#probably arcs covering each sin

[safeheavenproject]

Thinking and this story is turning into having set arcs or chapters if you will. With the highest stakes being with heaven and coming to a head last because it being first in hh just killed the stakes dramatically orz

[tyrantisterror]

What's the worst legacy sequel you've ever seen? What, in your opinion, separates a good legacy sequel from a bad legacy sequel and what's the worst thing you think a legacy sequel can do?

The worst that I've seen is probably Rise of Skywalker. It's close competition, though - both Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World: Dominion have moments that are significantly more stupid than anything in Rise of Sky Walker, but I also think both have a bit more creative effort put into them - Fallen Kingdom has that third act where it basically becomes a Resident Evil adaptation except with a murder-saurus in place of the Tyrant, and Dominion has the whole locust plotline which, while terrible, is at least an unexpected direction for a Jurassic Park sequel to go into that tries to figure out something ELSE you could do with the genetic engineering premise of the franchise beyond just making dinosaurs. Like, all three Jurassic World movies have big problems and they get progressively dumber with each installment, but they're also all ambitious to some degree that I still feel respect for, even if they never really actually reach those lofty aspirations.

Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, has no ambitions at all. It has nothing it wants to say, no unique twists to pull, no real identity of its own. It's a potroast made of leftovers from better movies, a resuscitated corpse of something much more interesting, patched together like a Frankenstein's monster and abandoned to a cruel world just as callously.

It has no desire to do anything new, merely a checklist of Things You've Seen Before That the Focus Groups Say You'd Probably Like to See Again. Any character that can be slipped into an arc that was done in a previous Star Wars film is slipped into one no matter how little sense it makes for them, and any character who can't is either forced to tread water with nothing to do (hi Finn!) or just quietly shoved off to the side early on and forgotten about (hi Rose!).

Any story beats that weren't in the original films are simply grabbed from a box that reads "time tested cliches to keep your script moving with minimal effort." Make the plot a treasure hunt so we can just race from scene to scene with the flimsiest justification possible and try and trick the audience into thinking something is actually happening! What's that, audience interest is flagging? Quick, throw in a cameo of someone from an older movie! What's that, they're bored again? Pretend to kill one of the old characters, but make sure to reveal they actually lived in no more than two scenes down the line, or else we might piss off the fanboys! Hey, let's look at the Cinema Sins videos for the original movies and see if there's some gripes we can "fix" with this one for added fan cred! Can't disappoint our audience!

It's the story-telling equivalent of smothering something in salt to cover up the funky taste of the close-to-the-expiration-date ingredients.

As for what makes a good vs. a bad legacy sequel... ok, so, let's define legacy sequel first. A legacy sequel is a film or TV show that is a sequel to a popular film or TV series that ended a good many years ago, which brings back some of the old cast of characters (generally played by the same, and thus much older, actors that played them in the past) along with adding a new cast of characters played by younger actors. It tries to replicate the tone of the original series despite being made in a different era and probably by different writers and directors, and generally aims to give you that Ratatouille style moment of nostalgia.

I think most Legacy sequels are kind of doomed to be mediocre at best on the outset because the goal of them from the moment of conception is so mercenary - they're not created to Tell A Good Story, they're created to Keep Consumers Invested in a Lucrative Content Franchise. They have the artistic aspirations of a McDonald's Hamburger - "This tastes exactly like what you had as a kid, and doesn't that make you crave more of it?"

I don't think that art made for mercenary reasons is doomed to be bad, mind you - I mean, almost ALL movies and television were made to make money first and foremost. Even the classic High Art movies I love like Seven Samurai and The Third Man were made for mercenary reasons at the end of the line - it didn't stop the people who were working on them from having artistic goals, but it's a fact nonetheless.

But Legacy Sequels just have an uphill battle in the "artistic aspirations" department, because most people with artistic aspirations don't want to recreate the feeling someone else inspired with their art - they want to put their own stamp on it, their own spin, their own voice. And that will often mean something VERY different will be made, something that might piss of the fans - something that doesn't taste like the McDonald's hamburger you had as a kid, even though it came in the same wrapper.

The worst parts of Legacy Sequels are the only parts that Rise of Skywalker is made of - the parts where the story is clearly only trying to show you things you know, only trying to reheat the leftovers so they taste like your memories, only trying to trick the nostalgia center of your brain that you're four years old again eating at McDonald's. "Here's the thing you know! Here's the running gag you liked, repeated five more times by actors with far less enthusiasm! Here's the same basic premise as the first film, but the stakes have been inflated to make it feel like a progression! Cameos! Catch phrases! Eat your hamburger, you consumer pig!"

The rare good legacy sequels don't really TRY to be legacy sequels. They're just... sequels. Another story in the same world as the first, bringing back the characters who actually have interesting arcs left in them, creating new characters with their own shit going on who have good chemistry with the pre-established characters and setting, expanding on themes from the original and exploring parts of the setting that hadn't been explored yet, and all in all telling their own story that's related to the first one's but still manages to be its own distinct thing.

There are not many good legacy sequels, because a good legacy sequel is different than the McDonald's hamburger you ate when you were four, and might make less money than desired because of it.

[cut-content-contest]

Yosuke Hanamura's romance route

persona 4 has got this friendship/romance mechanic called "social links" which is basically just 10 events that you can choose to gradually level up for each sociable character in the game where you raise your relationships with said characters, which gives you various in-game boosts. most of the women in the game are able to be romanced. however, there is cut dialogue which implies that at some point, one of the male characters was meant to be a romance option as well! yosuke hanamura, the main character's best friend, has cut dialogue for his social link rank 10 event which is voiced (VOICED!! IN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE!! WHILE PEOPLE HAVE DENIED THIS SINCE THE ENGLISH VOICE LINES HAVE HIM SAYING "I LIKE YOU," IN THE JAPANESE VOICE LINES, HE IS EXPLICITLY CONFESSING TO YOU I'M PRETTY SURE!!) that implies that there was at some point going to be an option to romance him. it's assumed that this was cut somewhere later in development due to the lines being voice acted, though i believe that the reason this was cut has not been confirmed yet (though, seeing as how persona 4 was made in the 2000s....... you can probably just guess why lol)

there were unreleased voice lines that showed what was supposed to be a gay route for Persona 4 (there ARE Japanese lines for this as well, and the way in which the "I like you" part is said is the Japanese version of confessing to someone you have a crush on) and a lot of fans do agree that the protagonist is best paired with Yosuke for character development purposes, but it was probably scrapped because of homophobia 😭

Exactly what it says. Was likely scrapped because Atlus are COWARDS who didn't wanna give us the gay romance we deserved. It would have been so cute though I'm forever pissed it was scrapped...

We know it was programmed it. Yosuke is the only male character with dialogue flags, meaning you can fail his social link. The only other characters with these flags are the female love interests. Yosuke also has recorded, in both English and Japanese, final confession lines, something unique to max rank romance social links. This means it was likely scrapped very late in development. As the game also covers (badly) gender and sexuality, we can hypothesize that Yosuke's character arc was supposed to be overcoming internalized homophobia. Instead he just kinda stays "jokingly" homophobic and never grows past it.

The player would have been able to enter a romantic relationship with the character Yosuke Hanamura— text and voice lines for this option still exist within the game, and can be activated via modding. They even have proper translations, and the English versions of the lines are voiced as well, implying that the cut was made rather far into development. While this is a sad loss in its own right, it also has devastating implications in regards to the original state of other pieces of LGBT+ representation which may have also been scrapped and/or heavily modified to appear. For example, Kanji’s attraction to men and Naoto’s gender situation were both downplayed and/or walked back in the final version of the game, but it’s highly likely that Yukiko’s arc was originally intended to include more bisexual overtones, and arguments can be made for Rise’s arc being meant to center on the struggle to come to some sort of terms with her own sexuality and presentation in an industry that keeps such a tight hold on those aspects of its workers lives.

throughout the entirety of persona 4 (+golden), yosuke is portrayed to be the best friend of the protag, but also extremely homophobic towards another male character who was hinted at being gay (before atlus fucked that narrative up too). his social link hints at him having a crush on the protag, and he was intended to have a romantic route just like the female characters, but that was cut (not sure why). the whole game is about embracing the truth, including your hidden sides that you are ashamed to show to others, and having yosuke come to terms with his repressed homosexuality (& realizing that he has internalized homophobia) would have fit perfectly within that theme, but atlus said fuck that shit and cut that entire romance out. the cut dialogue can easily be found on youtube. the thing with this being cut out is that without the romance and coming to terms with his homosexuality, the only thing left of yosuke is being very homophobic. no one condems yosuke for what he says to the other male character, and it is never addressed beyond mere gags or jokes. it's horrible to sit through and honestly it was such a missed opportunity. it's such an issue that people have made a mod implementing a romantic route for yosuke just because of this. every day i mourn thinking of what could have been

This game explores many queer themes, but lacks any explicit queer relationships. The fact that file scrapers and modders discovered an unused voice line for one of the male characters that implies a romance option for him was cut from the final game makes queer fans feel let down, regardless of how groundbreaking the other queer plot points were at the time of release. It's speculated that it was cut because devs or localizers thought that it would be too much queer content in one game, and that it would affect sales and create too much controversy. I, however, believe that anyone who manages to get through the mandatory gay sauna dungeon would have had no stones to throw about an optional mlm romance.

The first party member in Persona 4, Yosuke Hanamura, was originally going to be a viable romantic partner once the player got far enough into his Social Link. This was removed rather late in development, as voiced lines for a scene where he and the protagonist begin dating were recorded in both Japanese and English. To this day, Persona 2: Innocent Sin remains the only Persona game where the protagonist can enter a gay relationship with another boy.

In this game you can choose to romance several people. There is cut voiced dialogue for a romance route for Yosuke, the main character's best friend, but in the final game he is not a romanceable character. Some are of the opinion that taking out the romance option for Yosuke removes the complexity from his character.

article: https://gamerant.com/persona-4-golden-mod-yosuke-romance/

Devil Joker boss fight

In Persona 2, an important story/game mechanic is that rumors are becoming reality in the setting. You would have been able to spread a rumor that Joker, the leader of the Masked Circle cult, was an angelic or demonic figure, and that would have determined the corresponding boss fight when you reached a key point in the game. The ability to spread that rumor was never implemented (probably due to time constraints? or maybe because Devil Joker ripping himself in half was determined to be Too Much), and so the citizens of the city default to Joker being "as beautiful as an angel", leading to the Angel Joker boss fight instead.

recreation of the boss fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uz24UqZfYk Angel Joker for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UPtkrsvI20&t=1227s

[storkmuffin]

Haha. Don't apologize! This is one of Riverdale's biggest mind-benders, I think. Ok. I think I understand now. There is no Cheryl in the RiverVale arc at all. We're in agreement about this.

This does beg the question though (and it's fresh in my mind since I just read your post about 7X05)...Why does Jughead hate Cheryl so much? LOL

I'm incredibly interested to see how their stories end to see if we'll ever get more insight into this from the show. As I prepare to do a sort of retrospective on what Riverdale was all about, I've been thinking of the characters in their archetypes. Archie is the hero. Betty is the lover. Veronica is the vamp. Those are all pretty clear.

But both Cheryl and Jughead have yet to solidify in my mind. But perhaps their archetypes are opposing. If Jughead is the "loner" or even "the voice of the truth"...then Cheryl would either be the embodiment of "popular opinion" which she certainly could be in some instances...but that doesn't even remotely cover her character. Maybe she's just "sin". Maybe Jughead knows the Blossoms are just pure evil so he is infinitely suspicious of Cheryl by virtue of her blood. I'm sorry. I know this is moderately incoherent. I just love discussing this stuff. Anyway, sorry for blowing up your askbox. LOL. I love your Riverdale Retread posts! Have a great day. <3

Why are you apologizing? Never apologize! Thank you for your asks!

Why Does Jughead Hate Cheryl is a really fascinating question to me and I have a lot of conflicting theories because I am both a Jughead Stan and a Cheryl Stan.

Possible options!

-Jughead and JASON had a thing or could've but somehow Cheryl cockblocked them

- Cheryl bullied Jughead until he got taller than her which took a while. And she has been violent to him physically that we've seen AND personally disruptive (birthday debacle plus Lodge lodge!).

- Cheryl tried to buy Archie once using family resources and almost succeeded because Archie is so highly suggestible.

- Cheryl is deeply classist. She is one of the few people who rubs Jughead's poverty in his face.

- Cheryl has a giant home with two parents miserably married to each other AND a grandparent. She's still unhappy but that is likely to depress Jughead - he wants to imagine that having his parents and whole family together under one financially stable roof is going to solve things and Cheryl proves that they don't.

- Cheryl has artistic aspirations just like Jughead but she was born with a silver spoon and a safety net. Resentment is massive.

- Jughead is or wants to be very controlling over the story of Riverdale but Cheryl is ungovernable. She sets fire to her own house. She's a witch with the capacity to set up and run a cult.

There's probably more!

