#the cosmic horror of soulmates!!!!! or whatever | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blurhawaii · 2 years ago

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yuletide 2022

dear yuletide writer,

another year, another yuletide! hello and thanks for reading my letter. even if you’re not my assigned writer and are just checking it out for the hell of it. i’m still terrible at putting what i like into words, hopefully all this rambling makes sense. just know that the prompts are only suggestions–if you’ve got something else in mind you’re longing to write, then go for it.

and i feel like this goes without saying but i am more than okay with receiving treats.

likes:

dysfunctional relationships eg. codependency, messed up father/son dynamics, enemies to lovers, power imbalances.

vulnerability in men, uncertain intimacy.

UST, slow burn, first times.

supernatural/magical realism/cosmic horror. weird hints of it in an otherwise normal universe.

redemption arcs.

found family.

big loyalty kink. love it when trust is earned and kept.

praise kink.

open and honest communication between partners.

polyamory. it’s the journey of them getting together and making it work that interests me the most. or how a couple goes about bringing in a third person.

stories set in canon. or a divergence of canon. fix-it fics.

soulmate/soulmark fics. i’m mostly interested in these kinds of scenarios when they’re dysfunctional takes on them. e.g. they don’t actually have each other marks but get together anyway.

daemon AUs. i’m especially into the intimacy of touching/comforting each other’s daemons, them expressing thoughts and feelings they otherwise don’t say out loud.

dark/bleak fics. don’t be afraid to drag characters through the mud. happy endings are welcome but i like the struggle.

i’m fine with anything from gen to porn but would be happiest with something in the middle.

canon typical violence is fine and to be expected from some of my choices.

characters and the development of their relationships are more important than plot for me.

dislikes:

AUs that are completely disconnected from canon e.g. high school, coffee shop AUs.

established relationships, unless they are already together in canon

crossovers

genderbending

feminisation of male characters

fics that are entirely fluff

A/B/O fics

PWP

mpreg

first person fics (i have no problem with second person fics tho if you feel like experimenting and think that could work.)

The Departed (2006)

*Billy Costigan *Sean Dignam

one of my favourite films ever. i request it every year so you can't really go wrong with this as i'm just thirsty for anything.

most of my love is for dignam and his tough love attitude towards his job and the undercovers he's responsible for. i am endlessly endeared by his wild card quality, expletive fueled speech and hair trigger temperament. his father/son relationship with queenan contrasted against billy’s father/son relationship with queenan--how cyclical the whole set up is. his complete disregard for everyone else in that office, especially sullivan. and despite all of that, it's obvious that he cares. i don't think you could do a job like that and not care in some way, and it’s those few and rare moments where we see him soften around billy --we need you, pal-- that's what i would like to see more of. that juxtaposition of good cop/bad cop all coming from the same guy.

shipping fic is what i am craving but honestly whatever you are comfortable with writing is fine, as long as it involves them both. due to the nature of the film i am perfectly comfortable with violence and the screwed up relationship they are bound to have. the friction born of the situation vs the fact that they need each other to get through it is what i am all about.

things that really get me with these two: codependency, power imbalances, the enemies to lovers trope, unexpected moments of vulnerability, loyalty.

prompts:

fics where billy survives are my usual go-to. i'd love something that explores the angst of billy's ‘where the hell were you when i needed you’ reaction towards dignam, supposing that he survives that ending. because from billy’s POV, at least, dignam basically disappears from the film after queenan’s death. maybe dignam still kills sullivan, and billy’s reaction to that. is he thankful or is he pissed?

i’ve wasted a lot of time thinking about the line --why don’t we meet up, sweetheart, let me buy you an ice cream-- the jokey seriousness of it just kills me. if you can somehow write that happening in a believable, in character fic you would earn my eternal respect. whether that’s a clandestine meeting during billy’s undercover period, or some kind of post-film scenario where dignam makes good on his promises, i have no idea but i’d love to see it.

daemon au - very curious how this would impact going undercover. daemons expressing feelings that the characters otherwise can’t. and the intimacy of touching/comforting each other’s daemons is an absolute favourite trope of mine.

soulmate au - either having their names on each other or their first words. or something else more uncommon/unusual. this interests me particularly here for the same reason the daemon au does because i’d love to see how this would work in a universe where you’re going undercover. i’m thinking about that scene where costello is smashing billy’s arm cast and the idea that it could be hiding something other than a wire.

time loop/groundhog day fic - there’s a lot of moments in the film i think they would both like to change, and it kind of makes sense to me to have billy’s survival be the pivotal thing triggering the loop.

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

*Arthur O’Dwyer *Samantha O’Dwyer *John Brooder

i’m a huge fan of westerns and i’m a huge fan of thinking too deeply about potential ot3s. bone tomahawk gave me both of these things to gorge on.

every time i watch it i latch onto all the little hints dropped about the kind of relationship brooder has with both of the o’dwyers. he’s a weird, vain, loner, dandy man type who is rude to pretty much everyone else in the film, except the married o’dwyers. it’s established that he was interested in samantha o’dwyer, presumably before she was married, flirted with her, but was ultimately rejected by her. instead of this being a point of conflict in the film, brooder is nothing but cordial with her, respectful even--knowing to go to her when told to find a doctor--and is quick to hold himself responsible for putting her in danger once she is taken.

it would then be very easy for the film to pit brooder and arthur against each other because of this past. but, excluding a couple moments when tensions are high, they’re both unusually friendly with each other. the way arthur jokes about wanting no flirtations between brooder and samantha but still allows brooder to escort his wife into town when he can’t because of his leg. arthur is the only one who ever calls him john. arthur is the only one to ever call brooder out when he’s being too rude, and have brooder actually listen to him and reel his rudeness in. i am especially floored by brooder calling arthur ‘cowboy’ multiple times, in the most fond manner possible. in fact, this might be the only way he refers to arthur, thinking back on it. i also love the little moment where brooder helps arthur down from his horse. such a small moment that means a lot considering the kind of man he’s been shown to be.

the film has an extremely violent end, hopeful in a few ways but largely not. anything written for this would inevitably have to draw on some of this violence, which i am fine with, but i’m mostly interested in how the characters deal with the trauma and less the trauma itself. it probably goes without saying that i ship all three of them in all configurations.

prompts:

anything set before the events of the film. how the three of them might interact on a day-to-day basis in the town of bright hope. how they reached this level of fondness. how outsiders might view the different way brooder interacts with the o’dwyers, compared to the face he shows to everyone else.

brooder lives AU - not gonna lie, my enjoyment of this film dips slightly once brooder is gone. (i’m always pleasantly surprised by how much matthew fox is the MVP here.) but maybe they find him hurt but not quite dead as they’re escaping, and all three of them get to return home. maybe for convenience sake samantha sets brooder up to recover in their home, so she can tend to him and arthur at the same time.

would love to see something that explores brooder having to come to terms and live with the amputation of his hand, considering how vain he is. he explicitly states in the film that he’d rather die than live like that, but maybe the o’dwyers can help him through this with what i imagine would probably have to be tough love.

Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)

*Blondie *Tuco Ramirez

i rewatched this recently and it sent me down a bit of a spiral of watching spaghetti westerns. i love the landscapes, the loneliness, talking around campfires under the stars, sharing a smoke, the constant underlying search for fortune and a place to settle down. the good the bad and the ugly remains my favourite simply because it has all these things and the added bonus of an antagonistic, reluctant partnership. and i especially love when partnerships eventually grow a layer of trust, no matter how flimsy.

these two fascinate me because the whole set up of their partnership in the beginning--the bounty hunting and the subsequent rescuing from the hanging--requires so much trust between them, and i am a firm believer that there is a certain amount of fondness between them, even when they’re trying to kill each other. this feels obvious to me by the end, what with blondie going out of his way to orchestrate a situation where tuco lives.

i love the darkness and the humour of their relationship and how they can both be deceptively smart when they need to be. i feel like they really do bring out the best and the worst of each other, in way that can only happen when you feel very strongly about someone. i do ship them but would be fine getting something that just explores their relationship.

prompts:

anything that explores the willingness of tuco putting a rope around his neck. how they got themselves into that situation, the trust it requires on tuco’s part to do that, the discussion they must have had to hash out all the details. maybe there’s a part of this deal we don’t see in the film, some kind of quid pro quo thing where blondie lets tuco do the same to him when they’re alone, as a way to even the score and it’s probably the only way to get tuco shut up about it. go as kinky as you like, breathplay and choking kink is welcome. i have a tiny obsession with the black neckerchief the man with no name usually wears, how thick it is, how he always wears it so close to his throat. if you can incorporate that somehow i would be crazy pleased.

post film reunion. would they just fall back into routine? whether that is going back to the bounty hunting scam or trying to kill each other again. i kind of doubt either of them would be able to hang onto the money for very long but what if one of them does use the money to buy some land. what if there was some very strange domesticity for a time.

weird west. go wild with ghosts, hauntings, legends of the old west. i love it most when the weirdness sits on the outskirts and creeps slowly into canon.

feel free to try out a soulmate/daemon fic here. it could be an interesting interpretation of the trust they development. even more so when they still trade murder attempts.

Uncharted (2022)

*Nathan Drake *Victor Sullivan

i’m a fan of the games which, in turn, should probably make me dislike this film. however, i regrettably had an okay-ish time with it. i wouldn’t exactly call it good but it was a passable buddy adventure film. uncharted 3 was always my favourite game because it focused on the relationship between these two, on how they met specifically, and so i was pretty much predetermined to get some enjoyment out of this concept here.

the things i like: the older man/younger man, mentor/protege dynamic. the competency shown when treasure hunting, pick-pocketing, pilot/flying kink. the friction of sully’s prior relationship with nate’s brother, how that didn’t end well, how that affects his and nate’s relationship, the insecurity of being seen as a replacement. i like that nate eventually softens sully’s edges but i also like that they are still kind of dicks to each other. i, for some reason, even enjoyed all the bubblegum teasing, the fondness towards sully and his cat, and the terrible attempt at sully’s infamous mustache at the end. and i cannot believe it’s canon that they spent many hours spooning in the trunk of that car.

i do ship it. i have since the games and i’m fine with acknowledging the age gap.

prompts:

a case fic of sorts. just them on the hunt for treasure. more focus on how they learn to work together when nate is more used to working alone and sully sees a lot of nate’s brother where he probably wishes he didn’t. maybe sully acknowledging how different his and nate’s dynamic is in comparison. because of feelings.

any kind of exploration into role reversal. some kind of situation that puts nate in charge. sully, despite being the older/more experienced one, being forced on the back foot.

i love the moments in the games when it crosses over into the supernatural. where, for the most part, the universe is perfectly normal, but the deeper they get the more things like yetis and immortality just becomes the norm. like indiana jones films when the religious objects and myths exist just below the surface. i would love something where they stumble on it during a treasure hunt.

The Color of Money (1986)

*Eddie Felson *Vincent Lauria *Carmen

i almost nominated this but eventually dropped it for something else. so i was pleasantly surprised to see someone else had thrown it into the ring.

the thing i really love about this film is that it’s made very obvious that they are all bad for each other. all three of them make each other worse in some way, and it’s largely about the corruption of goodness. most obviously of vincent, but i think it could be argued for all of them.

i like how each pairing gangs up on the other for different reasons at different times to best reach their goal. how eddie and carmen use vincent’s naivety and his softer heart against him. the way they work together to manipulate vincent--you make him feel good, i teach him how to run. how they both share the understanding that they’re not good people--they’re professionals, vincent.

i love the older/younger dynamic and the attempts at being a mentor between eddie and vincent. but i especially appreciate that the film lampoons the idea of it being a father/son kind of relationship when they use it in a grift and treat it like a joke. same with eddie and carmen when he outright says it’s not like that. eddie allowing vincent to get hurt to teach him a lesson, but then touching him with kid gloves when he checks out the damage done. the unavoidable phallic-ness of eddie giving vincent the pool cue--he’s been thinking of nothing else all day. then there’s the betrayal of vincent throwing his game against eddie. being confronted with the fact that they’ve created this monster, so what did they honestly expect would happen?

vincent becoming jealous of eddie and carmen acting like a couple. but which one is he jealous of exactly? eddie throwing his money around, sugar-daddying the younger couple. but also trying to keep his distance at the same time.

the way vincent and carmen keep pushing eddie, like letting him into their room while they’re showering and getting dressed. contrasted with the moments where we see them hanging out, watching tv together, just being happy in each other’s company. and the odd kindness they show him sometimes, like when eddie eventually gets played himself.

i definitely ship all three of them in all configurations.

prompts:

anything set during their time on the road. maybe having to share a hotel room for some reason. not sure if the ‘there’s only one bed’ trope counts when there’s three of them, but i’d still love to see it. vincent and carmen having to coax eddie into the bed with them because an old man like him shouldn’t be sleeping in a chair. stopping at diners, driving late into the night, deep conversations, falling asleep on people, fooling around in the back seat and the voyeurism of the third person pretending not to watch.

eddie and vincent teaching carmen how to play pool. maybe they’re the last ones left at a pool hall late at night. and their natural one-upmanship takes over.

anything post film where they keep running into each other. tripping up each other’s plans and grifts on purpose.

