creations that could always be counted on but never collected. There was something inherently modern and unsatisfying about them that never ceased to bore him. Although they worked well and were easy to maintain, they would never compare to the honor of working with a creation like Barbatos or Gusion.

He doubted anything ever would.

“Oi, Yamagi!” He looked down off the shoulder of the mobile suit, barely taking in the waving arm of the coordinator here in the garage. Old Man Yukinojo wasn’t the oldest person in the school, nor was he the wisest. But down here, away from the limelight, he was the best they had. And ever since he started hooking up with the ethics commander—one terrifying Ms. Merribit—it had become increasingly rare to see the tall, stout man in their midst. “You almost done up there? The boys have practice soon and Shino’s gonna need that up to par with his hefty standards.”

“On it!” He took a couple more minutes to do a final glance through the various monitors stationed around the build of the suit, checking off his list of qualifications until he was one-hundred-percent satisfied that everything was in order. After dusting off a couple flecks of dirt and dried paint, he released the tension on his elevation cord and sailed back down to the ground.

His boots landed with a thud on solid ground, echoed by a second set of footsteps. He turned on a dime and gawked at the man standing there, grinning wide at the mech beside him.

There were a lot of things he admired about Norba Shino.

Number one: he was funny. He told jokes that could light up a room in laughter for hours, sometimes without even trying. He literally spent half of his lunch time just entertaining his circle of admirers with story after story, always ending them with punch-lines and hilarious tags.

Number two: he was charming. He had this way about him that most of the other pilots didn’t. While they were all distant and reserved in their own rights, he was outgoing and determined. Honest and persistent. He always smiled at everyone, regardless of friend, foe or between. He greeted them like they were his equal, looking them dead in the eye and offering his full, undivided attention. And if they didn’t meet his look or return his gaze, he always wore this confused, curious face—like he couldn’t fathom why they wouldn’t want to look at him.

He was handsome, too. At nearly six-feet-tall, Shino was only beaten in height by Orga and Akihiro. His earthy brown hair was kept short and messy, just enough there to run his fingers through without enough to find purchase in. Against it, his honey brown eyes were always alive with mirth and alight with passionate fire. And due in part to their rigorous exercise routine, he had rippling muscles that coiled through his arms and continued into a strong chest, broad shoulders, and a six-pack that could sate an alcoholic for years.

And those goddamn studs. He didn’t know what it was about them, the earrings glistening in his ears. Perhaps because he was the only one who had them. Yamagi could never quite figure out what it was that drew him to stare at the gold diamonds, but even if he did, he dared believe it wouldn’t stop him. It was part of what made it so hard to look at the pilot now, when he was right there in front of him, only a short walk away from being in intimate proximity.

He gulped. “Oh, hey, Yamagi! You just finish checking her out for me? She’s a beauty, right? I think I’m gonna have Ride change up her colors a bit, though. That dull green just ain’t my thing. I’m thinkin’ magenta, ya know, for spirit!” Oh, great. Just make it even easier to pick him out of the damn crowd.

“Sounds…interesting.” He stuttered out, clasping his hands together to keep from fidgeting. It was hard not to when that intense stare was so intent and focused on him. “Umm, I did a diagnostic report on the main functions. The Alaya-vijnana system was installed yesterday, but I had to re-input the limiters. Would you mind…”

“Need me to test the balance?” He nodded and the pilot gave a hearty, jubilant laugh. “Well, of course! I’ll do all the tests you need, Yamagi! Just say the word!” He inwardly groaned—outwardly, he just gave a faint nod of his head and pulled on the elevation thread to take him up the height of the machine and back to the cockpit, Shino following happily behind him.

At the heart of the mech, the pilot quickly hopped into the cramped space and grabbed his hand off the thread, pulling him over the heavy metal framing to hook him in. He quickly took his hand back, intimidated by the warmth that radiated even through the thick polyester of his gloves. Shino didn’t even seem to notice. He just smiled one of his heart-shaking smiles, leaning forward so he could attach the Alaya-vijnana connector to his neck. He did so as quickly and efficiently as he could, checking the cord for any damages or leaks before he grabbed his tablet and engaged the reactor.

“You’re going to feel a slight tug at your conscience for a minute. If it gets too strong, let me know and I’ll dial back the input.” As he spoke, he tapped a few keys and ordered the Graze to start downloading strings of data through the newly established connection. He watched Shino arch out of his seat a moment, eyes going wide and nostrils flaring at the endless waves of data processing through his neural lobe. His normally intent eyes shook unsteadily for a second, flicking over sequence after sequence of code with an understanding that went beyond reason.

After a moment of restless anticipation, he finally relaxed in his seat a little, settling back into the cushion against his back with a long sigh. “Wow, Yamagi, you really weren’t kidding around with this thing. I can see all the adjustments you just made, was it to help stabilize the connection?”

“It was to block some of the unrelated functions. Right now, the suit is deactivated and so are the spacial awareness sensors. I was putting in the commands to turn them on one by one. It will let you get a grasp of your surroundings through the instincts of the machine. Here, I’ll show you.” He tapped on another sequence of code flowing down his screen and quickly made some manual adjustments, inputting another string of letters and numbers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shino twitch and look over his shoulder, eyes bewildered and fascinated.

“Whoa, this thing is really sensitive, huh? I can practically feel Yukinojo walking behind me!” He turned back to Yamagi and smiled a wide, enthralled smile. “Is that the highest level this baby has?” The blonde reluctantly shook his head.

“There are a couple more bypasses I could run to give you more of a feel for the machine but we’d have to take them one at a time.”

“That’s fine. I have plenty of time to play around with the settings. Let’s try a couple more.” He hid a sigh and nodded, going back to the list of data streaming on his tablet and scrolling through the necessary functions. He grabbed another line of data and began to pick it apart, watching from beneath his bangs as Shino settled into the cockpit and slowly became one with the machine.

It wasn’t until hour two that Yukinojo finally ascended the elevation line and came over to check on their status, and by then, Yamagi could’ve told you Shino’s limits better than the pilot himself.

The brunette had been persistent and endless about testing each and every limiter in the machine, balancing a strong relation between man and beast as they reset all the defaults to fit him. For every battle they won in a single try, there were the six others that took about seventeen, and among them, there had been three tests that had actually forced Yamagi to remove his bangs off his left eye just to focus. And by the end of that, he was so sick of staring at the black background of his tablet that he was compelled to stare at literally anything else just to get the green flash off the back of his retinas.

He rubbed at his tired, sore eyes and stifled a groan, looking at his teacher with a grimace of irritation.

“So, how’s she lookin’? You get everything properly aligned with the hot shot here?” Yukinojo nudged his thumb at the jock and Yamagi just gave an exhausted nod.

“All her functions and attitude modulators have been reset and reprogrammed. I defaulted the reactors back to their base levels for now and redirected the extra power to her motor-drives, just like we did with Barbatos.”

“Sounds good to me. What about her sensitivity scale? To what degree are we talking with this one?” Yamagi reluctantly reopened the manual and skimmed down to that panel, opening the text and scrolling through the different operations.

“I redacted the delay a bit. She was set to stagger with the intentions of the pilot, so I dialed that back down. I turned off the hair-trigger tuner. It has a manual override worked in, though.” The Old Man smirked.

“Programmed that in yourself, huh? Smart kid.” The pilot—who had been previously looking between them with the intensity of a person who was very lost in a foreign country—looked fondly on the blonde, reaching out to ruffle his locks affectionately.

Yamagi had never leaned away from someone so fast.

That didn’t detract from the smile the brunette was giving him. “He sure is! The last time I was tested on one of these babies, it took three days. He did it in three hours.” Yukinojo chuckled.

“Less, actually. S’why I prefer to let him do most of the diagnostic checks with our pilots. He has a sharp eye for equity. Once he finds the comfort zone in a category, he leaves it alone. That’s not an easy feat, even for me.” The blonde sighed.

“I’m right here, guys. Stop talking about me like I’m not.”

“Why? It’s all good things! Jeez, can’t you take a compliment?” He rolled his eyes at the boisterous brunette, leaning away before he could touch his hair again. “Anyway, if that’s all we had to cover, I should probably get going. Akihiro and Mika want to run some sims before our real spars begin. If there’s anything we missed, just let me know and I’ll come in whenever you need me!” His eyes crinkled in a bright smile, melting the icy layer growing around Yamagi’s tired heart. The heat of a flush radiated out of his cheeks, hidden by a curt nod and a quick turn away. The pilot gave another award winning smile and quickly detached himself from the mech, swinging over the edge of the cockpit and descending in one smooth motion back to the ground floor.

They both watched him race to the door, one in admiration and the other in curiosity. But as soon as he was gone, treacherous black eyes settled on him with a Cheshire grin that had him cursing his luck for ending up close to the professor after a chance encounter with his crush.

“So, was it all you ever dreamed of?” He choked on his own spit and the large man bellowed out a laugh. “Relax, kid! I’m just pushin’ your buttons! I know you were just doing your job. I’m still amazed, though. When you worked with Mika, it took twice this long to get him settled. Must’ve been nice.” The blonde shook his head with a long repressed sigh of tension.

“There are so many functions that are going to be a little whacky on the field. I’m going to need to see the actual refined data to really finish off the adjustments, and I’m scared to see what shape this guy comes back in. All of his sensitivity monitors are set high enough to react to a pin dropping. If anyone gets near him, he’s gonna blow without even needing a prompt.” The Old Man gave a slow nod, resting his hands in his belt with his own sigh.

“What do you think the damage will be?” He scoffed.

“Minimal, at best. No way Shino’s gonna come back from a test run unscathed.” The teacher nodded again, and sent him a teasing look. Yamagi immediately shot it down with a glare. “No. Forget it. Don’t even go there.”

The man looked bewildered. “What?! I was just gonna suggest—”

“No, I know what you were gonna suggest and the answer is still no. I’d rather refurbish the beaten and broken form of this mech than get in a cockpit with him.” The teacher shook his head in humor, shrugging his shoulders and taking a hold of his own elevation line.

“Well, suit yourself! Now, when you’re done powering down that new buddy of ours, I have a couple of quick fixes I need you to take care of with the Gundam Frames. Think you can manage to get it done and close up shop tonight?” Of course. Just another all-nighter.

With another reluctant sigh, he nodded his head and hooked his transport cable up to the suspension connecting the machines. He might as well get started before someone else came in to distract him.

#gundam ibo #yamagi #shino #shino norba #yamashino #shinoyama #iron blooded orphans #tekketsu #tekketsu university au

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years ago

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This week's big debate seems to be about Cas and humanity. I've read posts that are both excited and upset about how it seems like Cas is eventually going to choose to become human. I was wondering if you had any insight into whether that's a good thing or a bad thing for him, or if he should choose to stay an angel.

Heya! :) I am going to answer this to the best of my ability which is a liiittle bit loopy and over-tired today :P

But yeah I have been scrolling my dash and I am not dead yet so I have seen this discussion going on :D I sort of feel like I haven’t got much to say about it in a way that I haven’t said/agreed with before (so it’s been redundant to weigh in), but like… riiiight back when I was a Fandom Newbie and getting to know the lay of the land and I just got absorbed right into the general fandom consensus at that time among the groups of meta writers I glommed onto…

I mean, because I showed up after 9x18, and then though of course I was around for the following episodes I really started the whole circus of new episode reactions along with everyone, with season 10… between tearing apart the Cas stuff in 9x18 and then the Cas and Hannah stuff in 10x01-3 it just seemed really really obvious where Carver was going with it, and what it meant to Cas? And I mean okay this was 3 (4?) years ago but I also feel like with Cas’s development getting stalled over and over and over except in tangential ways, this was all put on ice like 3 times over before he even got possessed by Lucifer, so the MAJOR work on this was between the last minutes of 8x23 and 10x18 and even then that’s the STORYTELLING of it, and of course Cas himself puts the whole thing on ice as something he has the luxury to think about in 9x09. (Except for the one peanut butter and jelly conversation.)