[reyolfx]

this post is literally just me complaining about what i think are missed plot opportunities in supernatural so idk peruse at your own risk or don't

man there are so many single episodes or small arcs in supernatural that could have been stretched into like half season or entire season arcs. i can't explain how disappointed i am that the 7 deadly sins were all just shoved into one episode and we didn't even get to hear them all speak. they could have done SO much with that concept!!

hammer of the gods... again SO much could've been done but maybe i should be thankful they didn't try to stretch it out cause supernatural sucks at covering cultures and religions outside of christianity lol (honestly all the different god episodes could fit into this one... simultaneously disappointed and relieved they didn't try to go further with all that)

the horsemen?? i know that was more than one episode but they kinda just shoved pestilence in at the end there, all four of them could have been way bigger deals (although i do love what they did with death and how he's come back a few times).

sam's soulless year? we barely got to find anything out about it. they used not breaking his mental wall as an excuse to not go digging and that's fair but then it broke so where was the rest of the info? at the very least we should have gotten some more character beats from sam over it.

freakin' eve dude. the biggest plot ball-drop i've ever experienced lol. she was built up and i was expecting so much more from her and then okay cool easy kill :|

the whole amazon warriors/dean having a daughter thing... umm y'know what idk i'm honestly still unclear on what kinda monsters these even were. they coulda stretched it into like a three or so episode arc orrrr maybe just dropped it all together lmao (this episode gave me confirmation that dean is a huge softie during sex and will hold hands with his partners even if they're strangers HA so it's not all bad)

i love what they did with purgatory. i want more of it. idk if this is me being unsatisfied with the amount we got or just greedy. gimme more dean/cas/benny interactions forever please.

THE SECOND TRIAL. dude. come on. the AMOUNT of amazing content they could have come up with for this. sam going on a journey through purgatory AND hell, rescuing bobby, getting rescued by benny... this should have taken WAY more than one episode and could have been amazing. a trip through hell and sam just happens to find bobby in like 4 onscreen minutes just by wandering down one hallway. girl (gnc, send ALL). please get it together. they didn't even have sam react to being back in hell lmao they really don't give him much to work with character-wise do they!!! this one and the 7 deadly sins probably hurt me the most because we were ROBBED.

anyways that's me bitching but i'm honestly really enjoying my rewatch (s1-5)/first-time watch (the rest - i'm almost done s9 at this point), just being a hater in this post cause cas would want me to be

also man the fallen angels of season 9, i just wish the focus had shifted away from "oh they're still all fighting, this angel v this angel v this angel, here we go again." they had an opportunity to do something different, have more struggling with humanity, more shit about reopening heaven but more of like a big quest for all of them rather than just another excuse to all kill each other. it's sad cause i think this plot line had a lot of potential but it's fallen pretty flat for me. and the fallen angel title card for this season is so damn cool, so to have the plot line behind it be so meh is disappointing.

oh and the monster mafia shit in chicago. i'm currently watching this episode and i feel so uninvested because it's such a big story and i know they're gonna try and squeeze it all into these 40 mins and then never touch on it again (probably?). gimme a whole season of tfw infiltrating powerful monster families or don't give me this shit at all man i don't care if we can't go deep!!!

[bugcatcherwill]

HOLY SHIT A CHAPTER THAT FOCUSES ON ALL THE GERUDO ARC CHARACTERS NO WAY

There’s a lot to cover so I’m gonna go in order, Rezek playing with all the kids is really cute and is definitely something I hope gets called back to when we get to TOTK, I kind of want Rezek to insist upon going with Link to Gerudo Town to help with the sandstorm purely so he can make sure the kids are okay.

Also yeah Darnun and Marska’s stuff about how Darnum isn’t a weak leader but everyone thinks he is so he fears that their way of life will end because people will lose faith that he can lead properly is so saddd, and Marska wanting to make a change but not being able too because she holds herself back I cannttttttttttttt I just want these two to hug and make up alreadyyyyy

Ganondorfs little rant about his hatred for Hylia is something I completely agree with, I mean holding onto it for like hundreds of years is definitely stretching my ability to agree with him, but like he had to suffer through his people dying and the responsibility to save them being thrust upon him solely because he’s the male Gerudo said to be their king for that generation. I completely agree with him in this regard though like I said he’s definitely in the wrong when it comes to holding onto that, I can definitely see him making assumptions about and blaming Zelda for the sins of her ancestors when she just wants to stop the world from fucking ending.

Also poor Kohga like damn dude is not only immortal but has to suffer with the fact that his clan doesn’t really respect him as a leader like that sucks. And it’s pretty obvious he’s referring to Soohga when he talks about loyalty since Soohga was his ride or die/adoptive son who was probably the most loyal member of the clan up until his death. He’s evil but he’s still a fleshed out character and I love that, second favorite LOZ character behind Groose easily.

YEAAAAA that's why I called this chapter "Perspective" like no matter whether you agree or disagree with each character you can understand why they think that and what led them to their system of beliefs. It was so fun to pry into every character to just look at what makes them tick a little more (and give some much needed background to Mar'ska and Dar'num).

And yeah Kohga's clearly got some letting go to do regarding Sooga but also I CANNOT WAIT to get to his whole arc. It'll be here and there since I kiiiiinda wanna have him still be his usual self during the ToTK arc but trust me...it'll be peak. Just wait and see :)

[audio-luddite]

Lots of Opinions out there.

Exploring the internet-verse is fun, frustrating and confusing. Even in this tiny corner of audiophile stuff many people have carved out small kingdoms of ideas. Often those are in contradiction with many others.

Ah the Wilderness!

I was playing those A&M Audiophile Series discs I have. The sampler is particularly interesting. It has three tracks from Super Tramp, two from Cat Stevens, and one each from Gino Vannelli, Styx, and Chuck Mangione (more on him later). The sampler is rather rare as it was not supposed to be sold, it was for store demos. I got one anyway. If the cover was in good shape it would command lots of $$$.

It was the early 80s droogs when big hair was in. My wife has the original Gino Vannelli Album from which the sample cut was copied. Well played but cared about. Gino on the cover had magnificent hair. We compared the old copy played on her department store stereo back in the day to the fancy one. Her old issue was pretty good with the only significant thing being it was compressed. Not too much but enough to stand out in the comparison. There is also a lot of good to be said about micro-line styli that can find unworn groove surfaces. The audiophile mix was cleaner and far less compressed if any at all. Both pretty good. Big nostalgia going.

Now we hit a minor diversion. I googled A&M audiophile and there were lots of opinions. The Steve Hoffman site forum generally liked them. But I found a different opinion here:

These guys slag fancy "audiophile" issues. ( Imagine saying the word audiophile with a crinkled up nose and sneer) Don't like the A&M A-Phile and don't talk about MOFI.

They have a different take where they search out the best pressings of the original commercial release. (You know the ones compressed to sound good on AM Radio). It is true that a fresh stamper is better than a later generation one. If you get an early pressing off of a fresh stamper it is very nice, BUT...

They will search through as many copies of a given album as they can find and compare, rank and price accordingly. They are a store after all. I just want them to cool their jets a bit. Impressive they get so many copies actually.

They have their niche and there are some wonderful original albums for sale there. A genuine Mercury Living Presence for $350 USD.

My quibble with them is of course they are pushing POP releases with all the sins we know those have. To each their own.

One of the albums they liked was Chuck Mangione "The Children of Sanchez". I have that one. It is a collection of music composed for a film. It has impressive sound. A double vinyl album. I really like the first cut which has amazing sound. The rest is quite fine too. When I say amazing I mean it. Big eyes, open mouth amazing. Mr Mangione was big in the 70s to 80s as a POP/Jazz guy. He played Flugelhorn.

Quoting the "Better Records" geeks: "What’s unusual about this album -- shocking really -- is how meaty the bottom end is. I don’t know of a pop jazz recording with beefier, more articulate or weightier bass."

I agree. Big horns deep Bass the word is impact.

I have no idea if my copy is better or worse by their standards I bought it new on a whim when horn playing artists were popular. I think it is a good copy.

It is interesting how the ARC Cl60 handled it. Yes the Bass is deep, but I notice less whack. The Franken-amp has lots of Whack. The ARC compensated for that with that lovely texture it gives drums. I imagine there is a fair bit of feedback distortion down low which presents as texture. It is different.

I bet I could make a killer arrangement by making a bi-amp system with the Franken-amp down low and the ARC up high. Err probably not. Active cross-overs are a bitch and the Franken-amp has great mid-range. When spring comes it goes back in the stack. The ARC is a good space heater.

You can debate how one copy of an album is better or worse than another. It is a moot issue if you just want the music and this is what you can get. The A&M audiophile issues were made with more care than the mass pressings. Likely that is enough. And they are old now too. Another take is that A&M made pretty good recordings in general.

If Mofi has an album with the music you want feel free to buy it. Old stuff is a crap shoot, or just very expensive. Funny how that applies to many things in this hobby.

Audio Research Classic 60 amp, Audio Research sp14 preamp, Audio Technica AT7V in Phase linear 8000 Series ii TT. Oh and invisible Speakers two way ported.

[reginarubie]

Working on “Deadly Sins, part 2”

So, I had begun a Jonsa mafia story a couple of months ago — got around two chapter and wrote an additional five still unposted — but then I had this other idea, in the same very universe and that fitted best with the whole Alayne-story arc and gave a twist to the modern version of Jon raised in Essos so I've decided to write that instead.

I am thus considering taking off ao3 Deadly Sins and actually posting directly the new one (which will be in seven parts — made of at least five chapters each—, one for each deadly sin) which will be called Deadly Sins, part 2. I will probably post the first chapter around mid-month but here's a sneak peek if you are interested:

“Too bad” Jon comments accepting the drink as Ros slides it toward him, Tormund notifies him he’s going to mingle and Jon just knows he will have to consume several drinks and more besides until him and Ros have worked out the price for the refunding of the forniture Jon has broke and ruined. 

Which, is exactly how he got so inebriated that when a pretty girl with a frilly dress flirts with him and flings her fiery red hair behind her shoulder he follows her to the restrooms like a puppy looking for a good time. Which really, Jon can hold his liquor, but Ros makes it doubled because she fucking knows, and Jon is sure she is behind the bar sneering at his predicament. Because Jon has decided months ago, no more random hook ups. 

So he tries to pry the girl off gently, tells her no, repeatedly, but, looking at her now in the clear light of the restroom he can see her eyes are purple and her eyebrows are silver and she has a tear tattooed under her eye, almost completely covered by her makeup, but not invisible. She’s lysenese, he realises, so he tries in high valyrian “daor” he tells her firmly, trying to push her off him, but suddenly he feels the cold bite of a blade against his throat and he knows this is not casual hook up, no. This girl has a target tonight and that target is him. 

The cold bite of the knife against his flesh somber him up immediately and Jon tries to shove her, but for some reason his body is not cooperating like it should. Then he notices the smell. The sweet smell lingers from her knife and fills his nostrils. Jon is familiar with the toxin, it is supposed to paralyse, if used in enough quantity. In low quantity can make moving difficult. 

This woman wanted whatever she meant to do to him to stick. And Jon can appreciate a clever woman willing to play dirty to make her point, but not at expanse of his life. He has already died once — yeah they had resuscitated him, but still he formally was declared dead — so repeats more clearly “No” though it won’t serve nothing, when suddenly there is an intense buzz and the woman’s purple eyes roll back into her skull as she twitches and then falls on her back and onto the floor of the restroom, the knife clanging onto the ground. 

Jon is too surprised and half-paralysed to do much but look at the person behind the woman stunned. It’s the same woman who had caught his gaze before, she holds a small teaser in her hand — still buzzing with electricity — and from its end dangles what looks like a silicone bracelet. Jon has seen those kind of items before, he thinks as the woman says “No means no,” to the unconscious lysenese as she turns off the teaser and adjusts it over her wrist, enclosing the electric tip inside the silicone pink band so that it looks like a innocuous bracelet. 

Jon is so fucking stunned that he almost forgets the toxin she has applied to his skin. 

“Oh,” the woman comments “you got cut” and Jon almost swears, if the blade had not cut the flesh he could hope the effect of the toxin to wear off on their own but if the blade has cut the skin even only at the surface he knows the toxin is making its way into his bloodstream, which is not good at all; not that he can think very well when the woman steps closer to inspect his wound. 

“It doesn’t look terribly deep,” she tells him, her voice melodic and even, calm. Soothing. Only then does Jon realise that she is trying to sooth what she thinks might be shock. The way she has spat out ‘No means no’ acidly makes him think she might have been on the worst end of one of such encounters and a flare of rage fills his belly even though he can barely think “I’m going to call the police and—”

With an effort that takes all the fortitude Jon can muster he manages to rise a hand and wrap it around her wrist, as she is already holding her phone to compose the number, she looks startled into his eyes and Jon takes a deep breath “No police” he manages to get out, the woman frowns and looks down to the unconscious lysenese and back to him “alright” she says and pockets back her phone “come along now,” she says “We need to clean that cut” she takes hold of his elbow, shifting his weak hold on her wrist to try and guide him to the sink. 

Jon would like to follow her, really, he would like the count the freckles on her nose and the specks of iron grey in her cobalt blue irises but he can’t move. She frowns. 

“Toxin,” Jon manages to get out, though his voice is raspy, he tries to point his hand to his throat but fails miserably “left…back…pocket” he says knowing he has a little wallet filled with antidotes of the most common toxin used and the less common, just to be safe and survive long enough to call for help. 

(...) She breathes out “Alright,” she says “I’m going to hold up the pills,” she tells him “blink twice if it’s the right one” 

Jon blinks twice and she nods more to herself than to him.

It’s the fourth she fishes out. She nods and Jon, who has crumpled to the ground in the mean-time observes her as she fishes out of her purse a silicone portable glass — like what else can be made of silicone and come in handy in life and death situations? but he is digressing—, then she leans down and takes the knife from the woman’s hand, she’s still out of it, and reaches the sink to rest the pill there, then she crumbles it with the back of the handle of the knife to then push it in the glass and fill it with water. 

That’s smart, Jon realises through his toxin-fogged brain, this way he’ll have less difficulty swallowing the antidote and it’ll spread easier and quicker than by pill alone. She returns to him, helps him crane his head back and slowly helps him drink it all, until nothing is left of the powder and water inside the silicone glass. 

