#re-watching this once again

[i-remember-yyou]

[nuderobotbeach]

I was obsessed with this dragon as a child

Not much has changed since then, I guess?

[shannonsketches]

he's so important to me

[locke-esque-monster]

For all that "Criss Angel is a Douche Bag" is not the best episode of Supernatural, it is an interesting one. The bleak moral implications of the ending aside, the juxtaposition between Sam's and Dean's views is so worth digging into.

Because first you have Sam, who now that he's embraced he's a hunter now, doesn't necessarily want to do this forever. And he's got sort of a idealized version of it, that if he can get the worst of the evil taken out (Lilith) maybe he could go back to a more normal life. It's so John-coded. That they both only enter the life because of a tragedy and revenge, when they were perfectly happy living a regular life prior to that. And once their version of the mission is over, they have this dream they could just settle down and be normal. They're either intensely in the life (no friends, no settling anywhere too long like how John passed onto Sam and Sam onto Goul!Adam in 4x19), or intensely not in the life (Stanford!Sam) and there's literally no middle ground. No flexibility. For all that Sam has shades of gray when it comes to people/monsters, it shows how much he's like John with how how he structures his hunting life. And to a degree, how sheltered he is to think in way compared to Dean.

Because Dean isn't so idealized to think that hunting is something you can stop. He's watched revenge tear John and Sam apart. And while he wants revenge, he internalized that if there's evil to fight and people he could save, then they should be out there, more than John or Sam did. (Maybe because of the hurt he experienced as losing Mary and losing OG John, and he never wants anyone else to go through that.) That it's a fairy tale to think that taking out the big bad means that hunting is over. It's unclear if Sam thinks that taking Lilith down will be such a big blow that hunting won't be as necessary (because they'll be few enough monsters per remaining hunters that they could hunt little to not at all). Or if his personal responsibility to hunting will be over, and other hunters are out there to save people, but that's no longer his problem. But Dean is not so naïve to think that he could fully settle down knowing there's people dying that he could save. Or that he is he stays in the life he's not going to be hands on and reckless (or at least with low enough value of his own life over others) that it won't eventually get him killed (again). It's such disconnect between Sam's optimism and Dean's pessimism towards hunting. And it's interesting in the context of how the rest of the series goes with that mindset in mind, even chipping away at it slightly at times. That Dean tries to settle with a woman that knows about hunting so he can keep her safe openly. While Sam does settle down again with Amelia and treats hunting as an old part of his life he'll never address again, like Jess all over again, but goes back when Dean returns without a tragic revenge story. That Dean is willing to settle down in the bunker, because if you're going to hunt you take the joys in life where you can, nice kitchen, having a room full of creature comforts (also not surprising when Dean had to take his joys where he could get them when he never had the childhood Sam had). And Sam does settle in the bunker, but because his dial is stuck on either a hunting/not hunting setting, he never decorates his room, like he can't quite settle in and accept this is home and permanent.

Now a good ending to SPN would have fully contradicted Dean's statement in this episode about expecting to die young because there's no happy future growing old. And contradicted Sam's dread at ending up old and alone like Jay if he stayed in the life (because you can't tell me blurry wife and Dean jr is all the companionship Sam needs). But that's a whole different "tripping at the finish line" kind of conversation about the finale.

[jimmyspades]

"The concept of a last stand sounds so heroically romantic, doesn’t it, Donald? But there’s a good reason why we didn’t see what happened to Butch and Sundance. Being riddled by bullets and left to rot under a scorching Bolivian sky does not a sequel make. And if you’ve surmised nothing about me by now, know this—I’m gonna be around for the sequel." THE BLACKLIST 1.09 "Anslo Garrick (No. 16)"

[becauseheartsgetbroken-hs]

harry styles' mind is so beautiful and i think we don't talk about it enough.

[acourtofquestions]

Rowaelin Chapter 41 Kingdom of Ash:

She'd rebuild it—what she had been.

Perhaps one last time, perhaps only for a little while, but she'd do it. If only for Terrasen.

Rowan swooped from the mast, shifting as he reached her side at the rail. He surveyed the night-black sea beyond them. "You should rest." She slid him a glance. "I'm not tired." Not a lie, not in some regards. "Want to spar?" He frowned. "Training can start tomorrow."