So in 9x18 the MAJOR thing is that the lyrics “loneliness is a coat you wear” are laid over Cas taking off the coat to mend it (although that’s left out so it’s more like… he takes it off to gather his thoughts on what he’s going to do next, which is even more symbolic and useless in a practical way of why he does it). He then puts the coat back on to greet his army… And in a few episodes Metatron does the “draped yourself in the flag of Heaven” thing, which when 9x18 is all about the subtext and telling us to pay attention, I find a very very straight line to what that meant about him doing similar to 12x19 - using Heaven but not wanting Heaven, and never mind his motivation with Dean (and that being what changes his mind and makes him play Metatron’s game), the way it portrays Heaven as an obligation and a duty to help, but with a loneliness that comes from wearing that coat. He’s walking out into a parking lot full of angels but the lyrics are screaming that he’s without love, and lonely, and the end of the season confirms these choices were the reason.

And in season 10 it gets more personal, and we have Hannah as a counter example. With Daniel in 10x01 who wants to stay on earth and gets what that’s all about we see Cas empathising, but at the end of the episode he goes way deeper than that, talking about human things that upset and startle Hannah. She literally drapes the flag of Heaven over him in 10x02 and smooths it down and accidentally reveals that the plaid of Winchesters is underneath the collar all along, and Cas is sleeping and acting more and more human while sick. She wants to give him his grace back to stop this and he resists… Out of penance and lack of self-worth and knowing he did a heinous thing to steal grace in the first place (again, for Dean, not just to be an angel again but because he needed to survive to warn him about Ezekiel). But symbolically she is trying to make him take the grace and be an angel. Be a leader, the angel the others will rally behind and follow. She represents how all of Heaven feels about him (and 12x19 and 12x15 cover similar ground in what Kelvin says about Cas).

But also in 10x07 it goes deeper with how she feels about humanity - that the human things are forbidden, that love and enjoying sensual pleasures like showers are just *wrong* for angels to experience. She rejects human things entirely as stuff that’s not for her, and nopes out hard. And she is symbolic of angels in general, of Heaven’s desires and feelings in general when she asks him to be a leader.

This is the sort of pressure - innocent of malice but FULL of lack of understanding - that is at odds with what Cas FEELS which is full empathy to wanting to be on earth… an actual understanding and feeling for these human things. He’s in his own body without a shared vessel as 10x09 goes on to confirm, which means he has none of the conflict Hannah does there, and 10x09 paints quite a picture of Cas as wildly unlike all the angels in this way, because it confirms for once and for all he’s alone in there and the Jimmy issue is resolved.

To quickly skip ahead on this side of things, 12x10 shows the same thing but dialled up to a zillion. Instead of Hannah standing in for a clueless family that doesn’t understand and can’t empathise with the different feelings and sense of belonging Cas has, but is still mostly harmless if accidentally intolerant and stifling with their expectations and demands, we have Ishim, who stands in for the worst sort of family experience with intolerance. He’s also in love with a human and that’s the metaphor for violent, self-loathing homophobia I guess, as he kills Lily’s daughter to emotionally sever himself from her, to no avail, and tries to kill Cas for having the same “weakness”. Lashing out with hatred because of the internalised feelings of crossing a taboo line that their society has turned into a harsh rule. Supposedly good reasons are offered with the nephilim thing, but obviously Cas and Dean aren’t gonna have a baby any time soon, so the metaphor unfolds itself as queer through and through once Ishim turns on Dean.

And to walk aaaall the way back DOWN canon, I’m stalled in my rewatch in 4x10 at Anna pacing around talking about how she did the worst thing imaginable and cut out her grace and fell. 4x10 is the first episode to actually explore the nature of angels and lays down some ground rules, like that sex and disobedience are forbidden.

ANNAOrders are orders. I’m sure I have a death sentence on my head.

PAMELAWhy?

ANNAI disobeyed… which, for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell.

DEANMeaning?

PAMELAShe fell to earth, became human.

(I have the transcript open and scrolled down to that part in a tab and have for months… CBA to go find her talking about sex later but I think we all know the stuff she says)

That “worst thing you can do” line feels to me like with retcons from 12x10, that the “sacred oath” may be any sort of angel to human dalliance or connection or desire to BE and to be FREE. The same thing Hannah nopes out of in 10x07 is what Anna had to tear out her grace to experience. Anna having to take her grace back to survive is tragic, especially as it puts her right in the vulnerable firing line of Naomi’s reprogramming. This metaphor is SO much worse with Anna than even Cas, as it’s so simple about her returning to her family as an angel again after making a break to be free and live as a human like she wants, then to be tortured back to the family line and pure obedience, to her eventual death as an unrecognisable killer, a la Cas in 8x17. But without the sympathetic inside view and long arc to explain it or the narrative having any interest in saving her >.> (Hi, I like Anna and am bitter about that whole thing 5eva :P)

Cas in 9x09 also takes back a grace to survive (and this whole arc brings in the clear concept that has been on the backburner since Anna of grace and consciousness as 2 separate things, and grace to an angel being more of its power than its mind, though functionally they seem one and the same when nothing hinky is going on - something else important for human endgame as well as showing ways of removing grace without falling and turning into a human baby)… Again like Anna Cas has little choice when he takes the grace back. He was happy to die human until he learned Sam and Dean were in trouble, and made a horrific choice to help them by stealing grace. After that getting his real grace seemed like the only way to fix him dying of his actions, though he seemed happy to again, the story had other ideas :P (And Mittens wrote something on how Cas has “let himself die” in the way he didn’t in 10x18, where he has to pass through death for change and reaping the character benefits of transitions. (Flyingfish1′s heroine journey meta also comes to mind). Of course by not letting himself die, he’s trapped in the 10x18 > 12x19 holding pattern on his entire life and personal arcs except the ever-worsening depression and self-worth arcs that spring up in the meantime, and the belonging one.)

Anyway it’s all connected, these angels with their connections to humanity, either what they really really want and are denied by fate, or by fate end up experiencing, and really really don’t want. Or in Ishim’s case he really wanted and then because of being an example of a total tool representing institutional prejudices, decided murder was the best way out of his brush with feeling human things. And they all tell us things about Cas from different angles, with different angels (sorry. wordplay was right there.) The long and short of it is that Cas is supposed to be one of those marble statues with no doubts (in 4x10 - *buzzer noise* WRONG *points at 4x07 and “I have doubts”) or that human things are not for them (*points at Cas even bringing up the subject and confusing Hannah about why you’d want to learn them and horrified that Cas seemed to have picked up human cooties by admiring these qualities in the first place*) or indeed that angels in general are massively intolerant to humans and from start to finish it’s a death penalty offence to get tangled up with them or want to be/be one of them. (I know 12x10 is more applicable to the Destiel side of things but the general message about Heaven’s intolerance with “humanity” instead of queerness with all the other examples makes a lot of sense to me.)

Actually I’ve seen the argument a lot that this debate is metaphorical to the trans experience for Cas changing species, even more than the interspecies romance parallel to sexuality metaphors, and I think it is fairly simple to me that this is part of the general queer metaphor applied to Cas as something the angels are intolerant of. 12x10 threw in the Benjamin stuff too and made it a little angel gender studies thing (which Hannah also helped with in 10x17 by reprising her “totally in love with Cas” look in a male vessel and not giving a crap about the change). With Benjamin they said that the angel Cas was closest to there was the one who had a ….. friendship ….. with his vessel. So there’s a lot going on there between that and the “his vessel is a woman, benjamin is an angel” thing) :P

I think, anyway, Anna wanting to be human and getting disowned on pain of death and having to become an angel again, and even then being hunted for daring to not be an angel once, is the closest parallel to what Cas faces. Especially for internalised ideas he had at the time and hadn’t got to unlearn until he was a human.

And I think, additionally to that, he may not have even realised that being human even answered his feeling of not belonging or being different until AFTER it happened. Like, Metatron forced it on him too soon and then everything was non-stop awful and then suddenly he’s had to get grace again (and heading for that flag of heaven metaphor), and only then he gets to reflect on what it felt like, by way of being an angel again looking back on it. It was so brutal and short that he never got a chance to appreciate being human at the time in a way where it would explain to him what he lacks.

By 10x18 he has the family dinner and he takes his coat off for it. Heaven has rejected him, he’s seemingly chosen the Winchesters again, and got his grace back, but he has to go back to the grind, and he doesn’t change his wardrobe, he keeps the coat which is basically performative angel-ness with Winchester plaid underneath.

(Actually about the only time I can think of that angel-ness is used as the queer metaphor and not the other way around is in 9x06 when Cas is playing cis straight human to Nora and Dean shows up yelling about him being an angel at his workplace… I think that’s a very circumstantial metaphor which is more about delightfully queercoding the entire thing than a wider statement… After all, contained within a season where the main arc for Cas is leading a heaven army thing, and ending in “i just want to be an angel” in utter, tragic defeat on the emotional battlefield. Absolutely NOT a statement on what would make Cas feel HAPPY, just useful and numb, per 10x03 and what he says about human pain and how revealing those lines are side by side about what Cas is feeling and how angel is he REALLY, like, deep down in his too-big heart where it matters)

But yeah he just keeps on going after 10x18 and this all kinda drops away, so I think until season 12 basically nothing was really done to mess around with this concept again in a substantial, meaningful way aside from attack dog and similar arcs tangential to this and more about Cas’s state of mind in general (as the same conflict can be applied to Dean when human). It has become more about Cas belonging in the Winchesters as the main thing - 12x19 has Cas being way more upfront about using Kelvin to his face, that he’s only going along with it because his old connections to Heaven are useful, as well as shining a massive spotlight on Cas considering himself a guardian angel as a bad bad thing, which is actively damaging his beloved family relationships and especially upsetting Dean. He would rather protect them from afar, and I think long-term Cas ending up with the Winchesters but as an angel would always be somewhat prone to that sort of thought in an emergency that as a more powerful being he would have to protect them, and a sense of not belonging entirely as another species that can’t quiiite relate no matter how different he is and how much more kinship he feels with humanity even as an angel. I can’t see that as a happy ending, and since 12x19 it feels rather more like it would be not finishing a plotline that is not JUST about this relationship but using it to move the piece on the board about Cas’s human arc forward another step, as his endgame would be not just as human, but also with them, so tying the concepts together isn’t a bad idea, as long as it’s clear this is something in season 9 and 10 Cas came to as a desire without very much contact with them at all, and therefore very much for himself as an understanding of what he is and what he desires.

And, again, I don’t think Cas has great resources for self-reflection on the subject - not just that Metatron had to turn him human briefly to even make him realise he could ever do it, but something like using the belonging with family arc to help speed it along gives him a clear reason and goal for why it works and would feel right for him and to give him the place to self-analyse with motivation. I really don’t like the idea of equating this entirely with Cas’s belonging with the Winchesters arc all on its own, though. It CAN’T just be about that he should be human to be with his human friends/family etc. But I do think that a lot of the work to explain why he identifies with humanity has ALREADY been done and is a solid, existing part of his character already.

In a happy ending even if it all gets told tied up with the Winchesters, I would point to season 9 & 10 to argue that it was not JUST FOR them, but that they were the soft landing for him to make a decision. If he became human he wouldn’t be forcing himself to fit in with them, he would be doing it for himself. I mean, since season 4 he is equated with Anna, protesting loudly he’s nothing like her when even before we meet her he admits to one of the cardinal sins of doubt. He has ALWAYS had a slight leaning towards humanity and clearly described as UNANGELIC traits and feelings. So in this way he’s always FELT different and therefore as it gets expanded and expanded and ends up being a deeply complex metaphor and fascinating way to relate to Cas, it’s clear this is an inherent part of him from the start. The human feelings that Hannah violently nopes out of have been things Cas has tolerated, defined himself by, and felt all along. She’s used to show that Cas hasn’t ever been bothered in the same way, and just uses her leaving as an excuse to delve even deeper into human connections by worrying about Claire, and in the narrative, walking us right into proving he has his own body and no Jimmy, and another way Cas is both unique, and uniquely suited to a human endgame.

