#so. much like lisa i project my rage

[nullapophenia]

[aimedis]

milo as a dad headcanons (+sweetheart) !!

milo and sweetheart have twin sons (am i milking the redacted boys w twins headcanon?)

Dad Milo who was, unsurprisingly, very nervous to be a dad because of his own father but was also worried about his child(ren) growing up with a Department worker

But they both handled it with so much grace

Dad Milo who almost passed out when they found out he was having twins

Parents Milo and Sweetheart whose twins are literally identical and are nearly impossible to tell apart aside from the fact that the oldest's hair is longer than the youngest's (even before they got hair, Milo and Sweetheart could tell them apart easily) 

The twins have an attitude that rivals Milo and Sweetheart's combined (so much so that Sweetheart has threatened to beat their ass) ((does not believe in hitting them though)) 

Parents Milo and Sweetheart who swear in front of their kids but respect that other parents don't want that around their kids (the swearing doesn't make their kids scared of them at all)

Parent Sweetheart who is generally a pretty gentle parent, the slightly vulgar language is only used when the twins are being excessively difficult for the sake of being difficult 

Dad Milo who is insanely protective of his kids (but not in an overbearing way, in the ‘if you hurt my kids you’re dead’ way) 

Sweetheart the workaholic who has literally left work hours earlier to get their oldest a cake pop after he called from Milo’s phone

Dad Milo whose lockscreen is a picture of the twins sitting on the kitchen counter with ice-cream all over their faces

Dad Milo who almost cries when he holds his son as he screams bloody murder while getting vaccinations

Dad Milo who pretends it doesn't hurt whenever one of the twins screams 'i hate you!' in a toddlerlike fit of rage but even after the apologies and makeups, he lies awake at night thinking about it over and over (because maybe he's just like his dad after all)

Dad Milo who still remains calm and firm in his discipline but also remembering to be kind and careful with his boys

Dad Milo who sings and dances with the twins

Parents Milo and Sweetheart who rarely argue in front of their kids

Dad Milo who is practically a seer when it comes to the boys, watching them intently and preventing them from doing stupid things that could get them (seriously) injured before it actually happens 

Parents Milo and Sweetheart who are so used to being punched by their kids

The house during the solstice after the twins get their powers is a mess (Milo makes it his mission to take care of everyone no matter how shitty he feels) 

Dad Milo who pretends the twins being clingy is a hindrance but secretly loves when they want to be around him

Parent Sweetheart who walks around the house on business calls while carrying one (or both) of the twins in each arm (Milo thinks it’s domestic as all hell)

Dad Milo and the twins play a game where he pretends to attack Sweetheart (sometimes in his wolf form) and the twins try to defend them by hitting him and standing in front of them with their arms held out (Milo finds it hilarious, Sweetheart finds it mildly annoying because they always do it when they’re trying to work)

Parents Milo and Sweetheart who are the biggest bullies to their kids (in a loving way)

Parent Sweetheart who only pretended to not be able to tell the difference between the twins one time but their youngest got so upset he started crying, so they didn’t do it again

Dad Milo who treats every messy drawing or art project as the next Mona Lisa (tells everyone their oldest is gonna be a big artist someday)

Dad Milo who is the type to hear one of the boys (or god forbid, both of them) likes a type of snack, food, or drink and buy enough to fill a store (“Dad I can’t eat all of that!”)

Parents Milo and Sweetheart who are definitely the hot parents at parent teacher interviews

Dad Milo who actually can’t say no to the boys (Marie has to talk some sense into him every so often)

Dad Milo who is beyond happy that his kids love his Ma just as much as he does

Dad Milo whose kids are shifter/stealth hybrids (idc if it’s not plausible or possible) and nearly has a heart attack every other day because he has three menaces teaming up to scare the shit out of him

Dad Milo who takes pictures of his family everyday

Parent Sweetheart who gives the boys a very serious lecture about bullying, telling them to be kind to others and if people aren’t kind to them, they should tell them right away

Dad Milo who constantly stresses the importance of letting him kids know that they can talk to him and tell him anything, even if they might get in trouble (“I’d rather be disappointed while I come pick you up from somewhere you’re not supposed to be rather than sitting at your funeral”)

Parent Sweetheart who nearly quits on the spot when they’re called to release their sons from a department cell. Twice.

Dad Milo who uses empty, pointless threats on his toddlers to get them to behave (“Hey, if you don’t stop screaming, I’m gonna have to go outside and pick a flower.”)

Dad Milo who picks up the boys by their shirts to turn them around when they’re going somewhere they’re not supposed to be

Dad Milo who can’t help but smile whenever he hears anything that reminds him of his family, of home

[allwormdiet]

Arc 8: Extermination, Concluding Thoughts

What a fucking month this day has been

This arc has everything. The greatest virtues and darkest failures of humanity, fighting to save the day and fighting to win and fighting to survive another minute longer, fear and hope and despair and rage.

I'm still kind of beside myself at the failures of the Protectorate and PRT that get put on display in this event. Like they legitimately have time before the attack, something that is apparently unprecedented before Armsmaster and Dragon's project, and Legend burns a bunch of that time by being a massive downer instead of hurrying up with the strategy talk. They also just straight up don't explain anything to Skitter when she's taken into the hospital, which is how we end up with Stalker's identity revealed and Colin's breakdown, which. Jesus fucking Christ could these people be any more like cops than in the moment where they were pressing Skitter. Like yeah she's a villain and she fucked up truce conditions, but she's also a teenager who just recovered from a spinal injury and has been left totally alone and terrified up until she crossed that line. Obviously tensions are high, but shouldn't parahumans of all fucking people, and heroes of all fucking parahumans, be able to handle someone processing trauma with a bit more grace? Like I don't even hate the Protectorate, I think most of them are doing the best they can except for Shadow Stalker and Armsmaster. But their best has failed people, and keeps failing Taylor in particular. It's a system, and a pretty massive system at that for all it spans two pretty big countries and one heavily populated one, and we've seen the system's blind spots and shortfalls here.

Speaking of blind spots and shortfalls: hey Colin. I knew you were gonna do something fucking stupid this arc, I didn't know what exactly but you really blew my expectations out of the water. I'm very proud of you for getting Kaiser dead, okay, don't think for a second that I'd hold dead Nazis against you, but trying to get a teenager killed so you can solo Leviathan is a fucking insane thing to do. I don't care if the teenager made hornets sting your face, I don't care if the teenager told you she was going undercover with criminals and then just became a criminal. We don't feed teenagers to kaiju for personal glory. We also don't out teenagers' dirtiest secrets in front of people who might just kill them for it; you knew full well that Bitch and Regent had killed before and would kill again if provoked, and sure as shit Lisa says that they're gonna have to get Rachel to cool way the fuck down in order to make sure she doesn't murder Taylor for her almost-treachery. If Skitter got mauled to death by a giant dog, that would've been on your fucking head Colin.

Unfortunately I don't think he's gonna get more than a slap on the wrist for this, which is slightly steeper for him than for other people bc he's only got the one wrist, but maybe there's a chance he gets some fucking humility out of this entire ordeal.

I think the Leviathan fight is the best one out of the entire story so far, as I stew on it. Lung was cool, Wards was cool, Bakuda was tense and scary, Protectorate was... mixed, and Empire had some cool beats. Leviathan just. It had everything. The battlefield felt more real and more relevant to the fight than ever before, the stakes were felt, the casualties, Jesus fucking Christ the casualties. People dropping left and right, heroes and villains taking hits that they can't get up from, all in the desperate hope that they can buy that much time for everyone else to step up, that much time to save this fucking city. Skitter spends so much of the battle feeling utterly useless, even as she ends up being critical at multiple points for tracking Leviathan down, saving as many people from the shelter as she could with a borderline suicidal attack, even saving Clockblocker when nobody else was thinking to. For all she bemoans her weakness, her futile struggles, the powers she doesn't have and the people she can't rescue, she saved easily dozens of lives, and carried the fight that much further for others to keep it going.

Which is why I'm a little aghast at the idea that this could've been her swan song.

There's never going to be a better time for me to talk about this, so let's get to it. I learned that Wildbow claims to have used dice in order to dictate who lives and who dies in the Leviathan battle, including Taylor and the rest of the Undersiders, and I have two thoughts on that! One: I hope it's a fib, because the idea that there's any chance the deaths of major and supporting characters would be riding entirely on chance instead of the author's own will and ideas for the story feels utterly anathema to me. Two: if it is true, I'm really glad that he rolled exactly the way he did, because this seems like just about the best possible way for this story to remain intact.

Like let's look at this for a second, right? Let's look at major figures and see who dies. Every Undersider makes it out alive, that's our core cast right there, a lot of plot riding on them, a lot of future interactions (including the ones in 8.7 and 8.8) that would've been cut violently short and left dangling for the next million plus words. Armsmaster survives being disarmed, not out of the question since he got pretty swift treatment for that obviously, but that also means that he's alive to snitch Taylor out for her plan to betray the Undersiders, deepen the rift between them and force Taylor to double down on what it means to be a villain if she wants to have any semblance of the life she used to have before Leviathan came crashing down on the city. Glory Girl and Panacea survive in order to have their own fucked up misadventure later down the line, Flechette and Parian keep kicking and get to be characters later. Coil lives to keep being a major issue, Dinah survives alongside him and so does Noelle. Kaiser gets bisected, thank God, allegedly he was supposed to keep being a major antagonist in the future and this was cut short when the dice came up with a fatal end, but I don't know that he would've kept mattering. The ABB is cooked, done, out of the city entirely. Coil's consolidating power, pushing out every player who can't be incorporated into his little plans. The Empire is already unstable with the publishing of their identities, they can't put the genie back because any possible doubt that could've been cast on the reports was obliterated when Purity leveled multiple city blocks and talking about how she'd kill everyone in the city if she didn't get her baby back. The state of the city very likely means that Medhall is going to shit, so that's his legitimate power base crumbling, and as far as everyone is probably concerned it's open season on fascist capes. If Leviathan didn't do it, I'd give it a week before some anti-Nazi out of towner got him with a Tinkertech assassination device Shinzo Abe style. Kaiser's purpose as the one holding the reins on the Empire was fulfilled, it was entirely in keeping with the trajectory of the story to see him fall and have other threats rise in his place, that much more disorganized and chaotic and proving that the Empire isn't better than any of the other villain groups or gangs.

Let's look at the other local deaths while we're at it. Aegis, Browbeat, and Gallant; three Wards who we knew for all of one arc, and who we got to learn a bit more about in the span of a single interlude, and who didn't seem to have a whole lot going on. For fuck's sake, Browbeat apparently rolled to survive the first time and got killed in a retcon bc it made Wildbow's life easier, so clearly him living or dying doesn't add up to much. Dauntless and Velocity, two Protectorate heroes where one of them didn't even have speaking lines and I legitimately can't remember whether Velocity says anything and don't want to comb through and check, which isn't a great sign for his relevance in the wider story. Manpower and Shielder, who we only first saw in Arc 7 and who also had no lines or interactions. Alabaster, Fenja, and Kaiser, the only known Brockton native villains who bit the bullet; Alabaster had no lines, Fenja maybe had a line or maybe it was Menja but they only really mattered during the Lung rematch back in Arc 5, and I'm not explaining Kaiser a second time because fuck him and because this is already getting pretty long.

Maybe I'm biased because I'm reading this over a decade after it came out and I'm looking at it as part 8 of a 30 part story, but while I'm certain a number of these deaths will have repercussions (New Wave is certainly reeling with their losses, and there's no way Glory Girl is handling Gallant's death well either, never mind his conversation with Panacea) none of them seem to have immediate repercussions for Taylor's story. The closest thing she might have had to a personal connection with any of them was a beef with Kaiser and his lot, and that doesn't really count because their conflicts with each other were entirely within the boundaries of "cape business." Kaiser getting snapped like a Slim Jim means that out of the major criminal powers of Brockton Bay, the only one Taylor still has to deal with is Coil, who she has a lot more personal connections with for good and for ill.

And then there's the idea that Taylor could have died here if the dice said she dies, she'd end up a decoy protagonist all along and we'd switch perspectives to Aegis, of all fucking people. I legitimately want to ignore this for the foreseeable future because I'm so so so glad it didn't shake out that way. All of these past chapters, all of these past arcs, and it wouldn't matter? Taylor just drowns in the middle of a destroyed street or gets crushed by Leviathan and that's all folks? Aegis would be the one to spearhead the defense on Gold fucking Morning? (Yeah I already know about Gold Morning, I've known the broad strokes of this story for years and didn't give a fuck bc I didn't think I'd get around to reading it, more fool me.) I can't buy that. I can barely even acknowledge that it's being sold to me. I legitimately prefer the version of reality where Wildbow is fibbing about the dice, that he used them as an aid to decide which minor characters bit it while still knowing the characters he already wanted to knock off or keep alive, or that he didn't use them at all, because that makes way more sense to me as an author than the idea that he left all of it up to chance. That he left the quality and content of his story, up to and including the narrator/protagonist, up to random chance. I have to believe that he's fudging the truth because the alternative is that he's a maniac.

Okay, that's my piece said, let's get to the rest of this.

We finally get a more thorough understanding of Lisa, and the end result isn't nearly what I was afraid of. Like yeah, she's been manipulating Taylor, feeding into some of her worse instincts, corrupting a potential hero into a committed villain, but I maintain, still, that Taylor would have fucking died if she'd tried to keep playing at indie hero when Bakuda's rampage started. Is it so dire a corruption arc if it means Taylor has like an iota more of self-respect than she did before? If making her a little more selfish, a little more hardened, is what it takes to get her somewhere approaching happiness, is it really that much better to keep her pure-hearted and utterly miserable? Ideally she could be both good and happy, but this isn't that kind of story, she's lucky to get one or the other and frequently has neither, and to commit wholly to being good and eschewing happiness entirely is an unreasonable fucking ask for anybody, much less a teenager.

Beyond that little ethical knot, Lisa just keeps being fun to watch do stuff. Seeing her at work in the flashback and in the Leviathan fight is pretty spectacular, and the fact that she responds to the Protectorate's ultimatum against Skitter by putting an even bigger and meaner ultimatum to their head is a masterstroke. I remembered that the Boardwalk sucks for all that it seems like a cool place to hang around, Jesus fucking Christ the whole deal of the enforcers gives me hives.

And then there's Coil. Fucking Coil. Rancid piece of shit wannabe Bond villain store-bought superpower creep-ass bastard. Him and Creep and Pitter can all drop down an elevator shaft in the next arc and I'd still have put up with them for too long, but I'm not lucky enough for that to happen so I'm just gonna have to keep putting up with this horseshit for now, lucky me. Coil cannot die fast enough for my satisfaction, because for that I'd need him to have died an arc ago.

Can't wait to see how Brockton Bay handles getting turned into fucking Waterworld, probably not well at all

[littlemessyjessi]

“Couple of Chaos” : A Kim Namjoon/RM Commissioned Request: Plus Size Reader, Messy Reader

Kim Namjoon x Reader, Plus Size Reader, Messy Reader, Established Relationship

.

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Prompt: Namjoonie and his partner who is just as much of a mess as him. A darling. A lovely person. Love of his life. But just as much of a chaotic mess as he is, lol.

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“Life is the messy bits.” - Lisa Friedman

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Headcanons:  How Namjoon and Reader deal with the both of them being messy as hell. 

First and freaking foremost, you’re both disasters

just full on

You’re both equally chaotic

one as bad as the other

and yet ya’ll will get on each other’s nerves so bad with messes

like…. ya’ll both do it and yet when it’s the other person it’s somehow terrible

hypocrites, the both of yuns

that being said, in a way, ya’ll kinda complete each other

Namjoon is a perpetual passport loser right? 

And I’ve lost count of how many times he’s lost his air pods

Well, cue…. you

His personal storage locker… or purse.  Whichever you want to refer to it

If you carry a purse, just snatch his shit from him and keep up with it so this man can actually board a plane

If you don’t carry a purse but wear a bra, stick it in the boulder holder

If you don’t do either, put it in your pocket for him

If you don’t have pockets then you have bigger problems to worry about that Namjoon-ah and his lack of ability to keep up with his shit

Now, assuming that you do have these things, you do this so often that Namjoon just knows you have them. 

Needs chapstick? If you’re in a relatively private company, he just goes into your pocketeses for it

Passport? Ok, so Namjoon is smart as fuck. We get it.  However, he do be having some primo himbo energy at times.  

Picture this: Airport.  Namjoonie lost passport.  “Oh, wait a second.  I know where it is!”  Just turns and sticks his hand in your bra and deep sea dives in the titties until he has found what he’s looking for. Assuming that you have titties. If you don't, well again- homeboy is just deep sea diving in whatever area you're currently keeping his belongings.

meanwhile, the eyes of everyone around him have been scarred and you’ve just been violated in front of the entire airport 

he realizes this in about 3 seconds and all he can do is give you that cute dimpled smile

of course he’s forgiven.  It’s Joonie.  If you don’t forgive him then I’ll be along directly to deliver an ass whoopin'. Let's not play with sweet Namu's precious feelings. He's an angel and a perfectly wonderful person. Fuck with him and you fuck with me. And I have raged stored from the age of three. I am now in my 30s. I have it and I will use it.

so yeah

and going back to ya’ll getting on each other’s nerves

doom piles

There.  I said it.   

Ya’ll both got doom piles and junk drawers and whole ass closets just full of random crap

and you nearly kill each other over it on a regular basis

“Jagiyaaaaaaaaaaa! Come on! There is a full on mountain of stuff here and you can’t even close this drawer.”  

“Namjoon, would you like to discuss the entire guest bedroom full of figurines? Or perhaps, the closet full of books?  Or maybe, just maybe, you would like to explain to me why there is an drawer in our bedroom full of baby things when neither one of us has any plans of having children anytime soon?” 

“....” *Joon bites lip and narrows eyes

“....” *you lift a brow*

“Alright, jagi. My mistake. You hungry?” 

“Yes, I’m starving.” 

“Wonderful.” he smirks.  “Where would you like to eat?” 

Your head slowly turns around. 

You narrow your eyes at his smug ass face. 

“How fucking dare you, Kim Namjoon?” 

And he has the audacity to smirk at you because he knows he bested you cause you can’t decided where to eat to save your life.

Jokes on him though because you just needed a project.  It was sorting through your doom piles but now that he’s pissed you off it quickly changed to annoying the ever living hell out of him. 

Lowkey though, jokes actually on you because Joon loves it when your fiesty and sometimes purposefully does this shit just to rile you up. 

You also know this about him though.  Which is why you left the junk drawer open and also why you got sassy.   

He likes that you’re a mess and you love that about him too.

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"This is the stuff that drives me crazy This is the stuff that's getting to me lately In the middle of my little mess I forget how big I'm blessed"

- This is the Stuff, Francesca Battistelli

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Members Reaction to the Deities of Destruction and Disaster: 

Seokjin:  (A/N: omfg Seokjin you did not have to be so aggressively attractive. And that goes for you too, Namjoon)

Long suffering sigh.  The hyung energy is strong here.   It’s part frustration and part pure bewilderment as to why, how and what even is he going to do with the both of you.  That being said, Seokjinnie thinks the two of you are super cute together.  You definitely get scolded but also, he cracks easily because come on.  Look at ya’ll.  Thanks God every day that Namjoon uses you as his purse though.  He is so tired of standing around in an airport, lol. 

Yoongi:  (A/N: Cue the dreamy sigh. Just look at them. Look at the smiles. Look at the damn ARMS!)

I’m gonna be so for real with you right now.  He does not give a shit about the mess. I mean, don’t get his things in a mess but if you roll up in a 2003 lifted Tacoma, open the door and a bunch of shit falls out… I mean, maybe he might give you a little bit of a lecture but honestly?  That’s ya’ll’s problem, lol.   But also stop losing ya’ll fucking airpods, the both of you.   If a bra works then do that because he will not be loaning you another pair ever again.  And he refuses to talk about why. 

Hoseok: (A/N: Mother of God. I have the fattest crush on Hoseok. Also peep that cute little Kookie. And how DARE you attack me like this, Namjoon?!)

Never in the history of ever was anyone annoyed more by this than Hoseok, lol.  However, he doesn’t bitch.  Oddly enough, he never complains about it.  He never bitches.  He never lectures.  He does, however, come over to hang out and help the both of you clean your mess.  Hoseok is great for body doubling if you have ADHD.  However, if you have an issue with him doing the cleaning it might be an issue.  It makes him itch and he needs to scratch it.   

Jimin:  (A/N: It's unspeakable how much handsomeness is in this gif.)

An actual ANGEL for body doubling if you have ADHD and you’re trying to handle the depression hoarder situation in your bedroom.  Super respectful and understanding.  He just enjoys spending time with his loved ones so he would gladly come help if you want it or just keep the both of you company.  Because clearly body doubling does not with you and Joon together. You just make it a bigger mess.  Acknowledging this: Jimin finds this chaos hilarious and doesn’t do anything to stop.  Ya’ll are wild and unkempt and honestly? Jiminie is here for it. 

Side note: I am particularly attached to Jimin in this gif. Look how beautiful. Look how handsome. I swear, that man is dangerous. We are all very, very, very lucky that he's such a sweetheart because don't act like if he asked you for a kidney that you wouldn't immediately start looking for something to carve with . And if that happened to be a spoon, we'd all just accept our fate. Don't lie.

Extra Sidenote: Namjoon be looking extra delectable. *chef's kiss*

Taehyung:  (A/N: First of all, damn Namjoon. Those arms. Sweet lord. I'm looking, Joonie. Respectfully, of course..... but I do be lookin. Second, does Taehyung not look like the most precious creature in all the land?)

A precious darling. He does not give a shit about the mess.  He just loves his hyung.  He loves his hyung’s love.  Ya’ll are special to him and that’s how you are.  He thinks it is part of ya’ll’s charm and your charm as a couple.  Ya’ll are a messy couple but not in the having your dirty laundry out for everyone to see way. In a “aw, Jiminie, look at them.  They are such tragic disasters but they’re disasters together.” kind of way.  He will find a way to make it romantic no matter what. 

Jungkook:  (A/N: Just Jungkook out here living his best y/n life, honestly, lol. )

Ok, so here’s the thing, lol.  Jungkookie has had his own issues with messes here and there. Also, let's be honest.... he's got the fattest crush on Namjoon, lol. His crush on Namjoon may even rival the crush I have on Hoseok. Like, I kinda doubt it because there ain't much I wouldn't do for that man but still. Jungkook loves him's Namjoonie. He loves all that Namjoon-ah is associated with. He's his biggest fan, lol. With you, it is honestly the same. Like... his hyung is in love? Who is this person that has captured the heart of the most magnificent Namjoonie? If you managed to do that and Namjoon is happy.... honestly Jungkook adores you. Regardless of the hopeless fucking messes that the both of you clearly are. He and Taehyung share this but in addition to this, Jungkookie will literally help you with anything you need. He just wants to hang out with you both so he'll do like his Jimin hyung and either just chill while you sort or he'll help you. Or just hang out in the chaos and not solve anything, lol. He just loves his hyung and he loves his hyung's love as well. It's as simple as that.