It took seven minutes for the toxin to make effect, in four Jon already feels more like himself, which means that the quality of the antidote was better than the quality of the toxin, whoever wanted him dead or incapacitated did not have that much money to afford the high quality toxin.

[hawkland]

My (mostly) Destiel Recs, Round-up #6

Well, between working like crazy on my DCBB fic and GISH and injuring my neck last month I haven’t kept up with my rec posts, so this one is going to be LONG and have a LOT and I’m going to try to break it up into sections, from oldies but goodies (some things I found on very old rec lists) to smutty delights to just tasty little bits of fluff, hopefully there’s something or everyone here. Most of these are not super-long, largely in the 10-25k range, though there are a few beyond that. With all the stuff I’ve had going on I haven’t wanted to lose sleep diving into 100k epics (especially when I’m writing my own right now, lol.)

“Oldies” but Goodies:  Here are two great fics written some time way back when but that still definitely slap.

Theodicy by manic_intent (11k) - Probably the most brilliant Godstiel fic I’ve read to date. One of Cas’s first acts as the new god is to make a new archangel. Dean isn’t exactly on board with having his soul re-sculpted into wings he hates on sight (especially as they seem magnetically drawn to Cas), but he isn’t exactly given a choice. He, Sam and Bobby struggle with how to handle their former friend suddenly becoming a vindictive deity - trying to make plans to kill him if they must, which is pretty hard when it seems like Cas is always one step ahead of him. Can Dean hold on to enough of his humanity to provide a conscience to Cas and try to steer him toward good acts instead of destruction? This is one that I can’t say has a perfectly happy ending, but it’s a hopeful and imperfect one that’s just right for how the story plays out. 

My Eyes Are An Ocean by entanglednow (10k) - Season 5 AU where Dean averts the apocalypse through a spell that “powers up” all the angels and he sees Cas’s true form - before being rendered blind. Dean tries to adjust to his blindness, Cas tries to deal with his guilt, and it’s just a lovely little read with an ending that’s... *chef’s kiss*

Lots more recs below the cut:

More great reads from some of my favorite authors I’ve recced before:

The Cabin on the Lake by DeanRH (21k) - This may be my new favorite DeanRH fic...at least for the moment. The year is 2152, Sam and Dean are long gone to Heaven, while Cas - stuck somewhere between mortal and angel - remains on Earth keeping vigil, keeping up the hunt, assuming he’ll never see either Winchester ever again. But when he starts hearing things, and imagining Dean visiting him as an angel himself, he starts losing grip on what is and isn’t real, and whether he can trust anything he sees or believes to be the truth. This is one hell of a psychological rollercoaster that kept me guessing right along with Cas until the very end. It also has some super-creepy horror elements, a novel “monster of the week”, and the hot-as-sin smut scenes I always expect from this author.

X Marks the Scot by DeanRH (15.9k) A fun little romp through history in one of this author’s great not-quite-au fics. Crowley sends Dean and Sam back in history to the Scottish Highlands to stop a monster, and while there they meet a blue-eyed clan chief who makes Dean weak in the knees. There’s something familiar about him, too. a very clever au that ties back to canon for an unexpected fix-it. Also, Cas in a kilt. Enough said.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon by DeanRH (12k) - Sweet and slightly angsty AU. What if Dean was a gardener in ancient Babylon when a strange dignitary came to warn that the tower under construction was to be destroyed by angels? Lush, romantic and sexy with some wonderful tie-ins to canon characterizations (of Dean, Sam, John and of course Cas).

sufficient for thee by angelfishofthelord (21k) - This is a beautiful Cas angst-fest and character study that reimagines how angel grace works, particularly in regards to healing others. It covers the whole of Cas’s arc from Season 4 through a post-series fix-it, is absolutely stunning and features some great world-building in regards to the angels. (One important TW: those with cutting/self-harm issues may wish to skip or at least proceed with caution). I love that I can always count on angelfishofthelord when I need a good dose of Cas!whump and pain.

And laugh at gilded butterflies by ireallydidthistomyself (13k) - another great Dadstiel fic from this author featuring one of my favorite angsty subjects! I don’t know how I missed reading this one before. An AU where Cas is raising (baby)Jack on his own until the angels find the two of them and prepare to seal Jack away in the Ma’lak box. Cas begs them to let him go with Jack, so at least Jack won’t be alone for eternity. Meanwhile Dean is frantically trying to find what happened to Cas, and he gets some unexpected help from Crowley.  It’s sad and sweet and all the characterizations are great. A+ Crowley use here, too.

what stays (and what fades away) by dothraki_shieldmaiden (64k) - a fabulous read with some great art, too, that started me reading a bunch of fic from this author. Cas goes missing, and when he’s found he seems deep under a spell. When they finally manage to awaken him, he doesn’t remember anything of this life with Dean, Sam and Cas in the bunker. The last thing he knew he was a nurse living with his wonderful husband, Dean, and their two adopted children, Jack and Claire. What I loved about this one was the clever twist as to who was behind Cas’s curse and also how well-developed his AU world/existence was. I’m not generally keen on mundane aus or the one-dimensional way a lot of djinn dream fics tend to go for them, but this one managed to capture a believable version of Dean and Cas living a “normal” life without monsters without making it sugary/too-sweet. 

before knowing remembers by dothraki_shieldmaiden (14k) Post 15x04, a wonderful fic that plays with some meta topics in a clever way. Dean and Sam are happy - they have free will and they’ve won against Chuck, even if they suffered some big losses along the way (including Jack). But Dean can’t help but think he’s forgetting something...or rather, someone. Yet every time he thinks he remembers, the name and face of that someone slips from his mind. 

weights on my ankles by dothraki_shieldmaiden (9k) Post-15x03 where Cas ends up going back to the Gas ‘n Sip and working with Nora after leaving the bunker. A bitter sweet divorce-arc AU and what I love the most is how it ends - not perfect, not tragic, just very real and believable. 

15x18 and Post-canon fix-it fics:

Orbital Velocity Around a Celestial Body by LeverDrift (26k) - An angsty but lovely fix-it fic, one where it gets worse for a while before it gets better. Dean pulls Cas from the Empty, where he’d been living in a fantasy world with a dream!Dean who was giving him everything real!Dean is certain he can’t. Dean has to struggle with wondering if Cas would have been better off with dream!Dean instead of him. This is one that will break your heart before putting it back together again as Dean struggles with his self-worth issues.

so good at crashing in by Wintertree (36k) - Another post-finale fix-it where Cas is back, the world is saved, and things are still...not as easy as it should be for either Dean nor Cas. Monsters are gone, there’s no more hunting to be done, and Cas wants to move out of the bunker somewhere closer to Claire, to move on with a proper human life. Dean thinks he can move there with Cas and stay as “best friends”, even to the extent that Cas encourages him to go out and have sex with others/women. (And wants to hear about it after the fact!) But can Dean figure out what he really wants, and what Cas wants as well? A refreshingly unique take on what a post-series life could have looked like for them.

Delicious smut:

Empty by squirrelofcelestialintent (43k) - Every day this fandom makes me rethink my previous squicks and DNWs in fanfic. Here I find myself enjoying quite a bit more dom/sub elements than I normally ever would! I think because I was absolutely drawn in by the breathtaking first chapter, capturing beautifully the emotions of Cas returning from the Empty in Season 13 if he and Dean had confessed their feelings right then and there. But Dean’s self-worth is all fucked up, he feels there’s no way he can be good enough for Cas, especially when his sexual desires run a little bit...let’s just say outside the vanilla and he’s struggling with shame over doing sex work when he was younger. This was HOT and POOR SAM really gets stuck in the middle of, well, hearing more about his brother’s sex life than he ever needed to.

He's My Mate by Hatsonhamburgers (22k) - This fic manages the delightful combination of humor and extreme hotness perfectly. Dean and Cas catch each other in some questionable masturbation situations. This leads Cas to decide he needs to buy Dean some proper sex toys. He’s just helping his best friend out, right? Sure. As I said, hysterical AND hot as hell. 

Generals by nanoochka (9k) - Cas/Dean, Cas/Balthazar/Dean, implied past-Cas/Balthazar. An old LJ fic I found on an ancient rec list that is just scorching hot and a brilliant character study of Cas and Dean. Balthazar decides to invite himself in when he catches Dean and Cas engaging in some frisky business, and it turns into a bit of a power-play between the two soldiers of Heaven. Cas gets DP’ed and it’s all...well. It’s fucking good, read it.

The One With The Preening by HolyFuckingHell (5.5k) Can I do a rec post without including some wing!kink/wing!grooming in it? No, I can’t. (I also really enjoyed some of the other fics in this author’s series including The One With Dean's Horny Movies).

A Single Point of Light by Destina (2.4k) - This is a gorgeous Cas/Dean/Benny Purgatory short! A delicious balance of the two each caring for and caring about Dean in their own, protective ways, definitely a delight for any fans of this threesome.

Short and sweet, fluff to angst:

Snugglebird by almaasi (5.3k) - So, so soft and sweet and snuggly, just like the title. Dean’s things are disappearing from the bunker...and so, suddenly, has Cas. What’s going on? I do love my nesting!Cas fics, so...yeah. If you need a smile this is a good one to read :)

And Cleanse Me From My Sin by thisisapaige (1.6k) - another one for my beloveds who also enjoy wing grooming and sweet Dean-taking-care-of-Cas fluff.

Needle and Thread by Misachan (4k) - Season 5 wing!fic hurt/comfort. Cas’s wings are badly injured, Dean doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, but he’s stitched up Sam and himself enough times. He can do this. If you love caretaker!Dean and vulnerable!Cas don’t overlook this little gem.

Deceptive Preludes by sp8ce (2.7k) - One of those stories that delves into some of the difficulties Cas might have after coming back from the Empty a second time, especially in regards to accepting what’s real or not, understanding Dean, and how both of their communication issues can add to their struggles. Painful but hopeful for the future, felt very believable as I read it.

[fandom-monium]

For the Holidays - Part 4

Summary: In which Spencer doesn’t want to go to his high school reunion, but you tagging along changes things. “You know, I don’t remember you being able to run this fast back at the academy.”

WC: 2.4k

Tags/Warnings: Spencer Reid x GN!Reader, fake-dating trope, pining (so much pining), fluff, defensive Spencer, more angst but not from unnecessary trauma, more emotional-support Reader, reunion arc, song fic, emotional/physical intimacy (to the max)

Don't think we fit in at this party Everyone's got so much to say, oh yeah, yeah When we walked in, I said I'm sorry, mmm But now I think that we should stay

Not a lot of things shake Spencer. It’s a very short list; his knowledge is expansive, he reads studies and scientific journals for fun, knows the most random statistics and facts just for the slightest possibility of it being useful. There're the rare occasions where unsubs catch him off guard, but at this point he's hardly phased. Nothing surprises him. 

Although, this⎼this has made it to the top of that list.

“You’re sorry?” Spencer repeats, not sure if he heard correctly. His body cements in place and he holds his breath, waiting for the punchline. Waiting for one of them to jump him, for someone to say, ‘LOL jk’ like Garcia does when he doesn’t get the joke.

Because he doesn’t like this joke. It wasn’t funny back then, it’s not funny now.

But they don’t. Seconds pass and his tormentors, like him, are just as frozen, just as breathless, just waiting for his reaction.

They’re serious?

Spencer’s lips curl as his nose wrinkles. “You’re sorry? You think saying sorry is going to make up for everything?”

“God no, of course not. But over time, we’ve come to realize,” Alexa’s voice trembles, like she’s holding back tears. She exchanges glances with Harper and the football team before taking a tentative step towards him. “You deserve a real apology at least.”

Spencer recoils, the words jostling his brain. Alexa, Harper, and the few members of the football team all nod in agreement, as if they discussed this beforehand.

She adds, “We don’t expect you to forgive us now or ever. But we hope to try and⎼”

She’s preaching, something about regret and forgiveness and bridging gaps, but Spencer barely registers her voice⎼the words drowned out by the thrumming Christmas music. It becomes more garbled and muffled. Like he’s under water and he’s sinking. 

He struggles to catch his breath. His brain reels until the only thing he can focus on is…

Anger. Familiar and hot and so loud that it rings in his ears. Against the storm, it’s a buoy in a rumbling ocean, the clearest, safest, most tangible thing he finds as he’s caught in the undertow. 

Just like that he breaks the water’s surface. 

And he latches on.

“You’re not sorry,” Spencer lets out a dry chuckle. Alexa and Harper open their mouths to protest but he continues, “You want to know how I know this? Because I have several degrees, one of them being in psychology.” 

They shake their heads. “We are⎼”

He cuts them off, his tone rising above Santa Tell Me as it bellows overhead. “No, you're not. You don’t feel remorse. You don’t blame yourselves. You feel guilty, and your attempt at apologizing for what you did tells me that you can’t live with that guilt. That’s why you’re apologizing. You want a clear conscience. You want me to⎼to just act like what you did was okay, to act like nothing happened. But it did and I⎼” Spencer’s vision blurs and his eyes burn. He squeezes them shut. 

He will not cry. He will not cry. He’s wasted enough tears on these people.

Spencer meets their gaze, and he knows they have to strain their ears when he rasps, “⎼It wasn't okay.”

“Reid,” Harper’s calls, her voice wobbling. For a second he sees it; Alexa, Harper, the football team backing them up as gold and white spotlights roam over them. Their eyes glisten with worry, and he sees the pain, the honesty, all the signs of truth and genuine regret with a profiler’s accuracy.

A small part of him hopes maybe they are. Maybe they do regret it the pain they caused him. 