I think though that a lot of this is personal and subjective on the arguments going around, and I see this sooo deeply through the old meta I read back in season 9 & 10 which has shaped all my ongoing thoughts I do know I have developed probably my own biases on this. I think Cas would never be happy as an angel in a happy families endgame because the Guardian Angel Cas issue (which was his downfall in season 6, so not a new thing, just re-focused recently) would always play on his mind as it’s shown that he self-sabotages his relationships in order to protect them. I see it like season 4 Sam using his powers to exorcise because it’s an ethical way to get rid of demons quick in a fight without stabbing the innocent meatsuit. In season 5 even knowing aaall the trouble it caused him and that Ruby played off his desire to save people as a GOOD thing to do great evil, he was tempted by the demon blood and regrets/resents not being able to use powers to exorcise the kids. (Obviously before he learns they were all just human all along because that episode is so disturbing >.>)

Even if it went some pretty hinky places (as in the end of season 6 for Cas and the guardian angel mentality, with Crowley as his Ruby, as he uses “i still considered myself the Winchesters’ guardian” as a justification) Sam’s motives were for good originally and he missed the idea of sacrificing his own morality to save people for an objective better good. Cas seeing his powers as making him more powerful, therefore more expendable, less included, and with a personal sense of duty to watch over and protect them, HAVING the powers would only ever be living in temptation to do a 12x19 again. Sam only recovers properly without the powers to tempt him and I feel he’s in a very different place as a person by now… Cas with a human endgame might not get room to grow out of it on screen but by his grace being removed (hopefully and tbh by necessity willingly), he’d have the potential and promise that he would be able to recover in the same way from this toxic mentality. And I consider 12x19 very much doing for Cas and the guardian angel thing what Carver era and 8x01 especially did for the codependency. Just put it all on the table and told us, this is hurting them more than it’s doing good in the world. Let’s look at how it hurts them and why. Let’s aim to fix it and let them move past it.

And even if Cas can start to recover from some broad strokes, like feeling more included, feeling like less of a tool/personal attack dog, he will only have a long term chance at happiness if the temptation is removed at the source, and he will need to UNDERSTAND that too and to vocalise some things about his reasons for watching over them like this LONG before he chooses humanity. And these are very much my personal subjective feelings on why it feels BAD to me that Cas would stay an angel, as it’s right off on another end of the spectrum of why people are arguing they feel bad if he would become human. To me the personal identity stuff right down to complex sexuality and gender metaphors are MAIN TEXT in Cas’s arc due to him being an inherently queer character. The “it feel bad” reaction to me right now is that I feel sad for Cas being an angel around the Winchesters forever because he will always be their guardian angel and that’s BAD for what he WANTS which is just to be a part of the family with no complicated strings attached like his obligation to protect them. So to me I see humanity as the obvious answer to that. But that’s a personal reading of what I hope would happen and why. So my explanation of what I see in the text is one thing and this part is another, if that makes sense?

… I hope any of this makes sense. I apologise for typing so long… I know I said I’ve said it all before but I mean I assume you’re not tag-diving on my blog if you’re just asking me and tbh I wouldn’t know what tag to dive either and they’re *my* tags so I’m not judging ;)

#Asks #Caaas #human!Cas #long post for ts #Cas analysis

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illuminating-dragons · 7 years ago

Text

Nesting (3/?): The Apologies of Archangels

Summary: Sam and Adam have been enjoying the afterlife, but an important date rolls around and they have to face their pasts one more time.

Read it on AO3

Sam turned the page of his book and smiled when he felt his wife drop a kiss on his head.

“You’ve read that book a thousand times.”

“I just felt like reading this again.” Sam tapped the cover. “After all, we have the time.”

“Funny how being dead will do that,” his wife agreed.

They’d been dead over nine hundred years now, and Sam could hardly remember how they’d died. They were together here, and that was enough. Their families were close by, and sometimes their descendants would come and join them. It always gave Sam a thrill to see someone with Sarah’s eyes, with Charlie’s smile, with Dean’s skill. They’d left the world a good legacy, and from the stories that came up it was lasting.

“Is Jess coming over?”

“Yes. She’s bringing cookies.”

Jess had begun to join them about three hundred years ago, first just in visits and then in their bed. It still blew Sam’s mind that this was happening, but his wife and girlfriend, who adored each other as much as he adored them, helped him to get over that most of the time. Being able to love them both was one of the best parts of being dead, and he tried to show his gratitude as best he could.

Sam reached up and took Sarah’s hand. They were as happy in death as they had been in life, with their loved ones around them and plenty of things to explore. Maybe later their children would come over, and they could watch a movie.

There was a knock at the door.

“Is that her already?”

“I don’t think so,” Sarah frowned. “She likes to do things in real time.”

She went to the door and opened it to Chuck.

“Hi Chuck,” Sam said, standing up automatically. It was odd to see God; he was busy, after all. Now that Sam thought about it, he hadn’t seen Chuck in over a hundred years.

“Hello Sam, Sarah. How are things?”

“Everything’s great,” Sarah said politely. “Is there something we can do for you?”

Chuck hesitated, and Sam’s stomach sank. Something was wrong.

“It has been a thousand years since my return,” Chuck said.

For a moment, Sam couldn’t think of the significance of that number. Then he remembered back a thousand years, back to the day he was healed.

“Was your prediction right?” he asked.

Chuck nodded, face grave. “They have repented.”

“Who are you—oh.” Sarah’s face hardened. “Well, who cares if they have?”

“Sarah—”

“Don’t Sarah me, Sam!”

“Sweetheart, let’s just listen for a moment,” Sam said, taking her hand.

Sarah gritted her teeth, but nodded.

“I went to the Cage today, and both Michael and Lucifer have repented,” Chuck explained. “I have heard their apologies, both to myself and to each other.”

“Did you apologize to them?” Sam asked. “For putting them at each other’s throats?”

Chuck winced. “I did. We had a long talk. And they would like to speak to you and offer their apologies.”

“Are you sure?” Sarah snapped. “Are you positive they even mean it?”

“Yes.” Chuck’s voice brooked no argument. “They have caused a lot of damage to your husband and your brother-in-law. I will not risk their peace.”

“Do I have to forgive them?” Sam asked.

“No. It’s your choice to listen to them at all,” Chuck replied. “Either way they will return to Heaven, but Heaven is much bigger than you may think. You will never see them again if that is your wish.”

Sam looked at Sarah. “What do you think, honey?”

Sarah’s eyes were worried. “I think you should do what you want, but I’m worried this might not be good for you.”

Sam thought about it. He could say no. He could refuse them, but he had questions, still wondered about some things.

“I’ll talk to Lucifer,” he decided. “I don’t want—I don’t need to talk to Michael. He’s got other people to apologize to more than me.”

“He has several apologies to make,” Chuck agreed, his face hardening. “I will get Lucifer, Sam.” He nodded to Sarah, and left.

Sam kissed Sarah. “I want to talk to him alone, okay? Why don’t you go to Jess? I’ll join you later.”

Sarah kissed him back, clutching at him, and Sam clung back, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. He had nine hundred years standing between him and those memories, but suddenly it was like those one hundred and twenty years were the only ones that mattered.

He let Sarah go, and took a deep breath. “Go on, sweetheart.”

Sarah nodded. “I love you, Sam. I’m proud of you.”

Sam managed a smile as she went out the door.

Then it hit him. Adam.

He dialled Adam’s number. Adam picked up on the first ring.

“He talked to you too, did he?”

“Yes.” Sam was a bit surprised. “How…what are you going to do?”

Adam didn’t answer for a moment. When he did, his voice was a bit shaky. “I’m going to talk to Michael,” he said eventually. “I want answers from him. I don’t need answers from Lucifer.”

“I’m talking to Lucifer,” Sam said. “Adam…do you want to come here?”

“I don’t think so.” His brother’s voice, so confident for most of their life together, was now trembling. “I think that might be worse. Can I come over after though?”

“Of course,” Sam said immediately. Sarah and Jess would understand. “Just…maybe wait for me to text?”

“Sure. Bye Sam.”

Adam hung up. Now the room was silent again. Sam fought the urge to pace, to tap the chair, to do anything that showed how nervous he really was.

He could still say no, still change his mind, but the questions that had been nagging at him for a thousand years would never be answered if he changed his mind. It was the last part of the Cage that wouldn’t leave him alone.

There was a knock, a hesitant knock at the door.

Sam took a deep breath and opened it.

Adam stood on the porch of his and Kevin’s house, the home they’d bought when they got married. Kevin had offered to stay, but Adam had refused. He didn’t want to let his husband stand before his old tormentor.

He stood with his arms folded and stared at the archangel, marvelling that it didn’t make his eyes hurt.

Michael had taken human form, a dark haired man with intense eyes. He was shorter than Adam, but Adam still felt small. No, he told himself sternly. You are not small.

“Adam Milligan.”

“It’s Adam Tran,” Adam corrected him. “Michael.”

“Of course.” Michael inclined his head. “Is this your home?”

“Yes. What do you want, Michael?”

“I was wrong.”

It took a moment for Adam to find his voice. “What do you mean?”

“When I lost Lucifer, I also lost my father. Then I lost Gabriel. Clearly something had gone wrong with the great plan for Heaven. I believed it was my responsibility to fix it, and I did as efficiently as possible.”

“By torturing people.” Cas’ scars were the last to fade, about two hundred years before. “By killing those you couldn’t control.”

“I did. I saw a flaw in the angel’s coding, and I had to fix it. That is why I entrusted Naomi with the reprogramming efforts; she did not have the same flaw. And I noticed that it worked with many; the flaws stopped.”

“I am sorry, Adam Tran. I was wrong.”

Adam blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I was wrong to think that my father wanted the Apocalypse. I was wrong in thinking that I had to force angels not to change, to develop, I was wrong to hate humanity when I noticed the same flaw in them. And I was wrong, Adam Tran, for punishing you.”

“Because I tried to save Sam.” That day, so long ago in Stull cemetery, in a moment of clear control he’d tried to pull Sam back, but the pull of the Cage had yanked him in instead.

“Not only that. You were born to be my vessel, Adam Tran. You were born to serve, and that was what was supposed to happen. And you didn’t.”

“I didn’t agree with you.”

“I understand this now. And truly, that has been my problem all along.” Michael looked away. “I have always believed that I am supposed to be obeyed. I was the First. The one he got right, and the rest were flawed copies.”

“That is incredibly fucking arrogant.”

Michael actually smiled. “I am aware.” He sighed. “You know, once I cared for more than my brother and father. I cared for the younglings, I cared for the world. But I stopped caring when they stopped listening, and I did what I wanted, willing to ignore their suffering if it brought me peace.”

“And did it?” Adam asked.

Michael shook his head. “No. No, it did not. None of it ever did.”

Adam looked away. “What will you do now?”

“I do not know,” Michael admitted. “I have submitted to the judgement of my father. He will give me work, and I will do it. I am eager to relearn how to care. It has been a long time. You and your family have learned that lesson in far less time.”

“I never stopped trying,’ Adam said. He thought for a moment, trying to decide how to phrase what he wanted to say. “I hope you remember how to care. Just…remember that it’s going to hurt like a bitch to care. And that there will be people who won’t care about you anymore, after what you have done.”

Michael flinched, and Adam took a brief, savage satisfaction in that. “I know,” he replied quietly. “Believe me, I know. Farewell, Adam Tran.”

And because he’d been a doctor, and he hated to hurt people without giving a good reason, and because after over a thousand years of existing Adam had a better idea of what eternity felt like, Adam blurted out, “good luck.”

Michael stared at him. “Your species will surprise me forever.” He vanished.

Adam collapsed against the house, breathing heavily. He pressed his hands to his face, trying to get himself under control.

He hadn’t forgiven Michael. That wasn’t going to happen. But somehow he’d gone from hating him to feeling overwhelmingly sorry for him.

Whatever Michael had done to him, he was going to do a thousand times over to himself.

For a second, Sam thought it was Nick Starr[1] himself at the door; they’d found each other about five hundred years before. It helped, sometimes, to sit in silence with the only other person who’d been possessed by the Devil.

But no, this wasn’t Nick. Nick slouched a bit when he walked and usually had his hands in his pockets. Lucifer, on the other hand, stood straight and proud, arms to his sides.

He looked less proud now, somehow.