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A/N: Thank you so much for reading my content and thank you so much to @alisoncdariel for commissioning this piece! I hope you enjoy it!

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[postal-ech]

God dammit I have become obsessed with Lisa the Painful and more specifically its fandom's ability to make the HARDEST and WILDEST songs available.

I swear to god its like finding a treasure trove of this shit, its akin to finding Undertale's fan OST...thing, I dunno the technical name for it but its like its whole own genre

Like, take for example the works from Maddie Doktor, who has a few tracks in the fan game Lisa the Pointless: Downtown Mechanic (essentially a swap AU of Lisa the Pointless for the undertaleheads out there) You want some hard ass tunes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQjuDd58U1Y Want some real ETHEREAL TYPE SHIT? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIi--DYVwrs WANT A FUCKING TRACK THAT SOUNDS LIKE HOMIE IS FIGHTING IN SOME MARTIAL ARTS FILM??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc-CQ_6acjA

I SWEAR TO GOD its like CRACK, and she's not the only one up-and-coming in the Lisa fandom

My favorite artist has to be Cane B, who does these weird and wild remixes alongside original soundtracks for example, there's their version of 1000 faces of rage from Painful's definitive edition that just go SO HARD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x9CrCOILGk or their more original tracks for a project called Lisa the Joyful: Growing Pains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFpdTnN2rvw

Another one who has been lost to time, save for a working archive out there on discord is one legendary AdmiralHippie/SpaceHippie, who I mentioned in a previous post covering Space Station 13. His work is mostly known within the fan work Lisa the Vegaful, though he has a lot of original tracks that work just as well in a fan work If anyone is interested, I'd recommend looking up the working archive of his music, or looking DO BE AWARE THOUGH, As far as I am aware, SpaceHippie/AdmiralHippie has requested that his original works be pulled from existing fan games/not to be used, given an incident where he had wiped his youtube channel alongside his existing library from youtube, so I will not post the files of his OST out on here to respect his wishes, but I still highly recommend giving them a listen and if ya do see him out there, give him some well wishes.

A third one to keep an eye out on is another up-and-comer who posts more hip-hop-esque mixes, goes by the name of Broken Sword on youtube. His work, at least as far as I'm aware, will be showing up in Vegaful's Sample Update, which looks to update the original Lisa: The Vegaful fan game to add more animations, and act as replacements for AdmiralHippie's tracks. So far he has two albums of lisa fan music out, with the second one being posted a week ago around the time of this post. DEFINITELY give him a look when you can https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygwXrKdNmvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t94ntyYm6dQ

There are so many more artists out there that produce some TOP TIER shit for Lisa if you ask me, from Taitoki with his work on Lisa: The Pointless and its up-coming Monster Update (ONE SPRITE A DAY, BABY!!!), ChaCos, who's work extends into the fan-mod of Pointless known as Scholar of the Wilbur Sin (SOTWS), Baursach of Lisa: The Timeless/Lisa: The Fool fame alongside the creator of the Timeless fan game Torrington (Who had put out his own album not too long ago, GIVE IT A LISTEN, ITS HIGH QUALITY SHIT)

God I can go on and on, but the point of this Hyperfixation post is to highlight some SINCERE TALENT in this fandom, and its genuinely what keeps me as invested into Lisa as much as the official thing, and ESPECIALLY given what we've gotten out of Definitive Edition as is with Austin Jorgensen/Widdly 2 Diddly's work on the OST. Its again like rediscovering Undertale and Deltarune's weird but FASCINATINGLY GOOD underground fan genre out there

[slifarianhawk]

Chapter 26: make it easy on yourself

As Albert, Excella, and I drank, I rang the boys back in through the comm link.

When they walked into the room, I offered them a drink to which Nighthawk and Steve took the offer up. I had Archer put away the Disaronno and Osmanthus wine as the festivities were winding down.

"Now that you are a part of tricell, there is something that needs to be done, my dear lotus." Wesker said, stroking my cheek,"a gift if you would believe it or not."

"Yes, the main reason I went to Russia was to extract two people. A Dr. Cordell and his lovely wife, the main doctor in the creation of the Angelis virus project, which you are so versed in." Excella said, taking a sip of her brandy.

My eyes flared their signature, icy blue. My blood started to boil, memories flooding to the surface. My body slowly started to tremble in rage. I dropped my glass and watched it shatter.

A massive growl was unleashed from my throat,"CORDELL!"

(FLASHBACK)

{Trigger warning torture mentions of non con}

/October 28,1998/

Cold, my knees and feet were freezing on the cement floor. Seven needles stuck in my back. My arms chained down pinned to my side. The cold steel dug deep into my wrist, causing deep gashes and scarring cuts. My body naked in a hunched over position translucent white fluid dripping from my back side. Tears stained my cheeks.

CRACK! A bull whip rung out slicing open the flesh between the first row of syringes. Searing pain was all I felt as the wound hastily repaired itself.

"Her will is undeniably strong, colonel Sergei. But it seems the Angelis virus has also made her at least much more easily fixable. Just admire how fast she heals." Dr. Cordell said, walking in front of me as my eyes glowed a cold shade of blue,"tell me, was she truly wasted on scum like that damnable traitor, Wesker?".

I growled and started to transform into the equinoxal mutation. They brought up him. Here, why!?! just to rub salt in the wound of being stuck here. My dead husband is coming back to haunt me again.

ZAP

Scorching pain seared through me. A cattle prod was pulled away from my side. The pain was a reset to my body, causing the transformation process to halt. The ringing in my ears started to amplify.

When I get out of these damn chains, Sergei will pay. He already had taken my support system, and now he's rubbing a wound with salt. I was going to make him pay dearly for this.

"Yes, I do wish I got to my niece first before that stupid roach did, but lord Spencer has his plans for her. As his most loyal follower, I'll obey his every command." Sergei said, taking a scalpel and carving his name into my back, "doesn't mean I can't have fun with her. I already tainted her lovely back side. Now I'm going to work on that pretty little mouth of hers. Slowly, I'll mold her into the perfect toy and soldier for me and Spencer. When the time comes, she'll be able to eradicate our infestation." A dark laugh echoed out of Vladimirs throat.

"HE IS ALREADY DEAD AND GONE HIC JUST KILL ME YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD." I screamed at the thought of Sergei shoving his disgusting penis in my face. It made me feel sick to my stomach.

"She doesn't know, does she colonel?" Dr. Cordell asked.

"Know what, Sergei? What are you not telling me?" I growled out, my nails slowly growing and turning black.

"Red queen." Sergei said, turning to face the wall.

"Yes, Colonel?" A red hologram of a beautiful woman appeared.

"Show our dear agent seven forty-eight the final moments of the mansion lab and front entryway." Sergei said as a screen lowered into view.

Cctv footage played of the Arkley lab on the night of July twenty fourth.

"You'll regret this, my lady, of that I promise." His eyes left a trail like mine except his glowed a brilliant red.

It showed him plowing through B.O.W.S. and even trapping Lisa Trevor. The best and worst part was that he was alive and had survived. He hadn't come to me. He didn't even come home or contact me.

"He.....he...... he abandoned me.....why?" I was there. I came back to Raccoon City to find him. Spencer was right he had survived and chose not to come for me.

Doctor Cordell laughed along with Sergei as my heart crumbled away into nothingness. The ringing in my ears was now a deafening roar. My face grew a sheet of black glass like silica, creating a mask that hid my tears. My choking sobs started to sound like blood curdling growls. My canines were now black and four inches long over my bottom lip. Six massive bloody batlike wings ripped from my back, throwing all but one syringe into the walls. Black silica bracers grew from under my skin, breaking their way through my wrists. I flicked the wings, and the chains corroded away. Cracks formed in the cement floor.

I was truly alone. My family thinks I'm a monster. My friends are dead. Sergei rapes me during the night. Worst of all, my husband abandoned me. The only things that keep me alive are my kids. However, Vladimir has my daughter here, and the other has been tagged for capture. My life has been made mute.

Darkness clouded my vision. The ringing was blaring in my head. Make it stop. Make it stop, please. The pain that radiates from my heart was driving me mad. Then, all of sudden, the ringing stopped. I feel cold and cramped.

《Entering 3rd person POV》

"What is happening, Cordell?" Sergei asked the now terrified doctor.

"This is the arch angel form, sir. Most of the research has been non-existent, and this form was just a theory. What happened if the equinoxal mental state was pushed to the limit and broke. She broke sir congratulations are due, but not at this time we should run." The doctor said, terrified backing away.

"Vladmir Sergei! Prepare to be sentenced to Hell!" A raspy roar ripped from Tabitha's deformed mouth.

"I don't think so, my dear fragile flower. I still have plans for you. Cordell, hand me the viral stabilizer you were bragging about." Sergei said with his hand extended.

She raced over to Sergei and swung her five inch long black talons. Her claws were as sharp as a lickers' talons they left a massive gash in Sergeis's side. She tried to retreat back, but Cordell handed Vladimir a syringe, and Sergei had injected it into Tabitha's neck.

Tabithas body started to flame up, and silica surrounded her body. It encased her in a black obsidian like cocoon. When it shattered, Tabitha's body had returned to normal splayed across the floor, and the mutations remained as obsidian statuary.

《Tabithas pov》

"You belong to me now agent seven forty-eight. If you try to harm me again, I'll kill little Miss Alistar and bring that bastard son of yours here. Do you understand, my sweet anemone." Sergei laughed, pulling my body up by my matted bloody hair,"Yes, anemone the flower of fragility. That's what you are not the filthy lotus of rebirth but a lowly buttercup of fragility. You are as fragile as obsidian and just as sharp. The weapon I need will be you seven forty-eight. Make this easy on yourself, my dear, and accept that you now belong to me."

"Yes, sir." I hung my head lost in a tidal wave of depression and reluctance.

(END OF FLASHBACK)

"Commander?!?" Nighthawk screamed.

Huh? What is going on? I can't move

"Everyone get back she's going Arch-angel!" Archer shouted.

The door opened, and I heard footsteps dashing out. It was time. I opened my eyes.

SHATTER!

I broke out of the silica that was starting to encase my body. I won't let that bastard Sergei control my life now that I was free. I'd choose when i go Arch-angel.

Albert was beside me, holding my shoulder. His sunglasses were off as he stared at my now sweat drenched face. He wore a concerned look.

"Tabitha, my dear lotus," He placed his hand on my face, his thumb stroking my cheek,"What did you see? What did you see in that flashback? I know PTSD when I see it. I've seen it in plenty of my men now tell me what you saw my love."

"Sergei and Cordell, when I found out you survived the mansion incident. They both watched me turn into the Arch-angel form. Sergei was becoming my handler, and all cordell did was laugh. Now it's time to return the favor to Dr. Cordell." I clicked on my comm link, "Archer, bring my scalpels, syringes, and pliers to the containment room. Have the prisoners transferred there."

I stood up, placing my corrective shades on, "Nighthawk, please escort me and Wesker to the lab. I need to make several doses of the angelis viral stabilizer and a special treat for Dr. Cordells wife."

"Yes, mam, please follow me." Night hawk bowed, revealing his massive hawk like wings.

"Project a.c.r.o.h? You certainly have quiet the mangarie of interesting people under you, my dear lotus." Albert said, admiring Nighthawk and his wings.

" Even so, we all gladly serve our Pheonix." Nighthawk said, leading Albert and I down the hall to my lab.

Once we arrived at the lab, I threw on my lab coat and sped to my workstation. Quickly, I prepared seven vials of my blood and synthesized three doses of max strength viral stabilizer. Albert stood in the corner as I worked. He seemed deep in thought.

When I dropped to the floor, he walked over and pulled me into a warm gentle embrace, "My dearheart, please be careful. I don't know a lot about the angelis virus, but I can tell that what happened has really drained you. Please, my lotus, make this easy on yourself and rest. Come, I have something to show you. He took my hand and led me out of the vehicle bay.

We walked along the trail of the apple orchard to Alistar's sanctuary. When we got there, I was shocked by the state of things. The statuary was put back together, surrounded by pink carnations. Albert sat at the bench he held me on last night and pointed at the angel statue that had a blue tarp in front of it.

"Go ahead, my lotus lift it. It's not much but something I could do to help you mourn better. I worked ever since you fell asleep, and Excella landed last night." He said as I turned to to fave the tarp.

With a quick grasp, I pulled the cover away and gasped. Tears were now forming in my eyes as I fell to my knees. There was fresh sod and a new headstone in front of Alistar's statue.

It read," Laid to rest, here is Alistar Lancaster. Daughter of Tabitha and Albert Wesker. May she wander the stars infinitely. 1982-2003"

Albert stepped up behind and crouched beside me. He draped his right arm over my shoulder. A relaxed smile was on his face for once. It was stunning.

"I know, I was not there for you or her either when she was born or when she died. However, I know that she wanted this. We are a family again, and once uroboros is complete, no one will harm us again." He said, looking at me, removing his sunglasses.

With a simple motion, I turned and kissed him, "Carry me back to base so I can rest. That way, i can make Cordell pay for all he did to me and Alistar. He will feel the pain that she felt and all the pain he caused me as well."

Albert quickly lifted me up and took me in his arms, heading back to base,"Anything you wish, my dear lotus."

[projecthipster]

Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk

This being a stock photo is very enjoyable to me.

“We are God's middle children, according to Tyler Durden, with no special place in history and no special attention. Unless we get God's attention, we have no hope of damnation or redemption. Which is worse, Hell or nothing?”

"A bit 2edgy4u, but neat ideas about how angry men be angry. Didn’t care a lot for the terse, repetitive writing style to start but I got used to it as the threads came together to the intense climax. And it’s short, so not like it was a huge investment."

Ok, so that’s a pretty terse review. Ironically, considering that “terse, repetitive writing” was one of my criticisms. That was, directly copy-pasted, the review I posted on Goodreads after finishing Fight Club early last year. For a proper Project Hipster post I ought to expand it. And yet— I actually think that covers it pretty well. Let’s break my terse review of this terse novel down into its aspects, then, and see what I meant, in less terse words, and let’s see whether a year and a half to think things over has changed my thoughts. Terse doesn’t sound like a word anymore.

A bit 2edgy4u, but neat ideas about how angry men be angry

The aspect of Hipsterdom that I’ve never gravitated so much towards is that which stems from angsty postmodern 90s Gen X disillusionment, and as I mentioned back in my first Radiohead review, Palahniuk is kind of the epitome of that. And he does do it well.

Maybe I’m just too young to have lived through it, but I can empathize with it. The routine of life in a bullshit job under Capitalism Victorious is as mind-numbing now as it was then, I know well, and the now laughable late millennium rhetoric of the End of History must have added a particularly different sort of catalyst for mental illness. While today it’s the chaos of the world that fills us with anxiety, its seeming stability in the age of Fight Club must have created another sort of dread, living with the apparent surety that this world of fluorescence and linoleum was the ultimate aspiration of society, and now that it had arrived, it would carry on forever. I need the darkness, someone please cut the light!

Is it any wonder, then, that Palanhiuk’s pointedly nameless narrator falls into a sleepless spiral of desire for chaos, wanting to “wipe his ass with the Mona Lisa” and break beautiful things just to experience the thrill of change? That spiral leads the narrator into Project Mayhem, the anarcho-fascist cult of Tyler Durden, a mysterious, rebellious drifter who may be more than he seems, and promises an escape from monotony through rebellion, ascending over the short course of the novel from pranks to terrorism.

A lot of the discourse around this book and its adaptation centres on that always-crucial question – in stories about men lashing out in anger, how much are we meant to agree? The ending of Fight Club (the book, at least; we’ll come back to that point) makes it pretty clear that Palahniuk is hardly holding up Tyler Durden as a role model. But he comes from a place motivated by genuine criticism of a heartless society. Palanhiuk says that its’ “about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people." It’s a cautionary tale, then, about the fallout of loneliness and toxic masculinity, but where’s the line that morality is transcended in favour of rage? For the narrator, it’s another character’s death. For the reader, should it be the same? Or earlier? These are interesting, worthwhile questions! I have no definitive answers to them. There are interesting metaphors here, too, like how Tyler steals human fat from lipo clinics, literally the offcast fat of the fattening system, and uses it to make his weapons.

Palahniuk was himself a member of something called the Cacophony Society, which sounds a lot like Project Mayhem purely in name, but reading up on it makes it sound a lot less intense, given that it’s more of an unincorporated counter-cultural arts group. Cacophonists allegedly created Burning Man, paint Banksyesque street art, perform satirical Christmas carols, and disrupt the rush by blocking traffic to host picnics open to all visitors. Oh, and, uh, write edgy novels. Sounds fun, actually. Sounds like that’s a much healthier response to the same things that drive the characters in Fight Club to violence. Apparently the Cacophony Society itself stems from an earlier San Fransisco secret society called the Suicide Club, which focused mostly on urban exploration and the benefits of thrill-seeking.

Didn’t care a lot for the terse, repetitive writing style to start but I got used to it

Yeah, I still think this to some degree. I just prefer purpler prose, on a personal level. But I can respect Palanhiuk’s stylistic choices, to the point that they seem to be impacting these very sentences as I type them. Quotes from Fight Club in my mind are right now bleeding into the way I tackle my own keyboard. One maybe generous interpretation of Fight Club’s writing style is that it’s a window into the narrator's deteriorating mental state. When we’re working around sleepless nights, and when stress and anger are eroding reason into base fight-or-flight instinct, none of us are thinking in full sentences. It helps somehow to know that there’s a name and history for this style as well. Palahniuk was a disciple of Tom Spanbauer, who in Portland, where lives the dream of the 90s, taught the style he called “dangerous writing.” Spanbauer defines the style’s tenets as minimalism, realism, and writing from painful personal experience. In a way it’s very similar to Hemingway’s “one true sentence” approach. It’s another swing of the pendulum in the same direction, I suppose. As Hemingway was reacting against the Romantics, Spanbauer and Palahniuk were reacting to the maximalist “hysterical realism” of David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith (who I also like.) It’s a style. Can’t fault style for consistency. In terms of repetition, I’m referring of course to the very prominent motifs, like the narrator's constant (and it is constant) reframing of the Reader’s Digest feature “I am Joe’s…”

as the threads came together to the intense climax

And what a climax. I should preface by saying that somehow I’ve still never actually seen the movie. Through cultural osmosis, though, I knew the twist. If you don’t, stop reading. Despite Publishers Weekly calling the twist “particularly bizarre,” despite the use of then-obscure dissociative identity disorder to justify its mechanics, it’s fairly simple in concept. This character seems to be the character’s secret ambitions manifested ad extremis. And it turns out that’s exactly what he is. It’s one of those devices that leads every scene to be read two ways, which is always good, and it makes the climax thrilling. I also know how the movie ends differently. I think in terms of themes I prefer the book version, but I understand why it was changed to a more visually dramatic ending for the movie. I also think it’s pretty funny that the Chinese release of the movie wasn’t allowed to show Project Mayhem succeeding, so it cuts out the end in favour of essentially telling the book ending in captions.

And it’s short, so not like it was a huge investment.

Unlike this post. Sorry. Good thing I don't write these with the assumption that anyone will ever read them.

I give this hipster book four disillusioned white men out of five.

Project Hipster is a futile and disorganized attempt to dive into the world of things that the internet has at some point claimed "are hipster," mostly through ListChallenges search results.

This review comes from the ninth list, Essential Books For Hipsters.

Next up: a more lighthearted movie that can still make you cry.

Stay deck.

[lisa-the-relentless]

Remaking the intro post bc so much has changed

LISA: The Relentless is a silly fan project of mine about trans rage and Clint Moss and other various not as serious things. It takes place in an alternate timeline from Painful where Buddy is not found out and does not exactly follow the armstrongs in much capacity aside from Clint’s relationship with Rando. I am very anxious ab this project and so that’s the most detail I’ll give ab the story, I’ll feel much more confident when I get some proper progress done!

Clint Moss is a trans man and that is the extent that is not outright said about his character that is one of the most important pieces you need to know ab him. (Although like it’s heavily implied throughout like it’s DEAD obvious he just never says ‘I’m trans, lol.’)

The maximum amount of party members in mind is 12, and the game itself and its development is separated into 3 acts.

Relentless is not connected to any fangames and will never be aside from like maybe loose references with no bearing on lore.

I have suspected fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue is my greatest folly, I am one person aside from a co-writer and so shit will not be done quickly. If you do genuinely have interest in this project please have patience with me!! This is not my job and I’m already exhausted from the hell that is AP classes.

Yeah that’s all bye <3

[justmanic03]

Amethyst - Chapter twenty-six

(A/N: Project Zomboid, anyone?)

Team Moon Grunt Robert sent out Zomboid!

Go! Lily!

"What in the name of Arceus is a ZOMBOID?!" Lisa screeched upon seeing the ugly creature. It looked as though a Garbodor had grown red fur and horns, with bright green orbs for eyes.

"A Team Moon staple, I'll have you know!" The old man grinned. He then proceeded to turn back to me. "Tsk tsk. You must be insane to pull out a grass type here. Use Flash Attack!"

Zomboid used Flash Attack! Gladimax avoided the attack!

"It looks like a fire-steel combo! Get Lily out of that battle!" Mackenzie yelled from behind me. I proceeded to withdraw Lily, and sent out Zelda in her place.

You're in charge, Zelda!

"It's about time you sampled the Opaquia way of doing things!" The old man rubbed his hands together, before instructing his Zomboid to use Flash Attack against Zelda:

It's not very effective...

Zelda used Waterfall!

A critical hit!

Following Zelda's catastrophic blow, the red Pokemon lost all of its HP except one unit.

Damn...

The opposing Zomboid used Spear of Destruction!

A giant steel trident spawned over its head, and was hurtled in Zelda's direction. The three of us covered our eyes as it hit her.

Zelda fainted!

"Think twice before you start messing around with Team Moon! Even the strongest champions around the world are unable to handle the horrors of Opaquia!" The old man smirked victoriously. I grimaced, before sending out Manganese. He was able to make a quick meal out of the Zomboid.

Zomboid fainted!

Team Moon Grunt Robert sent out Umbreon!

"Haha, bad move!" Mackenzie chuckled.

Manganese used Earthquake!

Umbreon lost half of its HP. The old man scratched the back of his head. "Hmph."

Umbreon used Dark Pulse!

Manganese avoided the attack!

"Whooooo! Hooray for speed!" Lisa chanted.

"Come on Y/N, you got this!" Mackenzie called.