#yuletide #yuletide 2022

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vikingqueer · 4 years ago

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music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.

#music stuff #amalie.txt #music recommendations #mika #the mechanisms #the amazing devil #dodie #claudia boleyn #hozier #oh land #oysterband #ben platt

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female-overlord-3 · 4 years ago

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Unsolicited Haunting

My need for someone knowing Malex are cosmic soulmates because the show went out of their way to make sure everyone was oblivious idiots. Also it's spooky season so ghost! Rosa wanting everyone to stop being dumb and get their shit together. It's about 2k so @imawriteriwrite and @caitlesshea here you go! Warnings: mentions of a dead body. Mentions of drinking and being intoxicated. Let me know if I missed something 💚

It's kind of funny that Rosa always felt like a ghost and in the end, a ghost she became. Not forever but enough for her to be able to see those lives connected to hers.

Sometimes she would catch glimpses of Liz when she came home but those were rare.

She would hang around her father or Maria most often because they were a comfort even if she's dead.

It was those three though, who she eventually realized were honest to god aliens, that she couldn't stay away from. Michael Guerin and the Evan Twins.

Rosa stayed as far from Isobel as she could but over the years she came to watch over her, try and figure out why she was the last thing she saw before becoming like this. It wasn't until Isobel started having her 'blackouts' that the boys called them, when she realized it was Isobel's own husband. The man was also an alien and wanted both of them.

Rosa didn't feel much but finding your dead body in a freaking alien pod thing was the most intense feeling she's felt since becoming aware. Fear, horror, confusion, and rage. No wonder she isn't free but stuck here like this.

That day she stayed with Michael Guerin because he was the furthest and easiest way to distract her. He fixed cars, drank, drove to his alien pod thing, and worked in his secret bunker on what she assumed was alien stuff. It made her tingle.

After that she mostly watched him and his simple life. For some reason he felt as invisible and dead as her.

It was probably Alex's first time back from wherever he went (the air force she later learned to her horror) when she saw Michael come alive.

Alex showed up at Michael's airstream and the two collided like planets. Intense and destructive.

She remembers Alex telling her about a boy, someone he was both excited and terrified about because of how he made him feel. Rosa knew she was the only one who could really read between Alex's line.

Excited because he wanted it. Something for him with someone who might actually care.

Terrified because he knew his dad would take it away, would hurt whoever Alex wanted. Alex wasn't allowed to have or want anything.

These two emotions waring because Michael made him feel alive too.

Rosa doesn't know the whole story but after the first couple of years she got a general outline from listening and watching.

They still have no idea where they're from or why they're here. She sees that's because of Max while Michael hasn't stopped looking since he found the first piece of their ship.

The night she died no one knew who really did it.

They assumed it was Isobel but Michael decided to protect his 'sister' by saying he did it. They covered it up to not be found out and now Rosa gets to watch their sad lives until something happens and she's free.

So far she doesn't think most of their lives have been really interesting aside from Michael and Alex.

Those two… Those two bring her comfort because even before she died she knew whoever Alex wanted would have to be special. Boy was Michael Guerin special alright.

There's also just- she can feel the love that pours off them. Love for each other that's visible in the way they look at each other and how happy being near makes them. You don't realize how unhappy those two are until you see them together.

So Rosa watches and waits.

She sees them fight and fuck. Talk without saying what they really mean. The change that time and being apart does to them. The pain they're in from it and the brief moments when they can smile and breathe before starting the whole thing over again.

It's not until a decade has officially passed that something starts happening.

Liz comes back.

Alex comes back.

Liz is shot but Max heals her and Rosa knows things are about to really go downhill.

Liz was always soft for her white boy and Rosa knows Max is crazy about her but two things become clear over the next few days.

The closer Liz and Max get causes more problems for everyone else. The more problems there are the more Alex and Michael have to fix.

Sometimes Rosa really hates Max Evans even if he makes her sister happy.

Max's decision to save Liz was a catalyst for so many things hidden to be dragged to the surface that sometimes Rosa can't keep up.

Alex and Kyle find out about her biological father. Liz finds out about Max. Alex finds an alien ship part in Rosas old 'room' and of course finds out about aliens all on his own. Apparently Alex's dick of a dad also knows, that it's Alex's legacy or some shit Rosa felt the faintest urge to laugh at.

Who knew Alex and Michael were some Romeo and Juliet in space shit.

Even more stuff happens with Isobel but Rosa knows she'll be fine. Her sister and Michael are too smart to let her die.

The thing that makes her sad and angry is that Alex decided letting Michael go would be safer for his alien boy.

Oh Michael can be a totally knuckle head sometimes but if there's one thing he needs to be more than a ghost like her, it's having Alex in his life. The same can be said for Alex but that idiot is too stubborn to not let whatever happen to Michael's hand happen again.

She later finds out Alex's dad did hurt what he wanted and it was on the day she died.

That day really was the start for everything falling apart.

So now her comfort is gone because Alex is trying to protect Michael and for some reason they don't realize how much they love each other.

Then Michael and Maria do something stupid in texas.

Then Alex and Michael finally talk.

Apparently everyone is under some idiot spell and needs Rosa to voice the obvious.

Then Michael goes to Maria while Alex is waiting.

She can barely stand being there and decides to wait with Alex instead. That was probably the only true time she was actually disappointed in Maria.

She was there for everything and then Max brings her back and she remembers nothing.

She remembers nothing but there are feelings like a tug on her.

She still knows Alex and Michael love each other, that didn't change. If anything remembering nothing means she still knows them all at their core without the last decade of bullshit they've been buried under.

But what can one do with feelings and tugs when she's not near them to see it anymore.

They've kept her away and hidden but that's never stopped her before especially once it becomes too much.

If anything it made things worse, being stuck with her thoughts.

So she starts to drink and drink and fight against this phantom Max in her head.

She knows nothing in this time where she's out of place so what is one to do but find comfort.

So she goes to the Pony and Maria finds her.

That's where she finds out Michael and Maria are together.

In her deep moments of floating in a peaceful drunken haze, something screams at her that they shouldn't.

She still doesn't remember but the more she learns and uses whatever abilities being in that pod, the more those feelings and tugs get stronger.

She finally asks Isobel to go into her head and find what she's missing.

It takes them a day to break from the trance and another day to be able to move.

They cling to each other before taking a steady breath and helping the other up. They have things to do and people to talk to.

It of course leads to a giant cluster fuck of everyone yelling and demanding answers once Rosa is done talking. They decided Isobel's house would be a good place if things started going flying.

Demands for answers and more questions being thrown at her as she fills everyone in on what their lives the last decade has been like through her eyes.

Everyone except Michael and Alex who remain silent. Silent as they look down at the floor and nothing else.

Rosa doesn't care if she's being selfish but she misses the comfort they gave her so she is going to get them back to what they should've been at the start of this mess.

The second Max starts focusing in on Michael for some reason, one that's probably not even about him, Alex seems to snap out of it and stands in front of Michael like the shield he loves to be.

Rosa is having none of that and before Max can say a word she storms over and grabs Alex's then Michael's hand to lead them to a different room.

Michael looks a bit confused but follows.

Alex looks relieved but unsure to what Rosa's planning.

Their in the room Isobel let her have and she pulls them onto the bed and makes them sit with her in the middle. She wraps their arms around her and tugs them close and the second she lets out a sigh they all just sink into each other.

"I'm not spending another second with you both not together. Say or do whatever you need but I'm done waiting for it to happen because it's going to no matter what you both think. If I can remember knowing you both love each other even as a ghost apparition thing, then you both can deal with your shit and make it work. Be your cosmic love or whatever you called it. Before things truly started to go to absolute hell you guys were my comfort. Knowing how much you both love each other just- it made being stuck like that okay even when I wanted to knock sense into you idiots."

It just comes pouring out of her and she feels their hold tighten on her.

"Stop wasting time. Stop looking for something you already have. You have the foundation no matter the ware and tear but you gotta build from it."

She thinks it finally clicks for them that when she said she saw them all over the last decade she was telling the truth. For once they weren't alone in all their pain and suffering. They finally had someone else that understands what they've been through.

"Okay." Michael croaks, all but begs as he presses his forehead into Rosa's hair and his hands tighten almost painfully onto Alex. "Thankfully I'm good with my hands right?"

They all laugh like it bursts from them.

Alex kisses the top of Rosa's head and sighs deeply as a small smile settles on his face.

"I missed your meddling." He chuckles softly. "You always knew what to say."

"You all needed an older sister to remind you to get over yourselves."

They all laugh again and they've settled into a more comfortable state.

Rosa can feel Michael is gearing up to say something, the erratic beat of his heart getting faster the longer he waits to say something. She nudges him to make him spit it out.

"I never stopped loving you." He finally says.

All Rosa can do is smile at the admission and wait

"There's no one else I love like the way I love you."

She feels Alex go tense but a nudge from her relaxes him.

"I would have stayed with you in Caulfield. I wouldn't have survived if I lost you."

Rosa watches as his hand settles on Michael's between her.

"I can't stop loving you if I tried."

Their hands slide together seamlessly like the ship pieces.

"Cosmic idiots you both."

"Hey we were having a moment." Michael whines playfully.

"And you're gonna have many more because I'm tired of everyone we know being blind to you two. Kyle gets a pass but he could've been more pushy."

A kiss is pressed to both her cheeks and fights the smile spreading across her face.

"Thank you Rosa." They both say and she simply nods before absolutely not snuggling closer.

"I'm glad my unsolicited haunting could help."

They're all still raw and sensitive but better now. The wound needed to be opened again but this time it will have a chance to breathe and properly heal. They're still digging back to the surface but now they've got shovels and their eager for fresh air.

#moon writes #malex fic #malex #rosa ortecho #spooky season

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el-gilliath · 5 years ago

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the way you make me feel (part 1)

On the 13th of June, a very special someone had their birthday and I promised to write a story for said birthday. And then I started working full time and got very swamped so I’m late as all hells. Because of this I decided to split it into two parts so here’s number one.

Happy (very late) birthday @lambourngb, I hope this breaks your heart just the way you wanted it to.

It should’ve started with a look. It should have ended with a kiss.

It didn’t.

Instead Alex is alone, watching as Michael’s body is taken away. Instead he watches as the love of his life is carried into a car, the grief of Isobel and Max heavy in his mind, the sound of Liz, Maria, and Kyle crying loud in his ear.

“I’m sorry, Alex.”

His eyes flicker to Flint for a second before he looks back at Michael. Flint actually looks sad. He doesn’t really understand why.

“You killed him, Flint. I don’t care how sorry you are.”

“I know,” Flint replies, his voice lowering. “But he’s not dead.”

“What?!” Alex turns towards his brother. Just as the doors to the car closes, just as it drives away into the night.

“Guerin’s not dead. But he will be in twenty four hours if you don’t find him and get him back.” Flint looks at him then, and for the first time in a long time Alex sees a hint of the brother he used to love. “Deep Sky will kill him when they find out, Alex. And I don’t know where they took him.”

“He’s my soulmate, Flint.”

“I know. I’ve always known. You’re the only one who can find him, now. Godspeed, little brother.”

With that Flint walks away while Isobel and Max start loudly asking questions, as does the human squad behind him. All except Maria.

He turns to look at her, watches her big eyes fill with shock and horror as she learns just who she’s been sleeping with. He doesn’t owe her any explanations, doesn’t owe her anything when it comes to Michael, really, just like he never blamed her for falling in love with Michael. He’s always understood how she could, and he will never begrudge her the happiness she found with him. The happiness she gave him. But he is sad she found out this way. Because as he sees the understanding enter her eyes, he knows just as well as her that whatever she had with Michael will now be over. She will never be with him again after this and when Alex finds Michael he’s claiming the bond, how can he not after losing him.

Everything changes now. So maybe it should've started with a look, should’ve ended with a kiss.

Instead, it starts with a soulbond. And a pissed off Air Force Captain looking for his alien soulmate.

———

It starts with a bomb. And a kidnapping. It starts with waking up in Jesse’s basement, and being taken from there by Flint.

It starts with him being collateral for Michael so he’ll build them the bomb.

It ends in death. And pain.

But before the ending, Alex is locked to a radiator, sans prosthetic, with a raging headache.

He knows the headache isn’t actually his, but it still hurts. He knows the headache isn’t his like he knows Michael is feeling phantom pains. At least he’s feeling them in a foot that’s actually there.