The concept is jarring. And Spencer doesn’t have the capacity to process it. Not now.

So he turns away, clearing his throat. “Excuse me.” Without thinking, he slips his hand out of yours, startling you, and pushes through the throng of people.

“Um,” You hesitate as your gaze switches between watching Spencer and his (ex?) bullies. Then his back disappears in the crowd and you start after him, “I’ll be right back?”

Not the smoothest exit, but it’ll have to do.

You quickly weave between party-goers, rushing towards the exit. By the time you burst through the doors, Spencer is gone.

You’ve lost him.

⎼

Okay, you didn’t lose him.

You’re not even surprised, catching your breath at the gaping doors. Light spills from the hall, casting a long shadow as you scan the room, your footfalls muffled by the old carpet. It takes a little browsing until you realize you’re in the fiction area.

You find Spencer in the deepest corner of the library. He sits on the floor, slumped against the shelves of the classic literature section. You bite back a smile; his legs are too long for the small aisle between the bookcases, so his knees are bent and his hands rest in his lap. 

He barely notices as you carefully pad over to him. “Hey.”  

“Hey,” Spencer mumbles, staring vacantly at the rows of worn books. They’re dusty, mostly 3rd and 4th editions. He’s fairly certain they’re the same ones he read when he attended⎼damn, the American education system is underfunded⎼and despite the comforting presence of you and his old friends, he can’t bring himself to look at you, ashamed of his outburst. 

“You know, I don’t remember you being able to run this fast back at the academy,” You let out an exaggerated wheeze, an attempt to lighten his mood.  

It sort of works. Spencer huffs out a laugh, but he sobers quickly. “Sorry for running out on you like that.” 

You squeeze yourself into the small gap, mirroring him against the adjacent bookcase, legs tangling with his. “I told you, you have nothing to apologize for.” 

“Maybe but it’s still not fair to you,” Spencer swallows the lump in his throat. He hears you snort and he looks up, seeing the wry smile on your lips. “What?”

You roll your eyes. “Of course you still manage to think of me, even though this whole thing is for you. Reid, if I wasn’t so concerned, I’d feel touched.” 

He flushes, and while it's too dark to see each other clearly, Spencer still ducks his head. 

You smile shyly as you nudge the toe of your shoe against his. A question.

A second later, he nudges you back. An answer.

Satisfied, you don't say another word as you both find comfort in the silence and in the musty scent of used books. If you strain your ears, you can hear Snowman faintly echo down the empty hallways. It's hauntingly peaceful. 

Then Spencer breaks the silence.

It starts with a sniff and you shrug it off. Probably dust, allergies. But there's another and another until all you hear is his breathes, unsteady and wet and⎼fuck.

Spencer is crying.

He bites his lip as he clasps his hands tightly in his lap, trying to pull himself together. Scrape together whatever semblance of pride he’s got left. He's been humiliated enough today; he doesn't need to fall apart in front of you too.

Tears well in his eyes. A whimper escapes him, and because you’re alone⎼no music, no loud guests to cover him⎼you feel the brunt of it, rattling your bones.

Your willpower snaps.

Touch is a powerful thing. There are people who simply don’t care for it but others, they’re uncomfortable with the intimacy behind the sensation. Many underestimate the tremendous courage it takes to let others into your personal bubble. And for you⎼ 

Touch is... personal. It’s giving a spare key to your place. It’s confessing your sins before you face Death. 

It’s sharing your sweaters with Spencer because he thinks they look cool. It’s cooking and cleaning the failed trials afterwards, standing at the sink and flinging soap bubbles at each other. It’s sharing the blanket when heading home after an exhausting case.

Touch is comfort. So that’s what you give him.

Spencer's breath hitches as you crawl over to him. On your knees, you settle between his legs and he freezes, terrified if he moves you will leave. Or disappear. He’s not sure. But you’re so close that his breath puffs against your chin. He tries to hold them in. It makes him hiccup. 

To his surprise, you pull out a handkerchief. 

Though his body trembles, he doesn’t protest as your hands gently push back his hair. He follows the movement, his head falling back against the bookcase as he watches your dark silhouette hover over him, softly outlined by the streetlight seeping through the windows. He lets you take the tears and the hurt, dabbing them away from his tear-stained cheeks. 

Every teardrop is a knife. Every droplet you don’t catch, it's a cut. 

Spencer wonders if he's dreaming. Maybe he tripped and knocked himself out? Or did the football team clock him so hard it put him in a coma? Or maybe he fainted? 

Because if the universe is rewarding him after all the bullshit he's been through, all the work he’s done, he hopes this is it. This is the closest you've ever been⎼you’ve hugged and comforted each other before but this is so much more intimate than any other moment you’ve shared. And given the chance, he knows he would spend the rest of his days like this. His face in your hands as you wipe away the misery and despair.

The thought sends him into a new wave of tears. If you mind, you say nothing.

Spencer shuts his eyes, leaning into every touch, every caress. It’s too dark to see, so he tries to memorize what his eyes can’t. Your hands are cool against his skin and your soap smells good (or maybe that’s just you?). And as much as he appreciates your mindfulness to his germaphobic tendencies, he wishes you'd come closer. To keep touching him. 

But it’s odd, Spencer thinks as you smooth back his hair. You offer no words of encouragement. No words of wisdom. No motivational speech that’ll prompt him to bounce right back. You simply wait, brushing away his tears as he hiccups and sobs.

It just… doesn’t seem real. Attending the reunion like Morgan suggested (and the fact you're kneeling between his legs, but he's trying not to think too hard about it). The idea sounded so simple and terrifying at the same time. He planned to show off⎼peacock, if you will⎼and you even helped him practice. Spencer was prepared to bring them to their knees (okay, not really but he was willing to try). 

And now years later, they decide to apologize?

The audacity.

They didn’t spend years pushing past the pain. They didn’t hope the memories would erode with time. They didn’t have to pretend everything was okay, like nothing happened, like they didn’t do anything wrong. 

So excuse him if a little ‘sorry’ doesn’t make him feel any better.

Is it⎼is he weak for feeling like this? It’s been too long. They shouldn’t have this sort of effect on him.

“I don’t think that matters.” 

Spencer frowns at you. After his tears dry up and his hiccups subside, you settle beside him, your handkerchief, moist with his tears, fisted in his hands now. He tries to ignore the way your shoulders and thighs brush against each other. 

“I-I’m not invalidating you. But I don't think this is about being weak or sensitive. What they did to you… cut you deep and you never got closure and-and you’re still hurting. Even if it’s just a little,” You speak low, gazing at the bookshelves across from you as you stumble for the right words. He sees you angle your head towards him. Feels you shift next to him. “It's been years, but time and space doesn’t make your feelings any less valid. So no, I don't think this is about strength. It was a prank gone wrong, and you were just a kid.”

That’s putting it lightly. Spencer bites his tongue. 

You don’t need to know that.

He folds the handkerchief in his hands as he murmurs, “Easy for you to say.”

He feels you stiffen, and he considers the possibility that he said something wrong. 

“What do you mean?” You ask.

“It’s not bad or anything,” Spencer sits up, hands waving about as he rushes to assure you. “You’re always so composed. Even during the worst cases, you hardly lose it. In terms of stoicism, you’re basically on par with Hotch.”

Spencer cringes, the words out of his mouth before he realizes. 

For a second you don’t respond, but his heart stalls as he practically feels you pull away from him, even though physically you’re still there. You turn away, pulling your knees to your chest.

“Is that what you think of me?” Fuck, you sound betrayed by his assumptions. 

“I⎼well… ” Spencer wrings his hands together. He’s at a loss for words, afraid he’ll say something wrong again. He wishes he had night vision; your body language is closed off, protective, and he knows your expression is pained. 

Oh god, he did that. It hurts knowing he did that.

“Believe it or not, Reid, I’m not exactly the poster child for calm and collected," You unfold as you look back at him, voice laced with vulnerability. "I've got cracks of my own."

"... Eh,” Like you, Spencer attempts to brighten your mood, elbowing you, “I need to conduct an observational study to back that up."

He knows you're smiling as you huff, “Is that your roundabout way of saying I can go to you? When I need a shoulder to cry on?”

I'd literally drop everything if you came to me for no reason but okay.

Spencer shrugs, grinning as you push him so hard he topples over. And as you laugh and shove at each other like teenagers, Spencer concurs. You both have your cracks. You're cracked and chipped and if you take the time to look there's damage in places hidden away from the naked eye.

You're cracked but it makes you all the more perfect. 

AN: 4/5 whoops

yall don’t kink shame me but i’m a slut for emotional and physical intimacy 😳 and not to be toxic but Reids hot when he mad 😳 

what kind of student were/are you in school, middle/high/college? 

i think i got the hang of the angst now im quite proud of my writing here :) i bummed myself out writing these scenes you dont even know

small background with Mysterious!Reader and Reid yes they were in the FBI academy together :)

fun fact: when i was writing part 3 and 4 i had to go back and watch the elephants memory episode after realizing i forgot the names of Reids bullies. i was already halfway done before i noticed i wrote Harry instead of Harper gdm

when i started FtH, i cackled at the idea of Reid confronting his bullies. just seemed funny to me to have him be pissed and ready to shank his enemies with words and just lose that chance bc his bullies are human too and realize their mistake so they want to make up for it lmaooo now here he is angry and he can’t really express it the way he thought he would

(also if you noticed the lines ref to @idmakeitbehave’s fic cracked perfection, just a little thingy bc they inspire me and i love their everything <333) 

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

Crashing | Jurdan Fake Hating One Shot

Written for: @poeticbrownmermaid​ for my 1k celebration!

Massive thank you to: @clockworkgraystairs​ and @sweetlyvillainous​ for beta reading this and holding my hand before I posted 🥺❤️

Summary: You’ve heard of fake dating. Get ready for fake hating. It’s all very romantic.

Rating: M/E for explicit language and a short, soft focus smut scene (a steam scene, if you will). The sexy parts start and stop after the ☽☽ in case you want to skip.

Masterlist

“You taste—” I’m cut off by my own giggle, which rises to my lips like my mouth is a glass and my laugh is the Champagne they’re serving at this dumb party. “You taste like bubblegum.”

Cardan looks at me funny, then snorts. “What?”

His eyes are beguiling when they’re amused. Even more beguiling when they’re amused and looking at me. They are dark intoxication. They compete against the night sky for vastness. I could swallow them whole.

We’re on the terrace under the stars outside his fancy-pants mansion. I’m sitting on the stone railing, my knees bracketing his lithe frame. His hands and lips are breathless effervescence on me.

I’m in a daring dress of red satin that I would’ve never chosen for myself had Oriana not insisted on finding us girls a tailor. It’s an elegant, backless number with an audacious slit up the side. The whole time before this in the ballroom, I could sense Cardan’s eyes eating it up while he pretended to hate me.

In this dress, I am a femme fatale spy from a film, meeting her tryst in the secret of shadows. Which is honestly not too far off from the reality of the situation, though I am no spy.

Cardan ghosts one hand up the exposed skin of my thigh. The night air is bracing as his touch.

“Jude,” he murmurs, “Are you drunk?”

He’s in a rakish black velvet suit with two blood-red rubies dangling from the pointed tips of his collar. It is decadence and sin given form. The first hour of this hell party was just that: Hell. By the time Cardan pressed a napkin into my palm with the words “Terrace. 10 min.” scrawled on it in smeared ink, I was beginning to glare at him in earnest—if only for the way he must’ve known he was teasing me.

Now, we’re making out behind two conveniently tall potted plants.

It’s all very romantic.

“I had one glass of wine, Cardan,” I say. I slide my hands from his hair and scrape my nails lightly down the column of his neck. It is heady, watching his eyes shutter. My hands slide down his chest and take up his lapels. I give them a firm tug. “I’m fine.”

“Well, I,” he says, lips hovering over my own, “Don’t believe you.” His breath fans across my face. It really does smell like bubblegum. And not the minty kind, either. I’m talking bright pink and bubblicious.

I lean back a little and stick my bottom lip out in a mock-pout. “Why not?”

“For starters,” he says, “You’re a lightweight.” He trails that damned hand down my exposed thigh again.

I shiver. “So? I also ate like twenty of those canopy things.”

“Canapés?” Cardan smirks.

“Yeah, whatever, Your Highness.”

He flashes me a grin and I’m briefly stricken into silence. “Then, what have you to say to your unprecedented giddiness this evening, Your Majesty?”

“Ew, don’t call me that.” I grimace. “I just called you ‘Your Highness’.”

“What? Scared of the implication?”

“Uh, yeah.” My brows shoot up on my forehead. “Mainly because it implies that I’m your mother.”

Cardan’s face goes slack. “Shit, really?”

I nod and bite back my grin.

“I thought they were interchangeable.”

“About as interchangeable as a fork and a spoon.”

He sputters a laugh. “Shows what I know about royalty.”

“You realise how ironic that is, don’t you?” I say, nodding pointedly in the direction of the party.

It goes on without us, spilling its mirth in great golden shafts out onto the terrace. It doesn’t touch us, though. The air is cool, clear of the preening bullshit that so regularly lathers these kinds of events. And though he makes me dizzy, Cardan is the only real thing here.

I think I like parties better this way. From the shadows. In there, we’d have to talk to people, explain ourselves. We’re supposed to hate each other. We were always supposed to hate each other.

A smile plays at the corners of Cardan’s lips as if he’s gleaned these thoughts of mine. “You haven’t answered my question.”

I narrow my eyes. “You think I’m too giddy to not be drunk.”