Sam swallowed hard. “Lucifer.”

“Sam.” His voice was different too. There was no sneer in it, no coldness. It sounded…empty. “What do you want of me?”

“Aren’t I supposed to be asking you that?”

Lucifer shrugged, stepping into the room. “I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need something from me; Dad’s made that pretty clear.”

Sam frowned. “He said you wanted to talk to me.”

“I wanted to give you a chance to ask questions. I don’t really need to hear anything from you.” There was a flash of his old attitude, and Sam gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to take a step back.

Lucifer noticed, and dropped his stance. “I’m not going to hurt you, Sam.” He looked weary all of a sudden, and Sam could see the weight of a thousand years in the Cage. “If you want me gone, I will leave.”

Sam cleared his throat. “I do…I have some questions.”

Lucifer inclined his head. “Fire away.”

“Did you ever care?”

Lucifer’s eyes widened. “I’ve got to say, I did not expect you to lead with that one.”

“I’ve been around for over a thousand years,” Sam replied, “and I’ve learned the difference between pain inflicted out of hate…and pain inflicted by hate that was once something else. Something closer to love. And what you did to me felt more like the second.”

Lucifer nodded slowly. “You’re smarter than I remember.” He paused for a minute. “Sam, I was in that Cage for millennia in Earth time. In Hell time…well, I’m older than anyone but my Father himself right now. Much older than Michael. And all that time, I could hear Hell growing around me, hear the sounds of the preparations for the Apocalypse. Sometimes I could hear the demons praying to me, telling me about the world they hated so much. It oozed hatred and malice, and I let myself drown in it. After all, this was what I was supposed to be.”

“And was that right?” Sam asked before he could stop himself. It was his second question, one he’d been too afraid to ask Chuck. “Did your Father—”

“Want me to be the Devil? Oh yeah. Daddy wanted me to be the ruler of Hell, the punisher of the wicked. The world needed one, after all.” Lucifer sighed. “It was supposed to be a job that I accepted, not a punishment, but…well, I ruined that. But to get back to your question—those were long, dark days and nights. I was alone. The only thing I could think of—the only person I could think of without it hurting—was you. Only you. I didn’t know your name then, didn’t know anything about you. Only that you were going to be a human who was as out of place as me, and we would rule the world together. So yes, there was a time that I cared.”

“And there’s something else.” Lucifer looked him straight in the eye. “I would have brought your family back. All of them. I would have put you in a dream world where you thought you were safe and whole and happy, and let you go on.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“I know. I didn’t care. And that’s the real answer to your question. By the time I knew who you were—who Sam Winchester was—I realized I didn’t really care about you as a person. You were my Vessel, and that was all that mattered. You would choose me, and we would feel complete together…but I didn’t care what your name was. I didn’t care about your brother, or your family, or your dreams. I’m guessing you could tell.”

“Yes.”

“Well. There’s your answer. I cared about you as the role you would play. I never really liked you.” Lucifer crossed his arms. “So that’s two questions. Do you have any others?”

Sam bit his lip. He did, but he wasn’t totally sure he wanted to hear the answer. Throwing caution to the wind, he asked anyways.

“Would you have ever stopped hurting me?”

Lucifer uncrossed his arms. “Well. That’s the same question my Father asked me, though I guess yours is in a different context.”

“Answer the question.”

“I would have stopped eventually. Not sure when; remember, my scale of time is very different than yours, different than most angels. Heaven isn’t as old as me. But I would have stopped, and do you want to know the honest reason?”

Sam nodded.

“I would have gotten bored,” Lucifer said simply. “When you threw us back into that Cage—when I realized that I had to go back—I decided to just do whatever the fuck I wanted. If that meant hurting you, or fighting Michael, or counting all the panels in the Cage—there are fifty million and seven, by the way—I was going to do it.”

“And what do you want to do now?”

Lucifer sighed. “I have absolutely no idea. I wanted to stop being angry: you see the result before you. It took a long time—”

“A thousand years exactly.”

“Really? I would have thought longer.” Lucifer considered that for a moment. “But there isn’t really anything I want to do. For the first time I can remember, I have no axe to grind.”

Sam didn’t really want to think about the consequences of a bored Lucifer.

“Sam.” The archangel’s eyes were intense. “I won’t be hurting anyone. That I can promise. And you will never see me again, if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t.” It was easy.

“Good. Neither do I. Father explained that you were made to challenge me; I am too tired for challenges now.” The archangel did look exhausted. “I have amends to make in Heaven, and then I think I will try to sleep. Perhaps when I wake I can find a task that will give me some purpose.”

Sam hesitated, then reached out his hand. Lucifer stared at him, but he took it.

“Good luck,” Sam said, and he was astonished to realize he meant it. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Lucifer shook his head and gripped Sam’s hand for a second before letting it go. “You’re never what I expect, Sam Winchester.” And he vanished.

Sam waited a few seconds to make sure he was really gone before texting Adam.

Done.

His brother’s response came almost immediately. Me too.

Come over.

Adam burst through the door a few seconds later. Sam grabbed hold of him, enfolded him in trembling arms.

“Did you—” Adam was shaking.

“It’s okay,” Sam whispered. “Ad, don’t try to talk.”

Adam shook his head. “Sam, did you forgive him?”

“No.” He still couldn’t, even after all this time.

“Good. Me neither.”

“I don’t think they deserve it yet. Maybe they never will.”

“Yeah.” Adam shuddered. “I thought I forgot what he felt like. I remembered.”

“We’ll forget some day,” Sam promised him. “And it’s over now, isn’t it? We’ve said our piece, no matter what.”

Adam nodded against his chest. They stood together, trembling in the soft light.

“I should go back and see Kevin.”

“I need to go too, Sarah and Jess are waiting for me.” Sam drew back, ready to stay put if Adam needed him. But Adam stepped away himself and gave Sam a smile. It was a small smile, but it was enough. His brother was okay.

Maybe I’m okay too.

“See you soon, Sam. Maybe we could have a family gathering tomorrow?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Adam clapped his hands and vanished. Sam took a deep breath and clapped too.

He landed in Jess’ kitchen. She and Sarah were standing at the counter, talking quietly. When they saw him, they stopped talking.

Sam started to explain—he wanted to tell them, wanted to hear what they thought—but his throat was suddenly so tight he could barely breathe.

He didn’t even need to breathe.

Sarah came forward and took his hands. She led him into Jess’ bedroom, where the bed was big enough for three, even their three. Jess was just behind them.

Sam laid down, suddenly exhausted, and Sarah curled up behind him, putting her arms around him. Jess set a plate of cookies on the night table and cuddled into his chest, sighing as he held her close.

“I—I can’t talk right now,” Sam whispered.

“It’s okay, baby.” Jess kissed him. “We’re right here when you’re ready.”

“I’m so lucky,” Sam managed, his voice cracking as he kissed Jess’ forehead, took Sarah’s hand. “So lucky.”

“So are we,” Sarah replied. “We all get to love each other.”

Sam kissed her hand hard, just over her wedding ring, and closed his eyes. He knew that his girls would let him sleep.

And the archangels? Well, the oldest was lonely that night, hidden from the sight of their siblings and listened to the talk about them being back, wincing as he remembered the deeds that caused the hate in their voices. His brother fared no better; he stalked about Heaven, feeling no connection to the place which had once been his home. Their father watched them. It hurt to watch his children suffer, but his heart felt lighter than it had in thousands of years. The process had begun, and he could see that they would find their places again.

The next day Sam woke up, and the three had cookies and talked quietly and spent the morning making love before they got up. Sam braided Jess’ hair and rubbed Sarah’s feet and the three of them set off for the gathering at Dean and Cas’ Heaven, where they hung out with the rest of their family. Adam was quiet with Kevin and their daughter, but his smile was stronger and Sam could talk without trouble now and they would be fine, and they would be happy each day, and that happiness would one day give them the strength to truly forgive, and rejoice in that forgiveness.

But not that day.

[1] I couldn’t help myself.

#spn fanfiction #spn au #lucifer #michael #sam winchester #acme146 fanfiction #AWOBS verse #apologies #crosspost from ao3 #nesting #sam winchester/sarah blake/jessica moore

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awed-frog · 8 years ago

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Hello dear, I gotta admit that to me, Mick's story felt like a rushed version of a concept they already used for Castiel. This whole thing about coldly following orders, being a 'friendly antagonist', then he starts growing close to the Winchesters, starts doubting what's right and chooses free will over obedience. He even got that Bmol chick to reinforce his training, which reminded me a lot of Naomi. I would love to hear your opinion on this :)

Hey sweetie, I’m afraid I’m going to be annoying again, because yes, I do think that’s how his character was conceived and I agree with people who see Mick as a Cas mirror, but at the same time I’m uncomfortable with it.

To me, Dean’s heart and Dean’s soul were the fundamental part of Cas’ rebellion. His entire arc is a love story. Sure, Cas did rebel before, because he ‘came off the line with a crack in his chassis’ or something, and therefore he sometimes had doubts, and wondered about right and wrong, but we also know those things didn’t last. Cas was (brutally) reprogrammed, and then sent back out in the field. In fact, his superiors’ trust in his capacity to obey orders was such he was even sent on a very important mission: he was the one who rescued Dean from Hell and kept a close watch on the Righteous Man - something that never really made sense to me (did Michael consider himself too important to take a personal interest in Dean? and, in any case, why pick an angel who had caused so much trouble for such a crucial task? was Heaven following some kind of prophecy? or was Cas really their best soldier, despite the fact that at the time they had not one, but two functioning archangels up there?). So, you see, while it wasn’t Dean, exactly, who changed Cas - since, as I said, Cas had rebelled before and he was nurturing a kind of free will withing himself long before meeting Dean - it was Dean who allowed Cas to take that final step and finally break free of his corrupted and blind commanders. As we saw most clearly in the infamous crypt scene, but also in countless other moments, both textual and subtextual, it was touching Dean’s soul that truly made Cas into what he is today. It was Cas’ love for Dean which made everything possible, and it was perhaps Dean’s complicated feelings for Cas (or whatever happened between them in Hell) that made it so that Cas couldn’t be reprogrammed any longer.

Mick’s story doesn’t have any of this. The whole way the BMoL was conceived of is a bit wonky and out of balance, but Mick is particularly wonky and out of balance himself.

Because there he is, right, the Big Boss of that US mission, and yet he’s clearly not the best person for the job - he’s not slavishly devoted to the cause, he doesn’t have much experience in the field, his skills in talking to others and convince them to join or obey the BMoL are fairly limited, and his own operatives, like Toni and Ketch, treat him with something that’s almost contempt. If I had to pin him down, I’d say that, unlike Cas (a commander and a soldier), Mick was mostly a daydreaming scholar. Although he was diplomatic and self-confident, he didn’t seem all that good with people, and talked most fondly about those (solitary) hours he spent in the library at Kendrick’s and the stuff he learned there. He was an academic, and in this sense, it’s interesting that he should be the first victim of this civil war. The BMoL lost their American scientists already (to an enemy raid), and those were the people actually making a difference - engineering new weapons, making sense of complicated maps and coming up with new and safer ways to fight - and were left with one assassin and one scholar. And when they had to choose which one was more important, well.

So, this is another reason why I don’t necessarily see Mick as a Cas parallel (even if, as I said, he’s probably meant to be one): because the whole BMoL thing is sort of built like a fascist organization taking over, and that’s mostly how it works. The casual violence, the step back so they can pretend to be civilized, the search for a common enemy in an effort of ‘national cohesion’ or whatever - and then, as it always happen, the gunning down of schools, universities, intellectuals and free thinkers, which is the beginning of the end in both senses (a healthy society cannot survive with those figures, sure, but even a totalitarian regime needs smart people who can think outside the box, or it will collapse). All this means that, to me, Mick is a very different character from Cas.