"Or tonight." She held his piercing stare, matched his dominance with her own.

"It can wait a few hours, Aelin."

"Every day counts." Against Erawan, even a day of training would count.

Rowan's jaw tightened. "True," he said at last. "But it can still wait. There are ... there are things we need to discuss." The silent words rose in his animal-bright eyes. About you and me.

Her mouth went dry. But Aelin nodded In silence, they strode into their spacious quarters, its only decoration the wall of windows that overlooked the churning sea behind them. A far cry from a queen's chamber, or any she might have purchased as Adarlan's assassin.

At least the bed built into the wall looked clean enough, the sheets crisp and stainless. But Aelin headed for the oak desk anchored to the floor, and leaned against it while Rowan shut the door.

In the dim lantern light, they stared at each other.

She'd endured Maeve and Cairn; she'd endured Endovier and countless other horrors and losses. She could have this conversation with him. The first step toward rebuilding herself.

Aelin knew Rowan could hear her thundering heart as the space between them went taut. She swallowed once. "Elide and Lorcan told you... told you everything that was said on that beach."

A curt nod, wariness flooding his eyes. "Everything that Maeve said." Another nod.

She braced herself. "That I'm-we're mates."

Understanding and something like relief replaced that wariness. "Yes."

"I'm your mate," she said, needing to voice it. "And you are mine."

Rowan crossed the room, but halted a few feet from the desk on which she leaned. "What of it, Aelin?" His question was low, rough.

"Don't you..." She scrubbed at her face. "You know what she did to you, to ..." She couldn't say her name. Lyria. "Because of it."

"I do know."

"And?"

"And what do you wish me to say?"

She pushed off the desk. "I wish you to tell me how you feel about it. If…"

"If what?"

"If you wish it wasn't so."

His brows narrowed. "Why would I ever wish that?"

She shook her head, unable to answer, and stared over her shoulder toward the sea.

It seemed like he would close the distance between them, but he remained where he was.

"Aelin." His voice turned hoarse. "Aelin."

She looked at him then, at the pain in his words.

"Do you know what I wish?" He exposed his palms, one tattooed, the other unmarked. "I wish that you had told me. When you realized it. I wish you had told me then."

She swallowed against the ache in her throat. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"Why would it ever hurt me to know the truth that was already in my heart? The truth I hoped for?"

"I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how it was possible. I thought maybe ... maybe you might be able to have two mates within a lifetime, but even then, I just ….." She blew out a breath. "I didn't want you to be distressed." His eyes softened. "Do I regret that Lyria was dragged into this, that the cost of Maeve's game was her life, and the life of the child we might have had? Yes. I regret that, and I wish it had never happened." He would bear the tattoo to remember it for the rest of his days. "But none of that was your fault. I will always carry some of the burden of it, always know I chose to leave her for war and glory, and that I played right into Maeve's hands."

"Maeve wanted to ensnare you to get to me, though."

"Then it is her choice, not yours."

Aelin ran a hand over the worn wood of the desk. "In those illusions she spun for me, she showed me variations on one more than all the others." The words were strained, but she forced them out. Forced herself to look at him. "She spun me one dreamscape that felt so real I could smell the wind off the Staghorns."

"What did she show you?" A breathless question.

Aelin had to swallow before she could answer. "She showed me what might have been—if there had been no Erawan, if Elena had dealt with him properly and banished him. If there had been no Lyria, none of that pain or despair you endured. She showed me Terrasen as it would have been today, with my father as king, and my childhood happy, and..." Her lips wobbled. "When I turned twenty, you came with a delegation of Fae to Terrasen, to make amends for the rift between my mother and Maeve. And you and I took one look at each other in my father's throne room, and we knew."

She didn't fight the stinging in her eyes. "I wanted to believe that was the true world. That this was the nightmare from which I'd awaken. I wanted to believe that there was a place where you and I had never known this suffering and loss, where we'd take one look at each other and know we were mates. Maeve told me she could make it so. If I gave her the keys, she'd make it all possible." She wiped at her cheek, at the tear that escaped down it. "She spun me realities where you were dead, where you'd been killed by Erawan and only in handing over the keys to her would I be able to avenge you. But those realities made me ... I stopped being useful to her when she told me you were gone. She couldn't get me to talk, to think. Yet in the ones where you and I met, where things were as they should have been ... that was when I came the closest."