“Mhmm.” He nudges his nose against mine. “I’ve never heard you giggle before.” A slender finger tracks up my spine and it takes a considerable amount of concentration not to squeeze my thighs together. Goosebumps and a flush spring to my skin, anyway. “It’s delightful,” he tells me.

“Well, maybe you should work on your sense of humour.” My voice comes out shakier than I want it to.

“Maybe,” Cardan says, grabbing the back of my knee and hitching it up. “But that sounds like effort.”

I want to roll my eyes. This is exactly the reason we used to hate each other. His laziness, his arrogance, and entitlement made me want to punch him clean across his pretty cheekbones. I know my stubbornness and sharp tongue made him hate me right back.

Yet, when our worlds crumbled around us, we found ourselves crashing into each other. Entwined in a thicket of mutual understanding. Suddenly, there was so very little to hate.

We pretend to in public to keep up appearances. Everyone knows we hated each other. If we started being friendly around everyone else, people would talk. That’s the last thing we want. Even if they’d technically be right.

In private, though, Cardan is probably my most closely held secret.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s still annoying as all hell. Like right now. But I’ve always liked a challenge.

I hook my leg around his back, pulling him in. My fingers card through his hair again. “I can be delightful in other ways,” I say, biting my lip.

His eyes lower to my mouth. “Oh, I’m well aware.” Cardan’s voice comes out a rasp. He cants my chin with the crook of his finger, pulling my lip from between my teeth with the pad of his thumb. He looks at me with undiluted lust. The weight of his gaze is like a dizzying nightmare.

Then, he devours me.

Our mouths slide together, slowly at first, but building in fervor. Hot and heavy, like a fever. His grip on my thigh is bruising. His other hand splays across my bare back, crushing me to him, long fingers twining in my hair. Everything turns saturated and slow.

I invade his mouth with my tongue, determined to drink him up. He tastes like bubblegum and our reconciliation. At the same time, I hook my other leg behind him so he’s pressed flush against the apex of my thighs. ☽☽

A muffled groan rolls between his teeth. “Fuck, Jude.” Cardan is growing firm beneath his trousers. The feel of it sends a curl of sweet desire, dark and throbbing, through my core.

“You’re going to have to be quieter than that,” I tease. I’m so featherbrained on the savour of his mouth, his liquid touch. My veins feel full of amber liquor instead of blood. I know I’m not drunk, and yet I feel it.

His fingers drawl back up my leg. “The question is, dear,” he says, “Can you be quiet?” The coolness of his hands sends a shock along the heat of my inner thigh.

I realise where he’s going with this and my breath hitches. My cheeks blaze. “Yes,” I tell him, though I don’t sound as confident as I should for such a high stakes rendezvous.

“Hmm,” Cardan thrums. “We’ll see about that.”

His fingers are deft and twice as sly. He hisses through his teeth when they glide over me, exploring.

As a steady rain, he begins my unravelling. His mouth covers mine, swallowing a soft whimper that escapes my throat. I want to moan his name, to curse aloud, but I can’t if we’re to stay hidden.

The thought is both terrible and exciting at once.

Cardan keeps a torturous pace. I cling to him, panting, clutching at his arms, clawing at his back. His mouth roams my jawline. His teeth tug my ear. My mind is frenetic, frenzied, and at once thick in a viscous haze.

All I can think about is how this party is so stupid and soul-sucking, but Cardan is the farthest thing from stupid and soul-sucking. About how he makes me feel very much alive. About how I like him more than anyone here, probably more than even myself.

His other arm wraps certain and solid around me as he spins my world on its side. I lean my forehead on his shoulder. He kisses my neck. I can’t help the gasps that leave me.

My heart is racing. So quickly does it pump, in time with his ministrations, I think I might turn to white lightning in a bottle before all is said and done.

I know it when I’m drawing towards that precipice. My toes curl and flex. My legs begin to quiver. My knees lock up.

“Cardan,” I gasp. “Please.”

“Can you be quiet for me, Jude?” Cardan murmurs rough against my ear. He sounds a little breathless, too.

I am so muddled, I am so close. I can only manage a soft sob in response. Now he’s doubling his efforts and oh, gods is he clever.

I bite his shoulder to keep from making a sound as I shoot over the edge, a wondrous arc so high I’m sure I scrape the stars of their dust.

My hips writhe against his palm. I pull and rake my fingers through his hair as I spiral through the five stages of sweet delirium.

He holds me through it. Presses his lips to my hair and whispers what I think must be comforting things into my ear. I can’t tell because I’m incapable of comprehending much of anything beyond myself in his arms. He strokes soft circles over my back until it’s done. ☽☽

When everything settles, I’m still clinging to him, my forehead against the sureness of his shoulder. A sheen of sweat dewing my skin.

I’ve always hated this part about intimacy. The aftermath. Everything is too quiet. The excitement is gone. You’re faced with the reality of looking at each other without the rosy filter of lust. Maybe you’ll see each other for who you really are, and that’s a scary thought.

That’s probably how I felt once with Cardan, too. Back when we started…whatever this is. But now, in this moment with him, it feels less vulnerable and more like holding someone’s hand as you stare upon something a little terrifying.

Which is why I’m able to look up at him and ask in every manner of seriousness, “Why do you taste like bubblegum?”

His responding laugh is gentle and he shakes his head. “One-track mind,” he says. I shrug and wait.

“They’re serving bubblegum cocktails at the bar inside.”

My nose crinkles. “You actually drank one of those?”

“Don’t knock it till you try it.”

“No, I think I’ll sleep quite soundly if I never do.”

Cardan gives me an awful kind of grin that makes my toes curl anew. “Didn’t hear you complaining earlier.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “That’s different.”

“Is it?” he says, then tucks a loose curl behind my ear. “I happen to like bubblegum cocktails.”

I give him a dubious look. I can’t help but feel that maybe we’re not talking about bubblegum cocktails anymore.

For a long moment, we just sit there staring at each other. There’s a bloom of laughter from inside the house. The clink of glasses. His eyes trace the lines of my face. I still feel drunk on him and he’s looking at me too soberly.

So I say, “You have shit taste, then,” and hop off the railing. I side-step him before beginning the task of smoothing down my dress. If I walk back into the party all flushed and disheveled, people will know what I’ve been doing—which is almost as bad as if people knew who I’ve been doing.

“Oh, you can’t say that dear,” Cardan lilts as he leans back against the balcony with all the insouciance of someone who lives in this ridiculous mansion. And rightly so, because he does. “Not when you taste equally delicious.” Then he brings his fingers, the ones that have just been inside me, to his mouth and closes his lips around them, burning gaze locked on mine.

My eyes go wide. My jaw slacks as I watch him. I’m somewhere between affronted by his audacity and completely turned on again. Which is a confusing place to be.

He laughs at my probably very foolish expression and I turn on my heel to head back to the party. I’m not actually offended. I just can’t bear to look at him while he’s tasting me off his fingers without combusting on the spot.

Cardan grabs my wrist. “Wait, wait,” he says, still laughing.

I arc a brow and turn to face him. “I’m waiting.”

“I’m sorry,” he says and sounds earnest enough. “It’s just… you make me giddy, too.”

His words are a punch to the gut. I hadn’t realised it until he said it, but it’s true. It’s not the way he kisses me or the high of a climax, though those are surely nice things, too. It’s the way I feel when we’re together. Just his presence makes my head swim, my stomach turn flips.

He makes me feel a little bit invincible, and entirely beyond reason.

I look at him, the warm glow of the party playing off the sharp angles of his face. He’s still holding my hand, fiddling with the ruby ring I always wear.

On the crest of a breath, Cardan says, “Stay tonight.”

“Why?” I whisper, because we’ve never spent the night. I’m not sure we’d even know how.

“Because I’ll miss you terribly?”

A smile tugs at my lips. “I think you’ll survive.”

“Because you’ll miss me terribly.”

“Oh, I’ll definitely survive,” I say. Even as my heart gives a squeeze. I don’t want to leave.

Not yet, not yet.

“Because you’re too intoxicated to drive home,” he says.

“I took an Uber here, Cardan,” I tell him. “And for the last time, I’m not drunk.”

“I’m not saying you’re drunk, Jude.”

He’s not grinning at me, which I think is a good sign. It means he’s not hinting at something sexual. Then again, that might also be a very bad sign. It means he’s hinting at something deeper. I’m not sure I want to get into that conversation just yet.

“Fine,” I say. I do want to stay. The thought of it sends a little thrill through me. “Hate me for an hour more. We’ll have a big argument about… something. And then I’ll tell Madoc I’m leaving.”

His hands snake around my waist. “What will we argue about tonight?”

I smile at him sweetly. “If your head is half as cunning as your fingers, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Cardan hums. “I do love it when we’re at each other’s throats.”

I roll my eyes but I’m betrayed by my laugh for not the first time tonight. Stupid punch-drunk feelings.

☽☽☽☽☽

Enjoyed this? Try:  King  |  Wicked Game  |  We’re All Mad Here

Masterlist

AN: So this was supposed to be a drabble for my 1k celebration but my hand slipped and whoops! It’s 2.5K words. I really hope you enjoyed this secret tryst one shot. I had so much fun writing it. If you liked this and want to see more from me, comments and/or reblogs are very much appreciated!

I have a tag list so if you’d like to be added to that, let me know in the comments/my messages/inbox and I’d be happy to add you! I also recently jumped on the Twitter/Instagram bandwagon. You can follow me @/rebelwriter23 on Twitter and @/slightlyrebelliouswriter23 on Instagram.

Back to the forest now. -Em 🖤💫

Title Inspo: Crashing- Illenium

Tag List: @velarhysismine​ @knifewifejude​ @the-mithridatism-of-jude-duarte​ @clockworkgraystairs​ @thesirenwashere​ @judexcardanxgreenbriar​ @nite0wl29​ @aelin-queen-of-terrasen​ @whocares-idont​ @babycardan @sweetlyvillainous​ @aesthetics-11​ @storiesandschemes​ @jurdanhell​ @poeticbrownmermaid​ @thechainofiron​ @random-llama-socks​ @villanellevi​ @lady-thea-of-narnia​ @b00kworm​ @flowersinvegas​ @vanessa172003​ @cardanstrickytail​ @queen-of-glass​ @doingmyrainbow​ @words-of-the-wise​ @scarznstars​ @charincharge​ @fizziefaerie​ @fateandluminary​ @tessas-herondales​ @styles-taylor​ @jyoti96​ @losssssstttttt​ @transbordeamento​ @katsemkitgostadetog @gloriouspalacebakerylawyer​ @woodsbeyond1​ @hizqueen4life​ @highqueenjudeduarte​ @m-like-magic1-blog​ @dorkzrul​ @whataboutmyfries​ @livelovereading123​ @queenofgreenbriar​ @ireallyshouldsleeprn​ @lifeminuspickles​ @df3ndyr​ @christalpaez @aknymph​ @iammissstark​ @disco-tits1​ @star-flecked-soul​

[incarnateirony]

15.15: The Absent Mother

I’ve had to take a great deal of time to pull my thoughts together on this episode because it was so MUCH. I’ve said in the past that I wasn’t a fan of Davy; he often layered his things very thinly. But today was a masterfully interwoven piece to the point I literally watched another show for an hour while thinking about it, went and took a shower for half an hour to scrub my head clean, and came back to this and STILL sat to write about it.

So if you’re new to my meta, I’m going to break the ice. You need to read my The Generational Family post to dip your toes in. It speaks in plain english things that will be less-plain english in this post.

If you’re less-new to my meta, but often floating in the occult references, I’m going to try to drop links to posts or tag folders of references.

But what a fantastic salute to the Empress this entire episode is.

Now let’s dive in.

It’s no secret my blog bangs on about arcana on the regular. I have spoken of the four colors (represented in the above gif but also frequenting the #hues of involution tag). 

Frankly, I consider it invariable that the brother focused episode will summon forth The Emperor as a key focus. Somewhere in that chaos binder of tags I even predicted that much when I saw the color themes of the episode, but that’s a whole other aside--just something to put a pin in the idea of while I speak of the Empress, and the Generational Family.

(15.16 update: hahahahah)

I’ve gone feral

BACK TO ORIGINAL 15.15 POST

Some time back I had made a post about Castiel’s tie to this path; be that his frequent association with Mary over time (be it storyline parallels in general arc, John and Mary’s meeting, mixtapes or whatever else); that he and Rowena served as mirror and foil from her earliest conception, back when his parental storylines hovered more in regret over Claire; that Amara and her forced bond were associations of the profound bond and many lines directly mirrored while other motions challenged each other (Eg, heart tie, profound bond>mark bond);

I even made a joke at one point that Castiel should wear a pink trenchcoat to match Rowena’s dress.

This, of course, I joked equally was absurd, and that we would probably have to settle for the violet-pink light of Death on both him and Dean in 15.13′s alchemical Marriage of the Minds.

This Marriage of the Minds you’ll find plenty of topic on for my blog, and all in association with the Art arcana, from which the Occultum is drawn to begin with in its concept. This may seem like a long drift aside from the episode itself, but is more a preface of discussion based reminders.

Either way, @meta-mania-spn​ outright trolled in to my trenchcoat joke with this when it was released, saying “here’s your pink trenchcoat.”

And how on point you were!

But I’m going to have to ask fandom to do me a favor before we continue any further in this discussion.

I’m going to need you to stop trying to shove everything in singular boxes applicable to one and only-one storyline. Go back to the Generational Family post. Make sure that’s anchored like, in your subconscious at this point. Know it, feel it. 

Okay, now we can continue.

Hah hah “You’re standing in The Trap zone.” Okay.