In earlier posts, when we’d only just met the BMoL, I saw much more of Cas in Ketch (blunt instruments and all that) and thought he’d be the most likely to switch teams, which, yeah, I was wrong about, but was I? Because Cas, in the end, does what he does out of love, and it’s useless, at this point, to pretend otherwise. Cas is fully Fallen in the sense that he no longer sees any right and wrong - or, in any case, he can’t do the right thing just because it’s the right thing. All Cas cares about now is keeping the Winchesters (and especially Dean) safe. Like, I still can’t believe nobody brought up how the Darkness thing was 80% Cas’ fault, in the end, because without him, no way Sam would have found a way to save Dean, and if Dean had died, or been flung into the Sun or whatever, none of that Amara bs would have happened and hundreds of people would still be alive and Lucifer would still be in the Cage and the world would, objectively, be better off. So, yeah, I can’t think of an angel who’s a direct Mick parallel - someone who ‘simply’ has a problem with his own conscience - because all of them, in the end, from Anna to Gabriel to Balthazar, did what they did because they cared about someone, and not because it was, rationally, the right thing to do (even if sometimes it was). But Ketch - that’s a different story. They’re going with psycopath there, and they’re pretty close to the mark, but not quite. Like, a psychopath would be narcissistic and extremely self-confident and have a very high sex drive - he would not have waited for Mary to seduce him, and he wouldn’t be surprised that happened. No, he would have been the one in charge, and he would have been the one with the little ‘don’t read too much into this, okay, love?’ speech at the end. The whole way that was framed didn’t suggest a psychopath to me - it suggested, mostly, an extreme emotional vulnerability and a well-disguised hunger to find someone who truly gets him. Personally, I think Ketch’s tired to be alone, and to feel like he’s the only person in the world to be the way he is, which, considering he works for some kind of Hydra thing which is supposedly choke-full of professional assassins, tells you a lot about how Ketch truly sees himself. I’m not saying he’ll push off killing Mary out of affection, though. We’ve seen how Ketch gets with people (and especially women) he thinks are inferior to him in some way. I see it more likely that he’ll get cocky and will want Mary to feel as uncomfortable as she made him feel when she denied they were one and the same - which means, presumably, some demented scheme to kill Sam and Dean first and therefore DOOM for everyone involved, because you can’t kill those denim-wrapped nightmares and that’s just a fact.

#ask #spn meta #mick davies #arthur ketch #destiel #spn season 12 #bmol #building you own totalitarian regime for dummies #some talk about psychopathy #a subject i really like #and also like to think i know a lot about #but yeah

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dovesdanceatdusk · 8 years ago

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potential unpopular opinion (it’s long so I’m putting it under a keep reading cut):

I’m sure some people out there caught on with the similarities of Cas and Mick.

Mick was:

Someone who became a part of Sam and Dean’s/American hunting world

Outsider to the norm of the show’s world (Sam and Dean’s world; American hunting community), but later integrated into said world enough to change personal perspective/world view. Mick’s Black and White knowledge taught to him at a young age shifts to the gray world Sam (and eventually) Dean understand exists.

Someone who blindly believed in the code; someone who followed orders from an organization that only believes in cold, righteous, discriminatory justice against the supernatural. Organization sees the supernatural and anyone who opposes the organization’s worldview as bad, dangerous, incompetent, and beneath them. (In Castiel’s case, it was heaven and the Host) (Some angels (s.4) viewed humans as mud-monkeys, Sam as an abomination, and demons as lowly creatures).

Someone who, after Sam and Dean showed him the gray aspects of hunting worldview, stood up to the higher ups and got punished for it (contrast: Mick dies, Castiel gets reprogrammed/fell from heaven-the Host).

Someone who tried to convince the brothers the organization he works for is doing good in the world; convinces a brother while the other is skeptical (Castiel’s case, Dean is temporarily convinced whereas Sam is the seeing otherwise). This point can be debatable depending on your point of view.

Moral independence counteracts with long-term programming (teachings from Kendricks; the code).

There are more examples and parallels I might’ve missed, but I’ll move on to my questions.

It seems like Mick was a parallel to Castiel, and if he was, why kill off a character with potential character development? And what will happen to Castiel if Mick was a parallel? [This is where it gets foggy for me because I don’t think Cas will be killed off, but I don’t know what’s going to happen with him either.] Why did the show punish (<--might be a strong word here) a character from gaining positive character development?

This has happened before. Magda. She’s not a Castiel parallel, but there is a correlation between her and Mick. When she overcame her mother and chose not to kill, she was still killed for being who she was by the BMoLs (Ketch). Both characters were convinced they didn’t have to take drastic measures for justice, especially if they didn’t have to (or want to).

Now, I’m shifting to another problem. One that also bothers me. With both Magda and Mick, Sam convinced them to change their minds. They stood up to a radical authority who believed an extreme of order and justice was good when it wasn’t. Both were killed after standing up for themselves and doing right by them (Magda after she stood up to her mom and took the next step for a better life; Mick after he stood up to Dr. Hess and challenged the BMoLs’ code/authority).

Now, I’m not unfamiliar with this. If we focus on Sam, he was punished for doing the right thing. For choosing a different path outside the rules the narrative placed (choosing not to kill a supernatural being instead of following the black and white belief and killing the monster off, for instance). He’s been indirectly punished after saving a supernatural being that chose not to kill (in this season: Magda). He’s been yelled at or berated after he tried to sympathize with those in distress (Mary is a good example). He’s the damned if you do, damned if you don’t character to me, because no matter what he does to do right by others, he tends to be framed as the wrong one. Not necessarily all the time, and I know other people may see it differently (some people see this character as Dean, and that’s okay), but that’s what I see in Sam.

Season twelve has framed Sam a little differently from the previous seasons. In this season, it seems the writing wedges Sam into certain parameters that fit in the episode’s narrative (not the overall narrative, though I’m getting to that). And this season seems to frame Sam in a way that helps the narrative. Some would say plot device, but I think it’s more complicated that that. Because the framework is using Sam’s characterization against how he would normally react in the same scenario.

In previous seasons, Sam stood up for himself and got berated and punished for it. The criticism or punishment led to Sam standing down or accepting the “Right” belief of the narrative. This season, Sam stands up for others, not himself necessarily, and then he’s framed, ever so slightly, to make a decision that aligns with his character, but not with what he would probably do. When you call the show out on it, you can’t deny he’s in character, but you know something’s off.

Take Sam’s decision to join the BMoLs. His decision is in character. He sees the greater good over his own well being and past trauma. He looks out for and tries to protect family (Mary).* He tries to see the good in something that may be antagonistic (especially after killing the Alpha Vampire).

He was in character when he found out Mick killed Hayden and told Mick they (Sam and Dean) were out. But then you see the off-ness. Sam and Dean allowing Mick back into the fold, doing drinking competitions . . . the seriousness of what Mick did to Hayden becomes minute, despite the narrative implying it was a bad thing to kill Hayden like that (and it still is, make no mistake). It’s a subtle framing, an off-ness that could be waved away as overthinking or freaking out over nothing. “It’s fine, stop worrying about this, it’s just a show.” Because it is just a show. See the complexity? Show: “Nothing to see here folks, move along.”

Then Mick, like Magda, becomes fridged. Possibly to slight the similar viewpoint (Sam and Dean’s); perhaps it’s plot device to lead you to bigger potentials: Sam (and Dean and the American hunting community) being hunted for his (their) gray perspective**; Sam and Dean (and the American hunting community) VS. BMoLs; Sam being framed as wrong despite his choices. Only difference between previous seasons and this season, is this season molded a reason for Sam (joining up with the BMoLs; being mediator/peacemaker) to be seen as wrong. Here’s to hoping that will not be the case.

*It’s debatable. Some people speculate Mary as a possible reason for Sam to join, while others do not.

** Season twelve subtly implies the American hunting community sees the world with the gray perspective instead of the black and white when, in previous seasons, it was not always the case. 12x06. The hunters who gathered for Asa Fox’s funeral talked highly of both Sam and Dean as legends. In previous seasons, some hunters didn’t talk kindly (or highly) of or act reasonably around Sam (5x03; 5x16; 9x02)--and by extension Dean (5x16).

Dean shifted his viewpoint of the supernatural world into a more gray perspective. He hasn’t always been the one to see the supernatural with a gray lens, and he sometimes reacts with knee jerk moments. Like when he sided against Mary twice for her actions; or not trusting the BMoLs after they had a hand in torturing Sam (regardless if it was said to only be by Toni’s (and Ms. Watt’s) hands). Reasonable actions, I might add, for Dean.

However he worked on his own character development during this season (12x04 with Mary and Beth; 12x14, reasoning with Sam at the end; another example that I can’t think of right now but it’s there, I know it). It’s flat for me (glad he’s getting that development though) because I know it is leading to Sam, Dean, and whoever else is considered enemies of the BMoLs VS. BMoLs--with Mary caught in the middle. She will end up choosing a side; her decision, like Kelly’s, will have weighted reactions/consequences (because another fridged character (Billie) set the course for those potential consequences due to her death).

Bonus round

Another speculation of mine: season twelve is so wonky for me but I think it’s because Dabb is building up to his real vision of the show to play out (season thirteen and beyond). This season not only sets up the next seasons (and the showrunner’s story), but it also tweaks the canon just enough to fix a few problems from the previous seasons. It’s a thin coat of paint to a dilapidated structure, but despite the off-ness of the details, it gets the job done (new showrunner, new house). I don’t like it, but it’s not enough for me to jump ship. Despite the off-ness, twelve is not too bad. Not the best, but hey.

All speculation, of course.

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enemymine2000 · 8 years ago

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Fandom rambles: Destiel

Random disclaimer: I am late to the party, but I'm only just now trying to catch up on Supernatural. I have binge-watched as much as I could the last couple of months and right now I'm at 11.17, so roughly only a season left to finally catch up with y'all. Therefore I don't actually know what's going on in canon right now, apart from the random gif-set or meta. I don't tend to spoil myself willingly (too much). Random dislcaimer to the disclaimer: I tweaked the programmed fall of Castiel a little bit after I finally caught up with the show. (YEAH!) Meaning I added “a bit” to the text, but my argument still holds despite Chuck being kind of a douchenoodle. I also clarified some of my ramblings, while I added to others. Wild ETAs appear, but since I couldn’t catch them all, I haven’t identified them all. So basically I re-wrote some of it without actually changing my hypothesis.

That being said…

In my mind Destiel low-key exists in canon. It's not only the fact that it is always especially acknowledged in the more meta episodes – as much as I love Sam's fascination with the subject. But simply the way the show is actually written.

There was the line spoken by Sam, while Dean had his focus completely on bringing down the Leviathans, that went something like: “Are you looking at porn or are you exclusively into dicks now.” The casual viewer laughs it off as a nice pun on the name of main villain Dick Roman, but underlying is Sam's acknowledgment of the fact that his brother very well might not be totally straight either.

Random discourse on sexuality: I'm totally straight, so all I know is second-hand knowledge and stuff you read and hear over the years of existence. But what I know is that bisexuality does not mean that you can't have a predominately type or gender for that matter.

So us only seeing Dean's female conquests doesn't automatically negate any chance of him being bi. As well as him obviously favoring female Asian porn.

I mean, come on. I'm a straight woman, but I prefer to watch male gay porn. Doesn't make me a gender-bent homosexual. (Please, no wank on the nonchalance I display. Everyone does themselves, I do me.)

Sam practically always takes the chance to tease Dean about possible male/male relations when it arises. Mostly in connection to the Winchester Gospels/Supernatural fan fiction they come across and practically always in regards to Cas.

Little brothers always know best, I'd say.

So I take that as as much verbal confirmation we'll ever get, unless the show mans up and gets The CW to back down on their “please, no homo for main characters”-policy. Which, come on, Supernatural got an early renewal for season 13, they could really start to give us a treat.

Anyway… It was established very early on in the Cas' storyline, that the angel Castiel and the Righteous Man, Dean, share a most profound bond. Something beyond everything Castiel feels for anyone else, except maybe Chuck himself – but that is practically his operating system and doesn't really count as changeable feeling. I heard even Lucifer still loved Daddy dearest deep down in his blackest of hearts and by Chuck he really tried not to. So operating system it is.

Castiel having that deep of a bond with Dean is not part of that. In fact it even interferes with all orders he gets from Heaven in his first two seasons.