His swallow was audible. "What stopped you?"

She wiped at her face again. "The male I fell in love with was you. It was you, who knew pain as I did, and who walked with me through it, back to the light. Maeve didn't understand that. That even if she could create that perfect world, it wouldn't be you with me. And I'd never trade that, trade this. Not for anything." He extended his hand. An offer and invitation.

Aelin laid hers atop his, and his callused fingers squeezed gently. "I wanted it to be you," he breathed, closing his eyes. "For months and months, even in Wendlyn, I wondered why you weren't my mate instead. It tore me up, wondering it, but I still did." He opened his eyes, and they burned like green fire. "All this time, I wanted it to be you."

She lowered her gaze, but he hooked a thumb and forefinger around her chin and lifted her face.

"I know you are tired, Fireheart. I know that the burden on your shoulders is more than anyone should endure." He took their joined hands and laid them on his heart. "But we'll face this together. Erawan, the Lock, all of it.

"We'll face it together. And when we are done, when you Settle, we will have a thousand years together. Longer."

A small sound came out of her. "Elena said the Lock requires—"

"We'll face it together," he swore again.

"And if the cost of it truly is you, then we'll pay it together. As one soul in two bodies.

Her heart strained to the point of cleaving. "Terrasen needs a king."

"I have no intention of ruling Terrasen without you. Aedion can have the job."

She scanned his face. He meant every word He brushed the hair from her face, his other hand still clasping hers to his chest, where his heart pounded a steady, unfaltering rhythm.

"Even if I had my choice of any dream-realities, any perfect illusions, I would still choose you, too."

She felt the truth of his words echo into the unbreakable thing that bound their very souls, and tilted her face up toward his. But he made no move beyond it.

She frowned. "Why aren't you kissing me?"

"I thought you might want to be asked first."

"That never stopped you before."

"This first time, I wanted to make sure you were ... ready." After Cairn and Maeve. After months of having no choices whatsoever.

She smiled despite that truth. "I'm ready to be kissed again, Prince."

He let out a dark chuckle and muttered, "Thank the gods," before he lowered his mouth to hers.

"You're my mate." Her words were a breathless rush. "And I am yours."

The world might have been burning around them for all she cared, all he cared, too.

"Together, Aelin," he promised, and she heard the rest of the words in every place their bodies joined. Together they would face this, together they would find a way.

Together we'll find a way, their mingling breaths, the crashing sea, seemed to echo.

Together.

[angxliquel]

me when I watched "The Long Run" for the first time

[chaoswillcalmusdown]

i have a lot of unformed thoughts based off one watch but like. all the little things they mention about the food is like. the opposite of what they should be doing.

getting butter shipped in from out of state ?? buying ingredients for one dish to use in one way ??? idk who taught carm that this is the way to go, but it def wasn't chef terry and it wasn't rene redzepi

[piffany666]

Brain: damn it! Were running low on rizzed out, slightly fruity, pirate men!

Me: shit...we gonna re watch space pirates?

Brain: for the 13th time? I don't think so

Me: :(

Brain: god knows we've watched pirates of the Caribbean too many times

Me: yeah we've beaten that dead horse....we could re watch once upon a time-

Brain: NO! IM NOT GOING BACK THERE

Me: ok well...I here simbad is supposed to be good ...?

Brain: YES! That will satisfy our need for rizzed out, slightly fruity, pirate men AND mildly terrifying goth girls!

Me: it's the perfect combo!

[aspecbuddie]

chris really just spent the ep having meals with various parental figures

[chalkrevelations]

Mm, yoinking this out into its own post so that it shows up in the tags. Re the "rescue in the hotel room" scene from Ep 10 of Dangerous Romance:

Kanghan is so, so terrified here, of what could have happened, and he wants to be tender - god, look at the way he touches Sailom as he begs him to please snap out of it - but he can't, quite, because Sailom's lolling around, practically deadweight, and if you're tender with deadweight, you're just going to drop them. All you can do is manhandle them and hope you both don't end up on the floor - because they will take you down with them - and accept that the bruises you're leaving are the price of keeping them safe from worse outcomes. And meanwhile, puppy's emotional quotient is in the basement right now, and he has no idea how to express his fear except through anger, through pushing back, pushing away, the same instinctive way he pushed that creep back and away and out, and he can't manage to turn on a dime and turn that response off, can't short-circuit it through tenderness, and all that adrenaline is still firing, so he's still pushing back and away, saying the worst things he can think of, even when it's Sailom in the line of fire, now.