(Time skip)

You defeated Team Moon Grunt Robert!

"Hahaha, that'll teach you, you old fool!" Lisa yelled. The old man grimaced, his grip on the tiki torch tightening so much that his hand quivered as he seethed with rage.

"Unbelievable..." he grumbled. "It seems as though Team Moon... is well and truly done for."

"So Freya was right after all," Mackenzie observed.

The old man cleared his throat. "Very well... you have remarkable strength, even I'd be a fool to deny that." He lifted his cane, gesturing towards the abandoned building with the ripped flags. "This place... is very dangerous. There are still some mutant Pokemon created by Team Moon that still inhabit it."

"We'll take them on!" Lisa spoke up fiercely. I couldn't help but smile internally at her dedication and determination.

"However, if anything were to happen to any of you, it's not my mess to clean up." And with that, he turned on his heel and trudged away.

"Well... THAT was insane..." Mackenzie spoke up. "Anyway... shall we?" The three of us turned back towards the building. Despite Mackenzie's hesitance, Lisa seemed thoroughly determined to see this through, and so, I nodded my head. The Elite Four and the whole region of Taldourse depended on us.

Lisa instructed her Gryffinblud to use Flamethrower, which burned away the boards blocking the entrance. "So you can actually be smart sometimes." Mackenzie observed.

"Excuse me, I'm always smart!" She corrected, flipping her choppy her over her shoulders. She led the way, Mackenzie and I following her into the building. Chandelure was able to illuminate the foyer so that we could at least see what was in front of us. As could be expected, the floorboards were very creaky, and these particular creaks were very loud in contrast to the deafening silence of the place.

"I'm not a fan of the amount of spiderwebs I'm seeing here..." Mackenzie said, his voice echoing throughout the halls. He was cut off by a shrill, piercing screech. "ARGH!!! What was that!!!!"

"Calm down it's just a zoobat!" Lisa laughed. "Mack, you wouldn't last five minutes in a zombie apocalypse."

"That's a pretty strong zoobat though." I observed, as the Level 85 Pokemon flapped its wings up and down rapidly. "Wait... what's it doing?" It appeared to be twisting its body, flapping around in various motions.

This was NOT typical Pokemon behaviour. I began to wonder whether it had been corrupted.

"Looks like it's going some sort of signal dance." Mack observed. "I've never seen a Pokemon behave like -- AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!" Our thoughts were immediately cut off. I gasped as I felt a pair of very strong arms grab me from behind, lifting me off of my feet. My heart dropped to my stomach as I realised I was under physical attack, and same happened to Lisa and Mackenzie. That zoobat had indeed been signalling, and three Hitmonlees had appeared out of nowhere and grabbed us!

I thrashed around in the arms of the fighting-type giant, yet was completely immobilised.

"PUT ME DOWN YOU FAT-HEADED GOBLIN!!!" Lisa screamed as she flailed her arms and legs in Hitmonlee's arms. Mackenzie was just screaming incoherencies. I kicked and kicked and tried to punch, but it was no use. The giant Pokemon were carrying us down a very dark hallway, and our Pokemon had sadly retreated into their Pokeballs. There was no escape.

I was thrust from the Hitmonlee's arms and landed flat on my face on a cold, hard, dirty floor.

"This is NOT how you're supposed to pick up ladies, Buster!" Lisa growled. "OUCH!" She was thrown down on to the floor, landing beside me. The third Hitmonlee which had captured Mackenzie proceeded to toss him behind us. "Ouch! Maybe I should've come with a handle with care label."

SLAM!!!!!

That was it. We were locked up in the dungeon.

"That stupid senile rat led us right into a trap!" Lisa growled.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a fourth person spoke up. "Took you Slowpokes long enough to get to Opaquia."

My head snapped up, to see none other than Danny sitting in the corner, playing with a rock he had found.

"Danny! What are you doing here?!" I gasped as I rushed over to my long-lost rival.

"Since you Slowbros and Slowsisters were all preoccupied with Buzz's little mission, I figured I'd take advantage and get to Opaquia first." He said casually. "Then I ran into that stuck-up, psychotic harp lady. I told her I was going to be the next Champion of Taldourse and she just laughed at me. Said I was just some nobody from Unova. That made me angry, so I came here to Opaquia to battle as many Pokemon as I could and get stronger. But, it seems I bit off more than I could chew, and so I ended up in this place."

"Even though I can't stand that Freya, she appears to know exactly what she's talking about. I wonder if she has a history with Team Moon?" Mackenzie queried.

"Sure seems evil enough," I nodded my head.

Lisa then sighed, and spoke up. "Y'know, when I was younger, I always dreamed about the Opaquian Dungeons."

Danny only laughed. "I mean, I knew you were insane," Although he rolled his eyes, for a change, Lisa did not react to this. Instead, she continued to speak, in a softer, more emotional tone. "I always dreamed that I'd be a super strong grunt, and I'd be escorting and locking people up in these dungeons. But never once did I expect I'd be a prisoner in them myself." She then rose to her feet. "That's why we've got to get out of here. I can't help Crystal if I'm stuck in here!"

"And I can't earn my Champions title stuck like this!" Danny added, tossing his rock up and down.

"Yeah, not to mention this place is probably infested with spiders..." Mackenzie retorted.

"Okay, lemme think for a second..." I brought my fingers up to my chin as I wracked my brains for an escape plan.

This was NOT going to be easy. I knew Opaquia was full of unpleasant surprises, but I had no idea I'd be spending a night in one of the notorious Team Moon dungeons.

[newagesispage]

                                                                 FEBRUARY     2024 

THE RIB PAGE 

***** 

Among the inductees for the 2023 Library of Congress selections include: Fame, Desperately Seeking Susan, Lady and the Tramp, Home Alone, Terminator 2, 20 feet from Stardom, The Wedding Banquet, Apollo 13, 12 Years a Slave and Love and Basketball. 

***** 

The Supreme Court will hear the Colorado case of Trump on the ballot on Feb. 8. They will also be looking into the responsibility of hospitals in no abortion states. ** And what were those red marks on Trumps hand? Dry skin? Syphillis?** Roger Stone has called for killing the opposition. 

***** 

Mark Knopfler is selling most of his guitars at a London auction house with some of the proceeds going to charity. 

***** 

Joey Fatone and AJ Mclean are going on tour. 

***** 

Willem Dafoe, Charlie Wilson and George Clinton got their stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Garrett Morris will be getting his on Feb. 1. 

***** 

Our Flag means death was cancelled. 

***** 

John Kerry is stepping down as the U.S. Climate envoy. 

***** 

The FDA ruled the Florida government can procure prescription drugs from Canada. This could save taxpayers as much as $183 mil a year. Big Pharma is none too happy. This was rejected in New Hampshire. Many other states are in the application process.  

***** 

A resolution to prevent a partial shutdown of the government was passed for funding until March. The zealots are furious. ** According to a new book, Find me the votes, Lindsey Graham testified that if you told Trump, “that martians came and stole the election, he would probably believe it.” He also gave the Fulton County D.A., Fani Willis a big hug and thanked her for letting him get it out. 

***** 

Hiking with Kevin is back!!!!! Hooray!!!!! 

***** 

The innocence project is looking into the Scott Peterson case claiming new evidence. 

***** 

Paul Thomas Anderson will bring Sean Penn, Regina Hall and Leo DiCaprio together for his next film. 

***** 

Rachel Dratch has a podcast, WooWoo, with ghost stories. 

***** 

There is prejudice everywhere, it does no good to give it back. - Ship of Fools 

***** 

Marilyn Monroe’s home at 12305 W. Helena Dr. Has been declared a historical landmark by the LA cultural Heritage Commision. The actress purchased the home shortly before she died there. 

***** 

Fox News has cancelled My Pillow due to past due bills. 

***** 

Why does Bonnie Hunt not have a talk show anymore?? C’mon!! I miss it!! 

***** 

Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet are divorced. 

***** 

Taiwan elected William Lai Ching-te for a third term of the Democratic progressive Party. 

***** 

Food Network Star Darnell Ferguson was arrested on strangulation, terrorist threatening, assault, menacing criminal mischief and burglary charges in Kentucky. 

***** 

A U.S. labor agency has accused SpaceX of illegally firing 8 employees.** Sports Illustrated seems to be in a real mess like most of print media. Does corporate everywhere want to fire the writers and use AI?? 

***** 

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit Japan. 

***** 

Days alert: Steve Burton is out at Days and back at GH. ** Bring back Jen Lilley. They seem to be pushing Brady and Teresa to be closer again and these actors have no chemistry. ** The cast of Days have been putting out many messages at the loss of Bill Hayes. I miss him already!!** Glad that they R bringing back an old story like the pawn. The characters act like nobody knows but I thought the town knew that John was the pawn? ** But hooray for Johnny and Chanel, let one couple be happy!!  

***** 

Rage against the Machine has broken up again, according to drummer Brad Wilk. 

***** 

Iran attacked Pakistan and brought death. Pakistan retaliated and brought some more death. Is there a place in the world that is not filled with hate right now? 

***** 

The Girl Scout cookies are here!!** Why is Kris Jenner selling Oreos? 

***** 

Fruit Stripe gum is no more. RIP 

***** 

How refreshing to see the economy doing so well. ** Some are upset that Biden launched strikes against Yeman without congressional approval. The Houthi’s have interrupted the supply chain route. ** And why do Trump and friends bitch about Biden at all? According to them, a President has total immunity so what is the problem?? Can’t he do anything he wants?  Why did we never have this problem before? Trump claims a President needs immunity but I don’t think it was a problem until now. ** Chris Christie is out .. Asa Hutchinson is out... Vivek Ramaswami is out... DeSantis is out (much has been made of the leader of Ron’s Superpak with nothing to do but put a puzzle together). DeSantis used a Churchill quote to end his campaign that Churchill never said. ** Scary Clown 45 told the Iowa caucus goers, “You can’t sit home. If you’re sick as a dog, even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it. “ People stood in line up to 4 hours in sub zero temps to see him. In attendance were Coach Dan Gable and WWE’s Kane. He later cancelled 3 rallies. ** The comics made much of the pics from the caucus like the Iowa caucus looked like the opposite of Martin Luther King Day. We also must remember that Ted Cruz once won the Iowa Caucus. **32% of Iowa Republicans say that Trump is not fit for office. 14% of Republicans actually voted and 51% picked Trump. DeSantis was a distant second and Haley third. ** Tacopina and his partners in the law firm have parted ways with Trump. 

***** 

Trump took New Hampshire but Haley was not that far off. The whole thing about the DNC fucking up the order of the states and Biden not getting on the ballot was just stupid. It made the Dems look unorganized and petty. No more of that! ** Should we be worried about a second Trump term yet or are we all William Holden in a disaster movie?  Why are we so, “nothing to see hear, everything is fine?”** A recent story broke about the pharmacy in the White House. Apparently, when Trump was in office, the rules for said pharmacy were pretty loose. The word is they didn’t believe in generic drugs and they were handed out like candy. ** Trump was ordered to pay E. Jean Carroll $83 mil.** A judge dismissed the Disney case against Ron DeSantis. 

***** 

Shucked will be a film. 

***** 

Say Something is the tip line provided by Sandy Hook Promise. A recent study in the Journal of Pediatrics looked to study one of the 23 states that provides the service. Of the 18,000 tips submitted from 2019- 2023, 10% referred to a firearm. The tips prevented 38 instances of school violence, and more than 100 planned suicides. There were a thousand mental health interventions. More than 42,000 people have died from gun related injuries in 2023. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens. 

***** 

Jason Reitman is bringing us SNL1975 with Gabriel LaBelle playing Lorne Michaels. The film will also star Cooper Hoffman and Rachel Sennott. 

***** 

Alec Baldwin was indicted again for involuntary manslaughter. 

***** 

Fire ants have gone a bit nuts in Australia. 

***** 

A woman can’t be Vice President.  - Meghan McCain 

***** 

An ancient city was discovered in the Amazon in the 70’s. After 25 years of research there are some findings. Scientists feel this is the oldest settled site in the Amazon. It was built about 2,500 years ago with thousands of platforms and a system of roads and canals. The civilization may have been bigger than the ancient societies in Mexico and Central America. 

***** 

Riley Keough is finishing up Lisa Marie’s memoir and we should see it by October 15. 

***** 

Ban dictionaries? OMG!!! Florida laws have led some schools to take out the dictionaries. 

***** 

Super/Man is a new documentary about Christopher Reeve. 

***** 

Look for a new comic book about The Creature from the Black Lagoon. 

***** 

It’s awards season!!!!!!! 

The Golden Globes sure got some smack. Jo Koy was raked over the coals for his idea of hosting. He kept angrily making excuses and telling the crowd he didn’t write some of the jokes. What?? It is a tough gig and I can sympathize BUT I don’t think he said any terrible things but it was the way he said it. Everybody was talking about Taylor Swift but I didn’t see that she seemed angry, she often looks like that. I was taken aback by the Barbie thing. He was right, as Greta Gerwig pointed out that it was true that they made a movie about a doll with big boobs. I think it was the way he said it. He was so dismissive on a night that was sort of celebratory for women. To have a box office smash all around a woman theme was a breakthrough. He treated it like it could not compare to the ‘important’ movies. He made fun of their work instead of some of the actual celebrity eccentricities like a Gervais might do. I don’t know that it was the big deal the press made of it, just don’t ask him back. My best dressed were Issa Rae, Nicolas Cage, Rosamund Pike, Rachel Brosnahan, Brie Larson, Selena Gomez, Julia Garner, Andra Day, Taylor Swift, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Jim Gaffigan, Matt Rhys, Natasha Lyonne, Natalie Portman, Margot Robbie, Lenny Kravitz, Deacon Phillippe, Kristen Wiig, Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster and Emma Stone. The theme of the night seemed to be slicked back hair. Winners included Ricky Gervais, Davine Joy Randolph, Robert Downey Jr., Ali Wong, Lily Gladstone, Sarah Snook, Matt McFadden, Paul Giamatti and KIERAN CULKIN!! The whole audience stood when they called Culkin’s name which seemed to embarrass him but he so deserved it. There is always one older celeb who acts a bit strange, this year it was Kevin Costner who mumbled his banter and seemed to hate America Ferrera. They were an odd couple. A great couple was Martin Short and Meryl Streep who insist they are just good friends. They were so cute and I want them together in the worst way!! I was thrilled that the powers that be made this award show easy to watch. Award shows are very strict about keeping things on the network that broadcast the event. This show was on multiple sites. I always wonder about that because they don’t have enough ratings to be so selfish. 

***** 

The Critics Choice awards were hosted by Chelsea Handler who did a good job. To me, the best dressed were Jen Aniston, Carey Mulligan, Jodie Foster, Margot Robbie, Colman Domingo, Harvey Guillen, Chelsea Handler, Christina Ricci, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kieran Culkin, Alison Williams, Lenny Kravitz, Ali Wong, Mandy Moore, Rosamund Pike, Quinta Brunson, Bella Ramsey, Kaley Cuoco and Karen Pittman. I was so glad to see Ramon Rodriguez nominated!!!** Kieran Culkin won again!! Other winners include Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Ali Wong, Barbie, Oppenheimer, Succession and American Fiction. When Meryl Streep is nominated for tv, it reminds me of the Nascar Cup drivers that compete in the other races. She didn’t win anyway but it just doesn’t seem quite right. 

***** 

The 75th Emmys was hosted by Anthony Anderson and he did a good job too. His Mother was even better. TV theme songs were front and center. I think Mr. Anderson just really wanted to sing them!  My best dressed were Sheryl Lee Ralph, Rhea Seehorn (who I was really routing for but no win), Ken and Tran Jeong, Alan Ruck, Dominique Fishback, Taylor Tomlinson, Brian Cox, Ali Wong (she nailed it at every show), Niecy Nash, Joy Sunday, Sarah Snook, Briga Heelan, Katherine Hiegel, Jenna Ortega, Donald Glover, Giancarlo Esposito, Jessica Chastain, Mario Bello, Keiran and Jazz, Claire Danes and Riley Keough. Princess Poppy stood out for the Green Goblin look. I was most excited to see Holland Taylor, Marla Gibbs, the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel cast and Carol Burnett. Winners include Kieran again, Quinta Brunson, Niecy Nash-Betts, Sarah Snook, The Daily Show with Trever Noah and Succession. I laughed the most when the It’s Always Sunny cast came on. Give those funny humans some love academy!!!!** Seriously, I liked the winners in any Saul category that won but Better Call Saul was so overdue with 0 for 53. They did set a record though for the most nominated show that never won.** Kieran Culkin may be doing a comedy next. ** Listen to a drag queen.- RuPaul 

***** 

The BAFTA noms were announced and include Barbie, The Color Purple, Poor Things, All of us strangers, Napolean, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Oppenheimer and American Fiction. 

***** 

The Oscar noms were also announced with love for Cillian Murphy, Jeffrey Wright, Colman Domingo, Paul Gimatti ,Lily Gladstone, Emma Stone, Robbie Robertson, Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Robert DeNiro, Robert Downey Jr and Ryan Gosling. Scorsese now has had more nominations (10) than any other living director. People made much about Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie not getting noms for directing and acting respectively. I get that but for once I agree with Whoopi Goldberg who said, “Not everybody gets a prize!” I mean there are only so many slots.* * The Oscars will broadcast on March 10. 

***** 

Great Kurt Russel stories have come to light, thanks to his children. Kurt beat up Tex Watson, he was there after the Bronco chase and had a plate of food stolen by Ted Bundy! This guy is full of surprises! 

***** 

Turkey has approved Sweden’s NATO membership. 

***** 

Sexual assault news: Vince McMahon and his former head of talent at WWE, John Laurinaitis have been sued for sexual abuse and sex trafficking. ** Caroline Manzo sued Bravo over sexual harassment and assault by Brandi Glanville. 

***** 

Sean Kehoe and Kirra Potts have sued Pauly Shore for assault and battery from a 2022 incident. 

***** 

Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny will star in the Lyle and Eric Menendez story. 

***** 

A U.S. Judge has blocked Jetblue from acquiring Spirit Airlines. 

***** 

Marlon Wayans will star in GOAT from Jordan Peele. 

***** 

Why does Bill Maher have such a crush on Elon Musk? He was teasing celebs in a little bit on his show but after Elon, he giggled that he was kidding like he can’t offend the dude.  And, he is still bitching about that Barbie movie. ** And, did a poll really say Maher was the most trusted man in America? 

***** 

People sure seem to be upset about the way the NFL is broadcasting this season. Games that they really want to see are on channels that a lot of people do not have. $$$ just to watch football. ** I will never understand why teams are allowed to run out the clock. They should be actually playing football and still trying to win. It is wrong!!  

***** 

It sounds like we have a new cult to worry about. The University of Cosmic Intelligence of Missouri seems to be run by a convicted child molester from prison. Rashad Jamal has about 200,000 subscribers on YouTube. Six people have turned up missing. 

***** 

Can’t wait for the film, A Real Pain with Keiran Culkin, Jennifer Grey and Jesse Eisenberg. 

***** 

The Superbowl is here with Kansas City and San Fransisco. They are already bombarding us with commercials for their commercials. How did this country come to love this day so much?? 

***** 

Looks like it is time for a movie of the week about Elle King. Word is that she has had several drunken performances lately. It was the recent Dolly Parton tribute at the Opry that went awry. Her performance was filled with cussing for the family audience and struggling to get thru the song. I always respected her music so I hope she works it out. I am sure that Dolly will be on the case. The age old question of how the public will react in the long run will have to play out. Will she stay a rebel and get thru? Will she have a reality show or do rehab? Will she want to do anything? 

***** 

So, they give a woman a late night show and Taylor Tomlinson seems funny enough but they saddle her with a sort of game show where points don’t count and it’s about stupid internet stuff I am always trying to get away from. Just give a woman a show like the big boys. And while you’re at it.. A show for Bonnie Hunt. 

*****  

Will and Harper looks like a great film that shows Will Ferrell and friends journey thru another friends transition. 

***** 

It looks like Alabama loves the death penalty so much they are killing people twice. Nitrogen? Look, if it doesn’t work the first time, perhaps there is a reason to keep them alive. Yikes!! ** The UN has condemned Alabama for the execution. 

***** 

Kate of Wales had abdominal surgery which will sideline her for months. King Charles will also have a minor procedure and be gone for a bit. 

***** 

Pierce Brosnan pled not guilty to trespassing at Yellowstone. 

*****  

In the past 25 years, tobacco use among teens has dropped by 93%. 

***** 

LaPierre is out at the NRA for ‘health reasons.’ Andrew Arulanadam will be interim CEO. Membership has dropped from about 6 mil to 4 mil in the last few years. The corruption trial has started. The NY AG has already reached a settlement with former executive Josh Powell. The Director of Operations has reached a $100,000 agreement with her office and admitted to wrong doing by failing in his fiduciary responsibilities and a misuse of charitable funds. ** There is so much corruption all over the country in little stories throughout the right wing. Florida and Arizona and elsewhere in local papers have stories of illegal financial dealings, sex scandals and broke coffers. There are too many to mention here. Look it up! 

***** 

Westgate Resorts in Kissimmee Fla. canceled a Marjorie Taylor Greene event. The room was supposedly rented for a book signing but the venue found out this was really to be a commemoration of Jan.6. 

***** 

Nobody is sure why the sec. Of defense, Lloyd Austin kept his cancer diagnosis and procedure so hush hush. The President should probably know these things.  

***** 

Hungary’s far right, Our Homeland Party, says it will try to claim a western region of Ukraine that is Transcarpathia, if they lose the war. 

***** 

Trump thinks we need a dome over the country like a Simpsons movie, I guess. ** Trump complains about being in court when he is not required to attend. ** James Carville thinks we should use mockery and ridicule ala Mel Brooks and Mark Twain to get rid of Trump. Carville also asked the question, ”When was the last time Trump saw his dick?” ** Nikki Haley was victim of a swatting incident at her home in South Carolina last month. 

***** 

Aaron Rodgers has proved again what a schmuck he is as he accuses Jimmy Kimmel of being a pedophile. This particular mudslinging seems to be the go- to for dick heads everywhere now. It was reported that he was banned from ESPN but that turned out not to be true. Aaron was back in no time.** Charles Barcley said he would have hit him in the face. **ESPN had to return more than 30 Emmy’s to the television academy after it was discovered the network submitted fake names to get around eligibility rules.* * But.. Why was Kimmel interviewing Depend models and telling them, they would be humiliated the rest of their lives?” This product is crucial for a certain population of this world. I see these elderly and handicapped people everyday. Should they be humiliated too? And why should those models be humiliated? Seems like a real, honest job to me. 