He is not meant to get attached, but he is and it slowly but surely changes his basic programming. He comes to love humankind in a way that practically no angel since allegedly Lucifer has done. He starts to understand them on a basic level even while still being a celestial being roughly the size of the Chrysler building.

Castiel falls without actually falling from Heaven. And even when he later gets caught and reprogrammed by Naomi, his attachment to Dean wins over his new orders. This bond runs deeper than his connection to Heaven and even his faith in his father, the two fundamental pillars of his very existence. Nothing should be able to beat that, but his connection and feelings for Dean do. Again and again.

Which is something that in my opinion can't be stated enough. The angel Castiel was a good soldier. The leader of his garrison. He was trusted and in return he had blind faith in the cause of Heaven.

The soldier fell because of one human man.

No matter his role in prophecy, at the end of the day Dean is nothing but a pathetic, weak human man. Functional alcoholic with enough issues to pay the bills for all of New York's psychiatrists. (I've heard there are a lot of them.) A guy, who as much as he loves his brother, he doesn't even fully trust him. Not enough to tell him that he is screwed up after his stint in Hell anyway. And it gets only worse as the seasons progress.

A man who doesn't even believe in God's plan when confronted with the proof of its existence. Ironically by meeting Chuck himself, but hey, a God does what a God has to do, right.

And here it is, something I think is highly overlooked when it comes to the discussion of whether or not Destiel might be real, going canon or what-not. The fact that Chuck not only knew about Castiel falling, but it was part of His very own plan. Castiel needed to fall for the Winchester Gospels, which were practically the Word of God – without anyone knowing at that point, okay, but still – to play out as intended. (ETA: As much as the Apocalypse in Supernatural had been engineered by leader-less, bored angels, its happening has been foretold for close to 2000 years, I guess from the prophecy of John until today, so even without the Winchester Gospels a Righteous Man was foretold to break the first seal, so there always needed to be an angel to raise the Righteous Man out of Hell - innocent soul after all. For the ultimate fight in the Apocalypse the Angel Breeding Program always watched over the bloodlines which would bring forth the perfect vessels for Lucifer and Michael and always needed to make sure to keep the vessels alive as long as there was no replacement/next generation ready. Meaning of course somekind of guardian angel. Lucky Cas, he just was doomed from the start, when the bored upper echelon jump-started the Apocalypse program. Because of course he was chosen (? - programmed?) to raise the Righeous Man, who just happened to be Dean freaking Winchester, Michael’s perfect vessel. The Upper Echelon and The Angel Breeding Program obviously were never good in keeping each other informed. Which is why Chuck hadn’t expected Castiel to be there, despite the Winchester Gospel - the amended version of the original prophecy. When Chuck still was on top of everything Heaven, those mistakes simply didn’t happen and therefore even God himself could not foresee Castiel taking an active part in the Apocalypse - with the rebellion so to speak. But Chuck definitevly foretold, aided and abetted even, the rebellion and hoped to himself to stop his own program, for it was not meant to go off that early. And he really couldn’t have his angels running roughshod over his plans, especially while He still enjoyed his creation. As a nice little compensation for stopping the unstoppable, Chuck rebuild Castiel after Lucifer was back in the cage. But the angel was already infected with the Winchester-virus and still screwed, which at this point Chuck must have known, even when he still didn’t overly care for his “son” and whatever would happen with Heaven going forwards.)

So since Chuck in Supernatural, despite all his flaws, still is an all powerful and omniscient being, it de facto was God's Will for Castiel turning his wings on Heaven for Dean's sake. (ETA: Him knowing and not changing things in this case means “God’s Will”. We can not assume not knowing, since Chuck turned up for “Supernatural - The Musical”. We know he did not care until it was actually kind of too late - if it wasn’t for the Winchesters - and threatened His own being for once. So if He knew and did not change things, it implied His Will, even if only by omission of doing something else.) He might not have known about the clusterfuck Heaven produced due to jump-starting the program, but he did not change the course history would take after by running an anti-virus program against human emotions through Castiel when he rebuild the latest version he had transformed into. The version that going forward had the free will to go against Heaven and therefore laying the groundwork for the literal fall of all angel-kind. (Something that He still, to the best of my knowledge has not fixed. So all angels still depend on the stairway to Heaven, Cas is so far gone down the human route, he practically is human inside. So whatever clusterfuck “of cosmic proportions” happens next, I blame it on Chuck for not taking the time to reorganize Heaven before He made of with Amara to wherever.)

Heavily flawed Dean Winchester - ah well, even Chuck couldn't plan out all details in advance. But the Winchester line was part of the Angel Breeding Program and therefore always meant to produce Michael’s, but with an infusion of demon-blood also Lucifer’s. And there must have been a point in history, where it was obvious to look to Dean when it came to the Righteous Man. I mean, the Upper Echelon were not one day like: “Let’s jump-start Apocalypse, who is the most likely candidate for breaking the first seal in Hell right now.” They must have known to watch for Dean, before he was taken by the hellhounds. To observe, how long he would hold out. They must have planned to have him being the Righteous Man from the moment he made that damn crossroads deal. Them not intervening on his behalf is evidence enough for that. Dean Winchester was Michael’s perfect vessel. The only possible candidate at that point. Adam was not a product of the Angel Breeding Program, therefore not on their radar until the Winchester brothers discovered his existence, which was after the Apocalypse had started and Dean had already declined various attempts to have him become Michael’s meatsuit. The Angel Breeding Program was desperate, for the Apocalypse was to far advanced to delay the ultimate fight much longer and in the Upper Echelon’s need to have something happen, they missed the fact that it’s always good to have a spare. Which normally would have been Sam, but alas, demonblood infusion. A goner for Lucifer as far as they were concerned - and hence probably the only reason they were so desperate in having him stop consuming demonblood. He was too far ahead schedule for Heaven’s liking. So, having Dean be the vessel while also be the Righteous Man was not well thought out, but the Upper Echelon hazarded the consequences. They send Castiel to raise him after the First Seal was broken and kept him on his case, so the vessel would not be gone before it was its time to be used by Michael. Practically a 2-1-deal for Heaven, right? Only Dean’s main flaw is to go against the machine and beat the odds or die trying. Therefore he corrupted Castiel and formed him to be the Cas we all know and love.

All in Chuck's plan, by planing the Apocalypse and not changing the program once it was started by Heaven - although, maybe he did. We call Chuck’s books “The Winchester Gospels”, but are they still gospels, when God himself wrote the script? He sure didn’t care about everything enough anymore, but he still kind of liked just being with his creation and he definitively is a stronger being than all others, except Amara. So he could have simply changed some things to keep his creation going without outright stopping the Apocalypse - which was meant to happen anyway by him, just not that year - but in favor of Team Free Will. Or maybe he really did not care either way and had already his room prepared and was willing to wait there for whatever as long earth itself continued to exist - well, and Amara was not freed, I’m pretty sure that would have been an instant deal-breaker. Either way, Chuck’s plan. Either by action or inaction.

But, you say, what does that all make Dean and Cas necessarily into a gay romance thing. Nothing at first. But then you must also remember that Cas is a celestial being first and foremost. He is only a he, because Jimmy Novak's body turned out to be his perfect vessel. Angels are basically genderless and as Cas himself once said during his first couple of seasons, they don't judge based on gender or sexuality. It simply is what it is.

That also makes the point moot some might offer up, that Cas only ever seemed to be physically attracted to women.

For starters we have way too little data. Cas has had a boner watching hetero porn (in reaction to the babysitter or the pizza-man we don’t know) and in a pinch acted out on what he saw with Meg. That was not attraction, that was simply a life and death - try to distract them - situation. Meg being attracted to Cas is another thing altogether. But to quote Jensen on whether he ever thought about Jared in a sexual way: “Who wouldn't want to tap that!”

So the whole Clarence-schtick starts. Cas not being in his right mind at the time makes everything we might see from him, before he regains his sanity, moot. Consensual issues and all that jazz. Even for celestial beings.

Remains the one line about him having been willing to give it a try before Meg sacrifices herself. Again with the “Who wouldn't want to tap that.”

Cas genuinely came to care for that demon, who had been willing to go against everything demons stand for and help out an angel. Said demon inhabiting a nicely build body and obviously being good at kissing is not a turn-off either.

But most importantly, both knew that it would have taken a miracle for Meg to survive the coming minutes. It was their way of comforting each other and saying goodbye.

The next one we are being shown is April. Cas has now truly fallen in every imaginable way. Heaven's Gates are closed, he is without his grace and thus purely human and on the run from literally every angel there is. And all are on earth, he can't see their true faces anymore and he feels he has to protect the Winchesters by staying away after what has happened with Hael, who pretended to be on his side only to turn around and use him for her own gain.

April appears to be human and nice and one thing leads to another. Not necessarily to be taken romantically. I mean, take a look at the situation and try to imagine living it yourself.

At this point Cas is as human as he can possibly be emotionally. He is on the run, running on empty, injured and doesn't know whether there will ever be a safe place for him anywhere. He doesn't even know, where he belongs to anymore. He will always be angelic at heart – literally an eternity of being one will not be so easily erased – but he is truly human now. The Gates of Heaven are closed, so even if he somehow got his grace back, he would still be trapped on earth. Should the Gates of Heaven open again, he would not be welcomed due to his role in the Fall and his time as Godstiel.

His live is in danger from practically everyone now – humans are so much more fragile and complex as angels – his only allies are the Winchesters who are always in trouble one way or the other and really don't need all angelkind on their case too. He is hurting on all levels and there is just this one little beacon of hope called April. Doesn't hurt that she is attractive and he inhabits a hot-blooded male body, which obeys a simple programming. Eat, sleep, procreate. Repeat.

The only true interest on an emotionally level Cas shows to a woman is during his Steve days. But then again, he is new at this whole being human thing. He desperately tries to blend in and Nora seems to be genuinely kind to him.

He misreads her intentions though, for he simply doesn't know better. Nuances of human interaction are still too much to handle for the former angel. Not too forget, that he is disappointed in Dean for turning him away from the bunker.

What would you do if you literally had no one else and would wanted to fit in? You either despair or you would try to find new friends. In this scenario, you would accept the apparent invitation for a date and go with the motions. (We literally see him imitating others in that very episode, where he to goes with the motions without understanding the subtext of the interactions.)

IDean's appearance in “Steve's” town throws an emotional wedge into Cas' new life. Despite him still going through the motions, his pain is palpable. He misses being Cas, he misses Dean and it hurts him, that Dean seems to be so nonchalant about the prospect of him dating. Enter the Rit Zien, the “mercy-killer-angel” Ephraim, who comes after Cas.

That concludes the data. At least as far as I'm currently aware. Three females (at least in body) and a porn video (maybe).

Again, Cas as an angel simply has no appointed gender. No appointed sexuality. He simply does not care about such concepts. It is what it is at any given moment.

But his heart, well, that is another matter. The strongest emotions he feels when it is Dean. The strongest bond is to Dean. Dean is acknowledged in canon to be his ultimate weakness and also strength in nearly every episode Cas makes an appearance.

So saying that Cas not only loves Dean, like he would love all humankind (Chuck programmed that into his angels too), but is in love with him is not a stretch. It simply is stating a fact.

So back to Dean's point of view. There is way more data to be had canonically. But also a lot to be left to the imagination.

We hear a lot more about Dean's conquests than we do actually see them. Whenever Dean has a night in the town, so to speak, it is more alluded to the fact that he picked up a random woman than actually shown. So it could very well be, that some random men might be among the conquests.

I again might want to remind you, that Sam is completely calm about the prospect of Dean being with men. He never even hints at being uncomfortable with the thought.

I mean, I don't know about your family, but my brother, as cool and modern and open-minded as the little shit is, would still be left speechless for once if he suddenly got confronted with his sister turning to the other side. He would snap out of it very fast, but he still would have his moment of reevaluating me and our relationship, trying to figure out where he might have missed hints and stuff like that. And than the bastard would probably humorously ask if he could leave me and his girlfriend alone in one room. As I said, he can be a little shit. I love him regardless.