And poor Sailom is literally drugged into emotional as well as physical lability, he's like a raw open wound, infected by whatever Kanghan splatters all over him and flinching from the pain of the touch, and in no condition to do his usual work of reading 15 layers of Kanghan to get at the truth that Kanghan, himself, doesn't even understand, because his emotional quotient is in the basement. And Sailom doesn't want to be bought by Kanghan, he's never wanted to be bought, has tried to say again and again that he can't be bought - even the escorting is an exchange of money for services, like the tutoring, but the tutoring wasn't the same thing as wearing Kanghan's jersey, wasn't the same thing as letting Kanghan feed him, as allowing Kanghan to sleep in his bed and hold him, as following Kanghan all the way to Korat and feeding him back. Sailom doesn't want to be bought, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to belong to Kanghan, to a Kanghan who knows how to take care of his things instead of treating them like disposable, replaceable toys and tossing them away when the situation gets hard - like Sailom was tossed away. And he's filterless now, with the drug in his system, so he actually hits back, hard, where he knows it will hurt the most, like he was hurt when the guy who was supposed to be his protector instead let go of his hand and let him fall. He digs out Kanghan's deepest fear and throws it back in his face.

And then they fall apart, completely shattered, in each other's arms. EVERYBODY LOSES and it's a BEAUTIFUL TEARFUL CATHARTIC DISASTER.

I have to tell you, this kind of tastycrunchy is exactly the content I'm here for. Thank you, Show, for loving me so painfully and so much.

[moonchild-in-blue]

If someone has a spare oxygen tank or something I'd very much appreciate it being sent my way. In about half of a day we will get new Espera footage (and Sleep Token as well I guess 🙄😌 /j) and I. AM. NOT. READY.

[kitnita]

Wow, kind of unbelievable how hot the goalie pussy fic is. I mean, I went in expecting hot, but DAMN DUDE. And to have That after the extended scenes of him being So Uncomfortable with the change…which were also soooo good omg. The emphasis on how he’s Aware of it and Not Chilling scanned really well. And of course, the kitnita signature(tm) attention to detail is all over it! I love that you used a real baseball game when you didn’t even put the teams in the text. It was a really really fun read, start to finish!

i'd put the amount of the fic that was at least sex scene adjacent (either otter or robo were touching otter with intent to get him off OR were thinking/talking through getting him off before or after touching him) at like. a little less than half the total word count so i'm SO glad that it ended up reading as hot to you!!!!

even though he was soooo aware of it at all times jake was trying really hard not to be ........ he was So Chill, Actually. that's why he could never bring himself to fact check with another goalie about the whole second contract goalie pussy thing before it happened! because he was So Chill. it's why he had a mental block getting himself off! because he was So Chill. robo was also off losing his mind about everything, but he was capable of acknowledging that he was losing his mind & was therefore also capable of actually exhibiting enough chill to fool otter into letting him hit it not just once, but twice, and probably many more times in the future <3

[demonandangeltwins]

You look at the man who became your best friend the second he opened his eyes, and your’s burn, they burn with love, they burn with the wish to be loved back, and they burn with the thought that you never will be, at least not in the same way. Then he smiles, he smiles in pain, in the pain of his sister being taken with nothing he can do, in the pain of his friend soon to be brother being stabbed, in the pain of not knowing his big sister was being hurt sooner. You have to look away because you never want him to feel any pain ever and you’ve barely known him. You look away because even in all that pain you can tell he has felt worse and you want to burn the world and keep him and your child from feeling any pain ever again, and you realize that’s dangerous. Too dangerously close to wanting to tell him and risk everything you have just for the chance of him loving you back for a second.

[strawberryfaced]

I NEED. TO DO. OR MAKE SOMETHING. PLEASE