If he concentrates he can see it, the bomb Michael is building. He can see the intricate mechanics, the details that make up the bomb, the canister that holds the bio weapon that will kill Michael. But he’s still building it, still carefully putting it all together based on a schematic. All for Alex. Because he was stupid enough to get taken.

His soulmate is an idiot.

He feels Michael swallow a smile as Alex’s indignation hits him. He swallows a smile at the amusement sent back. Even if that indignation and amusement is a front for a much deeper feeling. Fear has always been a powerful emotion in both of them. Sometimes too powerful, at times not powerful enough.

He tries not to let it color their back and forth of emotions, he would rather keep those positive. Especially now that he gets to have a back and forth again. It’s been lonely in his head for a long time, he doesn’t want it to become lonely again. Even though he knows it will be, when this is over and Michael goes back to Maria.

He feels a thrill of curiosity, Michael probably picking up on his negative emotions but not knowing what’s the cause of them. He sends reassurance back, aborting his thinking about the entire situation. What matters is both of them getting out of this alive, the rest he doesn’t care about. And as long as Michael is out there building a bomb he really should not be building, Alex will do his very best to help with that.

He continues being with Michael through their bond, watching him work, looking down at the bomb through his eyes. He can feel Michael’s gratitude so clearly, so crisply in a way he hasn’t since they were 22. The last time he was home and things were truly good between them.

He does feel a slight sting when Michael calls him a complicated friend but he buries it deep inside. Though he can feel the uncertainty in Michael’s words, he’s uncertain about them himself. Friend still doesn’t feel right, he suspects it never will. He’s fairly sure it won’t feel right for Michael either regardless of what happens.

He still watches, still keeps Michael company, giving him comfort as he finishes the bomb. He feels Michael’s fear as he does, knowing that he just made something that could kill him, Max, and Isobel, possibly even Maria. But something overshadows the fear quickly, something that Alex doesn’t know how to identify. It’s warmer, more inviting. Comforting.

Alex startles when he realizes the feeling is love. It’s not a feeling he knows well, and one he’s rarely felt from Michael.

It’s one he shouldn’t be feeling right now, with Maria out there probably worried sick about her boyfriend. But it feels good, the way he remembers from the first time they touched and the bond bloomed between them. He needs to remember how much it hurt the first time the bond closed between them so he doesn’t get used to this feeling.

Still, he watches as Helena talks to Michael though her words are muddled. Probably because Michael isn’t really listening. Though he perks up when Helena asks him something, shooting out of his seat. Alex knows Helena is taking him to the room where he is.

He’s still surprised when Michael barges through the door, falls on his knees and kisses him. The bond soars, more than it has in a very long time, the red bloom of love, the green bloom of safety, the blue bloom of comfort, the yellow bloom of happiness. The white bloom of complete, of cosmic, of yes, him.

He breaks away, wrenching himself off Michael as he looks at him with wide eyes. He’s breathing hard, as hard as Michael, both of them looking at each other in shock. It’s obvious by the turmoil between them that Michael didn’t mean to kiss him. He probably didn’t even want to.

“How’s the bomb?” he asks, breaking the silence after a few minutes. He can’t deal with silence while his lips still tingle.

“It’s done,” Michael replies, swallowing harshly. “The only thing they need to do is deploy it.”

“Shit.”

“Alex. There’s two bombs. One kills me.” Michael takes a break, his hand moving to curl into Alex’s. “The other kills you. Helena wants to kill your dad, and she wants him to do it himself.”

“Shooting him would be easier,” Alex mumbles, making Michael snort.

“Yeah well Helena Ortecho is nothing if not dramatic.”

“Will it work?”

Michael looks at him and Alex doesn’t need him to say the words to know. Maybe Michael didn’t want to be someone that made destruction, he distinctly remember Michael talking about agricultural engineering when they were 17, happy and full of life, but that doesn’t mean he’s not good at what he does. He made the bomb, of course it’ll work.

“What happened to the prosthetic?”

“Just noticed that did you? Too busy kissing me?” Alex asks, regretting it a second later. But Michael just smiles ruefully, a hand (weirdly enough sans bandana) coming up to scratch the back of his neck in the way he does when nervous.

“Yeah. I’m-“

“No,” Alex interrupts. “Don’t apologize for something you don’t regret. You don’t have to apologize to me.”

“Yeah, I do,” Michael says. “But after CrashCon. When things aren’t so complicated.”

“Things are always complicated with us, Michael. CrashCon doesn’t change that.”

“Alex-“

“No,” he interrupts once again. “The only thing that uncomplicates us is a talk we should’ve had long ago. About everything.”

“That’s not just on me, Alex.”

“I’m not saying it is. But we’re soulmates, Michael. I’ve been with you in your mind for the last three days, watching you work, watching you create something just to keep me safe.” Alex takes a deep breath, “I’m your soulmate, and you just got down on your knees and kissed me.”

“I know.” Michael leans his forehead against his, their hands tangled in between them. Alex hadn't noticed that their hands are still tangled, but it feels good. “After CrashCon, okay? It’s not fair for me to do anything before then.”

“It might not be fair even then. She’s my best friend, Michael. Does she even know?”

Michael sighs, closing his eyes. They both know what the answer to that is, both of them too afraid to let the important woman they share know. Alex knows he should’ve told her years ago, when they were 17. Or when he came back at 28. Regardless, she doesn’t deserve to be in the middle of this big secret.

“I have to go, Helena won’t let me stay with you for much longer,” Michael says, opening his eyes and moving away from Alex.

“Get me out of this chain then,” Alex says, rattling the chain he has around his wrist.

“No powers, and you’re safer here.”

“You are not leaving me in this house while there's a bomb out there that can kill me and you.”

“Alex, please,” Michael pleads.

“No. You’re not leaving me here. And that’s final.”

Michael scoffs, shaking his head and opening his mouth to speak before he obviously reconsiders. Alex watches him sigh, feeling the turmoil and uncertainty in his head. A determination comes through the bond not long after. Alex is not surprised, Michael had always been stubborn.

“I’m-“

The door opens before Michael can say more than a word, Helena entering the room with Alex’s prosthetic in her hands.

“Time to go. You too, Alex,” she says, walking over and opening the lock on the chain and giving him the leg. She’s been weirdly motherly, something Alex doesn’t really understand. Helena hasn’t been motherly in her entire life.

“You’re letting me go?” he asks. He still puts the prosthetic on.

“Yes. Mr. Guerin here held up his end of the bargain.” Helena looks at him, a frown on her face. “Your brother is on his way back, you should leave.”

With that she walks out of the room, leaving Alex to stare after her. He turns his gaze to Michael, raising an eyebrow in question. Michael just shrugs, getting up on his feet. He extends his hand to Alex, who smiles as he gets up, carefully putting pressure on the prosthetic to make sure his balance is steady.

“Guess I’m not leaving you here then,” Michael says, a wry smile on his face. The worry is back between them, but Alex knows that can’t be helped.

“Guess not,” he replies. They both know shit is about to go down.

———

He doesn’t want to separate from Michael, doesn’t want to walk away again now that they know what’s going on. But Michael has to check in with everyone at the Pony, tell them what’s going on. Alex has to find his dad. Regardless of how he might feel about him, he knows Greg was planning on taking his kids to CrashCon, and Flint will probably appear sooner rather than later, especially now that he’s free and back on two feet.

Flint had been patient with a hint of brotherly concern when he made Alex remove it, but that had disappeared when Alex tried to hit him with the leg afterwards. It’s always the way it is with them, a catch and pull created from years under the same roof as their psychotic father who pushed them against each other for his own sick pleasure. Alex loves his brothers, always have and always will, but they all know they won’t always be on the same side. Jesse taught them too well for them to not protect their own interests. Even when that means going against each other.

He still walks into CrashCon with trepidation, breathing calmly as he looks for his father. From what Michael told him as they were leaving the house, Jesse already has the Manes bomb, a switch made by Helena herself. It scares him that Jesse could just use it without knowing. He could potentially walk into a situation where Jesse’s already dead. Though Alex does doubt that, he would want to wait until he’s absolutely sure the aliens are there.

He finds him easily enough, standing at the edge of the crowd in his uniform, carrying a briefcase.

“Hello, dad.”

Jesse turns, scoffing as he sees his youngest son. “I thought you were kidnapped?”

“You mean secondary kidnapped, after Flint took me from your house.”

“Yes, well, your brother caught me off guard. Didn’t think he had it in him.”

“Of course he has it in him, you taught us to supersede any expectations no matter the cost,” Alex answers. He knows there’s a slight bitterness to his tone because he did not like the lessons. But in some ways that have helped in more ways than he wants to admit.

“And yet you all grew up to be disappointments,” Jesse says. Alex only snorts, too tired to deal with him. “Why are you here, Alex? Trying to tell me not to kill the aliens?”

“We both know you wouldn’t listen if I did. But that bomb doesn’t kill aliens, it kills the Manes family line.” Alex meets his father's eye. “The DNA in that bomb is yours.”

“Even for you that’s a stretch.”

“It’s not a-” Alex takes a deep breath, holding his rising anger. “Dad, would you really take the chance? Greg is here, Flint is probably here now too, and I know you hate all that I am but I’m your blood!”

“You would say anything to protect that alien of yours,” Jesse says. His voice is cold and devoid of emotion. “He’s corrupted you so completely by now that you’ll believe anything he says.”

“So you won’t listen when I tell you that the bomb you have in that suitcase will kill us.”

“Why ask a question you already know the answer to?”

“Because I was hoping that for once the love for your sons would be enough to change your mind.”

“If my sons were worthy, it would have. But as I already told you, my sons are disappointments.” Jesse puts the briefcase down and opens it. “The alien threat needs to be eradicated, and none of you will stand in the way of that.”

And with that Alex’s resolve breaks. No matter what happens he will never be able to convince his dad otherwise and it breaks his heart in a way he didn’t think his heart could break since he was 14 and came out, since he was 17 and a hand was shattered in his safe space.

“I can't let you kill them, dad. And I can’t let you kill us.”

“And how do you plan to stop me?” Jesse asks, rising with the bomb in his hand. He freezes as he hears a gun being cocked.

“By shooting you if I have to,” Alex replies. His hand is trembling slightly, he feels nauseous and scared. But the gun is pointed at his dad and he knows his aim is true. He won’t. He never misses.

“So you would kill me to make me stop?” Jesse laughs, low and creepy. “You don’t have the stones.”

“I’d do what it takes to save my brothers. And you, dad. You might detest me but you are still my father. And that means something. At least it does to me.”

Jesse watches him with hatred in his eyes, with disgust, disbelief and something akin to dishonor. Alex isn’t surprised. His dad has always watched him that way, always filled with all the bad emotions that no kid should ever have to see from a loved one but that he’s seen for his entire life.

“I’m not going to let you stop me, I will protect Earth from the alien threat,” Jesse says, lifting the bomb and putting his finger on the trigger. “So if you really want to stop me. Shoot.”

Alex wavers. He knows he does. Knows that even though he wants to so bad and in many ways Jesse deserves it, he is his father and shooting someone you love is never going to be easy, shouldn’t be easy.

Unfortunately he gets lost in his mind for a second.

He refocuses to see the numbers counting down, Jesse’s smug smile taking over his entire face.

“You can’t save the aliens now, son.”

“No,” Alex replies. “I can’t save us.”

He makes a desperate move, calling out as loud as he can to Michael to get his brothers the hell away from CrashCon as he can, getting close and pistol whipping his dad over the head as he does, taking the bomb from him. He feels Michael’s alarm, sees him telling the rest of them the same thing before he starts running. Towards Alex.

“What are you doing?” Alex asks, sending the question and fear hurling towards Michael through their bond.

“You need to get away from that bomb too!” Michael replies, running at full speed. Alex looks down at the bomb, there’s only a minute left.

“It’s too late, Michael,” Alex says. He knows he won’t get far enough away from it.

“The hell it is!” Alex hears Michael yell, watches him burst through the crowds close to him now, his hand stretched out.

“No!” Alex yells, but it’s too late. The bomb rips out of his hand, hurtling towards Michael and smacking into his palm. “Michael, you have to stop!”

“I won’t die from this, you will.” Michael takes off, changing the direction he’s running in so he goes away from Alex. He’s running fast, his legs and speed probably powered by the excellent control he has over his powers as well, eating up distance as he moves farther and farther away from Alex while the timer ticks down. “I won’t watch you die, Alex.”

Alex doesn’t answer, watching Michael throw the bomb with his powers as far as he can after the slight beep that probably signals the timer hitting zero. He watches the bomb through Michael’s eyes as it sails away, waits to see if anything will happen. He can’t feel a thing, so he’s probably safe.

He feels elation, for a second. And then he realizes.

He might not feel anything. But Michael does.