So obviously, we have two major story ends going on right now: On the one hand, Sam and Dean go have a discussion to Amara where they plan to lie to her to pull off a stunt against Chuck; on the other hand, we have Castiel and Jack working a case. This seems simple enough in our structure.

Amara’s face of this ends up being entirely reflection. Of her cosmogenic origins (”We are the same.”), We Are Twins (I point to Thoth’s use of the twins in generational storytelling), etc. Of her history with Dean. Of her reasons of bringing Mary back.

Fandom may not like her reasons for bringing Mary back. They may even hate them. And we’ll get back to this later, but this is the sum of this.

On the other hand, Cas and Jack think a demon is involved. They even summon one. Turns out Rowena, in taking over hell, has adopted a new system. No more tricking and damning souls. People end up where they belong. The demon is bored (which has a funny shout out at the end on him trying to find a new purpose--as a cop, which is about six levels of commentary but I digress), but the continued path of Rowena renovating hell from welcome meetings for damned souls to lack of intentionally dragging others down is made clear, while evoked.

I point back to Rowena’s own history: at one point she aspired for power, but after Funeralia, she was stricken with guilt and grief over feeling like she abandoned her son. This is a thread that I have tried to put in videos over time as a still-binding tie; Castiel staring into Belphegor’s husked out eyes at one point, even if it wasn’t really his fault, just as we lost Rowena who went to essentially reclaim her son’s legacy and throne since she couldn’t atone for his loss.

But then we get to the case. It’s a whole long adventure, much of which has some bog-standard casework; we do have Castiel coming to speak that he found new meaning in becoming a parent (rolling back to the parental thread), and there’s a bunch of great imagery we’ll cover below. But before we get to that, let’s focus on the resolution.

It reveals a broken family structure: Mother was sick and felt shoved away, Father Changed Things, and the child ended up on a destructive path about following god.

Now when I talk about not boxing things in on one level, I’m going to break down this family a bit.  We’ll also just totes ignore the Joseph-the-Carpenter tattoo on the pastor that clearly has NOTHING to do with Joseph behind Dean only an episode ago and the entire Emperor theme with the sun behind his head. After the whole Mary behind Cas thing. Nope, nothing to see here. Has NOTHING to do with the generational stuff I’m about to talk below. That’d be silly right?

You also have to think of it this way. If Pastor Joe (yes that’s his FKING name) a parallel, so is his dead wife. There are levels where it was felt she was mocked, and pushed away, which tied into Amara this episode. You have your Chuck and Amara level parallel. However, on the emotional level, the mother figure that Castiel actually ends up representing is also coming due to be absent. And this is about the father's atonement with that just as much as it is with Dean having his dialogue with Amara.

On many levels. Dean and Amara’s dialogue trades of old grudges, old motivations, but also current events and learning to live in the now. 

The child, however, was still stuck in the past--a past the mother who told her to believe in God seemed to want, but the same kind of duty Castiel became aware of needing to change in the past. But she got stuck in it.

While she judged people by their sins, Jack and Castiel end up finding the poor unfortunate man judged by Lust, after an entire aside Castiel had with the pastor about one of the victims struggling as a gay man and what-not; For Reasons(TM). But this is an arcana post, not a “point out the obvious fucking screaming queer text and subtext being put in blinker lights this episode” post, so I’m going to generally show that the misguided and wrathful child thought she was carrying out God’s will.

And then I direct you to my Lust tag.

I have far longer stuff on it, but if you skim, you’ll find the loudest message is about not letting a wrathful god judge or punish you for sins. It involves the Whore of Babylon as a symbol of power riding a beast that represented (Aleister) Crowley; or in this case, Rowena riding Crowley to power, but also birthing and rearranging a new world. I point back to the demon in question, and then I gesture to the stuff about Castiel’s impending storyline overlap.

Did other sins get punished, sure; the one girl got greed, for example. If you check my posts on the Lust topic, there are other forms of debauch actually associated with lust beyond just carnal lovers, but the message about ignoring god’s wrath and making the new world remains in-tact.

This is the kind of wrath enacted by the girl. Who is furious about how the aeon changed. Because you changed everything, dad. They don’t worship God, they worship You.

So here’s the fun question: Is this a child of man furious that man is no longer the true god because Chuck in the corrupted Emperor path has changed the world to his whims, just flipped? That is to say, that they no longer see the Shadow as The One True God? Or is this someone throwing a tantrum on Chuck’s behest that the world of man is being reclaimed? Or is it a generalized moral of all of these things contingent on the choices The Ones -- Sam and Dean -- make moving forward? And what of Jack inevitably feeling like he has to do Dean’s commands, with the task laid out to destroy God as mapped by Death, in the inevitable absence of Castiel?

Now this has drifted a wide-berth from speaking of the Empress herself, which I’ll roll back to. I had mentioned, for example, the pink. So let’s talk about why that is.

The Empress is the Matron. While she goes through many forms, this is sort of the central or individualized one. She represents a fertility in preparing to birth the new world. She holds a blossom, she takes a pose I’m not gonna bother breaking down in this post, and she is crowned in a sphere that is passed to her from the Emperor which she will wear until the next aeon from their union is born.

She is represented by the moon, and though her child will eventually become the new sun it must first be the earth, her emperor is her current sun; the son is the reflection of the father in the eyes of the mother; the Empress Moon lets the Emperor Sun shine on her face and brings life to the earth in their union, and again, I point back to the Marriage of the Minds post.

Now, see that bird in the corner? That’s a pelican. It’s frequently associated in old alchemy as the mother giving her life, as part of the birthing process is also death, for her next generation. I have spoken in the past that Byzantium itself is an ideal example of that. The pelican has intensive alchemical implications, but it was believed she “fed her child from her own heart.”

Okay cool so there’s just a bleeding heart right there while Jack struggles with feeling like he has to deal with this alone, while Castiel tries to insist he doesn’t, with the renegade child taking it upon herself to carry out god’s work and essentially going mad/bad. Castiel not wanting to let that all fall on Jack.

There’s also giant posters about THE WORLD and a mirror shadow Safe Place poster which I’m not even going to talk on much beyond gesturing vaguely at my Shadow tag and Universe tag and move on, but I will take particular note of the hands reaching out to Cas and the world as a vague gesture to once again stick a pin in.

I mean there’s a few other themes I’m going to point out for general notes: hearts everywhere,

Some stuff on Day and Night and hands all over/handholding, which I’ll point to my talk on Absence for false dichotomies

And an admittedly offtopical “lmao fuck this news screen”

But with that, I move forward:

The child here was dressed almost EERILY like Mrs Butters, for the record. And uh-- /wore her cross upside down/

They both kind of represent the same thing of misguided ideals, though Mrs Butters proved able to be reasoned with at the end and went to go return to nature where she belonged, just as man should return to his place some day free of god’s machinations; but she didn’t break her cycle and her fate is to be decided after this by court and what-not, which.. you know, fine.

But that’s a note worth passing re: Mrs Butters, but again, it needs to fall to generational; child vs parent, with Mrs Butters being the lightly lamia-associated elder who lost her sons and went mad trying to protect them according to how she had been commanded, just like this story, too, comes to misguided commands in absence.

Add in of course that Butters pointed out Jack was “too much like his father”. This, of course, was a shot at Lucifer in a way, but the serpent she evoked isn’t truly symbolic of Lucifer in our show, it’s about humanity. And uh, who is synonymous synced to in SPN? Even ignoring the relevance of the serpent to the Emperor? 

Throughout this episode, Jack waltzes around imprinted on habits from Dean, taking on the weight of the world, sacrifice, doing it alone, and inevitably, small bursts of anger.

While... Amara tracks and polka dances sideways across the Mary issue of idealizations vs realities, of the Now being more important than the Then. Fandom gets stuck on how unfair it was to Dean and considers it torture which, human perspective, fair. But Amara isn’t thinking on your human level. In fact she very loudly flags around how Dean (and frankly, the audience) doesn’t properly perceive the scope of what she even is. 

Castiel, driving home, continues to try to be an improved parent. He talks with Jack, and tries to tell him he doesn’t have to do this alone. But Jack is stuck in that rut, and it’s a rut Castiel knows too well. He’s walked these paths and the audience has walked these paths and he can’t let the child handle this alone, though Jack declares it isn’t his choice. Jack has surrendered to what he believes Death commands of him, what the job is.

It’s going to be about choice.

But right now, Jack is too much like his father. And I point back to the Moon, who lets the Sun shine on her face, perceiving the world as a reflection of the Father, of Soul in the eyes of the Mind. This is the path to teach their son to avoid just as much.

Meanwhile, Castiel is punched in the FACE basically by Jack saying not to tell Sam and Dean he’s turning into Soul Bomb Take 2. He doesn’t want to worry them over something he can’t do anything about. Congratulations, Castiel is now living the mirror of Jack knowing the Empty deal and Sam and Dean not being told, and you can SEE the reality of it ALL slam him in the face. Not just because Jack blowing up would negate the point of his sacrifice; I don’t know if that even really plinks his mental armor; but the actual magnitude of that kind of secret.

Burying my clown brain’s fierce desire to talk at length of small details like Cas opting not to wake Dean up in the room, we see a recursion-yet-subversion at the end. 

We cut off, here, abruptly. In context of the episode, we know Castiel has at least learned one lesson and is going to try to tell Dean about his deal. But on some level, this all enmeshes thoroughly to Castiel’s Empty deal. Do I think Cas is going to tell the Empty deal in 16? No, I’m gonna guess on some level Sam gets his hands on it around 17 maybe, or nobody at all finds out--or at least Dean himself doesn’t find out--until 18.

In that time they *still* will not have stopped Chuck, that won’t be until 19. So I really wish this arm flailing about “oh god they’re making it all about Cas saving Jack and then dropping it!” would stop because man guys, I’m tired, I’ve been writing you the roadmap on this for two years and haven’t failed yet, pls listen.

Even after episode 18, Castiel’s role is inevitably going to be to take the burden from Jack. ...And Dean will too, but you won’t really even start to wrap your heads around the how and the why until at *least* 16 covers the Emperor path better in scale of the generational family. That’s going to be a joint thing.

Yes, I’m saying that’s going to be a joint thing after the Empty.

The show has taken a highlighter repeatedly to the fact that Jack was neither ready to rule or remove Chuck and that it was all a bad idea. Like “Then who?!” yes HMMM WHO. 

Who is sitting here following the path of all of these individuals in this very episode? Do I need to gesture people to literal years of Castiel being associated with every one of these women’s central stories in my meta, make everyone read literal compendiums of it to get the where and why, or is it at least enough in the collective subconscious to be recognized?

What is Rowena doing? What is Rowena doing, right now? She unbirthed an entire realm and is restructuring it; where people go only where they deserve to go, where they aren’t as boxed in but certainly aren’t out there being shitheads for the sake of being shitheads. But man, if only there was SOME ONE ELSE lined up on this whole lunar path, somewhere, with these women.

(For more on the blossom, see my Albedo tag)

For the full context and, frankly, mental breakdowns about 15.13 and what all that amounted to, I point you to the tags I linked above in discussion and lead-in to this post, because I’m not going to re-tread that ground right now.

But Castiel’s deal has always been about saving Jack. Castiel has been the Empress all year and before it. He will continue to be the empress, symbolized as feeding her young from her own heart, and--well, like that above gif (and also like 15.09, but with Sam in that generational rotation), receiving the sphere from the Emperor (Dean) and passing it to the new aeon to be reborn. Jack is the new Aeon. the mother will protect this at any cost.

But I don’t know why fandom pole vaults into assuming then that the Emperor suddenly has no place in this fascinatingly interwoven play. They are part of this cooperative birthing process together. Even in and beyond Death. As it is, there’s parts of Jack’s resignation that will inevitably tie to Castiel with Dean in 18.

As always, the case is a warning tale, but just what side of it you take really depends on where the characters choose to step. Is it a warning of man stepping away from god or god changing the rules on man? 

Even Amara’s message is multifaceted: Knowing when to walk away on your own path is not the same as betraying someone. And it’s only going to be by Dean’s manipulation that she would consider it, while he is in fact lying to her; but that’s NOT going to come without a long term price. And frankly, is itself a message for the endgame of this show, with some people thinking taking ones’ own path is tantamount to betrayal. It is not. But what matters it the truth. And the choice. And remembering that we all have a choice.

And what of Cas, after the Empty then?

My soul went to heaven, big surprise.

In order to be in the Occultum, the Occultum must be in you.

To know what he, himself, is also worth, Castiel will have to make that place within himself. And that will also be the place for his child, and his family, and humankind as he has come to adopt as his people.

...But there was a two step phase to that spell and I remind you Rowena wasn’t alone in that image.

The pink of fertile rebirth.

For more on the Empress, click here. 

Anyway

#CASTIELSUTERUS2020

[silvermoon424]

Thoughts on Vocaloid?

I'm a causal fan and I like it a lot!

I was super into the Evillious Chronicles a few years ago, which is an incredibly in-depth and cool story made using Vocaloid. If you're never heard of it, it was created by a guy named Mothy. Each story arc (originally a song sung by a different Vocaloid but later fleshed out in light novels and the like) covers a different deadly sin (pride, lust, gluttony, envy, sloth, wrath, and greed) that its main character embodies.

The series's most famous songs are Daughter of Evil and Servant of Evil, which most Vocaloid fans probably know even if they've never heard of the name Evillious Chronicles. Those songs are from the Pride story arc, by far the longest and most in-depth arc (which is fitting, because pride is traditionally held to be the worst of the sins).

Anyway, the series is really good and interesting and finally wrapped up a few years ago after over a decade in the making. I would recommend it even if you're not into Vocaloid, because I wasn't a fan of Vocaloid before I stumbled across it and it got me into other Vocaloid songs.