***** 

Robert Kennedy Jr. Threw a party and nobody wanted to come. Martin Sheen, Dionne Warwick, Mike Tyson and Andre Bocelli were among the scheduled guests but none of them had agreed to come or even support his candidacy. The party was said to be a 70th Birthday/ fundraiser and even RFK did not show up. A pac calling themselves Fighting for one America has been blamed. 

***** 

New technology may have told us the identity of DB Cooper. The latest guess seems to be a Crucible steel worker employee named Vince Peterson. 

***** 

Peecycling (urine recycling) is becoming a thing. 

***** 

How to dance in Ohio is coming to Broadway. 

***** 

A nude man was nabbed from a Bass Pro in Alabama after he took a dive into the giant aquarium. 

***** 

Jon Stewart will be back hosting The Daily Show on Mondays. He is also Exec. Producer! 

***** 

The Walton kid actors have mentioned an Earl Hamner stamp. I think we need to look into that! 

***** 

Habitat for Humanity is looking to tear down an old nursing home in East Peoria, Il to build a little village of 5-8 homes for vets. 

***** 

R.I.P. Mickey Cottrell, Glynis Johns, war victims, Tom Johnson, Amanda Davies, Joyce Randolph, Chrissie Slusher- Philips, Norman Jewison, Mary Weiss, Marlena Shaw, Norm Snead, Bud Harrelson, Tanya Berezin, Phill Niblock, Alec Musser, school shooting victims, Bernice Johnson, Harry Johnson, Cindy Morgan, Tisa Farrow, Peter Crombie, April Ferry, John Bush, David Beckwith, Charles Osgood, Adam Harrison, Melanie, Gary Graham, Ruth Ashton Taylor, Harry Connick Sr., Chita Rivera, Dexter Scott King, Bill Hayes, Lynne Marta and David Soul. 

[dio-the-thot-exterminator]

reflections n stuff

Post about me trying to explain some of the projects I got going on. Hopefully, it makes sense lol.

I guess to start, most of my writing and projects are…comedic? I just want to embody tomfoolery. Some of the projects I was creating with my coauthor, I've mentioned them before. (LOL if you saw my rant that one time), (and it wasn't just once my ass can not stop mentioning it) (yes I'm mad). They basically stopped contributing so ALL the projects were put on hiatus. Yeah :/ but I refuse to let all those years of hard work sit inside a Google doc never to see the light of day again. So here we go. 

TSO22 (Completed)

Hiii its me and my story. Titled semi-censored bcuz i uploaded it to YouTube and you can literally search it up and I'm not ready for that yet.

Anyways My second short film!!!! With real actors and a production team so exciting!! It's about a witch who seeks revenge on some children who wronged her! She casts a spell on a toy plushie and makes it come to life. She sends the toy to kill Fuzzy Lilypill, Large Plumjum, and Final Baddie (judging by their names you can tell this is extra goofy). Honestly one of the best things I've ever done, it was so much fun. Even though the film is hella cringe (kind of the point) it makes me laugh…like a lot and that's all that matters.

I need to tell everyone about the top-tier advertising like the way everyone pitched in to help was wild. We had lil signs and business cards and everything! The advertising was how I was able to book the actor who played Final Baddie!!

And ugh the bloopers in this film are so silly they were a lot of them bcuz nobody here has ever starred in a film before and it was a little awkward at first. But once everyone understood that this was just for fun and not really that serious we got some good content.

(Now I also need to do some complaining like I literally had to get down on my hands and knees and beg people to join. It was not fun. Why doesn't anyone want to create things anymore so sad) 

The Internship (Partial)

Yes yes yes all me. This was a script that I had written for another short film! It's self-explanatory.

The Killer finds out that the internship they applied for was given to one of their classmates! This can not be! Filled with rage the killer kills that bitch and the victim's friend group because of jealousy and whatnot. Since the first pick is…well dead, the killer gets a callback and now the internship is theirs! Wow what a happy ending. I’m actually living for this script :)

I did multiple rewrites and created some google form sign-up sheets for people to join the project.

created a storyboard of the film (will search for it later).

And I started creating a custom score for it as well.

Unfortunately, no one wanted to join :( so it never came to life. That being said, once I find an animation app and learn how to animate, it's over for you hoes. And I guess this goes for all my future films lmao. (unless I actually find people to star in them praying I do tbh). 

Beastly Bordello (wip)

This was a project we (me and my coauthor) started in middle school. It went through lots of rewrites like Jesus Christ. The first pass was garbage. I was crying when I reread it omg.

Anyways. How do I say this with the least amount of spoilers? There are 3 “books”, The first book draft is “complete”, we have the whole thing outlined, the first 2 chapters ready, and just need to fill out the meat of the texts a bit more.

This part of the story follows the human characters. We have the main character Debbie Smith, she is basically a bum loser 😷 and everyone hates her (it’s giving depressed!abused!timid! reader). We have Meredith Castaño who is like her cool best friend 😎 (I've drawn her with Dina. A side character who may or may not be her boo). And then we have Becky Maurice, Hanna Peters, and Lisa Blake (We call them BHL) . They are like the mean girl trio 🤬. Book 1 is meant to be a typical 2000s high school movie. Dare I say a “coming of age story” smh.

Becky is out for revenge and will stop at nothing to make Debbie's life a living hell (we are just bullying Debbie for 200+ pages).

On top of that, we discover that Debbie's homelife is not so good ���� with her abusive parents 😭 and terminally sick sister, how will Debbie move on to the next phase of her life as she approaches high school graduation and adulthood 😱?

Omg the girls are camping! How fun! (totally not a slasher movie waiting to happen and 100% does not have a musical mid-way through).

People are dying 🪦!! Kids are going missing!?!?! Does this have anything to do with Debbie’s mysterious nightmares 🧠!? She's always had them, as she’s gotten older they’ve become more frequent, almost every day, and she even starts seeing 👀and hearing 👂 things while she's awake?

That's so scary. Oh nooooo she knows doom approaches and she is powerless to stop it :( silly silly complicit Debbie.

Like damn her life couldn't get any worse…and then BAM bitch it does!!! OMG supernatural 👹tingz and bloods🩸and crips 🔵 murder 🔪and oh shoot people are being kidnapped. Yikes.

This is book 1, Book 2 and 3 are not written yet (and honestly might not be written as I do not have my coauthor helping and it is a very ambitious project). As I said, we do have supernatural characters. The creatures. I'm pretty sure you've seen Octavia at least once? Maybe. We have our big baddies like The Lord, The Madam, The Master, The Empress, The Doctor, The Scientist, etc. Then we have our “good” creatures? They are just mf who were also kidnapped, like Alexa, Alexis, Mackenzie, Amelia etc. damn that's a lot of names that start with A.

This is reaching the spoiler zone so not sure if I should go farther. Anyway they work together to try and escape and find out where they are, why they were kidnapped and try to get home etc etc. More death and murder, staples in my work :P

This project has the most progress on it, if you go into the Beastly Bordello tag you can find some of the character designs. Not all tho because a lot of them…were meant to be drawn by the coauthor and I never got themmmmmmmm 🙄🙄.

I like really REALLY wanna continue this but gotdamn it's a lot of work and I get so discouraged easily <- lying my ass was carrying this book by myself for like 3 years.

If anything I'll design the rest of the creatures by myself. That's all I see myself doing, for now, oof. 

Beastly Bordello: The Musical (Completed)

LMAOOO THIS WAS A PROJECT I HAD TO DO FOR CLASS!!!

I had to make a jukebox musical thing and I chose the wonderful Emilie Autumn. The script is short, just around 36 pages and it’s like a transition between book 2 and book 3.

It follows The Madam and she is processing the new shipment of humans she just got in.

Which would be our lovely main characters (Debbie, Meredith, BHL, etc) and we are given a little tour of the brothel (is not actually a brothel we just call it that, think of it more as a farm, a meat farm).

We meet the other characters like The Master and those lil goat mfs (main characters in the original original beastly bordello). We also get a brief introduction to our main creatures (monsters) like Mackenzie, Jia, Isla, Amelia etc (you’ve seen them before).

They then get tagged by The Doctor and The Scientist (I love those gay niggas)

And then everyone gets split up and Debbie finally meets Octavia.

What do people say? OOC? I think that means out of character? Because we have to make everything fit the song, so they just be saying stuff at one point. But shhhhhhhhhhh it's okay.

Anyway, It's just more foolishness and camp and because it's a musical it gets stupid. But I love it either way. That's what I aim for yessir, like wow something beastly bordello related that I actually completed. Wild. 

Adventure to Find Jelly (wip)

 Hiii another middle school project, I was working on this with my coauthor. Okok let's see how do i explain this with no spoilers. This is apart of our “sentient object” universe.

It takes place in an apartment and the family has gone away to visit relatives so now every object can come to life and do what they want.

The story follows Peanut Butter (PB) 🥜, a quiet and kind jar of peanut butter who is tired 🥱 of living the simple life. And decides to sneak out of the cabinet to go to the club (inside a closet) and that day he meets Jelly🪼(she a jar of jelly but they ain’t have the right emojis)

She is the new girl in town (the family got her from the grocery store before they left). They instantly fall in love😍 and Omg this would be like his first girlfriend, PB finally got bitches 😤.

They spend a lot of time doing couple stuff 😘 bcuz PB never got to do any of that before. Jelly is very sweet and loving 🧐 but…something is off about her…just a little 😨.

PB doesn't seem to notice nor care. But his cooler 🍆 asshole brother (who is super overprotective) tells him not to trust Jelly and leave her🙅🏿.

PB’s parents are angry 😡 and disgusted 🤮 that PB would disobey them and go to the club🕺🏿. And spend a lot of his time outside the cabinet instead of staying at home and being a good son 🤓.

PB is tired of people thinking he aint that guy 🥲 and he decided to run away 🏃🏿 to live a life with jelly.

But in a twist of events 👃, when PB arrives at Jelly’s cabinet he discovers it trashed 🗑️💢!!! And jelly is missing 😱😱😱😱😱!!

He tries to tell the police 🚔but they don't believe him, they’ve never heard of anyone called jelly 🪼 before.

PB is confused but figures out he has to do this on his own 🦸🏿‼️, he has to go on an adventure to find jelly.

It's very cheesy but like my other stories it involved murder and drama. So it's not uneventful . Hmmm we outlined 10 chapters. And started outlining the sequel book. But we never actually started writing any of it.

I’m pretty sure some of you have seen jelly before. And possibly PB because I was just given his design a couple days ago. I'm definitely going to continue making art of them, and hopefully, we’ll get Sunbutter soon. But I'm not sure about writing out the rest of the story. It's a lil problematic.

Being A Fruit (wip)

Middle school project strikes again and yes you guessed it my coauthor was involved as well. Another story taking place in our “Sentient Object” universe.

From the title you can tell this series was going to involve all the fruit characters. Bananas, strawberries, apples, etc and I think I designed a good portion of the characters too. But y'all when I say drama. I mean DRAMA. Like “how to get away with murder” type drama. This story is batshit. And it's 10x more stupid because it involves lil fruits.

I'm going to quote this for you: our strawberry character Rosette is traumatized because she “watched entire family get chopped into a fruit salad”. And then we have our villain who “loves to abduct baby fruits”.

Besides character bg we don't have any chapters drafted. But to be fair we were going to make this into a mock podcast. Like the character fruits were going to call in and tell their stories, and the radio host would have to piece together what happened. And if someone stopped calling in then they got killed oop.

Because this is like a one-off, if anything has a chance to make a comeback it's this one. Idk if anyone would want this tho besides me. Because I will go crazy in the google doc and write this myself. This story is wild. 

When Two Erasers Touch

Damn did I peak at middle school? Another coauthor and me classic. This was I think the first book in our “Sentient Object” universe.

It is about lesbian erasers. Our first love story! They find each other bcuz their humans bring them to school and they chill inside a desk or something. I think we only wrote 2 chapters for this. We love a trendsetter though.

I don't think our two erasers Jika and Marei will make a comeback. But omg I am just rereading the chapters and is soo melodramatic!!! These lil erasers are going through it. Ok, I won't make any promises but…maybe we might do like a throwback chapter. Just once. Maybe. I'm not really a fan of Romance but It's so dramatic I can't even describe it. 

The Hecatomb Trilogy (wip)

Finally! Something recent and does not involve my coauthor. This is one of the stories that came to me in a dream. It's hard to recall because my dumb ass didn't type or write down all the information.

I drafted the introduction and the dialogue 10/10. It's a horror movie (I say movie but it's a book bcuz everything is a movie to me). Slasher movie, of course, just a lot of carnage and ridiculous stuff. I don't have much but I have a note on the side of the google doc, that says “3 survivors bond throughout the story, connecting over their trauma and become a polycule.”

So… I have priorities lol. The first movie takes place in the neighborhood and just follows everyday people, dying you know. The second movie is meant to take place in a hospital following the survivors. And the third and final film is meant to reveal who the killer is and their backstory.

From what I have written it just says the killer is dressed in all-black leather and is super strong ;P Damn now I kinda wanna pick this back up again and put some thought into it. I see the potential ngl. We'll see. Who knows. 

Adherence (wip)

All me this time. Another story that came to me in a dream. And I think everyone needs to write a gay vampire story once in their life. This one is mine. I guess it classifies as a slice of life? It's just a cute lil story about the “last” vampire adjusting to the modern world and falling in love with his would-be victim.

They do things like go to the corner store <3 and get robbed afterwards LMAOOO. The MC has to chase a naked vampire around the apartment bcuz that nigga is scared of the shower at his big age... The Vamp fucking loves modern tech and is thoroughly entertained by it. His favourite is those little toy bears that you find at like CVS and u press a button and they start dancing. The vamp meets his neighbor and she does his nails.

Just a lot of shenanigans and also of course killing. I know I keep talking about the dialogue but my god it's working my pussy out.

Damn…is this my humor? Idk why I'm surprised. Hmmmm I would want to complete some of my other projects before I start working on this. But who knows. 

(SU pearl and pink diamond fanfic) wip

I don't wanna claim this. I wrote a pearl and pink diamond fanfic on wattpad back in the day. And I actually got one of my SU friends to read it. It was great. I don't remember the name tho but I wrote like 8 chapters of it and I'm proud I made it that far. Scared to actually read my old writing so I will not be searching for it. Just know it is out there. 

_____________

And so soooo much more that I don't feel like listing atm. anyways sorry for typos i am not editing this i'm tired.

Ask questions if you want to, uhhhhh you wanna make something? I'll be happy to help, yeye byee

[strapinandstraponyourstrapons]

apologies in advance:

sooooooooooo this prompted me to go ahead and make a thiam playlist and an honest to god graph with each song and my headcanons about them, which i have un-graphed and put below. in my defence, i had other tasks i didnt want to do so my adhd/thiam brain rot went brrrrrrr

its not in any particular order except the first three songs. the first two are from thiam moments in the show and the third is from the fandom. the rest are just me projecting thiam onto a bunch of the songs i listen to regularly because i’m literally thinking about these two idiots all the time and it’s fine i’ll get therapy one day. also feel free to ignore, like, all of this. i know absolutely nobody cares except me but like i physically could not restrain myself from doing this.

unless anyone does care, in which case please tell me your thiam songs  and headcanons because i love this shit sm!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/23lQqA3OtZen4Zsoxwq8vG?si=3e9830ed2f7b4999

Wildest Ones - Zayde Wolf

from the scene where theo reverses into the ghost rider :)

Nobody Knows (feat. WYNNE) - Autograf

that conversation in theo’s truck after the zoo. as far as i’m concerned this is THE thiam song.

The Great War - Taylor Swift

i have seen sooooooo many ts songs associated with thiam in this fandom bc… you’re all mentally well cisgendered straight people, obviously (sarcasm)

anyway have seen multiple posts about this particular song being thiam and i agree.

Blackened and Bruised - Nakhane

omg this song is so THEM to me i almost don’t have words i just… ugh. the first verse to me is like theo wanting at first to dismiss the things about liam that keep carving his heart open and leaving him vulnerable, but he can’t. he loves liam and his emotions that theo should find stupid and just a weakness to manipulate. he can’t help but want to protect liam from the dangers of the world, and from himself, so that he won’t end up like theo.

~i thought i said keep it far away from me, don’t get it closer, keep it far away from me. tell me your fears young man, so we can laugh at them, like me laughing at the growl of a raging pup~

and for liam, he’s surprised when he looks at theo and begins to see the boy that the dread doctors did their best to kill. the truly good boy they corrupted, that taught them how to do it with mason.

~i never thought i’d find what i found in you. amongst the warring crowds you saw me too. and now i know i love what they hated in you. we’ll get it back, what they took from you~

Chimera - HANA

other than bc of the name, this is one of my favourite songs ever and i had to include it. i feel like this song is about an enemy hurting liam and theo being like “honey, you’ve got a big storm comin :D”

~the things i could do, if you only knew, you’d pray that i cut you loose~

Play Destroy - Poppy and Grimes

listening to this song i got an image in my head of theo and liam going to the dread doctors’ old lab (i think they make their way around to all the places the dread doctors have ever been that theo knows about tbh) and just going bonkers with baseball bats and crowbars and their claws. the rest of the puppy pack probably comes sometimes too to let off steam and get to feel like stupid teenagers hanging out and destroying property. for liam it helps with the anger sometimes and for theo it’s one of the more lighthearted ways he can face some of his traumatic past

~this is how we play it, this is how we play destroy~

Getaway Ride - Ramona Lisa

partially due to airplanes and the way they freakin zoomed outta beacon hills (and later the motel in idaho) like they were being pursued, but also these boys’ love story has so much to do with that big blue compensation truck <3

~no talking, baby, just the slam of the doors of our getaway ride~

Slip Away - Perfume Genius

not only a song about gay love but about ignoring what everyone else has to say about it, which may be necessary when your boyfriend is a reformed murderer

~they’ll never break the shape we take~

Bullet With Butterfly Wings - The Smashing Pumpkins

my headcanon is that theo sets the chorus as liam’s ringtone to be a little shit, and when liam finds out he protests that he is very much not a rat.

~despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage~

Wolves - Garbage

honestly we’re lucky i only snuck one garbage song on here. when i listen to this one i think of liam as the first verse and theo as the second, while they’re still at a stage where all they can do is take their anger out on each other, but tbh the entire thing could also be theo having the emotional range of a teaspoon

~i was busy picking up the pieces of my broken heart, i stand accused and maybe on reflection got a little cruel~

SELF-SABOTAGE - Waterparks

this is straight up just theo not knowing how to do feelings or let himself have anything nice

~i’ll destroy chances to be better than i was before you and me… what the fuck is wrong with me?~

Soft Universe - AURORA

couldn’t be a playlist of mine without several aurora songs. this one is about thiam hiding in their own safe, soft little world in each others’ company

~chaos came, we laid our head down on the feather cotton bed, you find a heart and catch your breath, let the universe go red~

Ocean of Tears - Caroline Polachek

it also couldn’t be a playlist of mine without several cp songs. i think this one is about knowing they’re going to fall in love, even though it will take time before it becomes easy for either of them

~this is gonna be torture, before it’s sublime, does that make it crazy?~

Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears

they scream this in the truck with the windows down at some point. i don’t have a good reason why, this song just contains the serotonin and i need that in my life

~help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts forever~

Boys Do Cry - Piff Marti

this one kinda goes on the puppy pack playlist i made in tandem with this one but i fully know for a fact that mason holds the the aux in theo’s truck hostage to play this on multiple occasions and sends the link in their dms or the puppy pack chat whenever he feels it’s relevant, so much that theo just looks at the link and rolls his eyes bc he knows. i mean what are friends for if not to bully you into looking after yourself. like “your mental health is an actual joke fam go to therapy. ily, drink water” kinda thing.

~if you cry because you sad you ain’t no bitch, you a bitch if you let it eat you up til the point it get lethal and cause you let it build up you done took it out on your people, especially ones that treat you with love~

Awoken - Glaze

god this song is just classic reformed villain angst and i love it to death. there’s really nothing to be said except that this song is l i t e r a l l y theo. literally.

~i’ve stoked the fire, seen more pain than you can know, the tears of the broken have washed away my soul, pushed by desire to change the way my stream will flow, now i’ve awoken and i’m taking back control~

Weregild - Grimes

this song lyrically makes about as much sense as any early grimes songs and summed up is kinda just like “imma getchu” but look it mentions werewolves and i vibe with it. it makes me imagine theo teaching liam to full shift and them going on runs in the preserve at night.

~werewolves, werewolves, skies will brighten~

Bloom For Me - Pearly Drops

honestly this song is so euphoric i just want to bless more ppl with it but anyway this song is liam knowing when theo is covering up his emotions and liam being the only person theo can’t hide from or lie to

~there is a cord winding around your core, the more you fight the more that you will choke~

Billions - Caroline Polachek

BOOM i told you caroline would make another appearance (technically this is her third bc ramona lisa is a pseudonym but shhhhhhh). this song is just sexy and theo is definitely psycho, priceless, and good in a crisis.

~salty flavour, lies like a sailor, but he loves like a painter~

Gentle Earthquakes - AURORA

apparently this portion of the playlist is just “they fuck” but ummm look. anyway i only realised from hearing aurora talk about it explicitly that this song is literally about orgasms because its so gorgeous and sweet. it simply has to go here because i’ve read some truly wholesome smut scenes in this fandom when i never expected to. and i just think its neat :) 

~twisted body parts moving synchronised, watching lightning strike in my lover’s eyes, all the flowers grow to a luscious field, all connecting love becomes a human shield~

Violence - Grimes, i_o

aaaand grimes is back, fight me about it. this song is about begging someone to do violence on you which like… nuff said.

~you wanna make me bad, pay me back, and i like it like that, said i like it like that~

does anyone have any thiam playlists/songs?

[nightowlfandom]

Bully! Park Jimin- I’m Your Devil (DIRRRRTTYY)

So...I got a new computer and I have no clue how to screenshot on it as of now...and tbh I don’t feel like figuring out how. SO I’m gonna be experimenting with some layouts but until then you just have these annoying announcements.

Anyways, ANON ASKS  🧑🏿‍🎤  🧑🏿‍🎤  🧑🏿‍🎤 (you know who you are wink wink)

may I request a really aggressive schoolbully!jimin / sadistic!jimin smut inspired by the songs daddy issues, into it, and the hills :) 

Y’all some masochists but I ain’t mad.

Just know ya worth and if anyone treats you like this in real life, punch them in the balls. That being said, This is also LOOOONG. I didn’t plan for it to be but yeah. ALSO I GOT YOUR OTHER ASK SO I GOT CHU. I’m not sure if this is good but I hope I did you justice.

Reader who isn’t a virgin, really mean bully man, more foreplay than actual smut lol sorry, touch of diet-angst

Leggo.

...

“Okay class, what do you think the author was trying to say when she was describing her relationship with Damien?”