“No!” He takes off running, following the path Michael took. He can feel Michael getting weaker, can sense the blood dripping from his eyes and nose, can feel his breath stutter and shake.

He runs faster than he’s ever run before, faster than they ran at Caulfield, his prosthetic protesting his every move as he pushes onwards.

He already knows he’s going to be too late.

“Michael!” he yells, both out loud and through the bond. He’s scared, so very scared. But he needs to get to Michael. He needs him to know that he’s there.

He starts crying when he feels Michael fall to his knees, almost stumbles as he feels Michael’s heart stutter. He runs impossibly faster as Michael’s breath stops.

He falls to his knees besides Michael only a minute later, but Michael is already dead. His last thoughts of ‘I love you’ rattling around Alex’s brain.

#roswell new mexico #michael guerin #alex manes #malex #malex fic #my fic #michael is not dead!#angst #happy birthday babe #i hope you enjoy #and i'm sorry #except not really #soulmate au

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Best French TV Shows on Netflix

https://ift.tt/39h5WOg

When acclaimed supernatural series Les Revenants/The Returned aired on Canal+ in 2012, it emerged into a fairly barren landscape for French-language scripted TV drama. The story of a remote mountain town whose dead are mysteriously revived, its stylish, cinematic look and philosophical, grown-up approach to genre television had little precedent. While the French ‘polar’ or detective series had long been a television staple, France had almost no tradition of sci-fi, horror and fantasy TV shows – or at least, none taken seriously by its understandably cinephile-and-proud cultural gatekeepers.

In the last five years, coinciding with the global growth of scripted TV drama, that’s all changed. Crime thrillers still wear the crown, but alongside them, France and Belgium are producing and exporting more continuing television dramas and miniseries than ever. From Black Mirror-ish future-set Osmosis and consciousness-swapping Transfers, to cool Parisian teen Vampires and creepy horror Marianne, scripted French-language genre television is exploding. It’s early days and the market has been testing its breadth, which explains the profusion of shows below that haven’t lasted beyond a single series. When it works though, as in excellent comedy-drama Call My Agent, it really works, in France and around the world.

Political thrillers, comedies, psychological drama, rom-com… there’s never been such scripted variety on French television, and thanks to streaming services, it’s never been so accessible around the world. Here’s a guide to what’s currently available on Netflix.

SCI-FI & FANTASY

Osmosis (2019)

In near future Paris, a dating app matches singles with their soulmates by mining their brain data, but decoding true love comes at a price.

‘If science could guarantee true love, would you say yes?’ asks this atmospheric Parisian-set sci-fi series. If your answer is ‘oui’, then this thoughtful examination of relationships, technology, fate and free may give you pause.

Eight-episode series Osmosis was created by Audrey Fouché, a writer on hit French supernatural series Les Revenants / The Returned. It’s about 12 participants in an experimental scientific study designed to match people with their perfect partner using an AI named Martin (pronounced Mart-an in French, therefore much less funny). It attracted excellent reviews on release, including many favourable comparisons to Black Mirror, though Netflix frustratingly said ‘non’ to a second season.

Into the Night (2020)

When a mysterious cosmic disaster strikes Earth, survivors on an overnight flight from Brussels race to find refuge and escape the sun’s rays.

Inspired in part by Polish sci-fi novel The Old Axolotl (what is there not to enjoy about that combination of words?) written by Jacek Dukaj, Into the Night is Netflix’s first Belgian original series. The sci-fi thriller was created by Jason George, a producer on Narcos and The Blacklist, and its first season consists of six 40-minute episodes.

It’s the story of a planeful of passengers mid-flight when an environmental catastrophe causes the sun’s rays to start destroying all organic life. If the plane can outrun the sunrise by flying through different time zones, they might survive to fight its disastrous effects. A lot of them will, in fact, because a second season was ordered by Netflix in July 2020. Don’t go looking for depth necessarily with this one, it’s a twisty action sci-fi designed for bingeing and not for the ‘but would that really happen?’ brigade.

Transfers / Transferts (2017)

After a boating accident, woodworker and family man, Florian, wakes up in the body of an officer who leads a task force against illegal body transfers.

This six-episode sci-fi imagines a world where the technology has developed to transplant human consciousness from one body to another. Due to moral objections from the Church, the process is ruled illegal but continues underground, leading to the creation of a police task force which specialises in capturing unlawful ‘Transfers’. When a carpenter dies in an accident and awakens in the body of the man leading that task force, he’s thrown into the middle of a tense conspiracy.

This pacey thriller blending crime drama and sci-fi won a couple of awards on release, including a plaudit for the performance of Belgian lead Arieh Worthalter. Its co-creator Claude Scasso is part of the team on France’s hugely successful detective show Cain. Sadly despite all that, there’s no sniff of a second season.

Mortel (2019)

Determined to find his missing brother, high school troublemaker Sofiane ropes timid classmate Victor into a pact with a mysterious figure.

A rare excursion for France into the kind of teen supernatural TV more commonly found on America’s The CW, Mortel (a pun on French slang for cool, or whatever word means ‘cool’ these days – slammin’?) is the story of two high schoolers gifted with magical abilities. Teen Sofiane seeks an ancient power to help find his missing brother, and receives it courtesy of a Voodoo god. The catch is that this new-found power may only be used in conjunction with his oddball classmate, Victor.

Sofiane and Victor are thus thrown together by their magical pact, and the six-episode show sees the pair navigate teen life and supernatural danger at the same time. It was created by Frédéric Garcia, who made his name as a teen drama writer on Skam France. There won’t be a second season, and in all honesty, that’s not an enormous shame but genre fans looking for a change of scenery should get a kick from it.

Marianne (2019)

Emma, a famous and successful French horror writer, is forced to return to her hometown after the woman who haunted her dreams fifteen years ago begins to re-appear. The work she writes is apparently a work of fiction, but how much is fact?

This eight-episode series about a successful writer who, having bled her teenage nightmares for book material, now faces its real-life return was warmly received by horror fans on its arrival in 2019. The eight-episode first season (sadly, it wasn’t renewed for a second) is packed with classic scares which, though familiar, were handled extremely well. The French setting added a new element for UK and US viewers more used to seeing such hauntings play out in English.

Created by Quoc Dang Tran and Samuel Bodin, the undeniably scary Marianne stars Call Me By Your Name’s Victoire Du Bois as hit novelist Emma Larsimon, but it’s undeniably the face of Mireille Herbstmeyer as Madame Daugeron you’ll be seeing in your own nightmares.

Vampires (2020)

A Parisian teenager who is half human, half vampire grapples with her emerging powers, and family turmoil as she is pursued by a secret vampire community.

The vampire mythos gets another go-around in this six-part coming-of-age drama about a Parisian teenager torn between two identities. Doina (Oulaya Amamra) is half-vampire, half-human. Her vamp mother has kept her on drugs to suppress her vampiric urges, but curiosity and teen rebellion lead Doina to explore her supernatural heritage.

The result is a stylish, blood-soaked, neo-noir teen show filled with sex and gore against the backdrop of the French capital. Yes, you’ve seen most of it all before, but as metaphors for adolescence go, vampirism’s one of the richest. The music-video aesthetic and developing mythology – who are The Community, the mysterious vampiric cult who want Doina to join them? What happened to her human father? – combined with the family drama make this very watchable, if not a total must-see.

Black Spot / Zone Blanche (2017)

A police chief and an eccentric new prosecutor investigate a string of grisly crimes and eerie phenomena in an isolated town at the edge of a forest.

A creepy town, a haunted forest and beaucoup de killings are the ingredients of this Belgian supernatural series. It’s the story of a local police chief in a fictional town surrounded by a vast forest filled with creepy secrets that makes the local murder stats six times the national average, attracting the attention of an out-of-town investigator.

Black Spot was created by Mathieu Missoffe, a writer on crime drama Spiral and the French portions of Netflix original Criminal. It’s extremely bingeable, and while the Twin Peaks comparisons are overstating the matter, its combination of folk horror and dark humour makes it memorable. There are currently two eight-episode seasons (the original title Zone Blanche translates more closely to Dead Zone, but we’re not the ones making the decisions around here). As yet, there’s no word on a third season, but neither has it officially been cancelled.

Twice Upon a Time / Il était une seconde fois (2019)

While still reeling from a breakup, Vincent receives a cube with extraordinary powers and seizes a change to reconnect with his ex – in the past.

This mournful sci-fi romance about a man who receives an object in the post that enables him to travel back in time to nine months earlier, when he attempts to resurrect a failed relationship with his ex (Skins and The White Queen‘s Freya Mavor) wasn’t exactly warmly received by fans of either genre. With only four half-hour episodes though, it does have brevity in its favour, as well as its own violin-laden, intense atmosphere. If you’re a fan of meditative science-fiction that poses moral questions and doesn’t provide all (or indeed some) of the answers, Twice Upon a Time could be for you. Make sure you watch it with subtitles though, because the US dubbed accents are a bridge too far.

CRIME THRILLER

The Forest / La Forêt (2017)

When a teen girl disappears from a village near the Ardennes Forest, local police and a concerned teacher begin to uncover a web of unsettling secrets.

Comparisons to Zone Blanche (see above) abound for The Forest, but this is a much more straightforward Broadchurch-style crime thriller. Set in the Ardennes in a small town where everybody knows everybody and they’re all hiding sordid secrets (you know the drill by now), it’s about the search for a missing teenage girl and years of strange disappearances and goings-on in the titular forest.

Reviews were generally good, with plenty of praise for the scenery and soundtrack, but the key thing about this one-series thriller is that the ending offers definitive answers to the many questions posed in the series. A bit clichéd, perhaps, but crime mystery fans should find plenty to enjoy in the twists and turns.

The Chalet / Le Chalet (2017)

Friends gathered at a remote chalet in the French Alps for a summer getaway are caught in a deadly trap as a dark secret from the past comes to light.

The backdrop of Chamonix in the French Alps is what makes this serviceable thriller worth a look. Its somewhat predictable ‘nasty things happen in a remote chalet’ story plays out against a stunning mountain setting, over two timelines. The six hour-long episodes are split between 2017, when a group of friends visits the titular chalet, and 1997, when a family moved there for a fresh start. Neither goes… well.

By no means a must-watch, it’s nevertheless a compact, eventful series for Francophile TV fans, from the makers of crime thriller Les Dames and popular long-running French detective series Julie Lescaut.

11 great foreign-language TV dramas

By Gem Wheeler

Movies

25 stylish French films worth watching

By Aliya Whiteley

The Mantis / La Mante (2017)

A serial killer, nicknamed ‘La Mante’ decides to collaborate with the police when a string of murders that copycat her style suddenly appear.

Try to ignore the fact that the main character is called Damien Carrot and this six-part crime thriller will feel all the more gruesome. It’s already very, very gruesome and merits its many comparisons to The Sinner and Luther’s heightened world of psychopathic murderers and nasty death scenes. Apparently Stephen King’s a fan.

It’s a kind of Silence of the Lambs set-up about an incarcerated serial killer helping a cop to solve a series of copycat murders in Paris, with the twist that said cop is said serial killer’s son (!). Without giving anything away, the controversial ending definitely merits a wider discussion about the responsibilities of TV drama, which you’ll find elsewhere online, so be prepared for crassness. The trailer above is French-language only.

The Frozen Dead / Glacé (2017)

A grisly find atop a mountain in the French Pyrenees leads investigator Martin Servas into a twisted dance with a serial killer in this icy thriller.

Did we say the last one was Silence of the Lambs-y? This one is very much that aussi. In The Frozen Dead, a serial killer plays a sick game with the cops investigating some gruesome murders in the French Pyrenees. There’s also some wrongdoing involving a horse that doesn’t involve it ending up in a pot-au-feu.

This suspense thriller consists of six 50-minute episodes, which makes it a choice weekend binge, from creators with credits including Spiral and French political series Spin / Les Hommes de l’Ombre.

Unit 42 / Unité 42 (2017)

A widowed cop tapped to lead a special cybercrimes unit teams up with a former hacker to hunt down tech-savvy criminals who are terrorizing Belgium

For fans of The Tunnel and The Bridge, this is a Belgian odd-couple crime thriller about Sam – a resolutely analogue detective in his 50s – and Billie – a troubled hacker in her 20s. They team up in a newly created Brussels digital policing unit to track down a network of cyber terrorists responsible for a series of killings.

If that sounds generic and familiar, it is, but the chemistry of the two leads Patrick Ridremont and Constance Gay sells the premise. This police procedural has two 10-part series so far, comprising 50-minute episodes but only the first is currently available to stream on Netflix.

The Break / La Trêve (2016)

A police detective mourning a painful loss moves back to his peaceful hometown, only to be drawn into a murder case that dredges up dark secrets.