[bungoubookclub]

BUNGOU STRAY DOGS & The Art of its Characters

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

As an artist and casual manga reader I tend to be picky with my choice of reads, though I've bent my standards every now and then, Bungou Stray Dogs is a manga that I find absolutely exceptional-- no surprise considering it's one of my favorite series. An interesting story, beautiful and striking artwork, and an amazing cast of characters.

Written by Kafka Asagiri and illustrated by the talented Harukawa35, the story follows Nakajima Atsushi, an orphan who has a life-changing encounter with a mysterious man named Dazai Osamu, and through an unforeseen turn of events, ends up becoming an agent at The Armed Detective Agency-- an organization that employs skillful individuals with supernatural abilities. From there Atsushi makes friends and foes alike, and tries to find the purpose of his life.

It's formulaic premise of "young protagonist becomes affiliated with organization and battles other organizations", reminiscent of most shounen titles, is where most of its similarities with that demographic end. Instead of expanding its world and delving into lore, the series focuses on its characters, their growth, and their relationships with the world, each other, and themselves, befitting of a seinen title. It has a unique gimmick to its characters as well--that being that their namesakes are real-world authors and literary pioneers.

Kafka's background in literature credits their adaptation of these literary figures into characters, making good use of their analytical and writing skills in interpreting the authors and their works into characters with abilities that pay homage to their namesake's famous works. Their skill as a writer is nothing to be looked over either, having written 8 novels, 2 light novels, and co-wrote one screenplay-- specifically for the series' film, "DEAD APPLE".

Its gimmick lends itself to the characters especially, often making references to the author or their works through their personality or character design, and becomes the foundation for the characters's overall story.

The character Dazai Osamu, for example, is a suicide-maniac determined to die a painless death, preferrably with a lover to accompany him to the other side. This is a direct reference to the real-life Dazai, who had attempted multiple suicides, one attempt being with his wife, however, he had survived while his wife did not. Dazai's character also meditates plenty about morals and ethics and what it truly means to be a human being, depressing over the fact that he will never probably be considered "human" by society's standards; his real-life counterpart's famous novel, No Longer Human, is a meditation on human society and what it truly means to be a human, and how to fit into the mold of what we generally deem as "human"--it also happens to be the name of Dazai's ability, which allows him to completely nullify any other ability through physical contact, rendering the once supernatural ability user into a regular human.

Their abilities work as great metaphors as well, and Francis Scott Fitzgerald, the leader of an enemy organization known as The Guild, is a good example of this. The Great Gatsby is one of the most notable works his real-life counterpart has written, the novel's themes focusing on wealth and criticising achieving "the american dream"; the character's ability, "The Great Fitzgerald", enhances his physical strength and prowess depending on the value of the items he exchanges it for, be it either cash or objects. This quite literal metaphor ties with how the character sees the value of people through their economic and social status, and becomes one of the driving forces behind his later character arc. From this we can determine a cruel and heartless man, but one who values hard work and ambition, stopping at nothing to achieve what he wants.

Aside from the characters themselves, some of their relationships and interactions are also influenced by their real-life counterpart's relations with contemporaries, as well as the time period during which they were active.

The real-life Akutagawa Ryuunosuke and Nathaniel Hawthorne, for example, have opposing views on religion, specifically Chrisitanity; Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter, deals with the themes of sin and repentance through Christian faith, while Akutagawa's "O-Gin" is a historical fiction that takes place during the edo period and reflects on the spread of Christianity to the people of Japan and how the paranoia of the government manifests, it's also noted that during his final moments while reading the Bible, he claims that he can believe in the devil, but not in the existence of a God. In the manga, during a confrontation on the port, the characters Akutagawa and Hawthorne exchange lines of dialogue, a notable taunt coming from Akutagawa, "Irmão'', being a direct reference to the ancient ministers who have introduced Christianity to edo period Japan.

The characters are intensely rich in personality and humanity, showing that not every character is strictly black or white, Dazai and Tanizaki Junichiro--another member of the Detective Agency--are great examples of this; Dazai's character is a mystery, and is, personally, very hard to break down. He is a man who has shown to have very flexible morals and ethics, but is also extremely loyal and attempts to be a goodhearted person. Relatively, Tanizaki is led to be believed that he is a docile and kind person--a running gag in the show being that he is very shy-- but is willing to commit any atrocities for the well-being of his younger sister, including murder. He puts his and his loved one's interests first, and that nearsightedness can put him and others around him in danger.

Besides the written aspect about the characters, the designs done by Harukawa35 are so beautifully crafted to convey their person through a glance. Their clothes, physical features, shapes, color palettes, even down to their silhouettes are uniquely distinct from one another and feel very personal to that character. Here are some of my favorite examples:

Atsushi's belt, which gives his silhouette a sort of "tail", referring to his ability which allows him to transform into a tiger. His purple/gold irises are striking visual cues that allude to his supernatural ability as well.

Akutagawa's billowing cloak; aside from it's practical use for his ability, it also gives him a distinctive silhouette, along with the ruffles of his shirt and the cuffs of his sleeve that contrast the sharp edges of Rashoumon.

Margaret Mitchell's outfit which, although impractical in a battle, conveys her character of a southern belle very well. Her soft, bright color palette compliments the design of her partner, Hawthorne, who mostly dons darks and greys. Similarly, the soft and round shapes abundant in her design contrasts that of Hawthorne, who is sleek, angular, and sharp by comparison.

Nakahara Chuuya's overall design, which characterizes him perfectly (accurate considering the fact that he was the most difficult character to conceptualize, according to Harukawa). The dark colors of his outfit contrast the bright orange of his hair and blue eyes, giving the idea that despite his position as an executive in the Port Mafia, his personality is as wild and stark as his features. The billowing cloak gives his silhouette a sense of dominance to make up for his small frame, broadening his shoulders and making him appear bigger. And accessories such as his hat, gloves, and choker are all very symbolic to important aspects about his story:

the hat being a gift from Arthur Rimbaud along with the chain accenting it, possibly taken from Paul Verlain;

The gloves covering his palms as he never uses his fists in battle, and only removing them when he becomes possessed by Arahabaki;

And the choker symbolises his loyalty to Mori Ougai and the Port Mafia, for which he is called a "Dog of the Mafia" by Dazai.

And speaking of designs, the various rivals and partners in the series have not only great complementing visual designs, but chemistry, story, and writing as well. Rivals/Partners such as Soukoku (Dazai and Chuuya), Shin Soukoku (Atsushi and Akutagawa), and Mori Ougai and Fukuzawa Yukichi-- the leaders of the main opposing organizations, the Port Mafia and the Detective Agency, respectively--all have amazingly distinct contrasts in terms of visual cues, my personal favorite being Shin Soukoku's black and white theme, as seen in their contrasting color palettes, outfits, and personalities.

I could go on about the Rivals' various dynamics and stories, Character analyses, and such and such, but @bsd-bibliophile has made much better analyses and are very detailed and more refined in terms of composition and content (I would not be able to touch upon Atsushi's themes of existentialism without having to delve into the author's works and the character's story, much less with any finesse, my skill level is nowhere near that standard :'))), so go check their blog out for further in-depth reading!

To wrap it up, Bungou Stray Dogs is a great manga with not only fantastic writing in its story, but in its characters as well. To be able to convey rich, layered stories through people has always been the reason I've wanted to work with Characters and more specifically, Storytelling. This series has rekindled my passion for Storytelling and has made me appreciate how important and fantastic Literature is as well (seriously, to be able to paint images in your mind and make people think and feel through words alone is a skill that I can only dream to achieve).

[katsidhe]

Ranking Every SPN Season Finale

15) 11.23 Alpha and Omega. Dead last because not only is Chuck and Amara’s conflict defanged with a frankly silly anticlimax, but a lot of runtime is eaten up with establishing Lady Toni getting on a plane. The great weakness of an otherwise very strong season is that none of the awful compromises Sam and Dean and Cas made (especially Sam wrt Lucifer) ended up having relevance at all.

14) 9.23 Do You Believe In Miracles. Cheesy dying dialogue, Metatron hamming it up for way too long, that facepalming “the radio was on the whole! time!” twist, uncertainty as to the motivation of the whole confrontation that ends in Dean’s death. Also, this is the beginning of the end of walking back the beautiful work the rest of s9 established, with Sam saying things like “I lied.” I don’t like Dean’s death here at all, in staging, or conceptually, or thematically.

13) 12.23 All Along The Watchtower. I am basically obliged to put this in C tier because it is quite silly, but frankly, I like it more than its ranking deserves. It has the late season finale sin of cramming in an introduction to next season’s conflict in the middle of wrapping up this season’s—but it’s absolutely hilarious that they brought in multiverse portals. And for Sam and Dean, thank god the portal appeared, because otherwise they had absolutely no plan whatsoever to deal with Lucifer, and they probably would have died gruesomely. High points: Sam discovering Rowena’s death on the phone with Lucifer; the spooky introduction of Jack, the raised stakes with Mary trapped with Lucifer. Lowest point: the utter silly pointlessness of Cas’s death.

12) 10.23 Brother’s Keeper. This is the finale that I have the strongest mixed feelings about. There is a queasy lack of self-awareness in the treacly sentiment when Sam presents family photos as evidence of Dean’s goodness. The excuse of MOC!Dean as not the “real” Dean allows for the reasons behind this confrontation to be elided, even as its themes are echoed again and again. The chilling horror of Sam on his knees in front of Dean the executioner is potent and darkly enjoyable, but the instant redirection into attacking Death prevents any kind of real culmination. I can’t decide if I like this episode or loathe it, but I do think I appreciate it more now, after 14.20 and 15.17, than I did when it aired. 

11) 7.23 Survival of the Fittest. We’re on to B-tier! There’s nothing significantly wrong with 7.23. Meg crashes the Impala through a glass sign, so that’s fun. Kevin’s there. There’s action, there’s some cool stakes for next season established, Sam is left alone, which I love. The main sin here is just that most of it is fairly forgettable, because the strongest part of s7 was always the psychological drama of the Winchesters’ disintegration and isolation, not the physical conflict with Leviathans.

10) 14.20 Moriah. Lots of my points about 10.23 apply here, but Moriah is a much better episode, both because there is actual conflict of opinion, and because there is a lot more built-in uncertainty about Jack’s fate than Sam’s. Jack and Dean are onboard with Jack’s murder, just as Sam and Dean were agreed on Sam’s death in 10.23, but this time Cas is staunchly against it, and Sam is on the fence, torn as to how to intervene. So it’s much better drama. But then the crux of the issue gets defanged by Chuck’s reveal. Great s15 setup, but kicks the 14.17-14.19 build down the road. Extra points for Sam shooting God. 

9) 13.23 Let the Good Times Roll. I fucking love the 13.21-13.23 arc. The only thing preventing 13.23 from being A-tier are some wholly avoidable mistakes. The staging is silly; a face-palming amount of time was wasted on Maggie; the wires were a deeply regrettable choice. But even with all that, what we got was great, actually! The Sam-Jack-Lucifer church custody battle is still my favorite goddamn thing. Dean saying yes to Michael was both his only smart move and a devastating sacrifice. The character dynamics here are so JUICY. 13.21-14.01 is, IMO, one of the most fertile grounds for fic and speculation in the entire show.

8) 2.22 All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Two. Now we’re into finales that are fantastic without reservation. Off the devastation of Sam’s death comes Dean’s iconic deal. The actual confrontation in the graveyard is good too, though it’s second to the way we’re all reeling from part one. Azazel dies, Sam and Dean are bloodied and facing down new stakes. The only thing I dislike about this episode is John’s cameo.

7) 1.22 Devil’s Trap. This is the episode that ups the ante! Azazel in John, and Dean, and Sam, and the delicious family dynamic here; the stakes are so personal, and it’s a great examination what each of them is willing to pay for their quest: an electrifying taste of what’s to come. And the music, and the sheer fucking balls of just, crashing a goddamn truck into your main characters at the end of the first season. Nice.

6) 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked. Lilith is delightfully evil. We’re on tenterhooks for Sam to save Dean, we’re narratively primed to expect him to pull off something amazing, a last-minute miracle. But—nope! Sorry! Dean gets graphically ripped apart onscreen and now he’s being tortured in Hell! Shocking and bold, and a crucial turning point in the series. 

5) 4.22 Lucifer Rising. Fresh off 4.21 comes an excellent culmination of season 4′s devastation. The reveals from both Ruby and the angels, Sam draining the possessed nurse, Cas at last choosing to betray Heaven, and the final arrival of Lucifer: it all just works, really well. 

4) 15.20 Carry On. Part of the reason I’m ranking this so highly might be spite. But goddammit, bad wig and worse Carry On cover aside, this is a good episode, and a really, really good series finale! The deliberate anticlimax of Dean’s death, the quiet strength in Sam’s grief, the untroubled, unrushed pacing of Sam’s recovery and aging, and Dean’s drive. Supernatural said Sam Rights, and I wept like a tiny little baby. 

3) 6.22 The Man Who Knew Too Much. Adventures in Sam’s mind! Cas and Crowley and Raphael and the double cross! The taste of cosmic horror! The end of season 6 and beginning of season 7, as Sam and Dean cope simultaneously with Sam’s psychological fallout and the consequences of their most powerful ally going off the rails, is fantastic. I love the literalism and the symbolism of Sam’s reintegration: this is an unapologetically Sam episode (as are the other top four, come to think of it). 