You sat at your desk, chin propped up in your hand as you gazed off longingly into space. This was one of the rare times you decided to pay attention because your class was reading your favorite book. “The Young Devil” (Completely made up lol). 

“She’s obviously a broken woman if she thinks Damien is ever gonna change his ways. She’s a stiff.” a comment made you practically fall forward. You turned your head to find the culprit of who said such a thing about your favorite character. “Anyways, she’s too safe. She couldn’t handle his issues.”

“Well maybe if Damien made an effort to open himself up, Belle wouldn’t have to pry so hard.” another girl rolled her eyes. “Men always think women can’t handle what they throw when in reality we take the heat for your dumb asses.”

“Interesting conversation. Y/N, what do you think?” the teacher took note that you were paying more attention and turned her sights on you. “What do you think about the dynamic between Damien and Belle?”

You cursed yourself for looking too interested. You hated speaking. “I...Um.” you opened your mouth and closed it again, unsure of what to say. “I think Damien’s refusal to allow Belle to see the other side of him not only puts their mental connection at risk, but physical as well.” you replied. 

“What do you mean physical?” she egged you on to elaborate. “As in sex?”

“W-well, yes and no.” you shrugged. “Belle prides herself on building connection through touch. She can’t have sex with Damien because she doesn’t feel loved by him. To him sex is just a thing you do. He gets his pleasure from bullying her, that’s his high.” you explained. “She claims she doesn’t care but if she didn’t, she wouldn’t spend her time wishing he was different...or something.” you played with your hands, staring down at your fingers.

The teacher stared at you before a smile broke out on her face. “Excellent analysis, Y/N!” she clapped her hands together. You returned the smile with the tiny bit of confidence that built up inside you. “Yes, Jimin did you have something you wanted to add?”

You turned your head to find the always mouthy Park Jimin lazily raising his hand. “She likes being bullied by him.” he said as if it was a matter of fact. 

“Excuse you?” you couldn’t help but speak out. Suddenly the entire class was quiet. They had never heard you speak so abruptly before. “What the hell do you mean she likes it.”

“She wouldn’t put up with it if she didn’t like it.” he raised an eyebrow. “She could just tell him to leave her alone, get lost or something.”

“How in the hell would Belle enjoy someone like Damien embarrassing her every minute he gets. Are we reading the same book?” you sat up straight crossing your arms. 

“Now this is getting interesting.” the teacher mumbled.

“You can tell by her actions. The rush of her blood when she blushes, the way she stammers over her words, the way she listens to his every word...much like you are right now, princess.” he winked. His smug grin alone made your blood boil.

“Oh and I suppose his possessive ways are warranted in your eyes too aren’t they.” you scoffed.

“Maybe, I mean she even says herself she feels cared about.” he shrugged.

“Because Damien is a manipulative dickhead!” you snapped. “He obviously wants her around because she’s the only girl who gives a shit about his life and he’d feel lost without her.” you snarled. “Then again I would expect this point of view from a man who changes bitches like he changes his underwear.” (A/N we don’t hate women here).

“Language Miss. L/N.” the teacher spoke. You rolled your eyes, glaring at Jimin one last time before facing forward. The whole class was silent.

“Nice one Y/N” a girl on your opposite side nudges you.

“Not bad for a quiet girl.” a boy piped up.

...

As classes were let out for the day you wordlessly avoided the looks you got from your other classmates. You walked down the halls, holding your books tightly to your chest. 

“Oi, Hey L/N!” 

You weren’t sure if the sound of Jimin’s voice made you wanna speed up or slow down. It didn’t matter because he went as far as to run and stop right in front of you. 

“Um..What?” you looked up at him.

“Oh, not excited to see me?” he scoffed with a sadistic smile. You didn’t know what he was planning but you didn’t like it. “Way to try and debate me in class today, who knew you had a mouth on you.”

“I was just answering the teachers question..I don’t want any trouble..” you clutched your books even tighter. Before he could reply a girl ran up, practically attaching herself to him. 

“JIMMY YOU HAVE DANCE PRACTICE!” she practically screeched. “Why are you talking to her?”

“Oh...Y/N here was-” he paused. “Just confessing her undying love for me!”

“What! No I wasn’t!” you tried to deny, but it was too late. Everyone who was around heard him. “I don’t have a crush on you!” You felt your face heart up.

“Oh Y/N, You don’t have to hide it! Why else would you speak to me passionately in class today.” his sick grin never left his face. You could tell this was his revenge for embarrassing him in class. “You were telling me all about how you couldn’t sleep another night without telling me. How you want me in more ways than one.”

He spoke loud enough so others could hear.

“That’s not true!” you snapped. You were trembling. Humiliation filled your body and was overflowing, much like the tears of embarrassment you couldn’t fight anymore. “I’m not in love with you.”

“Oh Y/N, you don’t have to hide it anymore. I know everything. The love letters, the staring-”

“What?!”

But it was too late, people were already giggling and staring at you with pity. You took one last look at Jimin, who was already walking away, gleefully accepting the high fives from the pigs who dared to say ‘Nice score.’

“Are you alright, Y/N?’ a girl came up to you, putting her hand on your shoulder. “Should we go to the headmaster?” 

You didn’t answer, you just ran. You ran out the school, unknowingly into the pouring rain. It seemed the sky matched your mood today. You let out all the tears, not caring who saw or who looked at you as if you had lost your mind. Your house was far, but you didn’t care about that either. In that moment you felt as helpless as the character you loved dearly, Belle. 

...

You ignored everyone the next day, even your small group of lunch buddies. You worked alone, you sat alone at lunch, and by the time free period had rolled around, you had opted to hide. However, just as you prepared yourself to leave, who else but Jimin to stopped you in the middle of the halls. 

“Well if it isn’t my little admirer!” Jimin spoke loud enough to capture the attention of those around you. He ‘accidentally’ slapped your books out of your hands. “Oh, I’m sorry Y/N...Go ahead, pick those up.”

Without another word you knelt down, only to have him kick one of your books to the side. “What’s this! A diary!” 

A brown and black leather bound hardcover book sat at his feet. You instantly scrambled to get it, but he had managed to get his hands on it. “Isn’t this interesting!” 

“Jimin please don’t-!” you stood up, forgetting about your textbooks.

“Dear friend,-” he cleared his throat dramatically as he flipped through the pages of your diary.

Dear journal,

My life is nothing like stories I read about all the time. Each and every night I’d wish for my handsome devil to come. Come and take me away from here, away from the hate, away from the commotion, away from Park fucking Jimin. I don’t know what I’ve done to make him hate me the way he does. I just wish he’d be nice to me...just once. But that is one wish I know won’t come true. He’s just a sadistic asshole who bullies me because he knows I won’t say a word.

So why do i-

You snatched the book out of his hands before he could read any more, this time you were seething with rage. “If you EVER touch my property again I will- I’ll-”

“You’ll do what princess?” he smiled cheekily. “You won’t do a thing to me and we both know it...you’re just like that Belle chick. That handsome devil of yours is just a fever dream, get over it-.”

“Maybe, but I’d rather live in a dream than talk to Satan himself.” you snapped. “You’re just the devil.” you whimpered. “Why do I even put up with you?” you sighed. Jimin suddenly stepped forward. You mentally prepared yourself for the worst.

You felt his lips touch the side of your mouth, had you moved just a bit more, he would have been on your lips. “Because you love me.”

....

“For this project, I will be assigning you partners

Oh shit...please no. God, no. Dear lord if anyone can hear-

“Alex and Jackson. Lisa and Mark, Y/N and Jimin-”

“Fuck.” you mouthed. You dared looked next to you. Jimin was playfully leaning his cheek against the palm of his hand. He winked at you, taking his bottom lip between his teeth. 

“You will be doing book reports on The Young Devil. You choose the topic, this is due in two weeks. I recommend you get together outside of school.”

As class let out, Jimin followed you. “Sooo, partner! When am I coming over?”

“When pigs fly.” you answered sourly.

“Saturday at 7:00 you said? I’ll be there!” he threw an arm around your waist. “See you there, babe.”

“You don’t even know my address!” you called after him as he walked off. That probably wasn’t the best idea because everyone was staring at you again. “NO! BECAUSE WE HAVE A PROJECT....Nevermind.” you groaned. 

... (Saturday 7:30 PM)

“You’re late.” you seethed as you pulled open the door. Jimin sauntered in and you slammed the door.

Soon it was silent between you two. Before he could open his mouth, you left him standing there to bolt up the stairs. Jimin, being himself followed you. To be honest, you were already starting without him.

“Do you live alone?” he asked, noticing how empty your home was.

“I do.” you replied curtly. “My parents travel around a lot, so I never see them.” you shrugged. “They help me out though.”

“So mommy and daddy take care of everything-”

“You don’t know me.” you cut him off. You sat down at your desk and pulled up your notes, proceeding to work. “They help me because they care...unlike some people.” you scoffed.  “Shut up so I can concentrate.”

“I thought this was a partner thing.” you heard your bed creak. “I think we should put out minds...maybe bodies together and think of a concept.”

“I already have one.” you cut him off.

“Enlighten me.”

“If Damien hadn’t changed by the end of the book, would Belle still be with him.” you mused aloud.

“Probably.”

“....” you didn’t reply, because you didn’t want to admit he was right. Probably the only time you’d ever agree with him on anything. 

“What? Still mad at me for reading your little diary?” he asked. Once again, you ignored him. Suddenly, your chair was turned around abruptly and you were now staring at a red faced Jimin. “I don’t like being ignored, doll.”

He was so close, your noses were practically touching. You froze up, afraid to move. 

“Why are you so mean?” you found yourself asking. “What did I ever do to you?”

“Other than refuse to drop that good girl act of yours? We’re a dysfunctional two peas in a pod. I’m an asshole and you’re too much of a stiff to stop me.”

“Act?” you looked confused. “I don’t have an act.” you attempted to defend yourself. 

“Hm...that face you make is kind of hot.” he smirked. He slid his fingertips under your chin. Your vision went blurry, unable to process everything. You absent-mindedly began playing with the hem of your sweater.

(SMUT AHEAD, PROCEED WITH CAUTION)

“What is your deal!?” you found yourself getting angry as you stood up. Jimin stepped back looking startled. “You’re messing with my fucking head and I’ve had enough! Jimin what did I ever do to you?” you felt it again. Humiliation. “I’m not asking you to be my friend but the least you could do is be nice to me!”

“I don’t do nice, sweetheart. Like you said, I’m the devil.” he walked up to you. “Your blush is like a drug to me.” he laughed. “It’s cute.” he rested his hands on either side of your face. “Fuck, I kinda wanna kiss you right now. Do you wanna kiss me?”

YES!

“Yes, I mean no! I mean yes- I mean maybe, I mean fuck!”

Not even a second later, Jimin’s lips were over yours. Despite his bullying, his kiss was gentle. You practically melted. He protectively wrapped an arm around your waist. Your thoughts on the project were long gone. Jimin couldn’t figure out why he felt so protective of you all of a sudden, but thoughts ran through his head. Thoughts that if anyone else kissed you, touched, you even looked your way...he’d go ballistic.

And fuck, you were a great kisser. He held the back of your head with his free hand, guiding you into his touch, which you followed perfectly. His tongue slid through the gap in your mouth, yearning to taste you more. You felt lightheaded as if your heart was about to give out. He pulled away, resting his forehead against yours.

“Maybe I’m so cruel because I don’t know how to act around you.” he whispered. “Maybe I’m trying to be the devil you want so bad.” you could see a flash of sadness in his eyes, which was quickly replaced with lust. “I wanna be your devil, Y/N...”

He kissed you again, this time his warm hands slithered under your clothes. You were by no means a virgin, but the way you felt made you feel shy and exposed. Jimin walked you back towards your bed and practically threw you on the plush surface while he rid himself of his shirt. Your bodies practically melted together, bodies meeting in a sweaty mass of limbs that explored one another. 

Be fumbled with your pants, almost tearing them off you. He gave you a sadistic smile before ghosting his lips over both your thighs. Your legs shook, trying to keep them steady. 

“Have you ever...done anything with anyone?” he asked.

“Once, but nothing special.” you admitted. “It was straight to the point.” you shrugged.

“Then I guess I have nothing to compete against.” he bit his lips. “You smell so good here.” he shuddered. “I wanna-”

He yanked down your panties next. His lips ghosted over your slit, pressing feather light kisses against you. 

You held your breath, unable to register what was going on. His fingers met your clit, sliding his fingers through your slickness. Before you could say another word, Jimin licked a stripe up your slit. You bucked your hips, only to be held down. He sucked harshly at your clit before playing with your little bud with his tongue. 

“F-fuh-” you couldn’t even muster up the words as Jimin played with you. 

“Fuck Y/N.” he groaned. You felt his fingers slid inside of you, coating his fingers in your water. “I don’t know what’s hotter, the look on your face or the way your-”

“D-don’t say it!” you cut him off. “I’m warning you!”

“What?” you could just see she shit-eating grin on his face. “You mean pussy? The way this pussy takes my fingers so well?” (Now from the top, make it drop- I’ll shut up)

He abruptly removed his fingers which made your back arch and lurch upwards. You sat up on his elbows only to witness Jimin rid himself on his pants and boxers. Your eyes widened when you saw his hardness. You couldn’t look away. 

“See something you like?” his voice made you snap out of it. He bit his lip with a grin. He grabbed your legs and aligned himself with you, teasing the hell out of your entrance, just barely touching you with his length. “Am I your devil, Y/N?”

“God, yes.” you couldn’t fight it anymore. 

Slowly, he slid in, groaning at the feel of you around his dick. “Shit Y/N...How the hell am I gonna move when you’re so t-tight. I won’t last 10 seconds.” he whimpered. He slowly thrust again, your juices creating a deep echo in the room. “Hah...Ungh...f-fu” he planted his hands on the bed, one either side of your head. “Y/N...You don’t know what you do to me.”

“J-jimin.” you mirrored his voice, wrapping your arms around his neck. “P-please?”

That was all the motivation he needed to start moving. 

Your moans and yells echoes through the room, the clapping sound of flesh hitting flesh bounced off the walls. Sweat kept your bodies practically glues together. His fingers moved everywhere. Grabbing your sweater that for some reason was still on, grabbing your legs to pull you back into him. Your face to move your hair out of the way so he could witness the euphoria written shamelessly on your face. His jaw went slack and he felt himself getting to that part, and he could tell you were close too.

You were first, practically convulsing under him, screams of his name escaping your lungs.

“ARGH, FUCK!” He followed suit and immediately removed himself from you, only to spray himself...all over your sweater and legs. He felt forward, practically shaking against you. He messily kissed you, not bothering to think about neatness as his tongue invaded your mouth for the umpteenth time.

“Mind if I crash here tonight?” he laughed as he plopped next to you. 

“Sure.” you breathlessly replied. “Project can wait till tomorrow.”

As you drifted off to sleep, Jimin shimmied out of bed and walked over to the open window. He felt the breeze on his skin and closed his eyes. “Please.” He whispered. “I want to treat her well...don’t let me fuck it up.” He silently wished before joining you in bed again, protectively wrapping his arms around you. “I’ll do anything for you, Y/N...I’m your devil....”

...

Cheesy ending I know but what did ya think?! 

[waffles-for-brunch]

This project began as an indirect response to a few negative tweets in the days following the Valentine's Day Destiel wedding. During such time that “certain sources” chose to speak against the impromptu "wedding" and state that the direction of the show never included sexuality or romance. Since this argument has sparked a bit of discourse as to the validity of Dean Winchester and Castiel's relationship and sexualities, I began this edit as an exploration of observations throughout the entire 15 season run of the series. (That's not to say that Sam does not also have his own impactful romances throughout the show -he does have several notable ones- but in his case they are never debated upon or erased.)

There are three complete edits linked below. The differences are explained in their descriptions. (I also recommend downloading for best quality rather than simply watching in the browser, but it’s your choice)

BiDeanEdit: (Click here to download)

Runtime: 18:04:44

File Size: 10.0 GB (10,741,415,805 bytes)

Series long compilation edit (in sequence) of Dean Winchester and Castiel’s relationships and intended expressions of their sexualities (ie interest in both genders). This edit focuses on their relationship as it develops with one another, their other notable relationships (DeanxBenny, CasxMeg, DeanxLisa, etc), and the framework around their sexualities with small scenes of expression (ie Dean in ‘Playthings’ or ‘Everybody Hates Hitler’, or early seasons Dean & his transgressions with women, or Cas in ‘Caged Heat’)

BiDeanMLMEdit: (Click here to download)

Runtime: 14:40:57

File Size: 8.05 GB (8,649,798,685 bytes)

Series long compilation edit (in sequence) of Dean Winchester and Castiel’s relationships and intended expressions of their sexualities. This one is the same as the last but with only MLM content (Otherwise referred to as ‘only the gay parts’). We focus on this more repressed side of their sexuality and see these clues laid out altogether in one fluid edit (these examples are also available in the previous edit, however are just not aligned beside any heterosexual content). DeanxCrowley, DeanxBenny, DeanxLee, DeanxCas, etc. 

DestielOnlyEdit: (Click here to download)

Runtime: 13:08:49

File Size: 7.17 GB (7,709,560,696 bytes)

Series long compilation edit (in sequence) of only Destiel related content. The same as the above edit, just simplified even more to only focus on Dean and Cas’ relationship over the years. 

Keep reading below to find my full analysis of the complete edit regarding these guys sexualities, relationships, and the parallels we can draw. 

To understand why it is that so many queer fans of Supernatural and other similar shows read queerness in characters and their relationships, we should look at the hays code established in 1930. At this time this certain code was established to monitor what was allowed to be depicted outright on film. Within the margins of what was to be stifled, was homosexuality. As such, filmmakers had to plant “queer-coded” seeds into the writing and subtext so that queer audiences watching could interpret these characters and relationships in this manner without the words and actions stating so outright. (At this time homosexuality could be depicted on film as long as said gay character was either a villain, caricature, or met an untimely end- feeding into the blossoming of the kill-your-gays trope. But that’s another topic for a later time.) 

As film changed over the years and times became more accepting of lgbt characters portrayals on screen outside of simple coding, this did not make the code obsolete. Queer-coding and queer-baiting are often used in media in present day as a way to pull in viewership. Networks are able to garner the best of both worlds, in a sense. They can draw in heterosexual audiences that may not want to watch queer media, whilst also drawing in queer audiences by coding some characters and relationships just enough to pull those viewers in. This works simply because there is such a lack of queer representation in most media that we’ll take what we can get. 

This is where Supernatural comes in. There is a reason that Supernatural and thus “Destiel” is known by some as “The Great American Queerbait.” This twelve years long gay slow-burn between one overly masculine character and his awkward angel best friend did not begin with the intention of romance or baiting, as many of these things generally don’t. However, once fans realized the chemistry between these two particular actors and characters, it became something blatantly written into the show. Sometimes jokingly, other times as legitimate moments of emotional intimacy between two characters. So to say that the show’s direction never included sexuality or romance is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. Just because something is not written in clear and concise wording right in your face, does not mean that it is nonexistent and that the writers did not know what they were writing into the show. (Not even to mention the actual love confession in 15x18, but I digress). 

We know very well that queer content has been written subtextually into media for the better part of seventy years. It is a language in media just as much as lighting is a language, just as much as certain camera angles, color design in costumes or set decor, and music design are languages. All of these, outside of the simple words said on screen, make up our media and these characters and our shows. Tv is a world of color, not black and white.

[[ further readings on the above topics: X X X X X ]] 

I decided upon this full edit encompassing both the female and male aspects of Dean Winchester and Castiel’s relationships & sexualities because oftentimes when we’re looking into potentially queer characters we tend to focus on the same sex attraction and neglect the opposite sex attraction. Both are very important to acknowledge and compare, if at the very least to view where they may overcompensate, where toxic masculinity may come into play, compulsory heterosexuality, trauma responses, etc. Sometimes what a character doesn’t do is just as important to interpret as what they do do. 

For instance, Dean Winchester. If we are to operate under the assumption that he is bisexual, any repression we witness throughout the series as to his male attraction is likely to be a result of his difficult upbringing, similar to most queer identifying people with childhood trauma. His father is a marine, the picture of manliness in which Dean himself blatantly embodies in an effort to impress and make his father proud in any way he can. Dean is already unlikely to seek out activities in any aspect of life of which might make John look at him in a different light (ie, in an every day setting, even simply watching Finding Dory- this is not something S1 Dean would have admitted to liking, but we see Dean in later seasons standing up for himself and his appreciation for it). 

Is it perhaps for this reason that we see Dean as an overly blatant and flirty ladies man in season 1 when John is still alive, while this side of him steadily declines as the series continues? It even becomes established in season 3- in light of Dean’s fears surrounding going to Hell, he enters an attitude for coping that Sam recognizes- hypermasculinity, promiscuity, deflection. Heightening the idea that this caricature of himself that he embodies is a mask that he wears in order to cope with something else. He is donning the image he assumes others think he should fit into. Sam calls him out on this through the years, and eventually this becomes something we see in him less and less as he feels more comfortable simply being himself. 

If we take into account the time of which this first season is filmed, this is 2005, a time where gay jokes were still funny and an overcompensating character was a joke attached to it. We see Dean built up in these first couple of seasons through this lens of jokes about a hyper-masculine character being mistaken for gay, however instead of this building up the masculinity to encourage a raging heterosexual characterization, this overcompensation is exactly what inadvertently sows the seeds of queer-coding. To queer watchers this reads as a deeply repressed character with childhood trauma who overcompensates when faced with observations of gayness and uses hypermasculinity to counteract these accusations. 

It is through circumstances such as “Bugs” in S1 or “Playthings” in S2 that we first see these ‘jokes.’ The brothers are mistaken as a gay couple. Dean being the more “masculine’ of the two characters has a blatant reaction to these situations (Overcompensating), and Sam’s lack of a reaction is what solidifies his own straightness all the more. Neither brother is homophobic (this becomes established as time goes on) so why would either have a problem with this mistake? Sam wouldn’t care because he’s clearly not gay- in fact, he usually just laughs it off. Dean would care because he wonders what about him looks gay? Do other people see it too? Do they know? What’s wrong with him? 

We also see another blatant example of this type of freakout in season 8. “Everybody Hates Hitler.”

(Images: “Playthings” S2xE11)

(Image below: S8 “Everybody Hates Hilter”)

We frame these situations in early seasons around girl of the week scenarios and brief bar flirtations. Have to make it clear that our manly straight character looks as manly and straight as possible. Dean is also in his 20s, he’s more carefree/not as traumatized yet, and he is a sexual man so he does sleep around quite a bit. What is notable, however, is how much this drops off in later seasons. As time goes on Dean seeks out less and less the fleeting encounters of one night stands, in favor of genuine connections- even if he himself frequently doubts his own ability to ever have a settle-down type of relationship or life. Lisa is the only long-term female romantic relationship Dean ever has throughout the series run, and this tentatively begins in season 5 and ends in season 6. 