Nicknamed the Belgian Broadchurch (we really need to find new ways to describe crime TV), this whodunit earned high praise across both seasons for its darkly comic and twisted story of dark small town secrets. Filmed in The Ardennes, the two 10-episode seasons weave together numerous family drama subplots and lay bare sick secrets about the residents of Heiderfeld, Belgium.

The premise sees a police detective moves with his teenage daughter from Brussels back to his home town, where the body of a young football player has been pulled from the river. Against a backdrop of local corruption surrounding the construction of a dam, was it suicide or murder?

DRAMA

Inhuman Resources / Dérapages (2020)

Alain Delambre, unemployed and 57, is lured by an attractive job opening. But things get ugly when he realises he’s a pawn in a cruel corporate game.

Eric Cantona (yes, him) stars in this six-episode action-packed thriller satirising corporate greed. It’s based on a 2010 novel by Pierre Lemaitre titled Cadres Noirs, which itself was inspired by a true story about a company that staged a fake hostage situation as part of a round of high-level job interviews.

It’s a slick, gritty morality drama about a down-on-his-luck man (Cantona) forced into an extreme role when he’s tasked with simulating a hostage attack for a slimy boss seeking to decimate his workforce. Reviews have been very positive, with particular praise for Cantona in the lead role.

Mythomaniac / Mytho (2019)

Burned out and taken for granted, a working mother suspects her partner is cheating, so to win back his attentions, she feigns a medical diagnosis.

Directed by Fabrice Gobert, who headed up Les Revenants / The Returned and written by Anne Berest, this domestic drama-comedy is about Elvira, a disenchanted mother of three ignored by her family, cheated on by her husband and kicked around by suburban life. When she lies about a cancer diagnosis, things start to change for the better at home, but the lie brings its own complications. It won the audience award and best actress for lead Marina Hands (Black Spot, Taboo) at Series Mania, winning praise for her delicate, compassionate performance.

This is a solid family drama with a strong lead performance. It’s already been renewed for a second season, which was, pre-Covid-19, due to arrive in France in late 2020. See the French-language trailer above.

COMEDY & ROM-COM

Family Business (2019)

After learning France is about to legalize pot, a down-on-his-luck entrepreneur and his family race to turn their butcher shop into a marijuana cafe.

Starring, among others, French legend Liliane Rovère (also seen in Call My Agent, see below), this is part stoner comedy, part dysfunctional family sitcom. It’s about a struggling son (creator Jonathan Cohen) who comes up with the bright idea to pivot his Parisian Jewish family butcher shop into a cannabis cafe, and the trouble that lands them in on both sides of the law.

It’s lightweight with a bit of edge, and if you take a shine to its larger-than-life characters fear not, it was renewed for a second season very quickly after its initial release. The new episodes are scheduled to arrive in September 2020.

The Hook-up Plan / Plan Coeur (2018)

Elsa, on the verge of turning thirty and stuck in an uninspiring job, finds herself still hung up on her ex-boyfriend two years after their breakup. Her friends, hoping to help her break out of her rut and find some confidence, decide to hire a male escort to take her on a few dates.

This rom-com is the second French-language Netflix original after Gerard Depardieu-starring Marseille, and given the choice between the two, this is the one to watch. Three friends, Elsa, Emilie and Charlotte navigate relationships and imminent motherhood in contemporary Paris over two series.

It’s a light, pacey modern dating comedy filled with bright shots of Paris and city life. The English-targeted trailer riffed on its similarity to Love Actually, if you want to use that as a barometer for whether you’d enjoy it. (Though if it’s French comedy-drama you’re after though, run, don’t walk to Call My Agent, see below).

A Very Secret Service / Au Service de la France (2015)

1960: the French intelligence service hires the 23-year-old Andre Merlaux. Handsome, well-raised, intelligent but impressionable, Merlaux has much to learn to serve and defend the interests of France.

This light-weight Archer-ish satire goes back to the 1960s to a time when France’s position in the world stage was changing due to ongoing bloody colonial battles for independence, and French society was changing thanks to the rise of feminism and the civil rights movement. Set in a French intelligence training service, it follows a hapless new recruit’s attempts to follow orders and do his compatriots proud. There are two 12-episode seasons of this comedy drama, which was received warmly back in 2015 and pokes fun at the old ways and the new through the eyes of a fish out of water.

Call My Agent / Dix Pour Cent (2015)

At a top Paris talent firm, agents scramble to keep their star clients happy – and their business afloat – after an unexpected crisis.

Unless you are in fact watching it (in which case, carry on), this is surely The Best French TV Series You’re Not Watching. Set in a Parisian talent agency struggling to survive after the loss of its patron, it’s a workplace comedy-drama with heart and satirical bite. The forthcoming season four will sadly be its last, but at least it’s going to end on its own terms.

Dix Pour Cent (10 Per Cent in English, in reference to the agent’s cut of a star’s pay packet) is a funny, fast, whip-smart satire of, and love letter to the French film industry, filled with characters to love. Created by Fanny Herrero, it has a terrific comedy ensemble cast (including Camille Cottin, who played Fleabag in the French-language remake) but the real joy for fans of French cinema are the guest stars. So many legends pop up, from Juliette Binoche to Monica Bellucci, Jean Dujardin, Isabelle Huppert and Beatrice Dalle… all playing exaggerated versions of themselves. N’hesitez plus, vas-y!

The post The Best French TV Shows on Netflix appeared first on Den of Geek.

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pachelbelsheadcanon · 8 years ago

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God I fucking love soulmate AUs when they’re fucked up and subtly dystopian. I think maybe that’s the only way I can like them, when you the reader have to see and realize the horror of a world without free will, even as the characters and their society romanticize it. Especially when there’s an oddball character or two who does realize it’s fucked up, that gets interesting.

Like ok take the premise of “people see in black and white and gain color vision when they meet their soulmate”. A common AU with many takes on it (some that go more in depth on “what would a society with a high fraction of colorblind people look like” than others). And yet my favorite execution of it that I’ve seen, was in this one RP thread where the setting had one added twist: “if, before finding your soulmate, you fall in love with anyone else, you start to lose your vision altogether.” That’s so fucked up, and horrifying, and I love it. There’s so much you can do with a premise like that. What about people who decide blindness is fucking worth it and not something to be ashamed of, and stay with their partner even though they’re not soulmates. What about people who lost their vision completely and will never know if anyone is their soulmate or not. Just about the only thing you shouldn’t do with it is the typical romanticized soulmate AU.

Or “people can’t age and die of old age until they meet their soulmate”. Wtf does that do to a society’s perception of love and death? What does it say about a person if despite everything in their culture saying it’s a romantic ideal, they just don’t want to die? (Actually there isn’t much here I can say that wouldn’t be way directly inspired by And Indeed There Will Be Time. A+ fic, recommend it if you’re in the market for a Death Note soulmate au.)

#soulmate au #I guess I also alternately like ones that are set up in such a way as to PRESERVE free will #like where the 'soulmates matching' thing is worldbuilt as a biological or magical process without destiny entering into it #or where people's soulmates can change throughout their life and people can have many (and not necessarily romantic either)#or where soulmarks or whatever depend on past/current events (and their significance to the person) rather than what will happen in future #or where they mean just one of many possible futures and the future can be changed (maybe in sort of 'shatterpoint' fashion)#basically if free will is preserved there can be fun and fluff but if #determinism is canon to the setting #then that is cosmically horrifying to me and i need that horror to be Explored #i write thing #i guess

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thecoleopterawithana · 6 years ago

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Love your blog! I was wondering if you’ve read Paul’s PR guy’s diaries? They are full of little gems, such as how Paul uses smileys and is very handy with his iPhone. I read this entry and the guy writes Paul lost “a soulmate and songwriter”. I think it’s quite telling that the people he works with call John his soulmate. Haven’t read all the guy’s entries yet but just wanted to mention this one; it’s the entry about the Freshen Up tour in Japan 2018.

Hey there! I’m so incredibly sorry for taking so long to reply, but life has been truly hectic!

To answer your question, I hadn’t had the chance to go through Stuart Bell’s accounts of the Japanese leg of the Freshen Up Tour (2018), so I’m grateful you’ve brought this to my attention! He certainly offers a different insight into the inner workings of the tour and how a more than experienced Paul navigates the commotion still with youthful enthusiasm. Even if written with a bit of a “PR hat on”, an amassing of ‘insider’ POVs (from people who were actually there) is invaluable to getting the full picture of Paul McCartney. And as someone who is filled with love every time a new facet is revealed, I appreciate any piece of information that comes my way!

So I have to agree with you that little anecdotes like these are hidden gems:

The devotion and adoration is incredible and as Paul’s car rolls by this afternoon, the faithful are rewarded as Paul winds down the window and waves. He is so touched, and awed, by the reception that he even shoots some footage as he rolls past the fans. (Later in the week I receive a text from Paul while I am out for a run and it contains the clip. It looks mega so I ask if I can post to his social media – shortly afterwards I receive a smile face. A little-known fact about Paul – he is the master of emojis when text messaging!

— Wednesday 31st October – Tokyo Dome, For Whom The Bell Tells: Japan 2018.

And then, we have this other entry, that I agree is rather interesting: not only does it give us an ‘insider’s perspective on John’s significance in Paul’s life, but the piece centres on the issue of art as a platform with the power to spread a message, social responsibility, and how the message is something one’s passionate about (Paul being described as “not shying away from wearing his heart on his sleeve” just tickles me):

It barely needs mentioning that music is a huge and central part of Paul’s life but he has never been detached from the wider world. Like many musicians, matters of the heart are a preoccupation in his song-writing but Paul has continued to express his thoughts on life, the world in general and the causes close to his heart through his songs, interviews and other interventions. You can look back to the controversy surrounding his debut single with Wings, 'Give Ireland Back To The Irish’ (a response to the “Bloody Sunday” killings only a few weeks earlier in 1972), as an example of how he does not shy away from wearing his heart on his sleeve. Paul is passionate about many things and his humanity is self-evident. For a man who lost a soulmate and song-writing partner, you can imagine how the horrors of gun violence are an issue close to his heart. Just days ago the world was sickened by the mass shooting in a synagogue in Pittsburgh and so Paul has been keen to make his views known by not only showing his disgust at the attack which left 11 dead but also calling on the US to do the right thing by using their votes in the upcoming election to elect politicians who will do something about it. As I’m on my way to the venue Paul calls me and asks us to release a message in response to the terrible events. He gives me a quote over the phone and in a rather surreal moment as we chat, I find myself looking out of the car window to see giant posters of Paul across the city with huge welcome messages for him.

—Thursday 1st November – Tokyo Dome, For Whom The Bell Tells: Japan 2018.

But let’s address the bit about his relationship with John.

Like you, I find very telling the choice of words used here. It just goes to show how themselves and everyone around them have to scramble for a term that adequately describes the ineffability of their connection. It felt so encompassing, that the terms that regularly pop up hold that indescribable aspect in themselves: special, magical, cosmic soulmates. And seeing them struggle to put it into words is one of my favourite things! It’s no surprise then that I have an inordinate amount of overlapping tags covering the numerous nuances of this very same feeling, tracking their various attempts at capturing it.

But for me, it’s even more fascinating to look beyond the external awe-inducing aspect of it – this special, magical, cosmic glow that draws us to the relationship in the first place – and see how this notion felt to them; how it impacted the relationship in the first place.

Let’s look from Paul’s perspective first, as it is here, by a matter of the circumstances, that we find more material.

We wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together. And when we’d do it together, something special would happen. There’d be that little magic spark.

— Paul McCartney, in Bill Harry’s The Paul McCartney Encyclopedia (2003).

We read each other. We’d grown up together! (…) We’d been teenagers together, I’d been sitting in his bedroom listening to Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, we’d been taking down the words together when we were like 16/17. So we’ve actually grown up together. So that, if he said: “Gotta be like Chuck Berry!” I knew what record he meant. I knew even what line he was talking about! You know? So, we read each other in that respect.

— Paul McCartney, interview for the Today Show (6 July 1997).

With John and I, it was so special, I think both of us knew we couldn’t get that again. And it’s proved itself, through time, to be as special as it felt when we were doing it. So I don’t think that could happen again. We really were a complete fluke – just two kids who happened to meet up in Liverpool and share an interest and start writing songs together. And then developed, organically, together. And had the same sense of humour. And learned things at the same rate. Found out about Vietnam together. Little things. All of these little awarenesses pretty much hit us at the same time over a period of years. And you really become soulmates when that happens.

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Mark Binelli for Rolling Stone: Sir Paul rides again. (October 20th, 2005)

No matter what’s happened, even though John’s dead, I don’t feel like we are ever gonna be apart. I think we’re a part of each other’s lives, we’re a part of each other’s karma, man!