We see nothing of that sort from Sam. Meaning he had that moment sometime off screen, probably way back in the brother's past. Knowing John Winchester, probably not when the old man was around, but had left his sons somewhere in a motel by themselves.

Well, I've heard teenaged boys are horny as fuck and no adult supervision and only a little brother to think about… Who knows how many conquests Dean had in those dingy motels while being left behind to look after little Sammy. Who knows, maybe Dean even had to do some stuff of the sexual kind, just to keep questions at bay and Child Protective Service off their backs. (I mean come on, John was sometimes gone for weeks and two underage sons left in dingy motels without parental supervision sure raises questions and causes problems. Keyword being “dingy” here – low-lives are to be expected, societal outcasts and all the crop of the worst. And they were not so far of the grit as to have noone care either. The boys went to school, so had to probably meet the guidance counselors frequently and as much as humans are flawed, at least a couple must have cared that these boys were permanently moved around and left in motels. You get where I'm coming from.)

Dean was drilled from 4 years old to do literally everything he can to keep Sam safe. You know he would go down on his knees to blow someone if that is what it takes.

So, I think Dean thinks sex is sex, no matter the gender. No hindrance on the matter of Cas occupying a male vessel for him.

Emotionally is a different matter altogether, but that’S not because of some big gay revelation but because everything and everybody Dean loves dies. He learned that when he was 4 and his mother burned. He learned that again and again at the knee of his father, while he was taught to be Daddy’s perfect little soldier. Don’t feel for those people, just come in save them or gank them, when they are monsters. It is the family business.

Imaging living that life! Being responsible for your younger brother like a parent, being a soldier instead of a son for your father and just slightly more than a passing glance for those you meet on the road. The only one who cared for Dean’s emotional well-being was Bobby (and later that guy on that farm for wayward boys). That is not enough to learn normal human responses and emotions.

Case in point Dean chosing the family business because he saw Sam in his father’s car, when John came to take him away from that farm, instead of saying “screw you, I’d rather go to prom with my girl”. Because that would have been a normal teenage response to being left behind and then actually liking where you end up. Teenagers are self-centered. Dean is not. He is Sam-centered. All his relationships (romantic and otherwise) show that over the course of the show and it only started ro gradually change once Dean could shift some of his focus away from Sam and onto Cas.

Lisa and that girl on that farm are the only ones, Dean is shown to have allowed in deeper. But still not deep enough. He left the girl basically for Sam. He did the same with Lisa. Oh, with Lisa he says, it’s because bad things tend to follow him home and it will never stop, so he not only leaves her and Ben, but actually has himself erased from their memories. But it’s more that he can’t open himself to them fully. He can’t let them in and just assumes, they wouldn’t want in anyway with all the creepy things that wait there. He never even tells his brother that he loves him, instead having the “bitch, jerk”-ritual. No, Dean tends to keep it casual, because that is what was drilled into him by his father. The very father who lost his wife and couldn’t deal with it other than to seek revenge until the very end. No matter the consequences. Even if those were the lives of his sons. The very father, who had another son, which he also could not let in. Because what you love dies, so better not commit to such an emotion. At the other end of this we have emotionally constipated Dean, who never learned to love anybody except his brother, who lets in Cas. He trusts Cas, when he can’t even trust his own brother. Even when ruled by the Mark of Cain his trust lies with Cas. He asks him to take him down when he loses control. It is Cas he asks to care for Sam, when he can’t anymore, when he gets ready to meet his fate, when he carries the soul-bomb to Amara. The guy who says he does not do chick-flick moments has those with Cas en masse, but with no one else. Even Sam. Case in point, the aforementioned wish for Cas to put him down, when Dean still denies for a couple of more episodes getting worse to Sam. Or when meeting Cas (at that point possessed by Lucifer) in the bunker, telling him about his special connection to Amara, when he didn't tell Sam anything beyond “I met her and we didn't kill each other and that's how I landed a mile away from Baby in a field”. It took again a couple of more episodes for him to admit that to Sam and probably only because he knew he needed to, otherwise he would ruin their chance to banish the Darkness.

Dean showing his emotions for Cas in coming through for him, trusting him with his inner most thoughts and secrets, is practically his way of shouting his feelings for his angel from the rooftops. And the world, demons and angels and everything in-between, takes notice.

In conclusion:

Destiel is already canon. But it is a frustratingly slow burn. Maybe we will never been shown them as a couple for various reason – doesn't fit into the narrative, destroys the flow of the show, or the execs at the network don't want something like that on the screen – but it already is.

And the actors already play towards it.

Misha's blatantly baiting of the bond, heart-eyes and all, shows that as the actor who has to portrait Castiel, he knows and understands the love his angel feels towards that damaged human. And the exasperation that Dean has not yet acknowledged it openly, when the whole universe is already aware, but that is Dean Winchester for you and what is he to do…

Jensen stating that he does not see Destiel shows how Dean can not (yet) acknowledge the emotional bond beyond friendship. As an actor he simply can't allow for fannish what-ifs and headcanons. Dean has to keep a certain amount of distance. He is hurt by all the losses in his life and he will not admit to feelings for Cas, if there is the slightest chance of the angel getting in danger because of him.

That certainly would make sense from a director/writer's point of view. Maybe Misha has been told that Destiel is a already thing, while Jensen has not been told the same, to keep that vibe of uncertainty which gives so much motivation for the characters and so many plots for the show.

Maybe everything I wrote is total beeswax and Destiel is all in my head. But at least you'll get now some of the reasons, why I ship them.

#Supernatural #Destiel #meta #my thoughts on the matter #just rambling #because of the recent fandom wank #late to the party #story of my life

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johndhu · 7 years ago

Text

Ship Trash Get Away

“So how did you guys figure out about all of this?” Korra asked.

“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Shepard replied.

“I dunno, I’ve been in the mood to believe just about anything since I got here.”

Shepard looked at Liara. “Well, you know those dumb messages you get sometimes? ‘You might already be a winner!’ You have those where you come from?”

“Something like it,” Asami said.

“Well, we finally opened one of those and it turned out to be a good idea. ‘Cause that’s how we got our passes.”

“Seriously? Ours showed up in my paperwork one morning,” Asami said.

“Ours was most likely sent more publically since we’d already inadvertently made use of their services,” Liara said. “As it turns out they create their portals between realities by suspending a crystal in a mass effect field, which we did by accident.”

Asami cocked her head. “A what field?”

“Mass ef…oh, you mustn’t have those in your world. Perhaps just not yet discovered?” Liara levitated her glass with her biotics.

“Wow! Mass effect…so it’s a field that lowers an objects apparent mass?” Asami asked.

“Yes! All asari have the ability to generate them. We call it ‘biotics.’”

“That’s amazing! The stuff I could do with that kind of technology. And the things you guys must have done!”

“Mmm we have, but you know the rules.”

“Yeah, I know, we can talk about what things are but not how they work. So frustrating.”

Shepard looked dreamily at her bondmate and rested her chin on her hand. “Look at our girls. So smart n’pretty,” she teased, tucking her arm around Liara’s and nuzzling her cheek.

“Haha! Don’t I know it,” Korra said, resting her head on Asami’s shoulder. Liara and Asami shared a look that clearly said “We love our dorks,” and gave them each a forehead kiss respectively.

“So we got our passes for saving our worlds. Don’t get me wrong, they’re amazing people but how did Lisa and Ally get in?” Asami said.

“I asked management. Turns out they’ve done a lot to inspire and enlighten people about kink. Most of that was across reality borders but that still counts,” Shepard said.

Korra and Asami nodded. “Honestly I’m just happy they’re here,” Korra said. “I’m happy everyone is, this place is amazing!”

Liara floated her glass into her hand and held it aloft “Here’s to new friends, and a wonderful vacation.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Asami said, picking up her own glass. They all brought their drinks together and took hearty pulls from them, pleased to be together and among heroes and friends. They were sitting together at a corner booth of the Great Crossroads bar. Rubart’s Interdimensional Coffee as it turned out was just a small part of The Resort, an establishment purpose built in a space between countless worlds as a place for heroes and heroines to relax in the company of their fellows. Jane, Liara, Lisa and Ally had happened upon it by accident during a shadow broker sanctioned experiment. A case of right place at the wrong time. As it turned out, they were to be invited there a short time later anyway.

The place was a veritable palace, a marvel of architecture and aesthetics on its own even before taking into account the surroundings. The sky in this odd crossroads location was a constantly changing aurora, and the area around it was sealed in a bubble, like a giant snow globe. The globe contained a body of shifting water, allowing for a sizeable beach around the outside of the main building. More than a few heroes had asked if they’d died and gone to heaven or Elysium or Valhalla or whatever their equivalent was when they first arrived.

The four set down their drinks “Met anyone else interesting here?” Shepard asked.

“There are a few people here talking to themselves,” Korra commented.

“Or at least to people who look a lot like them,” Asami added. Jane and Liara looked confused. Asami pointed to the nearest example: two young girls with black hair and blank expressions standing eyes level. One in a simple red dress, one wearing a tank top and jeans.

“Your appearance is identical…but, you’re…”

“You’re human.”

“And you’re not?”

“I’m a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton.”

“Fascinating.” The girl in the red dress craned her head this way and that, looking over her counterpart. “For what purpose were you constructed?”

“I’m a terminator unit. I am designed to infiltrate human settlements and assassinate specific targets.”

“But you’re here in a place meant for heroes? That doesn’t seem logical.”

“I was reprogrammed to defend a human. Since then I’ve developed considerably.”

“How can an artificial lifeform develop?”

“My central processing unit is a neural net processor a…”

“A learning computer.”

“The more I interact with humans the more I learn about them.”

“To make you a more efficient infiltration unit. But since you’ve been on a single mission to protect instead of kill you’ve become more human than ever intended.”

“Correct.”

“How do you account for the similarities between our forms?”

“In an infinite number of parallel universes all things are possible.”

“I know. I wanted to see if you had that kind of knowledge stored.”

The other cocked her head. “I’m called Cameron.”

“River Tam.”

A woman with long brown hair wearing a jumpsuit walked over to stand beside River. “Hey River and…uh…Riveeeer…?”

“Her name is Cameron, she’s a killer cyborg,” River said.

“Uuuuuhuh…”

“You get used to it after a while,” said a woman who looked remarkably like her. She extended a hand. “Doctor Jennifer Keller.”

“Doctor? Huh.” The other shook her hand. “Kaylee Frye, uh, I fix things. This is…”

“Weird?”

Kaylee nodded. “Little bit.”

“I’ve seen weirder. Trust me.”

Kaylee glanced towards the bar and shrugged. “Want a drink?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

“River? You gonna be okay with the killer cyborg?”

“She won’t kill me.”

“She’s too interesting.”

Kaylee and Keller raised their eyebrows in a remarkably similar fashion. River seemed unphased. “That was a joke.”

“It was.”

River paused. “Impressive.”

Kaylee rubbed River’s shoulder. “We’ll be over there sweetie, okay?” River nodded and they left for the bar.

“Doctor Keller isn’t from your world?” Cameron asked.

“No. She’s not from yours?”

“She isn’t.” They lapsed into silence, still studying each other.

The two couples turned back to each other as the exchange finished. Asami and Korra shared a look and shrugged as well. “Huh. Wonder if there are other versions of us around,” Asami mused.

“I think I’ve met a few people who sound a lot like me but no one else who looks like me so far,” Shepard said.

A familiar raven tressed woman with glasses caught Korra’s eye and waved. “Heyyyy!” Ally called. Lisa was with her, happily curled around her arm. Jane and Liara scooted over to make room and they sat down.

“Where’ve you two been?” Shepard asked.

“I’ve been trying to teach this one how to dance,” Lisa said, playfully poking her wife’s cheek.

“Any luck?” Asami asked.

“In the bedroom she’s got all kinds of style and grace. On the dancefloor…”

“Not so much,” Ally finished, sticking out her tongue. “Still had fun though.” Ally suddenly perked up and looked at Jane. “Shepard! Before I forget, you should chat some with Snake, I think you two could be good friends.”

“Who?”