2) 8.23 Sacrifice. Sam’s heartbreaking deterioration in the church and Crowley’s disintegration are an electrifying climax to the trials. Dean and Sam’s final exchange is a breathtaking combination of raw emotion and delirium and a fascinating guilt trip. It’s a visually and conceptually stunning episode: the angels fall burning against a night sky; Sam surrenders the trials and collapses, dying. 

1) 5.22 Swan Song. You knew this would be number one, I knew this would be number one, we all knew this would be number one. It’s iconic for a reason. Sam and Lucifer talking through a mirror; the loss of all hope and the sky-high stakes. Stull Cemetery is the defining moment of so, so much of the rest of the series. Dean’s loyalty gives Sam the strength he needs to bury himself alive forever with his worst nightmare, and it saves the world, and it’s the highest cost either of them has ever paid.  

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Happiness Is

This is possibly my favorite episode of season two. Yet, it is also the point the where the series starts to fall off a cliff. Only that’s not something that you would realize upon a first watch; just in hindsight and only with some basic knowledge of the behind the scenes drama that led to this and the fall out with the fandom that followed afterwards. 

Summary:  Rapunzel begins to feel homesick for Corona when she finds an old letter written by her father in one of the many lanterns sent from her previous birthdays. In attempts to uplift her spirits, Rapunzel explores the island and comes across a magical idol that brings instant happiness to whomever possesses it. Rapunzel begins to hallucinate her family and friends back in Corona and soon shares the idol with the rest of the group. However, everyone starts to become obsessive over the idol, desperately wanting it for themselves. Rapunzel tricks everyone into giving her the idol, but when the Lorbs try to help Rapunzel, they fall under the idol's control and soon begin to terrorize the village.

Let’s Start with the First Elephant in the Room; Frederic 

So throughout the episode Rapunzel is struggling with being homesick. Which is fair enough, that’s an understable reaction to being on the road for months by now. However, to showcase this Rapunzel keeps seeing hallucinations of her father. There are some other characters too, but her dad is the first person she sees and the only one in Corona with speaking lines. He’s the one to tempt her with the idol. 

Did we just forget that Frederic is her abuser? 

Look, even if you accept his apology in Secret of the Sundrop and believe he has learned his lesson, that doesn’t just erase the pain he caused her. Her thoughts about her father should be more realistically complex then this. Now add in how she makes a such a clean break from her other abuser, Gothel, but still holds him on a pedestal shows a disturbing bias on the part of the writers. 

Also where’s this love for Arianna? You know the only real mother on the show? The show that’s aimed at little girls? The one parent who hasn’t flat out abused the main character yet? 

Seriously, Chris, what the fuck? 

This is a Missed Opportunity 

So part of the reason why I like this episode is that we get insights into each of the characters and their desires. As such this is one of the few episodes where the group actual feels like a group friends. However, Cass’s vision is wasted here. 

So at first glance this seems to aline with what we know of the character thus far. She loves her dad and wishes to impress him. That’s only if you take season one into account, though. Later episodes will contradict this goal. If you wanted to set up praise and validation in general as Cassandra’s motives, then here is where that should have happened. 

Show her getting a medal, have cheering crowds surround her, have her be a hero, or something. You can’t claim her relationship with her parents as the driving force of behind her later actions if you don’t actually involve one of those parents as part of the resolution to her arc. 

Either she lacking attention from her dad or she’s jealous of Rapunzel. You can’t have it be both because those two things don’t intersect. Rapunzel is not and never was a threat to her relationship with her father. 

So Umm...I Don’t Think This Plot Point Has the Impact That the Writers Think It Does 

So this hilarious, and it is intended to be funny, but it’s not for the reasons that the show gives. 

The idea is that this is some shocking revelation. That Rapunzel would never do this under normal circumstances and it’s a hint that the idol is corrupting her. 

Only the rest of the series doesn’t aline with that at all. This is just the real Rapunzel behaving as the she normally would but without the usual veneer of excuses. 

It’s funny because it’s the show calling out Rapunzel hypocrisy for what it is plainly, not because it’s out of character. 

But funny only gets you so far. The show is perfectly happy to play up Rapunzel’s awfulness for laughs, but then conventily ignore it when it comes time for the characters themselves to call her out on it so that she can grow and learn.       

The show runs under the sitcom idea that comedy excuses all sins; which then backfires horribly when it tries to be serious and mature. 

You can’t joke that the king threw a random person in a stockade for little reason and then expect us to still like him when he persecutes a child. Same applies here. 

The sitcom set up only works when there is minimal at stake and all parties involved are equally awful in their own ways. 

Then Why Not Just Go Home?

Once again, there’s nothing at stake in season two. Rapunzel has no real reason to be on this trip. Nothing is stopping her from just going home if that’s what she wants. The idol only makes her happy because it shows her want she wants, but she could actually have what she wants as soon as the next ship arrives. So what’s the issue here? 

This is why you need external conflict in order to make internal conflicts work. There’s has to be something preventing the main character from achieving her goal or otherwise she just comes across as a dumbass. 

And Now Here Comes the Second Elephant; Varian 

I have several things to talk about here, and none of them actually concern the scene itself but the creator’s treatment of the character and the show’s fan base.

For you see, Chris did a very, very stupid thing.  

He wrote the character driving the plot out of the show. The character who also happens to be the most popular person in the series. Only to then use said character’s VA and this one cameo as promotion for this whole season. 

Needless to say, fans were disappointed.   

However, the Tangled fandom is exceedingly polite; more so than most. The lack of Varian was met mostly with confusion, and maybe a few off handed jokes, rather than anger. When opportunity arose people naturally had questions concerning the character.     

And that’s when Chris put his foot in mouth. 

This Tumblr post details how Chris got kicked off the Tangled The Series Discord by bullying a bunch of Varian fans while on there. 

https://starxapple.tumblr.com/post/617852117763391488/zhantiri-uuugh-fine-since-people-are-getting

I shan’t get into it fully, but for those who discovered the show after season two had aired, this caused a massive backlash from the fandom. 

A good chunk of the fandom just walked away, and rightly so. The few that stuck around despite these remarks found themselves harassed by certain sections of the fandom who saw Chris’s bullying as permission to pursue the same behavior. However, most importantly, the ratings plummeted. 

Season one hovered around the the 1 million mark, give or take a five point difference. The first part of season two dropped to half of that, and after this episode and the hiatus it sunk even lower, down to the mid-thirties. That’s over 20,000 people who just jumped ship over this. That’s not a normal decline. 

No matter what your personal feelings are of the character of Varian or how he was handled in the show, that’s still a massive PR fassico that cost the series big time. 

To add to this mountain of bullshit, there was also a massive walk out of crew members after season one had finished production. Most of them women. They even desperately threw out ‘we’re hiring’ calls to cover this. Which given that’s it’s Disney and that nepotism is usually how one gains employment in the entertainment industry, something unusual must have happened behind the scenes. Especially if most of the people who left were women. 

We’ll probably never know what really happened. People don't usually talk about behind the scenes stuff like that due to contracts and the aforementioned nepotism. However, all clues point to Varian.   

Something changed at the last minute concerning his story. Chris himself had confirmed as much when discussing the note and the Brotherhood. We also gotten other hints that content was edited out at the last minute. Plus the writing becomes more shoddy as the series goes along, showing how slapped dashed everything is together.  

Then there’s the rumors. 

I must stress to you that this is only a rumor. As pointed out earlier, most animators aren’t in a position to talk freely about what goes on behind the scenes. Do NOT harass them over it or make things awkward by asking them to clarify this. However it’s been suggested that the female crew warned Chris that removing Varian from season two and re-writing his story, along with making Cass the villain, would be a bad idea before they left and Chris didn’t listen. Much to his folly. 

Chris is no longer a Disney employee and has yet to move on to any other projects. He says he left, but I more suspect that Disney just didn't renew his contract and no one has picked him up since. I take no joy in the idea that someone may have lost their job, but if true, then Chris has little to blame but himself. 

So What Did Change?

We don't know anything for sure. We know from discussions about the note that there was a proposed Brotherhood plot that involved Varian that was then cut. There was also talks about a Cass and Varian team up in season three. 

This was then changed to the Saporian take over, which is foreshadowed in this scene. However even that got edited down and under the flimsiest of excuses. 

One of the writers, Ricky, suggested that they thought cutting back to Corona would be too confusing for the audience; which is a load of bull. I mean how poorly do you think of your audience’s comprehension skills that they wouldn’t understand a change of scene or a flashback? Yet you fully expect them to pick up on your lazy foreshadowing involving the mirror? So much so that you sent them on a quest to find it between seasons two and three.

Then there’s this gem from Chris. 

Ok ignoring the fact that you so totally could have featured both Gothel and Varian, seeing as they serve two different functions in the story and mean different things to Rapunzel.... What guilt?!!! 

Rapunzel doesn’t ever act guilty over anything involving her treatment of Varian. 

That’s when you realize Chris isn’t talking about her feeling guilty about Varian’s predicament. He’s saying that Rapunzel feels guilty of leaving her father behind with this ‘dangerous’ criminal. Which is a big fuck you to everyone. 

That’s why Frederic is the center focus of Rapunzel’s hallucinations. Why she’s more concerned for his safety over Varian’s trauma. Chris really be out here trying to use the abused 14/15 year old orphan as a scapegoat for the grown ass dictator who ruined countless lives. Because he thinks a grown woman should feel guilty for leaving her abusive father behind and pursuing her life’s dream.

Dude, I try not to assume the worst of people just cause they write fictional characters that I dislike, but Chris really makes things hard not to when he treats his self insert this way. 

Oh but we’re not done yet. 

When Varian Fans Complain About the Lack of Varian; We’re Complaining About the Lack of a Coherent Plot. 

Certain sections of the fandom, bolstered by Chris’s BS, try to act like simply being a Varian fan is grounds for dismissal of any criticism of the show and it’s writing. As if having personal preference for something makes you automatically ‘entitled’ or some such bull. Yet doing so ignores the fundamental complaint that they are making. 

We’re not whining about our favorite character not getting enough screen time. No one would have complained about his lack of presence in season two if they had properly resolved his story in season three and had Chris not been a dick to the fans. But it becomes evidently clear as the series goes along that removing Varian left a major hole in the plot. One that makes the entire story and the rest of characters suffer as well. 

Think season two is boring? That’s cause they cut out their main villain at the last minute and failed to replace him with anything. 

Upset that Hookfoot was brought along for zero reason?  He’s the replacement character for Varian who no doubt was going to appear in season two originally. 

Wish there was more on the Brotherhood and the Dark Kingdom?  Their story impact was greatly reduced when Varian was written out.

Are you a Eugene fan and mad about how the Dark Prince plot went nowhere?  That’s cause the original Brotherhood/Dark Kingdom plot was dropped when Varian was.

Dislike how Cassandra’s character was ruined with her villain arc?  She was originally meant to be possessed but was changed last minute to be a Varian rip-off in the hopes that she would gain some of his popularity.   

Wish Zhan Tiri, Demantius, and the Disciples actually went somewhere and that ZT had coherent plan?   That plot were changed last minute to make Zhan Tiri a scapegoat for Cassandra now that her story was changed to replace Varian.

And of course let’s not ignore the character who suffers the most from lack of Varian.... Rapunzel. 

Chris’s defense for leaving Varian out of S2 is that it’s “Rapunzel’s Story” and that Varian was only ever a plot device meant to push her along on her quest.  Which means that Rapunzel no longer has anyone pushing her along on her quest!!!

All characters are plot devices. If they aren’t there to serve a story function then they need to be cut. Even Rapunzel herself serves a plot function. She’s meant to be the protagonist of a coming of age story. Which means she needs both an external conflict to face and an emotional arc where she grows as a person. Varian is the plot device that serves both of those functions but he’s now been removed and is no longer allowed to serve his original purpose. 

Chris reached into the machine while it was running and pulled out one of the main gears and acted like he always meant to do that. He legit sat there and pretended that everything was running smoothly even as smoke poured out and warring alarms blared. He then tried to shove bubble gum in its place hoping no one would notice as everything fell apart around him. 

Cause he’s the thing; no idea is without merit. It’s all about presentation. Removing Varian from season three still could have worked, but it required A.) replacing him with another foe and B.) making sure his arc still got a proper conclusion. 

I’ll talk more about Varian’s half-arsed redemption when we get to it; but for now let's focus on the more immediate problem. No one thought to give season two an actual overarching conflict in light of Varian’s absence. 

That’s a fundamental oversight that pretty much signals that season two was re-written at the last minute. You have an overarching plot in an action adventure show but no main adversary? I refuse to believe that everyone involved was too stupid to do that on purpose; but if they were rushed and lacked a crew because they walked out due to last minute story changes....yeah that’d I buy. 

Because there’s more than enough options to go around; Lady Caine, The Baron and Styalan, Hector and/or Adria, Zhan Tiri’s Disciples ect. were all options. So was keeping the rocks a threat, or have Cass start her villian arc earlier; with proper motivation this time. They could have even come up with someone entirely new. 

You had over four years to plan this shit out; why is it not more well put together?! 

How Come Rapunzel Can Easily Admit Fault to Pascal But Not Anyone Else? 

Pascal should have sat perched on Varian’s and Eugene’s shoulders giving Rapunzel ‘I’m done with this’ looks all throughout season three. It’s apparently the only thing that she responds to. 

Why is the untalkative camelanion the only one allowed to call out the main character’s BS without going villain? 

Conclusion

That’s all there really is to talk about in this story. The actual episode itself is good. It’s the behind the scenes crap that bubbles underneath its surface that needed to be discussed. That way when going forward with the marathon you’ll better see what I’m talking about when I explain how future episode suffered from the lack of planning and foresight.