He was a lovely guy, you know. And it gets sadder and sadder to be saying “was”. Nearer to when he died I couldn’t believe I was saying “was”, but now I do believe I’m saying “was”. I’ve resisted it. I’ve tried to pretend he didn’t get killed… it’s a bit sad. But anyway, I was blessed to be in The Beatles, to work with John. Something, somewhere… you know they talk about a gift of songwriting, well that was a pretty cool gift whoever gave it me.

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Mat Snow for MOJO (November, 1995).

Paul seems to take a causality approach, with a bit of occasional baffling at the mysterious workings of fate sprinkled in. In typical Macca fashion, he condenses in himself the apparently paradoxical views of people as pavers of their own paths – we became soulmates because of the circumstances, because we chose to spend all that time together – and people as participants in a big cosmic play – we were brought together in the first place by something, somewhere, blessed to be a part of each other’s lives, each other’s karma.

But overall, it is very important to realise that despite attributing the initial circumstances to chance or a higher-power – them meeting at that particular moment and clicking so well immediately – Paul seems to value shared time, space and experiences as some of the biggest factors behind the magic.

They became soulmates, by virtue of growing up and living their lives together.

This places the agency and the responsibility of making it work right in their own hands. You want to be that close, that attuned, that in-sync with the other to the point of feeling like you can read each other’s minds? Right, you have to actually spend the time together, to accrue shared references and memories that will end up developing into that unspoken language. You can’t expect to have been born on this planet inherently capable of communicating with your preordained soulmate.

And that brings us to John.

John is awesome because despite having all those overpowering emotions and traumas inside him, he wasn’t actually afraid of engaging in some introspection and facing those feelings head-on. Because of this, he was able of evolving much faster (or at least, even when he couldn’t always change his actions, he seemed willing to try and become self-aware enough to understand why he was acting that way in the first place).

So let’s see, after 40 years of getting to know himself, what answers did Johnny reach:

John: Well, you’re asking why we met. I mean, I don’t know. It’s like asking why you were born. I can give you theories of karmic pasts and things like that, but I’ve no idea why. But why it continues is because we want it to continue and work to continue. There seem to be certain cycles that relationships go through. The critical points are at different parts of the different cycles. The new way of talking is like, “Well, why work on a relationship? We just stop and get another one.” But the karmic joke is, presuming you’re lucky enough to find a new relationship anywhere near the relationship you’re giving up – or exchanging, or walking away from, or destroying by inattention or inadvertence of selfishness, or whatever it is – that you have to go through it over and over and over again right up until you’re seventy. People never grasp the fact that they’re going to have to go through the same thing again. They get to the sort of five-year stretch or the seven-year itch or whatever these tension points are, that seem to be organic, built in, like the tide coming in and going out. It’s like every time the tide goes out, you quit—you move your house of something, I’m not making it clear here but you get where I’m going…

Sheff: Yes, yes, but what made you see that?

John: When [Yoko] kicked me out, I saw I was kicked out. When I was kicked out, I realised where I was, which was on a raft in the middle of the universe, and whatever happened, presuming I could have started another relationship, I would have ended up in the same place—if I was lucky. And that’s a big if.

Sheff: You’re speaking about your separation in the early Seventies.

John: Seventy-three, or whenever we were separated, which is sort of a very cold way of saying it. It took a while, but that’s what I saw. If I was lucky… It’s like what they say about karma. If you don’t get it right in this lifetime, you have to come back and go through it again. Well, those laws that are sort of cosmically talked about – accepted or not, but talked about apply down to the most minute detail of life, too. It’s like ‘Instant Karma,’ which is my way of saying it, right? It’s not just some big cosmic thing, although it’s that as well, but it’s also the small things, like your life here and your relationship with the person you want to live with and be with. There are laws governing that relationship, too. You can either give up halfway up the hill and say, “I don’t want to climb the mountain, it’s too tough, I’m going to go back to the bottom and start again,” or you can do it this time.

Sheff: But you once decided it was too tough.

John: I did. But I didn’t see any of this then. Yoko and I were lucky enough to go through that and come back and pick up where we left off, although it took us some kind of effort and energy to – to blend in again and get in the same sync again. It took some time.

— John Lennon, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

It is with great love and affection that I see John’s matured insights: that despite having met under cosmically mysterious circumstances, the choice to build it into something more is in your hands.

“Why it continues is because we want it to continue and work to continue.”

But John, like Paul, seems to have only gained this wisdom with the benefit of time and experience. It was with the perspective afforded by the passage of years that Paul came to fully realise and appreciate how truly special and improbably “perfect for each other” they were. And John “took his lucky break” and realised how hard it was to “find a new relationship anywhere near the relationship you’re giving up – or exchanging, or walking away from, or destroying by inattention or inadvertence of selfishness”.

(As an aside, I can’t help but point out how John pretty much disclosed what, in his opinion, made the mountain called JohnandPaul too difficult to climb: his selfishness and Paul’s inattention.)

In the same interview and continuing the reflections on the cyclic nature of relationships started above, and just what he lost by giving it up:

John: In a marriage, or a love affair – when the seven-year-itch or the twelve-year or whatever these things that you have to go through – there comes a point where the marriage collapses because they can’t face that reality, and they go seeking what they thought they should be having, still, somewhere else. I get a new girl, it’ll all be like that again; I get a new boy… But for all marriages, all couples, it’ll all be the same again. But what you lose is what you put into that… relationship. The early stuff – the Hard Day’s Night period, I call it – the early period, was the early equi– se– what I’m – what I’m equating it to is the sexual equivalent of the beginning of a relationship, of people in love. And the Sgt. Pepper-Abbey Road period was the period of maturity in the relationship. And maybe had we gone on together, maybe something more interesting would have come out of it. It would not have been the same. It would have been a different thing. But maybe it wouldn’t either. Maybe it was a marriage that had to end. Some marriages don’t get through that – that phase. It’s hard to speculate about what would have been.

— John Lennon, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

So, John acknowledges how you risk losing a very special relationship and everything you’ve put into it by walking away when it goes through a cyclic tough phase, how he did it once but he “didn’t see any of this then”.

But what didn’t he see back then? Was he too careless and flippant about what they had, not appreciating how unique it was?

No.

John was, even back then, very much aware that this thing with Paul was special. And that, if anything, made it worse. Because now there were (perhaps unconscious) unmeetable expectations weighing down on his belief in the genuineness of the relationship.

If they are cosmically connected, then they should be able to communicate wordlessly, “share in each other’s minds”; if they can read each other’s minds, they should know the other’s every want and need; so if Paul is not innately responding to his wants and needs, he is either actively ignoring John’s suffering (because Paul doesn’t really care about him or, perhaps, because he actually derives pleasure from seeing John down); or Paul can’t actually feel John’s pain intrinsically in the first place, and that would mean that everything that John believed about the specialness of the relationship and the relationship itself was a lie.

And boy, faulty communication sure is one of the fatal flaws in their dynamic! All because there was the assumption that they were so in-tune that they didn’t need to talk! There seemed to be the expectation that everything would flow seamlessly. And if it wasn’t flowing, if anything required a bit of personal input to work it out, then it wasn’t genuine and spontaneous any more. And if the relationship wasn’t real, it wasn’t worth climbing the mountain for. It shouldn’t be a climb at all, but rather an effortless glide, hand-in-hand, through the universe!

John: Because we have plenty of arguments, but we’re also so attuned to each other, and we know each other so well, through the years, that an argument never reaches a climax. Or it never reaches the point where somebody goes off ‘cause they’re done talking, you know.

Q: In other words, it’s forgotten.

John: It’s not forgotten. But we know each other so well, it’s like sort of mind-reading. If an argument’s building up between Ringo and I, say, there comes to a point where we know what’s coming next and it’s all – everybody packs in. Or something – some, “Okay, he wins,” you know. So we have ordinary arguments, like other people, but we don’t – there’s no sort of conflict. All the people who have conflict in show business either get married about nineteen times, they leave the group they’re in and go solo… and nothing ever happens.

— Interview w/ Larry Kane (2 September 1964).

Hindle: What do you think about language?JOHN: I think it’s a bit crummy, you know? It is a drag form of communication, really. We’ll get – we’ll get telepathy. I believe that.Hindle: You believe that?JOHN: Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure as anything I believe. It’s too… Because now we need it so much. […] But it’s hard… it’s that bit, you know. There are – there’s people everywhere of the same mind and it’s just… even amongst ourselves we can’t communicate. Which is the hard bit, you know. Hindle: Yeah.JOHN: Amongst the people that sort of really agree. Hindle: Just ’cause of words?JOHN: Just ’cause of words, and upbringing, and attitude, and how you express your… Well, it’s just some – you’ve got to find a mutual sort of language to express yourself, you know? And my language is that—Hindle: Unless you fall in love it’s impossible to communicate like that. JOHN: I mean, I wasn’t in love last year, but I was communicating quite well with people. Not as well, or maybe not as powerfully. ’Cause now there’s two of us, doing that, brrmmm, whatever it is. Sending out a vibration or whatever. But before it was me and… or me and George, alright, or whatever it was; we weren’t in love, but. You know. There’s enough in you to shove it out. It is just that bit. If you – if somebody comes in a room and he’s uptight and that, he can make the whole room uptight.

— John Lennon, interview w/ Maurice Hindle (December 1968).

It’s sort of complicated but sometimes you say things, but it’s not really what you meant to say. If I say something to you and you hear it different from what I’ve said it, and you answer back and we’re not really getting down to it. I’m really talking like that you know. Like somebody says ‘do you want ice cream?’ and I’ll say no, and actually I meant yes. You find yourself saying the opposite of what you mean. This happens to me quite a lot. I speak a lot, but what I say is not always what I mean.

— John Lennon, when talking about I Know (I Know) (1973).

Laverdiere: [The Family Way soundtrack] was actually the first time you would officially compose outside the Lennon-McCartney tandem.

Paul: Yes, and you know, it’s funny. That’s true. It’s funny because talking to Yoko recently, you know, you talk about all these things that happen way back in history. It turns out John was not pleased; but I didn’t know ‘til a year ago that he wasn’t pleased. He always told me, “Fine.” ‘Cause he’d been acting in a film – he did a film called How I Won The War – so we started to do little solo thing, just for a change, just for a break, and so I assumed, I asked him, “Is it okay with you?” He said, “Yeah, fine, fine.”

But Yoko told me that he was actually a little bit put off by that, because he hoped probably that I would say Lennon-McCartney will write this together. But to me it seemed a good opportunity to get away of what I did normally. But Yoko just told me apparently John was a little bit hurt about that. Which is sad. But we did actually talk about it. He just never told me at that time. He probably just covered up.

—Paul McCartney, interview w/ Michel Laverdière. (May 23rd, 1995)

‘Rigby’’s, um, his first verse, and the rest of the verses are basically mine. But the way he did it was – uh, was he had the song, and he knew he’d got the song. So rather than ask me, “John, do these lyrics—” Because by that period, he didn’t want to say that – to me. Okay? So what he would say was, “Hey, you guys, finish off the lyrics,” while he was sort of fiddling around with the track or something, or – or arranging it, in the other part of the giant studio in EMI.

Now, I sat there with Mal Evans, a road manager who was a telephone installer, and Neil Aspinall, who was a not-completed student accountant who became our road manager. And I was insulted and hurt that he’d thrown it out in the air, but I wanted to grab a piece of it, and I wrote it with them sitting at the table. So. There might be a version that they contributed, but there isn’t a line in there that they put in.

But that’s how it – [Paul] just sort of— ‘Cause that’s the kind of insensitivity he would have – which made me upset in the later years – because to him, that meant nothing. But that’s the kind of person he is. So he threw ‘em out and said, “Here, finish these up,” like – to anybody, who was around. [By saying that] actually he meant I was to do it, but – you know, Neil and Mal were sitting there, and…

— John Lennon, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

John: We don’t really write together any more. We haven’t written together for two years. Not really. Just occasional bits we help… somebody’s got to use a line or two.

Miles: How does that affect you when you’re playing then?

John: It doesn’t make any odds, who writes them. It’s when The Beatles perform that makes it into Beatle music. It’s a long time since we’ve sat down and written together for many reasons, because we used to write together mainly on tour. Then there was a valid reason for it. It got false – “Come round to my house and we’ll write some songs” – it doesn’t work anymore.

—John Lennon, interview w/ Barry Miles, (partially) unpublished. (September 23rd, 1969)

But in the early days of performing, whether it was Hamburg or Liverpool, when we were still playing dance halls, there was still a lot of inspirational energy. We hadn’t started repeating our little movements, our little licks. So in that respect, the Beatles’ live creativity had gone long before they came to America. And in the same respect, the creativity of songwriting had left Paul and me… well by the mid-Sixties it had become a craft.