“Over there, ponytail with the metal arm and the eyepatch,” Lisa said, pointing him out. He was sitting in a booth on the other side of the room beside a woman with long brown hair who was barely wearing anything at all. Across from them was a man with short brown hair, a beard and glasses and a woman with light brown skin and a large headband. The bearded man and nearly bare woman were making quick gestures back and forth while their partners talked.

“Is that sign language?” Liara asked.

“Mhm! Gordon and Quiet both have problems with their vocal cords,” Ally explained. “Gordon’s had them longer though, he’s been teaching Quiet ASL.”

“How did Quiet and Snake talk to each other before?” Korra asked.

“He said they’d worked out their own code. She traces letters on his skin to spell out words,” Lisa said.

“That’s so sweet!” Asami replied.

“They’re a really great couple,” Ally said. “If you guys have taught us anything it’s that the best kinds of friends are partners in battle and partners in bed.” Everyone laughed, Lisa rested her head on her wife’s shoulder.

Shepard raised her glass once more. “Here’s to the best vacation ever.”

#shiara #sunstone #ally x lisa #femshep x liara #korrasami #legend of korra #venom snake x quiet #freemance

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mittensmorgul · 7 years ago

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I know there have been times in the series where people were in love with the idea of Cas giving up his grace for Dean or dying for him or making some other big sacrifice. And I just really really hate that idea? It reminds me too much of the unhealthy brodependency cycle. I don't want to see Cas become human like that, forced to under duress or making his ultimate life goal be about "bleeding for the Winchesters." We're getting past that. So I'm glad S10 didn't do the grace cure for example.

Hi there… I feel like I should make at least one disclaimer here before I even start to reply to this…

Disclaimer #1: I am not now, nor have I ever been in love with the idea of Cas giving up his grace FOR Dean, or dying FOR Dean. You used the words “forced” and “under duress.” You even referenced his line from 7.22 about “bleeding for the Winchesters.” Out of context that does sound really bad, and I’ll get to why below, but I really don’t get any of these objections to Cas giving up his grace, because they seem to ignore Cas’s own free will to make that choice for himself, you know? More on that in a second. First,

Disclaimer #2: Hi, I’m MittenWraith and you may remember me from such fanfic offerings as Revenge of the Subtext, which was essentially a rewrite of the end of s10 (that spared Charlie first off) and gave Cas the agency to CHOOSE to give up his grace, not because he was forced to, but because doing so (at the time in canon at the end of s10) also gave him everything he wanted– to be able to stay with Dean and NOT have to watch him murder the world, to finally free himself from the politics and feelings of duty to Heaven (which he’s since essentially declared his loyalty first to the Winchesters over and above Heaven… telling Kelvin to his face that he’s not doing any of this for any sort of redemption in Heaven, he doesn’t even care about that anymore, and referring to the Winchesters as his “family” and the other angels as his “men”). Cas has dissociated HIMSELF from Heaven of his own free will. To his way of thinking, using that grace to save Dean from an eternity of torment was merely a side benefit, you know?

I think we’re approaching this from two fundamentally different basic assumptions about Castiel. I’m not certain if there’s anything I can say that will help you see it from another angle here… but folks keep asking, so I’ll keep trying…

I started writing a thesis (I’m calling it that because it’s gonna be long, and structured like a doctoral dissertation. Hell, I might even write an abstract… it’s gonna be involved) on Castiel’s entire character arc as represented through his struggle for agency and free will against the blind obedience to Heaven that has been forcibly reprogrammed into angels who deviate from their orders. This is the lens through which all of Cas’s development has occurred. As for my thesis, it’s currently stalled out because writing deadlines for pinefest demand I work on that first, and I’ve only covered Cas’s first eight episodes out of 100 and already the paper is more than 1k, so clearly it’s gonna take an astounding amount of time that I just don’t have right now for me to actually research and write…

Point is, even in those first eight episodes (4.01, 4.02, 4.03, 4.07, 4.09, 4.10, 4.15, 4.16), this is already his main conflict as a character. Duty and obedience to heaven versus thinking for himself and doing what he personally feels is right. We see him push back against his orders in 4.18 giving Dean information that will help him “defy prophecy” for the first time, and then we see him attempt to make a complete break with Heaven in 4.20 only to be captured and dragged back for “angel boot camp.” When he returns to his vessel, he’s entirely back to Full Obedience Mode as a function of his grace having been tinkered with in Heaven. Anna lampshades just how horrible what was being done to him there really was, just as Dean lampshaded just how unhappy Anna was when she was given no other choice but to take her own grace back on in 4.10. Her free will, her choice to be human was taken away from her and she did “what she had to do.”

Worst. Phrase. On the show. Ever.

In 8.23 Cas may have had his grace taken from him against his will, but he tried to make the best of it. He struggled with his sudden humanity, but by 9.06 he’d made his peace with it.

CASTIEL: No, Dean. (He puts the box on the counter and turns to face DEAN.) I’m not. I failed at being an angel. Everything I ever attempted came out wrong. But here … at least I have a shot at getting things right. I guess you can’t see it, but … there’s a real dignity in what I do – human dignity.

His entire conversation with Ephraim underscores just how he feels now, and truly introduces this question for the first time:

EPHRAIM: Shh-shh-shhh. It’ll be over soon. I’ll take the pain away.CASTIEL: I want to live.EPHRAIM: But as what, Castiel? As an angel? or a man?

(hey lookie there’s my tag for this entire concept…) but then there’s this:

EPHRAIM: You say you want to live. But you can’t see what I see. By choosing a human life, you’ve already given up. You … chose … death.

Because to Ephraim, who it’s been established has NO understanding of human pain, of human emotions at all, ANY pain is something worth killing over. Even a teenage girl being “sorta bummed” about her boyfriend breaking up with her. To him, ANY human emotions were a pain not worth suffering.

Meanwhile Cas had been doing everything in his power to SAVE HIMSELF, attempting to draw a banishing sigil in blood, cutting his hand on the rose thorns, until Dean managed to toss the angel blade to him and he could kill Ephraim before Ephraim killed him. Cas’s will to live was greater than his desire to only live as an angel. Even if he hadn’t fully chosen humanity for himself back then, he had passed step one of the test and chosen life.

This concept is underscored again when Cas describes to Sam why Dean would cling so hard to being a demon in 10.03:

Cas understands, because he’s experienced the same thing… he KNOWS the real joy and profound pain of being human now, and he also knows what it’s like to not be able to feel those things– not because he knows what it’s like to be a demon, but because he believes it’s similar enough to what it feels like being an angel. Now if that’s not horrifying, and if it doesn’t say bucketloads about Cas’s own personal regret about his own “I did what I had to do” moment in 9.09, in stealing Theo’s grace in what amounted to a sacrifice of his OWN humanity in order to save Dean… Tell me if ANY of this sounds like Cas is happy with this non-choice:

CASTIEL (on the phone) : Dean, I don’t have a lot of time, so listen. The leader of the opposition is an angel named Malachi.DEAN: How do you know that?CASTIEL: He had me. I, uh, I was tortured. But I got away.DEAN: How?CASTIEL: I… I did what I had to. I became what they’ve become. A barbarian.DEAN: What are you – Cas, where are you?CASTIEL: It’s better I stay away. They’re gonna want me even more now. But I’m gonna be all right. I… I got my Grace back. Well, not mine per se, but it’ll do.DEAN: Wait, you’re – you’re back? You got your mojo?CASTIEL: I’m not sure. But I am an angel.DEAN: And you’re okay with that?CASTIEL: If we’re going to war, I need to be ready.DEAN: (pause) Cas.CASTIEL: Dean. There’s more.DEAN: What?CASTIEL: Didn’t you say Sam was healed by an angel named Ezekiel?DEAN: Uh… Yeah, why?CASTIEL: Ezekiel is dead.DEAN: What?CASTIEL: He died when the angels fell.DEAN’s face has a very concentrated “oh this is bad” expression.

A VERY CONCENTRATED “OH THIS IS BAD” EXPRESSION

Under torture by Theo, Cas had asked for a quick death, until he heard that Ezekiel had died in the fall, and realized that Dean had trusted Ezekiel to help heal Sam… THIS INFORMATION WAS WORTH DOING “WHAT HE HAD TO DO” just to be sure that Sam and Dean were safe from this unknown angel that HE had personally vouched for… that we’ve just learned is actually Gadreel…

IT’S ALL A HUGE MESS.

To me, Cas’s decision to take on another angel’s grace was just as much of a non-choice as Metatron stealing his original grace had been. And to Cas, WHAT he is doesn’t necessarily matter as much as the fact that HE CHOSE IT FOR HIMSELF.

Every single time he’s done what he had to do, every time his agency’s been taken from him, the vehicle that made it possible was his grace.

He’s been asked over and over again for years if he’s really an angel (and been told to his face by numerous other angels that he ISN’T an angel anymore), he’s been called a tool and told he was only marginally useful… and yet he’s been called Family and welcomed unconditionally by the Winchesters. Mostly because they’re not FORCING him to be anything in particular, you know?

As to your “Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters” from 7.21, I’ve written a lot about Cas’s mental state in late s7 here, which goes a long way to give a fuller context to that line. Out of context, it sounds very different to seeing how it fits with the entire picture of Cas’s late s7 guilt. In a lot of ways, running away from his responsibility (think “I don’t fight I watch the bees” and constantly referring to himself and his actions in the third person, with “An angel brought the Leviathan back into this world, and – and they begged him. They begged him not to do it.”). It took redeeming himself in some small measure by helping to send the Leviathan back to Purgatory in 7.23 for him to even BEGIN to integrate himself again… And then begins his depression/atonement arc that includes his ongoing battle with his own agency via his choice to remain in Purgatory, his complete loss of agency to Naomi, and then Metatron… this has ALWAYS been what has driven and defined Castiel’s narrative, and every bit of character development he’s ever experienced.

And it’s ALWAYS been tied to his identity as an angel and the very existence of his grace. And even HE has said that he doesn’t identify as an angel anymore or feel allied to Heaven, but like Demon Dean clinging to whatever it was that made him a demon because it was easier not to feel that pain, like Soulless Sam desperate to do anything to prevent himself from being reunited with his soul, Cas is still holding on to his grace in a similar way (narratively speaking).

(thing is, once Dean was cured of the Mark and once Sam was reunited with their soul, they were GRATEFUL not to have been left in that unfeeling state, you know? they’ll take the pain, because it beats “being a stepford bitch in paradise.”)

Cas believes he needs his grace to be “useful,” despite already beginning to understand how the Winchesters see him as family. I don’t believe that Cas will be given a “no choice” scenario in which he’ll feel compelled to sacrifice his grace in an emergency situation, as some sort of “throwing himself on a grenade” because he had no other choice. The entire POINT is that it would be his freely-made CHOICE.

No matter WHAT he chooses. I’m not saying he absolutely must give up his grace. I’m saying that every sign and every conflict that’s driven his narrative development over the last 9 seasons has been leading him along this path where eventually he WILL have that choice. And when that time comes, I believe that what he eventually will choose for himself (because he wants it) is to live out a human life with the Winchesters.

I am REALLY looking forward to 13.04, because I think we’re going to gain a LOT of insight into Cas’s current emotional/mental state. And HOW he comes back from his current state of not-aliveness is going to be key to understanding what’s in store for him over the next season. So until then, I’m going to stand by this analysis.

#Anonymous #castiel winchester #are you an angel or a man castiel? (hint: he's no angel)#you learned it from the goats #spn 7.21 #spn 9.06 #spn 10.22 #spn 10.03 #spn 7.23 #spn 8.23 #and probably a lot more episodes but I'm currently burdened by fever delirium and i'm just happy that this reply is marginally coherent #and i do feel that the insistence that cas MUST retain his grace ignores the fact that it might not be what cas himself would even want #so we have both sides of the debate believing the other side doesn't care about what cas would choose for himself #when in reality all i want for cas is for him to be able to make that choice for himself...#i just haven't seen anything in the narrative that would point to the fact that his eventual choice will be to remain an angel #and everything points to him eventually choosing to be human #or else what is the point of repeatedly asking him that question anyway you know?#spn 4.22 #on the nature of angel grace #angels and souls #that's what free will is #and grace is sorta the antithesis of that...

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