Dean and Lisa’s relationship is founded more in a dream of something that Dean wants to be rather than who he actually is. Although he loves her, their bond is made through trauma and their relationship overall is reminiscent of a soldier who returned home from war with heavy PTSD and begins to burden the family that he will come to realize he doesn’t quite fit within anymore. 

Outside of this, his closest relationships from thereon out are between Benny, and Castiel. 

Let’s start with Benny. Throughout season 8 Benny is framed as an ex and his relationship with Dean directly parallels Sam and Amelia’s. Both brothers must confront their relationships with their ‘significant others’ and decide whether to cut them off or proceed. Both brothers found these people under circumstances in which they did not get along with them at first but were pushed together. Another person comes in the middle of their relationship (Amelia’s husband for Sam, or Cas/Sam for Benny). The brothers each resent the other’s significant other or the circumstances surrounding the relationship. Sam hates Benny because he is a vampire and Sam does not understand why Dean continually trusts him (which is a circumstance inherently queer-coded in itself for comparability to an unaccepting family). Dean does not care for Amelia simply for the fact that Sam chose her over looking for him in purgatory.

Other instances we see parallels between Sam’s romances and Dean’s:

“Sex and Violence” S4 siren: Nick(Siren)/Dean parallel to Sam/Dr Lady

Season 4: Ruby/Sam and Cas/Dean teamup parallels

S1 Dean pulling Sam from the fire away from Jess vs S12 Sam pulling Dean away from Cas who may die approaching Lucifer to fight

Season 8: Dean/Benny vs Sam/Amelia. Dean and Benny, since they’re essentially going through a breakup, are directly paralleled to Sam and Amelia and their breakup. See “Larp and the Real Girl” for Charlie and Dean’s conversation about Sam’s recent breakup and Charlie picking up on the fact that Dean might also be going through one. 

1x05 vs 8x07: Sam seeing Jessica on the sidewalk as they drive down the street vs Dean seeing Cas on the side of the road as he drives down the street

S11: Perhaps this one can be interpreted loosely and not necessarily romantic (esp on Sam’s end), but “O’ Brother Where Art Thou” both brothers are drawn to forces they actively fight against being drawn to. SamxLucifer and DeanxAmara. 

S11: “Beyond the Mat” not a relationship but with crushes/infatuations. Dean with Gunner Lawless and Sam with Rio. 

S15: Cas telling Dean that “We Are” real. vs Eileen being unsure what’s real and Sam kissing her and saying “I know that was real.”

S15: “The Trap” Dean loses all hope following the death of their friends and primarily Cas. Sam loses hope after Eileen’s death. Directly paralleled in the episode. (We also see Sam lose Eileen in 15x18, where Dean also loses Cas)

Additional parallels between Dean/Cas with anyone else:

Season 9/10: Cain/Colette vs Dean/Cas. “She only asked for one thing. To stop.” vs Cas asking Dean to “Stop”. Both circumstances referring to the Mark of Cain.

S12 “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” Lily (human)/Isham (angel) vs Dean (human)/ Cas (angel)

Led Zeppelin: This music means something within John/Mary’s relationship, which Dean directly acknowledges in 12x01 with Mary. We find out Dean has gifted Cas a mixtape of his “Top 13 Zepp Traxx” in 12x19. (the implications of Dean having made a mixtape for Cas, being its own point in a different discussion)

When Lucifer contacts a person to try and get them to open up to him, he uses their dead lover as a ploy. SamxJess, NickxSarah, VincexJen, DeanxCas - 15x19 when Lucifer calls Dean using Cas’ voice. 

The parallels of unreciprocated love/infatuation. DeanxCrowley and CasxHannah. Dean likes Crowley but clearly not the way that Crowley likes Dean. Cas likes Hannah like a friend or sister, but she keeps putting the moves on him for awhile and he appears deeply uncomfortable and has to shoot her down more than once. 

Parallels between Dean’s own relationships:

Dean in “Let it Bleed” torturing demons to find the location of Lisa and Ben vs Dean in Purgatory torturing monsters to find the location of Cas “The angel”

“The Rapture” opens in Dean’s dream which Cas visits and says he’s in trouble and gives Dean an address to go to immediately. “The Song Remains The Same” opens in Dean’s dream which Anna visits and says she’s in trouble and gives Dean an address to go to immediately. 

S6 Dean dodging calls from Lisa vs S12 Dean dodging Cas at the beginning of “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” (notable also how Sam treats both circumstances the same)

S11: “Into the Mystic” 11x11 Mildred tells Dean the key to living a long and happy life is to follow your heart. Later in the season “All in the Family” 11x21 When Casifer is still captured by Amara, she puts her hand to Cas’ heart and is able to connect with Dean to contact him. Hinting at the link between Cas and Dean’s “hearts.” 

Not necessarily a parallel but an observation. 7x01 when Cas is loaded up on God juice, and Dean has given up but Sam hasn’t and wants to talk to ‘the guy’, Dean says, “He’s not a guy, he’s God.” But in 11x18 Dean refuses to give up on Cas and let him continue to be possessed. Sam keeps speaking about Cas like he’s just a vessel and Dean says, “It? It’s not an it, Sam. It’s Cas.” Mostly this shows the development of their relationship and Dean’s willingness to continue to fight for him. 

Dean’s dream world with Pamela in S14, she says to Dean “How come you only want what you can’t have?” and in S15 during Cas’ confession scene he says to Dean, “The one thing I want, is something I know I can’t have.”

Before we delve into Dean and Castiel specifically, let’s explore a few more things regarding Dean. 

Let’s start with Cassie. This is Dean’s first romantic relationship we see on the show, and is arguably his first love. What is notable about her is her characterization and Dean in relation to her. We haven’t seen him in a relationship before, and thus this is the baseline to which we can draw how he is in this type of vulnerable state.

We see here that he is drawn to strong individuals. Cassie is a very strong willed character and can hold her own. She has a boldness about her. Dean appreciates that. We see similar in his next framed love interest: Jo Harvelle. Jo is another strong character, and though Dean sees her more as someone he needs to protect because she doesn’t have as much experience under her belt, he respects her intellect and strong will all the same. They connect through a love for hunting and mutual daddy issues. Personally, this is a relationship I view more as a little sister dynamic in a similar vein to Dean and Charlie, however this pairing is still worth noting because as it was written it was intended to potentially flourish into a romantic relationship. This did not pan out, though the seeds are still there. 

Next up is Anna. Again daddy issues are a solid connection these two hold, and while this relationship is more of a one-night-stand than anything else, there are still important points to be taken from this encounter. The first is just how much Dean cares. We don’t see very many sex scenes with Dean throughout the series, but of the ones we do see, it is apparent that he is a gentle and tender man. He cares. About even a single night with a woman. (Cassie, Anna, Lydia ’The Slice Girls”) This is a contrast to Dean’s general persona of the masculine straight promiscuous lady’s man. He has all the bravado of a man who ‘loves em and leaves em’, but in reality that is not who he is. This is another example of the faces Dean wears in front of certain people (and what he thinks they expect of him), and the person he is once he lets that mask fall. 

It may be important to note as well that Anna, (it is rumored) was originally meant to be more to Dean than this simple one night stand and connection. She was intended to become a romantic interest but, as it turned out, Dean and Cas had more chemistry so the arc that Anna was meant to follow was instead given to Castiel. 

It is another year until the apocalypse comes along, Sam dies, and Dean falls back into Lisa’s lap. While Lisa is another strong-willed woman who rolls with the punches, her lifestyle deviates from Dean’s usual romantic interests simply because of her offering of a normal life outside of everything he’s usually known. A life with her is dipping his toe into a life he could have had if he didn’t hold the weight of the world on his shoulders and hunt the things that go bump in the night.

This is Dean’s last “official” relationship of the series. After putting Lisa and Ben in danger by being someone that he cares about, Dean accepts that he’s simply not a guy that can have a normal life or a normal family. He cares about people and they get hurt. This is a weight he holds on his shoulders for the remainder of the show. He loves someone, or more accurately, they love him, and they’ll get hurt. End of story. It doesn’t help that immediately following this, Castiel “dies” too. 

Maybe it’s Lisa, maybe it’s Cas. Maybe it’s a combination of the two at this point in time, but Dean is never again the same when it comes to relationships after these events at the end of season 6. He becomes more cautious, tries to keep people an arm’s length away, and we even begin to see less and less promiscuity and flirting with miscellaneous women from this point on. 

Let’s talk about Castiel.

Although Dean has had various queer-coded moments throughout the beginning of the series and up to Castiel’s entrance in season 4, his minimal relationships up to this point have all been with women. Simply exploring the evolution of this relationship from Dean’s side of the picture, Dean doesn’t start to truly warm up to Castiel until perhaps the end of season 4. He begins the season unsure of the angel, perhaps even a bit afraid of him, before the two garner a sort of mutual respect as Dean begins to see that there’s more to him than simply an agent of heaven.

They’re friends in season 5. The quirky, strange angel that doesn’t understand social cues, stands too close, stares too much, and says things like “we’re making it up as we go” and “tonight you’re my little bitch.” He’s a far cry from the ethereal entity that showed up in Bobby’s kitchen just a year ago and threatened to toss Dean back into Hell. What really turns the curve, however, is “The End.” 

5 years in the future in the midst of an apocalyptic war, Cas is still around. He’s human and he’s stuck by Dean’s side through it all, even though this Dean is just a shadow of his former self. Then again, so is this Cas. But still, they stuck together. Dean isn’t used to that. He has very few people that have stuck by him for this many years. Could probably count them all on one hand at this point. Bobby and Sam at the top of the list. Everyone else either dies or leaves. And in this future, Bobby and Sam are dead, but Cas is still there.  

Dean has abandonment issues. His mother died when he was four, his dad was in and out emotionally and physically his entire upbringing, Sam left for Stanford the first chance he got. He’s got strings of dead friends and lost relationships surely in tow for years at this point, and half the time Dean has become accustomed to pushing people away before they have a chance to push him away first. (Ie Cassie, Lisa, often even Sam too at times). Cas won’t make these issues any better during their run together, but up to this point Cas hasn’t let him down. The simple fact that in this one future universe Cas had stuck by him, I’m sure that makes a big difference to Dean and actually may be imperative for their relationship going forward and the trust that forms between them. 

Something that becomes a large part of their relationship is Cas and Dean’s ability to have conversations with just their eyes. This is a shorthand that Dean is known to have with Sam on occasion, especially during times of combat. It takes a certain amount of intimacy and knowledge of the other person to be able to have a shorthand like this. The first instance we see this between them is quite possibly “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester,” when Dean convinces Cas that they can save the town. We see it again in the ‘beautiful room’ when Cas slams Dean up against the wall and Dean seems to understand what’s happening. Another instance, “The Song Remains the Same.” In a way, it’s a locking of eyes that just seems to say “trust me,” and they do. 

Sam wonders if Anna may be right. If killing him and scattering the pieces will stop this whole Lucifer vessel business. Sam asks Cas, Cas looks to Dean, they share a look, and Cas shuts Sam down. In all likelihood that plan could have worked, but Cas wouldn’t do that Dean. He wouldn’t do it to Sam either but at this point he’ll do anything at all for Dean. 

If we take a moment to consider Dean and Cas’ relationship here, it is unlike any of Dean’s previous ones. Dean never has this same kind of shorthand with any of his other relationships, save for possibly Benny to a certain extent. Cas is an odd guy, and Dean frequently describes him as such, but he finds it endearing (if “Free to be You and Me” is any indication this early in their relationship). The previous women in his life all had the same thing in common, that they’re strong willed, brave, and don’t put up with Dean’s shit when he’s being a shit. Cas does fit all this criteria, but he’s also someone that Dean has a hard time reading. Cas is so literal sometimes that Dean can’t tell what’s literal, what’s deadpan, and what’s just Cas’ personality as an angel. But at the end of the day, simply put, he likes him and he trusts him. Getting Dean Winchester’s full trust as quickly as Cas gets it is an anomaly all on its own. 

Dean’s female relationships are fairly surface level. They’re easy and fairly uncomplicated. Boy likes girl, girl likes boy. Girl gets mad at boy, relationship ends. Easy. Expected. His relationship with Cas isn’t easy. But the big endgame relationships seldom are. There’s blood, loss of trust, rebuilding, and there’s a pull that at the end of the day always brings them back to one another no matter how incredibly messy things get.  

And boy do things get messy. If we touch back into the end of season 6 where things end with Lisa and blow up with Cas, Dean is at an all time low in the relationship department. 

Dean takes Cas’ betrayal hard. Breakups are one thing. Leaving Lisa was expected. It was bound to happen eventually. Dean always knew that somewhere inside. He mourns leaving them, but knows it’s for the best. But with Cas’ betrayal at working with Crowley, he’s devastated all over again. 

Dean never expects his relationships to last forever, but again there’s a choice few people in his life he lets take up space on the list of those who might stick around. Bobby, Sam, Cas. I don’t think Lisa was ever on this list, as much as Dean wishes he could tell himself she and Ben were. But they weren’t. That relationship was a ticking time bomb. And when they nearly die because of his life and the creatures surrounding him every day, that’s the end of it.

Fast forward, season 7 is a time of mourning. He’s lost Lisa and Ben, he gets Cas back for all of 30 minutes before losing him all over again and never being able to repair that relationship. But he keeps the trenchcoat. Fishes it out of the lake, bundles it up, and keeps it in the back of every single car that he and Sam drive that year. 

Dean doesn’t keep mementos. Not of Cassie, not of Jo, Not of Anna, or even Lisa and Ben. No pictures, no items, just memories. You know what he does keep? He keeps his dad’s leather jacket, Bobby’s flask, pictures of he and Sam and his mom. Is keeping the trenchcoat in the back of the car for a year similar to those familial keepsakes? Maybe. But it’s also more than that. It’s covered in blood and lake water, and I’m sure Dean would explain it away that Cas was family and that’s why he kept the coat. Probably even believes that too. 

Then we have purgatory. 

Dean prays to Cas every night. He could get out of that place just on his own, but he stays there for months in full combat just to look for the angel and get him out with him.

“First we find the angel”

“Cas, we’re gettin’ out of here. We’re going home.”

“Cas, buddy, I need you.”

“Let me bottom line it for you. I’m not leaving here without you. Understand?”

“Cas, we’re gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

“It’s gonna work. Nobody gets left behind.”

When we meet Benny, Dean’s only other primary male pairing of consequence, he is not trusted. This team-up is one of strategy and a mutual goal only- at least at first. Dean and Benny fight well side by side, but the trust only runs so far. That is, until during one particular fight with leviathans in which Cas nearly bites it, Benny saves the angel’s life. This is the main turning point for Dean’s entire trust in Benny from here on out. 

“Benny has never let me down.” Dean says later to Sam. And he never did. He saved Cas, got Dean out of purgatory, and then later on he gets himself sent back to purgatory just so he can help Dean’s brother get out of there. 

Dean and Benny’s relationship was “pure” in purgatory. They didn’t have to worry as much about the fact that Benny was a vampire and Dean was a hunter, they were just brothers in arms who earned one another’s trust, respect and love. There’s no way you let a man kill you and send you to purgatory to save his brother if you don’t love him. 

 Their relationship once they broke out of purgatory is where things began to sour, not because of anything either of them did to the other, but more the space they let grow. Regular Earth was different from purgatory and these men had to go back to their roles and say sayonara. “What happened in purgatory stayed in purgatory” and all that. Benny was a vampire and Dean was a hunter. That kind of thing mattered here despite the fact that they did care for one another. 

Dean and Benny’s tumultuous relationship in relation to the people in Dean’s life could be reminiscent of a queer experience in itself. A lack of acceptance from Sam, Bobby, Martin- Dean’s family. Not because of who Benny was, but what he was. Pair this with the already established fact that Amelia and Sam were a direct parallel to Dean and Benny, Season 8 has been one of the most blatantly queer-coded seasons as of yet. 

Which brings us to “Goodbye Stranger.” It is established early on this season that Dean feels that there’s something wrong with Cas, something off about him. The fact that they don’t know how he popped out of purgatory is just one part of it. It’s in the way he acts, how spacey he is, the fact that he doesn’t answer Dean’s prayers. “I always come when you call.” Cas once said. And he did. Until now.

This is another aspect of their relationship which is simply there and not spoken about much- similar to their staring and eye communication thing they do. Dean started their relationship unable to read all of Cas’ quirks very well and unsure of the guy. Now, he’s fluent in the language of Cas. He knows by tone of voice, by shiftiness, by his expressions- when something is up. Maybe he started paying more attention after the whole Rafael situation until he could read Cas like the back of his hand, or maybe he just started paying attention just to pay attention. 

He’s known something is wrong for months while Cas has been under Naomi’s control. Just the same as years later, he knows something is up when Lucifer is taking a ride in Cas’ body. And he knows in 12x15 just by the way Cas speaks on the phone that something is off with him. 

They come upon the angel tablet in the crypt, and Dean does fight back when Cas starts in on him, but he spends even more energy trying to get Cas to come back to him and fight whatever force has him under control. He never once stopped to think that this was just Cas. “This isn’t you! Fight this!” Dean would repeat over and over as Cas beats him nearly to death. 

There was a moment he certainly thought that Cas would kill him, and it seemed like he was more bothered by the fact that it was Cas that would do it more so than the thought of dying. 

Cas breaks through the mind control, heals Dean. Then he leaves. So, again, Cas leaves. He keeps doing that to Dean. I stated before that Dean’s abandonment issues come into play in this relationship, but unlike at the beginning where Dean saw a future that Cas stays in, this Cas keeps coming and going. This makes it difficult for Dean to trust him fully, to rely on him. But the fact of the matter is that he does still trust him completely, and that’s what bothers Dean. 

When Cas does come back again, collapsed and bloody in the middle of the street, Dean puts up a wall. He’s hurt and he’s tired. He doesn’t want to trust him as much as he does and he definitely doesn’t want him to keep coming and going without a thought. (What’s interesting to note here, though, is Dean’s change in character as this occurs through the years. Because while here he may simply give Cas the cold shoulder and not talk much about his hurt in this situation, we see later on in 12x19 after Dean has been fretting for days about where Cas has gone off to, and Cas finally does return, he voices his side of things. “With everything that’s going on, you can’t just go dark like that. We didn’t know what happened to you. We were worried, that’s not okay.”)

Naomi hits the nail on the head when she visits Dean after Castiel disappears and she notices Dean still hasn’t warded the boat against angels. It is moments like these that we realize just how much everyone else around these two also notice their chemistry and their deep devotion to one another, always seeming to fall back to one another. 

“I think you have me confused with the other angel. You know, the one in the dirty trenchcoat who’s in love with you.” - Balthazar S6

“The stench of that impala is all over your overcoat, angel.” - Crowley S6

“Castiel? Oh, he’s not here. See, he has this weakness. He likes you.” -Uriel S4

(to Dean) “Go ask him, he was your boyfriend first.” - Meg S7

“I have tiptoed through all your little tulips. Your memories, your little feelings, yes. I know what you hate. I know who you love, what you fear.” - The Empty S13

“And then after a rousing speech, his true weakness is revealed. He’s in love... with humanity.” - Metatron S9

“I’m sorry, did you just say that you lost a Winchester? Because, one, that’s... interesting. And, two, how is it that you lost Dean? I thought the two of you were joined at the... you know, everything.” - Kipling S14

“And for what again? Oh, that’s right, to save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you drape yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was about saving one human, right? Well, guess what? He’s dead, too.” - Metatron S9

“Don’t lose it all over one man.” - Hannah S9

“The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell he was lost!” - Hester S7

“Oh, sweet. Almost anything. Castiel? He’s dead. All the way dead. Because of you.” - Miriam S13

“And then you’d kill the angel, Castiel. Now that one, that I suspect would hurt something awful.” - Cain S10

“He should know this- Lucifer, his favorite, isn’t doing so well. Say nothing of the vessel, your friend Castiel.” - Amara S11

“I’m gonna cure you of your human weakness, the same way I cured my own. By cutting it out.” - Isham S12

Bonus: Dean to Sam about Garth’s baby Castiel- Dean: “This Cas keeps looking at me weird.” Sam: “So kinda like the real Cas.”

It is time and again that opposing forces recognize the relationship between Dean and Castiel, and it’s commented on and used against them frequently.

As we move forward to the angels falling and human Castiel, this season opens up with dean in the hospital with a very ill Sam. The first thing he does before contacting anyone else is pray to Castiel. There’s a moment in 9x03 where Castiel walks into a church and speaks with a woman there. He expresses his lack of faith and she says, “I guess that’s why we pray. You need something stronger than yourself.” Dean never prayed until he started praying to Cas. He prayed to Cas during the apocalypse, in purgatory, when Sam was sick during the trials, now in this hospital. Dean might not have faith in God, but he does in Cas. 

Castiel is human, and while Dean tears apart the grid trying to find him while angels are on Cas’ ass, he still watches him die, then has to kick him from the safety of the bunker the very same day. Up until this point, Cas has been a genuine part of their family regardless of their squabbles over the past months, but kicking him from the bunker damages that. Once the reasoning comes to light, however, Cas is forgiving immediately. He’d forgiven Dean even before that. That’s one thing about Cas that Dean never seems to get over either. Dean can get angry and take things out on him, kick him from the bunker, make stupid decisions and nearly kill himself, holler at him, blame him, but Cas comes back every time. He forgives him every time. It’s already overwhelming when Sam does this, but the ease at which Castiel consistently forgives Dean is a lot. 

Dean gets the Mark of Cain. It’s a means to an end, he says. When he becomes a demon as a result, this is when his relationship with Crowley is deepened. This relationship is an interesting one because it’s essentially an unrequited example. Dean likes Crowley, and when he’s a demon he has a good time, but Crowley’s feelings appear to go much deeper- even if he tries not to show it. 

 It is very possible that Dean and Crowley’s relationship is a formation more as a result of a joke than anything else- where the writers are concerned. But whether that was the intention or not, this is a relationship that continues to affect Crowley’s actions towards Dean for the rest of the series. He doesn’t let Dean kill innocents as he’s a demon, he saves Castiel from certain death as his grace drains, he gives Sam the information to find Dean so he can be cured, and he aids in getting the mark removed from Dean even as Sam attempts to kill him in the process. In return, Dean gives Crowley the benefit of the doubt more often, and they share a sort of mutual respect. What differs here, however, from Dean’s relationships with Benny or Castiel, is Dean’s actions. It is clear that Dean doesn’t feel as deeply as Crowley does, so this is an interesting relationship to compare side by side with the others. 

Not only this, but DeanxCrowley in these first few episodes can be seen as a parallel with CasxHannah. Two unreciprocated relationships which do not last long in this particular phase, but do result in a friendship within these pairings as time goes on. 