And yet… a different kind of thing comes in. It’s like a love affair. When you first meet, you can have the hots twenty-four hours a day for each other. But after fifteen or twenty years, a different kind of sexual and intellectual relationship develops, right? It’s still love, but it’s different. So there’s that kind of difference in creativity too. As in a love affair, two creative people can destroy themselves trying to recapture that youthful spirit, at twenty-one or twenty-four, of creating without even being aware of how it’s happening. One takes to drugs, to drinks, to knock oneself out…

— John Lennon, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

I was really going through the “What’s it all about?” type thing – this songwriting is nothing, it’s pointless, and I’m no good, I’m not talented, and I’m shitty, and I couldn’t do anything but be a Beatle. What am I going to do about it? It lasted nearly two years and I was still in it during Pepper. I know Paul wasn’t at the time; he was feeling full of confidence, and I was going through murder during those periods.

—John Lennon, interview w/ Barry Miles, (partially) unpublished. (September 23rd, 1969)

You can get a picture of how this expectation of implicit understanding between them when mixed with the insecurity in the other’s love they harboured, bred a lot of hurts…

It takes two to tango, of course. I won’t really get into how Paul’s avoidance of his own feelings and implicit expectation that John would know how much he meant to him, without Paul having to look those emotions in the eye for too long or make himself vulnerable by saying them out loud, had a part to play in this. I have touched upon this in other posts and hope to go deeper in the future, but this has run away from me as it is!

It makes me happy that, even if only in retrospect, their approach to this special, magical, cosmic connection they shared evolved from the naive view that the relationship had to carry itself own the back of its own merits, to the more mature understanding that it continues because they want it to continue and work to continue. As John put it: Love is a flower and you have to water it.

Once again, thank you so much for the ask, and forgive me for losing myself completely down this rather angsty rabbit-hole… But feel free to explore the tags for more appreciations of the magical quality of Lennon/McCartney!

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yanban-san · 3 years ago

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Its been alluded to that eventually the twins want to show darling their true forms, but how are they going to do that without her going crazy? Would being immortal do anything to stop the truth from shredding her mind? Or are they going to go a step further and make her akin to whatever they are?

Sort of- They have what are essentially three appearances-

Their full scale true forms, which are ephemeral, incomprehensible, and impossible for a human to confront if they want to keep their sanity intact.

After this, they have their "first attempt at condensing cosmic eldritch force into itty bitty living space" which results in them taking their "monster" forms- Emmet looking like a radiant, angelic being, and Ingo looking more like a demon-beast thing. The reason being they are much more complex entities than a human existence can support, and they couldn't make the full jump to condensing themselves into monkey brained physical entities at once.

They then have their Very Normal(tm) Human Bodies- Slightly altered to better suit two eldritch horrors, but on the surface they look like two (very handsome) guys. These forms are actually kind of uncomfortable for them; their monstrous appearances are much more enjoyable, much easier for them to take on- And not as dangerous as their full, true appearances to physical creatures.

Darling would be able to hand being in the presence of their monstrous appearances, but... a side effect of the soul binding would probably start to turn darling, at least mentally/spiritually, into something akin to Ingo and Emmet; At least something more capable of comprehending their existences better.

Also, they really don't like the fact their soulmate's soul is confined to an easily squishable sack of meat with toothpicks in it, otherwise known as your body. They may grant their beloved immortality or super-regeneration, though Darling would probably notice really quickly if they woke up one day with such powers- So for now, since they haven't "binded" their soulmate yet, they just watch her very intently and keep her safe from any harm.

As for turning darling into what they are, I don’t know if they can quite do that without completely altering darling’s sense of self- I’d have to think about it more lol.

(Also side note- I accidentally deleted this other ask when I was attempting to remove porn bots, but someone gave an interesting idea of- like an angel, Emmet and Ingo hide their faces in their monster forms, which might show more of their true selves than the rest of their bodies- Except they do so under masks- Like the comedy and tragedy masks, but with either more eye-holes on them, or perhaps being more... animated than just a plain mask on their face. (Anon I am sorry for deletin your message!) Which I think is an interesting idea for their faces!)

#Demon AU #Monster AU #Monster Submas #Seth.Emmet #Seth.Ingo #Not even sure about this stuff #I had some vague soulmate AU ideas going around when I first started typing up stuff but #There are now so many notes on this AU #I really gotta sort them #And figure out what's what again

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blurhawaii · 3 years ago

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yuletide 2021

dear yuletide writer,

hello and happy yuletide! my letters get longer and longer every year as i’m still terrible at putting what i like into words. just know that the prompts are just suggestions–if you’ve got something else in mind, go for it.

likes:

dysfunctional relationships eg. codependency, messed up father/son dynamics, enemies to lovers, power imbalances.

vulnerability in men, uncertain intimacy.

UST, slow burn, first times.

magical realism/cosmic horror. weird hints of it in an otherwise normal universe.

redemption arcs.

found family.

big loyalty kink. love it when trust is earned and kept.

praise kink.

open and honest communication between partners.

polyamory. it’s the journey of them getting together and making it work that interests me the most. or how a couple goes about bringing in a third person.

stories set in canon. or a divergence of canon. fix-it fics.

dark/bleak fics. don’t be afraid to drag characters through the mud. happy endings are welcome but i like the struggle.

i’m fine with anything from gen to porn but would be happiest with something in the middle.

canon typical violence is fine and to be expected from some of my choices.

characters and their relationships are more important than plot for me.

dislikes:

AUs that are completely disconnected from canon e.g. high school, coffee shop AUs.

established relationships

crossovers

genderbending

feminisation of male characters

fics that are entirely fluff

A/B/O fics

PWP

mpreg

first person fics (i have no problem with second person fics tho if you think that could work.)

The Departed (2006)

*Billy Costigan *Sean Dignam

one of my favourite films ever. i request it every year so you can't really go wrong with this as i'm just thirsty for anything.

most of my love is for dignam and his tough love attitude towards his job and the undercovers he's responsible for. i am endlessly endeared by his wild card quality, expletive fueled speech and hair trigger temperament. the father/son relationship with queenan contrasted against billy’s father/son relationship with queenan. his complete disregard for everyone else in that office, especially sullivan. and despite all of that, it's obvious that he cares. i don't think you could do a job like that and not care in some way, and it’s those few and rare moments where we see him soften around billy --we need you, pal-- that's what i would like to see more of. that juxtaposition of good cop/bad cop all coming from the same guy. shipping fic is preferred but whatever you are comfortable with is fine. due to the nature of the film i am perfectly comfortable with violence and the screwed up relationship they are bound to have. the friction born of the situation vs the fact that they need each other to get through this is what i am all about.

things that really get me with these two: codependency, power imbalances, the enemies to lovers trope, vulnerability, loyalty.

prompts:

fics where billy survives are my usual go-to. i'd love something that explores the angst of billy's ‘where the hell were you when i needed you’ reaction towards dignam following that ending.

i’ve wasted a lot of time thinking about the line --why don’t we meet up, sweetheart, let me buy you an ice cream. the jokey seriousness of it just kills me. if you can somehow write that happening in a believable, in character fic you would earn my eternal respect. whether that’s a clandestine meeting during billy’s undercover period or some kind of post-film scenario where dignam makes good on his promises, i have no idea.

soulmate au - either having their names on each other or their first words, this interests me particularly here for the same reason the daemon au does because i’d love to see how this would work in a universe where you’re going undercover.

time loop/groundhog day fic - there’s a lot things i think both of them would love to change about how everything plays out during the film, and it kind of makes a lot of sense to have billy’s survival be the pivotal thing triggering the loop.

Locke (2013) *Ivan Locke *Donal

i think this film is an underappreciated masterpiece. a hour and a half long car ride that's completely compelling, to the point of being mesmerising, and it's all down to tom hardy and his welsh accent that's not even welsh. of all the relationships torn down, strengthened, and tentatively started, it's the one between ivan and donal that interests me the most. we’re given just enough background information to know there is a history between the two.

i love the way donal effectively gets promoted to right hand man simply because he's the only one still there willing to take ivan's call. it creates an immediate us vs them vibe that i really enjoy. we’re shown that there's a level of trust there, on top of the more intimate knowledge of donal's capacity to get drunk on the job--this has clearly been a problem before--but ivan still trusts him enough to get his baby of a building built when he can't be there personally, and that fascinates me. as ivan says, donal's a good man and everything is going to turn out okay in the end.

but we don’t actually get a lot of closure since the film ends very much in a lurch. and i can't bring myself to see the ending in a positive light. a baby with a woman he doesn't particular like is not a recipe for a fresh start and i simply cannot see ivan not following up on the progress of his building.

i do ship it and if you feel like taking it in that direction i would be totally into that. i guess i'm just looking for something post-film with these two, dealing with all the fallout the film sets up.

prompts:

i love the way ivan is always struggling to do what is right, while acknowledging he’s majorly fucked everything up. all the times he talks to his dad’s overbearing shadow shows how much weight he puts in legacies and being a better generation than the last. if the baby doesn’t work out donal often strikes me as someone who needs--not fixing per say--but needing help to keep him on a straight line. he’s one bad day away from a driving ban, as it is, and i’d love to see how ivan might view him as something he can pour his misplaced focus into, having lost his grasp on everything else.

i have this image of ivan sleeping on donal's couch because his wife won't take him back, bethan realises she just wants the baby and not him, he's lost his job and he has nowhere else to go and so he's just backseat driving the construction of his building through donal’s vague connection to it. you've got this man who's lost everything and a pseudo-alcoholic just wallowing together, maybe clinging to the idea that with the success of this building maybe they can fix themselves too.

The Alienist (TV) *Laszlo Kreizler *Sara Howard

i’m a big fan of the overall darkness of this show. the seedy underbelly of crime and violence, the murder mystery and the coming together of these mismatched people to hunt down a killer.

it excels at relationships between broken and traumatized characters and i love how readily it dives into the psychological aspects of them, often leading to glimpses of vulnerability which is the main goldmine for me here, especially concerning laszlo. he has such a dog-with-a-bone way of psychoanalysing everyone else but turns vicious when anyone tries to turn it back around on him, and i love how sara is usually the one pushing back.

watching the first season i was very much obsessed with the relationship between all three of the main characters, john included. i think i actually have the first ot3 fic for them on ao3 because my brain took one look at them and just clicked. and while i still love this dynamic, the second season took the time to really highlight the relationship between laszlo and sara, separate from john, and shows just how much growth they had between seasons.

i love how they went from lashing out at each other constantly on both personal and professional fronts, to seemingly having a standing appointment where they drink scotch in sara’s office and enjoy intelligent, somewhat bitchy conversations, while also offering each other the clumsiest, sweetest comforts. they’re just so supportive of each other throughout the second season, such as laszlo telling sara that her father would be proud of her and the multiple occasions that sara defends laszlo and his work at the institute. i would love to just see more of that.

prompts:

if you’re also interested in the ot3, feel free to throw hints of john into the mix. but i’d prefer it to be in the background for this. maybe lazslo and sara commiserate over john pulling away from them both with his relationship with violet. be that with open communication over drinks in sara’s office. i can definitely see them trying to one up each other by prodding where the other hurts over it, as they both still have the tendency to be bastards to each other when they’re hurting.

i love them being platonic friends but i’m also fascinated by how awkward they both are when confronted with anything sexually intimate or slightly kinky. both of them can talk the talk but not walk the walk and i’d kind of love to see them hesitantly coming together to have some of the most awkward but tender sex imaginable.

maybe a case requires sara to fake a relationship and laszlo is the only choice available. having to put their building trust and new emotional understanding up against this fake version of themselves. and maybe they end up blurring the lines along the way.

i am a sucker for magic tricks and laszlo allowing that kid to put a rope around his neck did a lot for me in a number of not so innocent ways. sara clearly found the other tricks endearing and so maybe just a quiet piece where laszlo practices a trick on sara and charming her. maybe it’s another trick that puts him in a vulnerable position and sara acknowledges how far they have come.

a little odd and very specific but HANDS. so many of my favourite moments involve their hands and, along with the added victorian stuffiness, it comes across as strikingly intimate every time they touch hands. from the not so good moment of laszlo slapping sara, to them pouring each other drinks, to him gently lifting her wrist while she’s deep under hypnosis, to them walking into john’s engagement party arm in arm, to laszlo gripping sara’s arm in terror as they race to the hospital. and my absolute favourite time being laszlo drunkenly beckoning sara down from her window. maybe a kind of 5+1 fic about other the times they’ve touched hands and then more.