Still with the Mark of Cain, Dean and Cain have a few things in common. Cain had said that his wife, Colette, before she died had asked him to stop. Stop the killing. It’s several months after that that Dean is going off the rails and Cas, behind Dean as he’s walking away, asks Dean to stop. He nearly kills Cas then, almost fulfilling Cain’s words just weeks earlier: “And then you’ll kill the angel, Castiel. And that, I suspect, would hurt something awful.” This is a direct romantic parallel written into the show. 

When the darkness is released, Amara and Dean are immediately drawn to one another through some sort of connection as a remnant of the mark. This relationship is another interesting one, because it ties in to true desire and consent. Dean is drawn to her, yes, and she is sold as a sort of potential love interest this season, but Dean himself doesn’t want anything to do with her. He’s hypnotized when he’s around her, but as soon as he’s away this energy dissipates. 

So in light of this storyline let’s talk about consent and the sexualization of Dean Winchester for a second, shall we?

Dean is an often highly sexualized individual. He plays along more in his younger days, but the older he gets the more frustrated he becomes with the whole situation. I’m sure there are more but here are some tentative examples (This is also something that happens to Sam a decent amount as well.): 

Wendy at the psych ward in “Sam, Interrupted” kisses Dean

Pamela touching Dean’s inner thigh in “Lazarus Rising” 

Ezra in “Time After Time” kisses Dean without consent

Gets turned into a vampire because he’s “pretty”

Pamela in “Dark Side of the Moon” kisses Dean

Almost becomes a vessel for Sandy’s mate in “The Thing” because she “enjoys looking at his face”

Amara kisses Dean in “O’ Brother Where Art Thou”

Mildred gropes Dean’s leg in “Into the Mystic” and continually makes advances even tho he’s uncomfortable. 

Random girl slaps Dean’s ass in “The Last Call”

Ellie in S8 wants to sleep with Dean and even kisses him randomly

Meg kisses Dean as he’s being held against his will in “Sympathy for the Devil”

Granted, there aren’t a plethora of examples, but it’s still a lot and it is interesting to see how often Dean has been sexualized for someone else’s pleasure. It is bound to work into his characterization as well, and his sense of self-worth. He’s often described as the pretty one of the brothers, and seeing as he is the more promiscuous of the two, it is assumed that he welcomes all of or most of the attention that comes his way.

It is for this reason in particular that the situation with Amara is bothersome to me. Not only is Dean taken advantage of physically, but his mind is essentially hypnotized whenever she is near, not giving him total control over his actions or desires. Amara is in part meant to be sold as a romantic interest, but throughout the season Dean continually expresses his discontent. He’s even ashamed to admit these feelings to Sam and Cas, even though he knows it isn’t his fault he still feels responsible. (Which, if we think about it, this is could be a queer allegory too. The lack of choice, feeling shame, etc.)

What is notable, however, is the day that they attempt to capture Lucifer and speak to Cas to get him to expel Lucifer from his body. Amara makes a surprise appearance and captures Lucifer/Cas herself. Dean yells to Cas. This catches Amara’s attention and appears to confuse her, and even Lucifer, seeing as when Dean is around her he’s meant to have eyes for just her because of their “bond”. His link to Castiel appears to be stronger, however.  

Amara uses this connection between Cas and Dean when she wishes to contact Dean, simply by placing her hand over Castiel’s heart. She says to Dean, “If you should cross paths, if (god) should reach out to you, he should know this - Lucifer, his favorite, isn’t doing so well. Say nothing of the vessel, your friend Castiel.”

If we backtrack a moment, Dean finding out that Castiel is possessed in the first place is a very emotional time for Dean. He doesn’t want to accept that Cas would make such a decision, put himself in that kind of danger, and choose to leave once again. Sam, the arguably more rational thinker at this current time, tries to rationalize that Cas may not come back willingly since he chose to let Lucifer in. “Not possible.” Dean says. It’s simply not possible that Cas doesn’t want to come back to them. It’s not something he can accept. 

The next several episodes are begun with Dean either losing sleep trying to figure out what to do about Cas, or simply moping about. Sam has to comfort him each time. This is notable behavior as well, because Dean isn’t often one to wear his heart on his sleeve this frequently. Certainly he has his moments, but much of the time when he’s distressed he simply buries it all down and puts up a front. He doesn’t do that here. In fact, once they do begin to put together a plan with Crowley, Sam thinks they should still utilize Lucifer in the fight against Amara but thinks it’s foolish to move him into a new vessel. 

((I actually counted up the mopey Dean scenes- between finding out Cas is possessed, to getting Cas back.))

There are four convos with Sam (multiple episodes) where Sam has to comfort Dean and say something along the lines of “we’ll get him back.” (Just as an aside, I don’t think there has ever been a scene in the series where Dean comforted Sam about Cas, it’s always Sam having to comfort a freaking out Dean)

Then, of course, there’s the scene where Dean comforts a victim and she says “I watched the man I love die. There’s no normal after that.” 

There’s the “It’s not an ‘it,’ Sam. It’s Cas.” scene. 

There’s Dean trying to get through to Cas when they capture Lucifer. 

There’s the Dean yelling “Cas?” to Casifer when Amara is in the room. 

There’s two more scenes where Sam comforts Dean again. 

There’s “The Chitters” episode with the gay hunter couple. (This isn’t a direct relation, but more of an honorable mention because it seems abstractly relevant)

Amara connecting to Dean through Cas’ heart.

Dean freaking out about making it to Cas in time and again talking to Sam about it.

Dean asking “what about Cas?” as they’re planning the attack with God against Amara.

Someone has said once that you can tell that Dean is in love with Cas because Sam isn’t. It’s in moments like this that this becomes readily apparent. Yes, Sam cares about Cas, of course. But it’s just different than the way that Dean cares about Cas. When Dean cares about certain people, this love weaves into the very fabric of his being and he just feels it so completely and overwhelmingly, he can’t simply not fight for it. 

“Dean, it’s a strong vessel, it’s held Cas for years, and we know what he’s been through.” Sam says.

“It? It’s not an ‘it,’ Sam. It’s Cas.”

Dean appears almost shocked that these words would pass through Sam’s mouth. He’s confused that Sam wouldn’t fight for Cas just as much as Dean would. The type of love they each have for the angel is just different. Visually, action-wise, reaction-wise. This conversation in “Hell’s Angel” highlights that. 

You know what else highlights it? The fact that when they do trap Lucifer, it’s only Dean who gets through to Cas and talks to him to get him to come back and expel Lucifer. It’s Cas only seeking Dean’s forgiveness in S7 when putting the souls back in Purgatory. It’s Dean in S6 being the only one to defend Cas in “The Man Who Would Be King.” It’s Dean later in that same episode being the one to get through to Cas in the circle of holy fire. It’s “I did it, all of it, for you.” It’s Dean carrying around that trenchcoat for a year and mourning when Sam doesn’t. It’s Bobby checking in on Dean mourning Cas, but doesn’t check in with Sam about it. It’s Sam pulling Dean out of the apocalypse world in season 12 as Dean screams for Cas and physically fights against Sam to get to Cas. It’s Sam seeing Cas dead on the ground minutes later, but still able to walk away while Dean is frozen in place, frozen in shock. It’s Dean being the only one to wrap up Cas’ dead body. It’s Sam always having to reassure Dean that Cas is probably fine, whenever he goes missing for a little while. It’s Dean hardly able to function in S13 with this encompassing grief over Cas’ death and yelling “It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t.” It’s S15 when Rowena tells Dean and Cas to fix their quarrel before it’s too late, and later Dean in purgatory not sure of it is too late as he’s praying for Cas to be okay and crying against a tree. 

Sam’s reactions are important to take into account. Sam cares, yes, but Cas isn’t as wholly encompassing in his life as he is in Dean’s. If anything else is to prove that, it’s the way that Dean grieves (I mean, if you were to put Sam in Dean’s place in 15x09 in Purgatory and their fight, there’s no way that Sam would react this extremely). 

There are three different points to highlight Dean’s grief. The first is season 7 with the trenchcoat, which we’ve already talked about. The second is when Cas is possessed by Lucifer, which we have covered as well. The most damning, however, is Dean’s season 13 grief arc following Cas’ death. Dean also loses his mother during this time and a few other friends, but considering how he reacts when Cas comes back, a great amount of this grief has to do with Cas. Dean completely loses hope and faith in anything at all during this time. He hates Jack for giving Cas false hope and getting him killed. He doesn’t believe in their mission anymore. He doesn’t believe anything matters at all. “Right now, I don’t believe in a damn thing.” Dean admits to Sam. When Cas comes back from the dead, however, he pulls a complete 180. He has hope again. He has faith. And all of it begins with Cas.

Lastly, Dean never hooks up with anyone again after Castiel’s final resurrection. We can go through an outline of the steady decline of Dean’s hookups and relations outside of Cas as the decade goes, but during this three year window specifically, Dean’s only pairing is Cas. Sure, he might flirt with someone every now and again, but this never goes anywhere. (Arguably the person he flirts with the most in any episode in these final three seasons is Daphne, but idk if that even counts much considering she is a cartoon.)  And as Pamela says once in Rocky’s bar: “Besides, you don’t want me. You just like to flirt. I’m psychic so I kinda know.” And that was just in Dean’s head anyways so it’s probably even more true than had Pamela actually said it herself. 

When Jack comes in the picture in season 13, and Castiel comes back from the dead, this makeshift little family is formed. All three men act as father figures to this half-angel kid at different capacities, and amongst this dynamic another is formed a bit further between Dean and Cas. They’ve already been acting a bit as an old married couple in recent years (Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, anyone?) but this co-parenting scenario they’ve found themselves in has solidified this dynamic all the more as they collaborate on the issues that arise with Jack. In “Lebanon” when John Winchester comes back for a brief period, John even says to Dean that he’d hoped he would get a family someday and get out of hunting and such. Dean replies, “I have a family.” Sam, Cas, and Jack are his family. Cas has been family for a long time, but here and now Dean just isn’t looking for anything else or anything normal. He’s happy with himself and the people he’s surrounded by. He’s not looking for anything else or anyone else. 

For a change of perspective, let’s check out Castiel’s relationships over the years.

Unlike Dean, Castiel’s queerness and interest in Dean has been officially canonized. We can speculate all we want on the legitimacy of Dean’s love for Cas, but we can speak in certainties about Castiel. Castiel is in love with Dean Winchester. Speculation can come in when we consider, just how long has this love existed for him? Let’s start from the beginning.

Right off the bat when we meet Castiel, he’s a semi-emotionless soldier of heaven who works under strict orders and doesn’t have much free-will. Dean begins to change this. We can see even in their first couple encounters that Castiel is interested in Dean- in what he has to say, intrigue in the fact that Dean talks back to the angels (despite that these angels are unkillable beings and could smite him on the spot), the fact that he’s snarky and brave and questions everything. Where Uriel finds Dean annoying and blasphemous, Castiel finds the back-talk fascinating. Dean’s words impact Cas, and it’s not long before he starts to have doubts about Heaven. Following these orders blindly and unquestioningly starts to seem foolish when Dean puts things in a different perspective. 

Even after Cas undergoes what some have funnily dubbed “conversion therapy” in “The Rapture” (when Cas had finally decided on going against Heaven and to help Dean stop the apocalypse) it’s still not enough to stop him completely. A bit more time with Dean and he’s convinced yet again to help this one human man stop the apocalypse with his brother. He even dies for him and this new mission of his. 

Castiel throughout this first season is interesting because we see firsthand his struggle to understand beginning to feel emotions and accept thinking for himself. “For the first time, I feel...” He says to Anna. He wants her to tell him what to do. He wants orders because that’s all he knows, and he doesn’t understand why suddenly he cares. It hurts him to send Dean in to torture Alastair. It hurts him even later when in the beautiful room Dean dismisses him with a “What do you care, you’re already dead. We’re done.” 

It’s possible that in these first several months, or even these first couple seasons, that Castiel follows Dean around and does as he asks because he’s allotted Dean as the new being he serves. Because serving is what he knows. But it’s also through this that he begins caring more and more. He learns more how to express certain emotions, he learns more about humanity, he learns more about what is important in life and what is worth fighting for. As Cas will admit himself 12 years later, “Ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell... Knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam. I cared about Jack... I cared about the whole world because of you.”

We start to see sprinkles of this especially throughout season 5 as Cas begins to come to terms with caring and adopting Dean’s mindset to care. Consider Sam for a moment. He and Cas don’t necessarily get along a lot and mostly just tolerate one another in these early days. However, as we see in “Abandon All Hope” when Castiel is captured by Lucifer, Cas gets visually upset at the concept of Lucifer taking Sam as his vessel. “You are not taking Sam Winchester. I won’t let you.” 

Sam and Cas don’t have much of a relationship at this point, but Cas cares because Dean does. In “The Song Remains the Same” not long later, he even refers to Sam as his friend.

By the time S6 rolls around Castiel is in the midst of a civil war in heaven entirely because he has adopted the Winchester’s all encompassing mindset on the importance of free-will. Castiel is making his own choices, and he does everything he can to protect the Winchesters from harm as he does so. He decides not to seek out Dean’s help while he’s raking leaves because Dean had already sacrificed too much in Castiel’s eyes. He raises Sam from perdition because he feels it the right thing to do. He re-sinks the Titanic to keep the boys from being killed by Fate. 

Personally, I think Castiel has been slowly falling in love with Dean this entire time, he’s just not aware what this feeling is. But this becomes even more plausible to me when we get Castiel’s perspective in “The Man Who Would Be King.” Cas cares what Bobby and Sam think of him, sure, but all he focuses on is Dean. Dean’s happiness and ensuring he not sacrifice more. Dean’s loyalty even as Cas seems to be guilty. Dean’s words when they capture Cas in holy fire. 

The problem is, their relationship this season is also rocky. Cas seems to think that he’s merely a tool at the Winchester’s disposal and not much else. But he doesn’t mind because he cares about them so much, so what do his feelings matter? He sees himself as their protector. Their guardian angel. A role he’s fine with filling regardless of how they feel in return. 

But when things get bad, Dean says to him “Next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest things I have to family. You are like a brother to me. So if I’m asking you not to do something... You’ve gotta trust me, man.” and Cas seems genuinely surprised at this admission. Emotional, even. 

As time goes on, Castiel’s actions nearly primarily revolve around Dean

After Cas realizes his error and is sending the purgatory souls back to their place, he tells Dean repeatedly that he’ll find some way to redeem himself to him. That’s the most important thing to him then. 

When Cas smites the demons outside of the mental hospital in 7x17, all of his flashes of memories coming back were memories of Dean. 

Partially to aid Sam and partially to redeem himself to Dean, Cas takes on Sam’s Hell brain in the asylum and goes crazy.

Cas runs in purgatory to keep the leviathans away from Dean. 

Cas breaks out of Naomi’s mind control/brainwashing because of his feelings for Dean.

Let’s talk about that final bullet point for a moment. The Naomi chapter is damning in “Goodbye Stranger.” It isn’t copies of both Sam and Dean that Naomi trains Castiel to kill hundreds upon hundreds of times. No, it’s ONLY clones of Dean. 

“What broke the connection?” Dean will ask after Castiel heals him in the crypt and takes control back over his mind. “I don’t know.” Cas will say. It wasn’t the angel tablet. That may have unwound the last of Naomi’s control over him, yes, but he’d dropped that angel blade before that. It was Dean that broke that connection. Even if this remains unsaid, it doesn’t make it any less true. Maybe Castiel starts to have an understanding of what his feelings are and what they mean here, but he won’t be truly sure until he soon becomes human. 

Before we get there, though, we’ll take a brief pause to explore Cas’ heterosexual explorations and connections. 

First is Meg. Cas’ relationship with Meg is born of sexual exploration more than anything else at its conception. He’d just been watching porn in his downtime and when Meg kisses him, he goes with it enthusiastically. Later, he seems to have a certain infatuation with her in his “crazy” state, and seems to trust her perhaps simply because she had been watching over him in the institution. 

This is interesting because in his “crazy” state, Cas is a lot more raw and unfiltered and optimistic than he ever has been before. He compliments her, is concerned with her safety, and trusts her. On the contrary, with Dean, Cas is a lot more hesitant and even fearful when talking about certain subjects with him because of his past failings. He tries to keep the peace without directly getting involved because his direct involvement in the past had failed them all so spectacularly. 

He and Meg continue to have a sort of connection whenever they cross paths until her demise the next season, and he still holds a respect for her years later, continuing to use her nickname for him “Clarence” as an alias at various times. 

When Castiel becomes human in S9, he’s a bit lost and overwhelmed. April takes him in for the night. Although this is a short-lived romance considering she tortures and kills him the next day, for a brief enough time Cas starts to become acquainted with human romance and sexual desire. He loses his virginity to her. It is estimated by some that this is merely sexual experimentation on the part of a very confused newly human Cas, and others have used this to say that Cas is not gay but pan or bi. The conclusion in any regard, in my opinion, is purely up to the viewer. 

If I’m to offer my opinion, however, seeing as he has shown interest in both sexes, though remains unlabeled, I consider him simply an unlabeled queer person. Sexual identity and orientation has never seemed to matter much to Castiel, so I don’t see why it should matter to me. He loves who he loves, simple as that. 

When we get to Hannah, she provides an interesting foil to Castiel for a time, and an emphasizing expression on just how much he’s changed since his introduction to Earth and the Winchesters. Where Castiel has been open to a plethora of new emotions and experiences through the years which have made him a bit more human than angel at times, Hannah is still new to humanity and the range and movement of emotions that come with it. Just how little she seems to understand proves how much Castiel has grown and does understand by comparison. 

As such, he seems to pick up on the fact that Hannah has an attachment to him that appears to be forming into a romantic or sexual interest. He gently turns her down multiple times, not expressing interest in her behavior although he does respect her greatly as a person. Though this relationship isn’t considered romantic from Castiel’s perspective, its unrequited nature again is a good parallel to Dean and Crowley’s relationship at this same time. Angel x Angel and Demon x Demon. Both one sided.

Now, let’s get back to Dean. 

Up to the point that Castiel turns human, for however brief a time, he finally gets a look behind the curtain of human emotion. Now, we all know that Cas is in love with Dean already here- and probably has been for some time. Years, even- but it’s my personal belief that during this time turning human is when he actually realizes it and understands where these emotions come from.

Maybe it’s the heartbreak of Dean kicking him from the bunker, maybe it’s seeing Dean again when he shows up in line at the Gas n Sip, or maybe it’s somewhere in between when he sees two people on the street looking at each other and realizes “oh, that’s love. I know what that is. I felt that, too.” And every moment from then on he realizes what that feeling was in his chest when he looked at Dean for a little too long, or why it hurt so much to see the pain in Dean’s eyes at something Cas had done, or why hearing Dean’s prayers to him just felt different than they did with Sam’s. Why everything that he’d done since he rebelled from heaven was in the name of doing the right thing, muddled alongside doing the right thing for Dean. Caring because of Dean. Caring for Dean.

It’s during this time when he realizes what these feelings are, that he also must come to terms with the fact that they’re unreciprocated (or as he believes, anyway). This is for two reasons. The first, he still believes at this time that Dean kicked him from the bunker just because. And the second, if there’s anything that Cas took to heart from Dean’s example as strongly as the concept of free-will, it’s self-loathing. He doesn’t see himself worthy of love. Dean doesn’t see himself worthy of love either. They’re both messy piles of self-loathing that breeds into a blindness to the depth of care they hold for one another.   

Now that we’re on the topic of self-loathing, this leads into Castiel and his decision to become Lucifer’s vessel in season 11. Much like Dean, Cas has a consistent issue with seeing his own personal self-worth, so when the opportunity comes along to “be of service to the fight” and become Lucifer’s vessel, he takes it on easily. He considers himself expendable, and he won’t see just how much Dean struggles with this fact while he’s possessed. In fact, Cas never knows just how much Dean struggles with his absence at all, which is just one of the many divides between the two of them that could easily be resolved with communication, if either were ever good at that. 

Once Lucifer is shoved from Cas’ body, however, Dean makes a point to let Cas know just how important he is in his life. He’s said Cas was family before, but that was before the falling out at the end of season 6. Dean makes it clear that he and Sam both consider Cas family, once again, during a ride in Baby. “You’re our brother, Cas. I want you to know that.” 

Now, here, simultaneous heartbreak and love occur. Because while Cas is likely very much in love with Dean here, and very much aware of it, to hear that Dean simply thinks of him as a brother must ache a bit. However, we’re also talking about Dean Winchester, and for him to call someone a brother is an immense depth of love, probably the most the man is even capable of. Dean never says the words “I love you” to anyone, so this is about the closest anyone could get. Cas knows this, he’s well-versed in the ways of Dean Winchester by now. So, while it aches, his heart is also full. 

Comparable to:

“We need you, Cas. I need you.” 8x17

“We’re gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.” 8x05

“Don’t make me lose you, too.” 7x23

“Don’t do anything stupid” 

The entire purgatory confession/apology prayer in 15x09

Cas returns this love just hours later, offering to go with Dean to die taking out Amara.

If we jump forward to the divorce arc of season 14-15, we can hit upon the next great heartbreak of Castiel’s sad little love life. While the Winchester brothers, Castiel, and Jack have all become a family unit, Castiel never wants to lose that. But two things happen. First, Cas’ deal with The Empty is made, and somewhere along the line, silently, he becomes aware that allowing himself to be happy, and that happiness, somehow involves Dean. The second thing that happens is Jack kills Mary Winchester, and Dean says Castiel is dead to him. 

So, The Empty won’t take him, but his family is broken apart. Castiel never gives up on a single family member, though. That’s the thing about Cas. The same way he consistently forgives Dean for all his behaviors over the years, he never loses faith in anyone in this family. And when they come to reunite, he’s happy simply in appreciating any and all time they have together, however brief.

Then, in true Castiel fashion, he sacrifices himself for Dean Winchester in 15x18. 

Their relationship has always left things unsaid, but I don’t think there’s ever been a question on whether Dean loves Cas or Cas loves Dean even if they don’t talk about it. You can’t look at Cas and Dean’s faces seeing each other again for the first time in weeks at the end of “The Last Call” and say that there wasn’t love and heartbreak there. On some level I think that Cas knew that Dean loved him back, but Dean was so buried in trauma at that point that it might take him years more to realize what he actually felt and what he needed. But Cas is such a selfless lover that he was absolutely 100% fine with just being around Dean for the rest of his life, even if he never got a chance to tell him how much he genuinely cared for him, and never got that reciprocation back. Castiel’s love for Dean is so pure and selfless it’s overwhelming to even consider, but for someone like Dean it would be a hundred times harder to accept or even fathom someone caring about him as much as Cas does. 

So Castiel never pushes Dean further, never suggests, barely even touches him. The only liberties Cas takes are small touches to heal him (even though he doesn’t need to touch a person to heal them), a few small hugs through the years, just sharing comfortable space inside the impala, small moments watching Dean’s favorite movies with him, or sharing a moment over beers in the kitchen. And Cas’ happiness was in telling Dean how much he loved him likely because then maybe Dean would actually see how much he was worth. Cas wanted Dean to know how much he loved him and how he viewed him, because Dean deserved to love himself and was worthy of it. 

The five types of love languages are as follows:

Words of affirmation

Physical touch

Gift giving

Acts of Service

Quality Time

One of the reasons Dean and Cas miss the mark with one another so often could simply come down to love languages. A lot of the time, what a person needs in love language is often what they also give. I don’t think this is the case where these two are concerned, though. They’re both so sacrificial that it’s difficult for them to accept this in return, even though this is what they each offer to the other and anyone else around them. 

Both Cas and Dean’s giving love language is “acts of service” which translates into sacrificial actions much of the time, though it can also be more domestic than that as well. It’s Dean grabbing an extra beer for Cas or making food, or it’s Cas healing Dean without any prompting, Cas loading up on pie and beer at the Gas n Sip when Dean’s mad at him. 

What they each need, however, is different. Dean needs “quality time.” He needs his people close, he needs them to answer calls, and he needs to know where they are. This clearly ties in to his abandonment issues, and it hurts his relationship with Cas significantly when the angel just keeps leaving, or disappears without answering his phone for days at a time. And when he dies, obviously. He always comes back, though. And half the time when he’s gone it’s because he’s trying to get a win for Dean against whatever issue the team is facing at the time. 

What Cas needs, best I can tell, is “words of affirmation.” Cas has a consistent problem with thinking that he’s worth less than he is, and is less important to the people around him than he is. Dean obviously has this issue, too, but with Cas it’s somehow infinitely worse, if that’s even possible. Frequently, what he needs to get him going in low points is a few words from Dean or encouragement in general. To name a few:

“Maybe to fix it.” 7x17

“I’d rather have you, cursed or not.” 7x23, Cas then goes with Dean to find and kill Dick Roman

“I’m not leaving here without you.” S8 in purgatory when Cas wanted Dean to leave him behind but Dean was having none of it.

“You’re our brother, Cas.” 11x23, after Cas was possessed by Lucifer and thought he was expendable. 

Over time, Dean does get a bit more vocal with Cas about issues he’s having or just with encouraging words as well. Cas, too, sticks around a lot more. They’re not perfect but they do begin to grow and work with one another in these later years to give one another what they need most to see how much the other is loved. 

In conclusion, there is a significant amount of romance and sexuality written into this show, and simply interpreted as well. And that’s the thing, when a queer person says that they interpreted a certain piece of media as queer, it’s not up to someone else to say that they can’t, or shouldn’t, or that they’re interpreting something wrong. That’s the thing about media, it can have so many different interpretations and meanings to so many different people. 

It’s my personal interpretation to see the queerness embedded in the text here. Maybe it’s not there for another person, and that’s cool too, just don’t tell me how I should see it. The fact is that it was written into the show to be interpreted, and interpret is what we did. 

I’d love to hear any feedback that others may have regarding this. Any other theories, different interpretations, things I may have missed. I hope you enjoy the edits, and the endings I put together for them. We all need a little bit of happiness after that ending, so I hope it leaves you with a lighter heart. :)

Much love,

Taylor

[grigori77]

Summer 2021′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 1)

The Runners-Up:

20.  LUCA – I’ll admit I really wasn’t sold on Disney/Pixar’s coming-of-age fantasy comedy, which revolves around a pair of young sea monsters living off the coast of the 1950s Italian Riviera, who discover they can assume human form when they dry out and go on land on a quest of discovery.  Thankfully the strong reviews convinced me to give it a chance – this is a frothy and irreverent romp through an exotically nostalgic world filled with Vespas, pasta-eating contests and found families that’s fun for kids of all ages.

19.  FAST & FURIOUS 9 – the high concept action franchise may be bursting under the ever-increasing weight of its own ludicrousness, but it’s still TONS of fun, packed with stunning over-the-top action, colourful globe-trotting and a loveable bunch of misfits we’ve grown incredibly fond of over the past TWENTY YEARS.  This time Dom (the irrepressible Vin Diesel) and the team are up against ruthless hi-tech mercenary Jakob (John Cena), a lethal jack-of-all-trades with a dark connection to the Toretto name.

18.  REMINISCENCE – Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy’s attempt to make it on the big screen looks set to go down as one of the biggest cinematic flops of 2021, which is a shame because the feature-debuting writer-director has crafted a genuinely fascinating speculative sci-fi noir detective thriller.  Set in a darkly dystopian future in which Global Warming has caused the sea levels to rise and society to start breaking down, it tells the story of Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman), a former soldier who ekes out a living using revolutionary tech to help the idle rich relive their fondest memories, until a life-changing mystery from his own past resurfaces, threatening to tear his whole world apart.  Frustratingly, it looks like most audiences are going to bypass this, which is a criminal loss.

17.  FREE GUY – after a seven year hiatus, Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy returns to the big screen in fine form with this deliriously inventive fantastical comedy adventure about Guy (a typically on-fire Ryan Reynolds), an NPC in an anarchic, Grand Theft Auto style MMORPG called Free City who discovers his own sentience after falling in love with Millie (Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer), a player with a hidden agenda that puts them both at odds with the game’s nefarious creator, Antwan (a thoroughly hilarious Taika Waititi).

16.  EVANGELION 3.0 + 1.01: THRICE UPON A TIME – visionary anime creator Hideaki Anno brings his long-running sci-fi saga to a close with this fourth instalment to his wildly ambitious cinematic “Rebuild” of cult TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s as frothy, melodramatic and bonkers as ever, packed full of weighty themes and crazy ideas, while the animation maintains this series’ ridiculously high levels of quality and the action is as explosive as ever, and Hideaki brings the whole mad mess to a climax that’s as rich, powerful and thoroughly befuddling as the saga deserves.

15.  THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD – Sicario writer Taylor Sheridan returns to the director’s chair (after impressive debut Wind River) with this intense and enthralling suspense thriller adapted by bestselling author Michael Koryta (along with Sheridan and Blood Diamond’s Charles Leavitt) from his own acclaimed novel. Angelina Jolie is (ahem) fiery but fallible as haunted smokejumper Hanna Faber, whose PTSD drives her to protect a desperate boy (Finn Little) who’s being hunted through the wilds of Montana by a pair of relentless assassins (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult).

14.  CRUELLA – far from the clunky cash-in retcon many were predicting, Disney’s ambitious black comedy crime caper does a thoroughly admirable job in delivering this fascinating and deeply compelling reimagining of the story of rogue fashion designer Cruella de Vil (one of the best performances I’ve ever seen Emma Stone deliver, hands down), the dastardly villainess of 101 Dalmatians. She’s certainly far more complex here, no longer a raging monster, but far from a whitewashed PC apologist, either, much more of a morally grey antihero with a very wicked dark side – then again, with I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie at the helm it’s not really a surprise.  Richly designed and dripping in spectacularly adventurous period detail, this is an divine romp from start to finish.

13.  THE GREEN KNIGHT – the latest feature from writer director David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saits, Pete’s Dragon, The Old Man & the Gun) is as offbeat and unusual as you’d expect from a visionary filmmaker with such a wildly varied CV.  Adapting the fantastical chivalric romance Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, he’s crafted what’s surely destined to be remembered as the year’s STRANGEST film, but it’s a work of aching beauty and introspective imagination that sears itself into the memory and rewards the viewer’s patience despite its leisurely pace.  Dev Patel is unbearably sexy and wonderfully complex as Gawain, while Sean Harris delivers show-stopping support with stately charisma and world-weary integrity as King Arthur.  This film is sure to divide opinions as well as audiences, but I think it’s a bona fide masterpiece that must be seen to be believed.

12.  CANDYMAN – after watching this wildly imaginative and frequently gut-wrenching soft-reboot/sequel to Bernard Rose’s acclaimed adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story The Forbidden, I feel supremely confident about emerging writer-director Nia DaCosta’s coming MCU breakout with The Marvels.  Wisely papering over the clunky previous sequels, this streamlined trailblazing deep dive into the pure horror of the legend of the righteously mad spectral killer haunting the Chicago housing ghetto of Cabrini-Green sees a daring modern artist (Aquaman’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) find his latest project turning into a dangerously self-destructive obsession. Writer-producer Jordan Peele’s fingerprints are all over this, but DaCosta clearly shows signs that she’s going to be a hell of a talent to watch in the future.

11.  THE WITCHER: NIGHTMARE OF THE WOLF – I wouldn’t normally shout about an animated spinoff to a TV series like this, but I was SO INSANELY IMPRESSED with this brilliant prequel to Netflix’ popular fantasy show (which clearly intends to lay some origin story groundwork for the impending second season) that I just can’t help myself. Recounting the backstory of Geralt of Rivia’s own Witcher mentor Vesemir, this beautifully expands on the already compelling universe the series has created, as well as delivering some breath-taking thrills and chills through some of the most exquisite cell animation I’ve ever seen outside of the greats of anime.  A must-see for Witcher fans, then, but one I’d also highly recommend to anyone who likes their animation a bit more grown-up and edgy.

[carllisle]

The Second Mrs Cullano 

As we all know, Esme Platt is not Carlisle Cullano’s first wife, nor is she his second - she is actually his third. But she is the love of his life, the reason for his breathing, and so when he marries for the second time, it’s clear that wives are nothing to soulmates. 

Esme Platt enjoys the wedding of Carlisle Cullano and the Second Mrs Cullano. 

Dedicated to my literal partner in this crime, @notquitetwilight, and to our collective projection onto cringe New Jersey mob show stereotypes. Special shoutout to @stregoni-benefici and @carlislesscarf.

Esme felt a soft kiss on her shoulder and smiled. Sun was pouring through the open windows of her bedroom and there was a soft breeze that lifted her hair. He was still here. He shouldn’t have been. 

“Good morning,” he whispered against her skin. “You smell so good.” 

Esme rolled onto her stomach and curled around her pillow with her smile broadening. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” 

“You kicking me out?” 

“No. But I’ve got things to do, too, you know?” 

Carlisle lay next to her and stroked her caramel hair, his face close to hers on her pillow. She cracked open an eye and watched him watch her. “Can I stay with you?” he whispered. 

She shook her head. “Not for long. For breakfast, though, if you make it.”

“I don’t wanna leave this bed.” 

“You’re gonna have to at some point, baby. You’ve got responsibilities today.” 

“Tell me to stay, Esme. Tell me not to do it.” He ran a strong hand over her neck and gently wrapped it around her throat, fingers tilting her jaw to the side. 

She laughed quietly, sleep making her mind hazy. “No. I want you to have a wife and a family. You’ve always wanted that, but I haven’t. I still want to be me for a while yet.” 

“You wouldn’t stop being you just for being my wife.” 

Esme took the hand around her throat and brought it up to kiss. Carlisle closed her eyes at the touch of her lips. “We’ve talked about this, for years. Decades. I can be your person, but I can’t be your wife. I won’t be anyone’s wife again.” 

“I’m not anyone. Please, Esme. Marry me.” 

She stretched her arms up and laughed. “Not today!” But she rolled over and wrapped her legs around him and pulled him against her, loving him as best she could in the soft sunrise. 

After, they followed their usual routine of showering together and dressing. Since their days of teenage love they enjoyed the quiet of domesticity. Outside the walls of their homes wars raged on their streets but in her old house, in his sprawling estates, it was just them, and today was no different. He zipped her skirt and she buttoned his shirt and they walked arm in arm down the street for coffee and bagels. They took a booth at the back of the cafe, although it didn’t matter if anyone saw them - they had never been a secret. Besides, they both kept guns strapped to them and knives hidden in their jackets and coats. 

Esme leaned back in her chair, blowing steam off the top of her coffee. “You’re sure about this one?” 

Carlisle regarded her over his phone and considered the question. “Yeah. It’s gotta be someone, why not her?” 

“It doesn’t have to be someone,” she reminded him gently. “You could go it alone. Well, as alone as you will ever be. You’ve always got me.” 

“Yeah. But I want someone. I want a wife. And the wife I want doesn’t want me, so I gotta choose the next best thing. Besides, you know her family’s reputation, that’s nothing to turn my nose up at.” 

“Ever the pragmatist.” 

He gave her one of the smiles he saved just for her. “Aw, you hurt me, Es. I do like her. She’s got spirit, and she’s smart as hell. She likes the high life and she wants kids sooner rather than later, and… and she makes me laugh. She makes me feel wanted.” 

“I think most of the east coast wants you,” Esme said quietly, avoiding his gaze. It wasn’t that she was jealous - how could she be, when he made her feel so adored all the time? - but it irritated her that this woman was able to give him what he wanted, and she couldn’t. One marriage to the wrong man had ruined the institution for her and now not even Carlisle could heal that wound. Yes, her first husband had died violently at her hand for his transgression, but that wasn’t the point. The transgression had occured in the first place. That was frightening. 

“Don’t be angry, darling. You know it’s still you.” Carlisle reached over the table and stroked her hand and Esme felt safe again. She held his gaze and nodded slightly. “It’ll always be you. You’re mine, before anyone and everyone else.” 

She smiled, her mood improved. He had always been happy to declare his feelings with her, and even now, on the morning of his wedding to another woman, in a nondescript coffee shop, he made her feel like the most adored woman. On the middle finger of her right hand she still wore the first expensive ring he had ever bought her, and it cost as much as her parents’ house. It was a gaudy thing, a thick diamond set on a band of smaller cut gems that they had chosen together the day after she killed Charles. It was Carlisle’s promise to her - that no matter who else came along, no matter what the world threw at them, they would love each other before anyone and anything else. He wore a similar ring she bought him on his little finger of his right hand. They never took their rings off. His first wife had hated it - understandably - but she had got her share in the divorce when Carlisle had refused to forsake Esme. She looked down at the ring and it sparkled. She’d had it cleaned for the wedding today especially. 

“Are you sure me coming today is a good idea?” she asked after a long moment. 

He squeezed the hand he held. “Yeah. I need you there.”

“She’ll be mad.” 

“She’s always got something to be mad about. Besides, she knows the deal and you’re non-negotiable.”

“I don’t want to upset anyone on their wedding day, Carlisle.” 

He shifted his chair around the table and leaned closer to her. “What about me? You wanna upset me on my wedding day?” 

She bit her lip and grinned. “I never want to upset you.”

“Then be a good girl. Come for me.” He rested his hand on her thigh under the table and Esme glanced around the cafe. No one paid them any mind. “Look at me.”

She met her lover’s piercing gaze and bit her lip. 

“You gonna come for me?” 

She nodded and gasped quietly when he rewarded her with a kiss. Esme could taste the coffee on Carlisle’s lips. He wanted her, he needed her, and she would never let him down. 

Esme’s cousin begrudgingly helped her get ready for the wedding. She said it was indecent for the mistress to turn up, let alone in a red silk dress barely held together by strands of diamonds across the back, but Esme smugly told her the groom had bought it for her especially, and who was she to refuse him? As a precaution she strapped her Colt Python to her thigh - it was an old machine, temperamental, but it made her feel powerful and she had a more reliable weapon in her clutch, as well as blades hidden in her shoes - and touched up her hair. Curls pinned to her head, diamonds dripping from her ears, and Carlisle’s dress draped across her, Esme felt more sensual than ever. When she sat in the pew at the wedding mass and thought of how the groom had sighed between her thighs mere hours before, she felt holy. She sat with his cousins a few rows back and even when the blushing bride strutted down the aisle, he couldn’t keep his eyes from Esme for long. 

They were lucky to be able to have a Roman Catholic service as everyone knew that Carlisle’s first marriage had been valid, but enough money had been slipped to the dioceses to push through an annulment, and so in the eyes of the Church this was his first marriage. There was some humour in that. The familiar words were spoken, hymns and prayers recited, and after what felt like a lifetime, and no time at all, Carlisle was walking down the aisle with the new Mrs Cullano on his arm. Sadness twinged at Esme’s stomach. That could have been me. It should have been. He’s mine. 

The reception was tolerable, enjoyable in its tackiness and extravagance. Everything was white and puffy and the hundreds of guests stuffed into the grand ballroom of the coastal hotel were drunk within the first course. It was how a Jersey wedding should have been, though, and Esme appreciated it for what it was. By the time the first dance came, she was lightly buzzed and enjoying catching up with the biggest names in east coast crime, many of whom were old family friends. Business people and politicians, state senators and property moguls joined them too, tying together the legitimate and illegitimate powers that kept the region affluent and fun, and most didn’t know where the legality ended and illegality started. By the time Esme snorted a line of cocaine from the chest of a mayor’s daughter she didn’t much care and the pair fell about laughing in the bathroom. As if called by the sound of Esme’s happiness, the moment was cut short by the sound of the bride herself outside. 

“Lisa, can you fucking help me? This dress is a fucking nightmare, you gotta hold it up, okay?” 

“You better go,” Esme advised the girl, no older than twenty-two by the looks of it, “before you meet Bridezilla up close and personal.” 

The girl giggled and darted from the bathroom just as the bride scrambled her way through the door. The dress she had chosen was appropriately enormous, tight on top and blooming into an extravagant ball gown from the waist down, and Esme wasn’t surprised that she needed three bridesmaids to help her through the door. 

“God, I’m dying to sit down properly-” she moaned over her shoulder before her eyes fell on Esme. Esme patted around her nose, watching her own pretty reflection in the mirror. “Oh. I didn’t know you were here.” 

“I responded to your invitation,” Esme replied mildly. “Lovely dress.” She turned her attention to her lipstick and dotted a fresh coat on, pointedly ignoring the bride. 

The second Mrs Cullano turned back to her bridesmaids and then looked at Esme, dithering between the two. There was a long pause before she turned to her entourage. “Stay outside. Make sure no one comes in, alright?” The bridesmaids made noises of agreement and the door swung shut, and then it was just Esme and Carlisle’s new wife. 

After Mrs Cullano said nothing, Esme broke the silence. “You’ve organised a wonderful day. Are you enjoying yourself?”

Mrs Cullano’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not happy you’re here.” 

“Oh?” 

“I know why you’re here.” 

“To see one of my dearest friends marry the woman he loves, of course.”

“Don’t play cute.” 

Esme smiled sweetly. “You think I’m cute?” 

“Cut the shit.” 

She sighed and looked at the bride. “What’s on your mind, Mrs Cullano?” 

“It’s real tacky you’re here, you know?”

“He wants me here. I came because he asked me to be here. I wouldn’t be here without an invitation.” 

“I didn’t invite you.” 

Esme pulled her invitation from her clutch and handed it to her. “Yes, you did.” 

The bride threw it aside, angry. “Give up! I won! He doesn’t want you!” 

Esme smiled at her sadly. There was nothing to say that could bring the bride any comfort. The truth was, Carlisle did want her. He wanted her more than anyone and anything, but that didn’t matter to this woman. This woman knew she had just pledged her life to a man who couldn’t love her completely. She was angry for it. “He’s my friend,” was all she could say. 

“Get new friends.” 

“I won’t stand in the way of your happiness, Mrs Cullano, or his. Above anything else, I love him and I want him to have the most wonderful life. I can’t give him the life he wants, but you can. Why would I jeopardize that?” 

It was the wrong thing to say in hindsight. Esme knew that the moment the bride launched at her with murder in her eyes. Her clawing fingers reached out and she managed to get in one good scratch before Esme had her arms locked behind her and ready to pop from their joints. “Easy,” she whispered against Mrs Cullano’s ear. The acrylics on her fingers made her face sting, but the skin hadn’t been broken. “Calm down. Like you said, you won, you’re his wife. Don’t fight me for anything more, because you will lose, do you understand me?” 

“Are you threatening me?” Mrs Cullano gasped. 

Esme tightened her grip and the bride hissed. “Yes. Raise a hand to me again and Carlisle’s love for you will not save you. You want to see who he will really choose if it comes down to it? Because I do not have my doubts. Do you?” 

Just as the bride’s whines rose in volume along with her pain, Esme let her go. She gripped under her elbow and held her upright to stop her from falling. “You got in a good scratch, I’ll give you that. But work on your attack and maybe you’ll take out an eye next time, alright? You’ll need protection if you’re going to love him.” 

“Are you threatening me?” Mrs Cullano asked again. 

There was no kindness left in Esme’s eyes. “Yes.” 

The two women stared at each other for a long moment. The new bride broke first. Esme sniffed and checked her reflection before stalking out of the bathroom, not a hair out of place. She pulled on the diamond strap of her dress and was close to the ballroom door when Carlisle stepped out. His smile was so bright when he saw her and he reached for her hands. When he noticed the scratches across her face his forehead creased. 

“What happened?” he asked, tender fingers touching the marks. Across the corridor there was a set of glass doors open to the terrace, and it was dark out there. There were a few wedding guests milling around but quick steps had the pair hidden in the gloom. Overhead, stars popped across the inky sky. With her arm in Carlisle’s, they found their way down garden paths and to the beach. No one saw them. 

“Your wife doesn’t like me,” Esme told him, smiling. His face was barely visible in the darkness but his bright hair caught the light of the stars. Their walk eventually slowed as their shoes crunched on the sand. 

“She did this?” 

Esme nodded. “It’s alright, she deserved to get in a good swipe. It won’t happen again, though.” 

“No, it won’t,” Carlisle replied angrily. “Who does she think she is?” 

“The new Mrs Cullano, protecting the honour of her marriage,” Esme pointed out with a light laugh. “I’d do the same. I don’t mind, really. I understand her anger.” 

“Esme,” he said, his voice softening. “How can I love someone who hurt you?” 

“You’re the only one who can hurt me, Carlisle.” She wound an arm around the back of his shoulders and closed her eyes when he rested his forehead against hers. 

“I’ll never hurt you.” 

“I know.” And he never had. Not with a hand, not with a word. No one had ever loved anyone like Carlisle loved Esme, and she knew it. “You’re so good to me. What did I do to deserve you?” 

Carlisle rested one hand at the small of her back and ran the fingers of his other hand up her spine. “Thank you for wearing this dress. You look beautiful.” 

She smiled in the night. “Thank you for choosing it for me.” 

“Gotta let the whole world see how wonderful my girl is.” 

“Call me that again.” 

“My girl?” 

She hummed and began gently swaying, moving him to dance with her to the sound of the ocean. “You’re my person, you know?” 

“Yeah, I know. And you’re my person. Always have been. Always will be.” 

Carlisle’s soft kiss touched Esme’s cheek and she sighed in bliss. “I love you, Carlisle.”

“I love you, too, Esme. More than anything. Always.”