The North Water (TV)

*Patrick Sumner *Henry Drax

admittedly i watched this looking for another ‘the terror’ which was unfair for a start but still couldn’t help colouring my opinion. and unfortunately my love for weird supernatural elements turning up in otherwise normal situations meant i was always going to find something lacking in this show, when compared to ‘the terror.’ nevertheless, i did enjoy it. and this was mostly because of the fucked up relationship between sumner and drax.

every time they were on screen together i was enthralled. the size difference, the height difference, sumner’s prissy attitude against drax’s complete and utter disregard for everyone else. we get mutual dick touching, face cupping, stabbing, tending of wounds, murder threats, drax watching sumner sleep, sumner dreaming about drax stroking his hair, and weirdly civil conversations about morality and the nature of man both before and after said murder attempts.

so basically what i want is just more of them being creepily into each other.

with this one I'm definitely interested in the more darker parts of their relationship, both sexual and not, as i do ship it. if we got matched on this fandom then i would hope that means you’re at least somewhat comfortable delving into that dark aspect, if not the sexual part of it. i’m fine with anything happening between them straying into dubcon territory, i just ask that it not fully cross over into noncon.

prompts:

there’s an inherent intimacy in tending to someone’s wounds and drax certainly goes out of his way to make every interaction as sexually charged as possible while also just oozing menace. i honestly screamed when he smelled the clean bandage while towering over sumner. so maybe drax hurts himself a lot working as a harpooner and goes to sumner every time and get increasingly creepier about it.

sumner continues to try and prove himself to the crew with some of the more hands-on jobs on the ship. maybe he thinks his surgeon skills mean he’ll be good at skinning seals but he’s wrong. cue drax putting a knife in sumner’s hand and then using his own meaty hand to guide his cuts in the proper way. bonus points for this being after sumner already suspects him, and they both know it. just drax teaching sumner things while being his horrible, intimidating self.

anything after the ship goes down and they’re stranded on the ice. drax being manacled throughout and sumner taking it upon himself to be drax’s keeper in the hopes that he can still see him be served justice in the end. even if that means keeping close, sharing their warmth and sleeping side by side. each one thinking the power balance has shifted in their favour and the different times where they are wrong about that.

maybe instead of the ending, they both learn the whole truth about the plan to sink the ship and also about later being manipulated into killing each other. instead they team up and go after baxter together. i was very much fascinated by sumner’s will graham-esque decent into darkness by the end, even showing up at baxter’s door all prettied up and well dressed for murder. would love something about drax also enjoying this turn, maybe he stands to the side and lets sumner do all the work, content to watch.

The Hangover (Movies)

*Phil Wenneck *Stu Price

this is somewhat of a bonus request for me. i wasn’t planning on it but i noticed someone else had nominated it and thought what the hell. they’re comfort films for me, something i put on in the background while i do other things.

at some point i stumbled on a fic for these two and it stuck in my brain until i started shipping them too. now whenever i watch these films i can’t help but notice how much they touch each other, and how phil’s dislike for stu’s girlfriends can easily be read as jealousy. plus i am completely enamoured by the proud look phil gives stu when he finally stands up for himself at the end of the first film, it reads very much as love.

dysfunctional and codependent pretty much covers all the relationships in these films. feel free to lean into that. they’re both kind of assholes but i think that only makes them more compatible to be honest.

prompts:

because of the nature of these films they usually only have each other to rely on and obviously have a long history we’re not ever really shown but understand immediately. the friends to lovers trope could work here. maybe something started when they were younger but now things have changed, they’re older, they have girlfriends, etc. life got in the way but maybe getting black out drunk is the only way they feel like they can still fool around with the guilt.

i also love the trope where the conventionally attractive one is in love with the less conventionally attractive one--it probably doesn’t take a genius to figure out why that is--but it fits perfectly here. as well as jerk characters that are soft for someone in particular. maybe a 5+1 fic for all the times phil tried to make a move but stu didn’t believe him.

#yuletide #yuletide 2021

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such-fun · 6 years ago

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Fic: You Should See Me In A Crown (Michael Langdon x Reader) Part Two.

You Should See Me In A Crown

Fandom: American Horror Story

Pairing: Michael Langdon x Reader

Summary: You can see the future, but you didn’t see this coming.

Notes: In this story, Queenie never got trapped in the Cortez.

Tags: @sweetcredence

You stared at Cordelia, willing her to wake up.

The warlocks had gathered around her prone body after the Supreme fainted rather dramatically. Not that she didn’t have good reason to; it wasn’t every day a dead student came strolling back into your lives.

And Michael—that was his name, Michael Langdon. He looked so…pleased.

John Henry helped carry Cordelia back inside. For a moment in the elevator everyone stood silent.

“How?”

“I wanted to get your attention,” Michael stated boldly when Myrtle finally managed to find the words.

He succeeded.

The men had left you all to your reunion, unable to hide their enthusiasm at Michael’s display of power. Only John Henry showed some reservation. The others were too consumed by the very thought that the Alpha had arisen. That true power was nearly in their grasp.

You let out a sharp breath of relief when you saw Cordelia’s eyes begin to flutter. Myrtle continued to stroke her hair as Zoe hovered nervously and Madison stared impatiently.

Cordelia came awake with a gasp and upon seeing Madison she murmured, “It wasn’t a dream.”

Before any of you could react, she stood, pulling Madison into a tight hug.

��Maybe you forgot,” Madison croaked, “I’m not much of a hugger.”

“You’re alive,” Cordelia whispered, voice watery from unshed tears.

She pulled back, stroking the young girl’s face reverently.

“The boy,” Cordelia began, causing you to tense and Myrtle to grimace.

“He is with those presumptuous charlatans,” Myrtle sniffed.

“I need to see him,” she declared, much to the redhead’s dismay.

“Cordelia—”

“I had a vision,” she stopped all of your protests.

Her eyes fell on you and your breath came quick and shaky.

“For months our sister has dreamt of our destruction,” she revealed as Zoe turned to you in concern. “And now I have seen it myself. It is no dream.” Cordelia looked to Myrtle, “I must see the boy.”

“So be it,” Myrtle said in resignation. “To the lion’s den,” she murmured as she took Madison’s arm, then Zoe’s, and led them out of the study.

“Cordelia—,” you stopped the blonde with a hand on her elbow. She gazed down at you sympathetically.

“I’m sorry,” she offered graciously, “I should have known. The Sight would not be so fickle as to bend to imagination. He is real—the white-faced demon.”

You swallowed nervously.

“You saw him too?” You gnawed on your bottom lip fearfully.

“I saw him gleefully destroy us all,” she admitted, eyes glazed as she mentally revisited the scene in her mind.

“I will not see you girls hurt,” Cordelia was resolved as she gripped your arms reassuringly.

“My inaction has kept us on this path,” the guilt clear in her voice. “But I am not my mother. I will not allow my own selfishness get in the way of your safety.

“I…I am losing strength,” she confessed, and it felt like a physical blow to your stomach. “The Sight…I am not enough to stop what’s coming. I know that now. But if there’s a chance, if Ariel is right, if Michael is the new Supreme—”

“No,” you interrupted her sharply. “Michael, he can’t—he’s not the one to lead us. He’s not you. I, when I saw him just now,” your babbling got Cordelia’s attention and her hands rubbed soothingly up and down your arms to calm you.

“I felt,” you struggled to put your feelings into words. “Something inside me is drawn to him. My power—everything, it reacts to him. Like there is something inside me, demanding to be heard. It’s not right, it’s not—natural,” you pled.

Cordelia smiled sadly, leaning forward and resting her forehead against yours. “That kind of response,” she considered solemnly, “it is wholly natural but unbelievably rare. Oh my girls,” she crooned sweetly, “you all have so much to learn.”

You were all confusion as she took a small step back.

“There are times when two souls are bound so tightly together that they recognize each other before our selves do. Michael is…extraordinarily gifted. And you,” she confided, “your power is growing every day. Your visions are more powerful than my own. It is possible that you are—connected.”

Cordelia frowned, “I haven’t experienced anything like you describe. I don’t know if I’d even wish to. People think of it as Soulmates. Such a trite word. But feelings are just that—feelings. You need never act upon them.

“You will see,” she grinned in determination, “we will not simply succumb to fate. Our destiny is ours to create. You’ve seen it, so have I, what fate has in store for our coven. I will see that it never comes to pass.

“Whatever your connection to Michael, you are free to make your own decisions. As am I.” Cordelia’s smile faded as she forced herself to stand tall, her gaze shifting to the closed door and the men waiting beyond it.

The Supreme strode past you, not looking for a moment as if her power was fading, and you found yourself following in her shadow. You only hoped to portray a mere hint of the confidence that she exuded.

You rejoined the members of your coven who looked rather dour in the face of the smug faces of the warlocks.

Michael stood beside Ariel, appearing deceptively innocent and far too happy with himself.

His eyes flicked to you but you kept yours locked on Cordelia. Whatever this supposed connection was, Cordelia has assured you it was entirely your decision whether or not to acknowledge it. And in this moment, as your Supreme stood weakened and the end drew near, the last thing you cared to think about was some cosmic link to a mysterious boy.

Eventually Michael gave up, turning his attention to her as well.

She gifted him with a genuine smile and he practically preened.

“I want to thank you for bringing her back.” Ariel patted Michael on the back, all the while wearing a shit-eating grin. Michael ducked his head in appreciation.

“I’ve been presented with something,” she continued, “A vision.”

Her hand reached out blindly, finding Zoe’s and holding it tight.

“I believe I saw the future. A terrifying future.” Michael remained stoic at such a revelation, but John Henry fidgeted anxiously. “Cataclysm. Fire. Death. I saw a man, but not a man. A white face. Demonic. He was laughing. Our academy, sisters, I saw it reduced to cinders.”

Myrtle looked ill at the thought.

“A warning.” Cordelia closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself. “But something in my blood is telling me that the only hope we have of surviving depends on what I do next.”

Michael perked up, and you watched closely as his muscles bunched slightly in anticipation.

“In two weeks time, at the rise of the Blood Moon, you will take the test of the Seven Wonders.”

The shouting was instantaneous, from both sides.

Ariel, Baldwin, and Behold were unable to hide their elation. Michael appeared studiously humble. Myrtle, on the other hand, was furious.

“Cordelia, this isn’t done!” she cried, but the Supreme merely shook her head.

“I’ve made up my mind.”

And that was that. There was no swaying her. It was shortly after that you left Hawthorne’s, and the rather intense gaze of Michael Langdon.

Myrtle tried her best to reason with Cordelia on the car ride to the airport, on the plane, even as you all walked into the house in Louisiana. But there was no changing course.

Cordelia was determined to alter the course of the future. You hoped she was doing the right thing. Still, you dreaded the thought of sleep that night and what things you might see.

But Cordelia was the Supreme, you tried to comfort yourself, and it didn’t do well to dwell on dreams.

As the girls settled into bed, night had only just begun in California.

It wasn’t difficult for Michael to sneak out of Hawthorne’s. His teachers were too busy congratulating themselves on their supposed victory over Cordelia Goode to even notice he was gone.

John Henry and his determination to find proof of Michael’s nefarious intentions was only a minor bump in the road. And one that had hopefully been handled.

Looking off into the tree line, he beamed when he saw her waiting in the shadows. He took off running, letting out a delighted giggle when she was finally close enough to pull into a big hug.

“Oh, my dear boy,” Miriam Mead cooed as she smothered him in a motherly embrace.

“Oh! Oh, look at you. You're skin and bones,” she tsked, standing back to take in the sight of him. “You're wasting away. Don't these people feed you?”

“I'm fine,” Michael assured her, basking in her presence before his mood shifted. “Just tell me you took care of the problem.”

“The problem,” she smirked, “is now a stack of overcooked country barbecue. They can bury him in a shoebox.”

“Good,” he was relieved. John Henry was a potential roadblock that had needed to be dealt with. She was the only person he truly had faith in to accomplish the task. “These people are the only ones who could pose a threat to me. Once I become Supreme, I can destroy them from within, eliminate their whole fucking coven. Then the road will be clear for me to do what I was born to do.”

“So stop worrying,” Mead chided. “Look how easy it was for you to win their trust, to get into their school. They may be wizards, but they're not exactly wizzes. Everything is going beautifully.”

“I still have to pass the Seven Wonders,” he reminded her, and she rolled her eyes. He envied the faith she had in him. There were days when doubt plagued him, but Ms. Mead was relentlessly optimistic. In her eyes, he could do no wrong.

“You will own the Seven Wonders, and then all of their covens, and then the world.” Michael smiled from ear to ear at her unwavering certainty.

His mind strayed for a moment and then he graced her with a thoroughly pleased half smile.

“I saw her today,” he mused. “With the other witches. She wanted to come to me, I could feel it, but she fought the instinct.”

Miriam clapped her hands in delight. “Give it time,” she reminded him. “She’s spent too much time with that Supreme of hers. She doesn’t know her place. At your side,” she declared proudly, smoothing down the collar of his shirt. It was only a matter of time until he found her. The one who would help him usher in a new age and a new world made in his father’s image. The girl didn’t know how special she was, the honor that had been bestowed on her. But it was only a matter of time. Michael would become Supreme and all would fall into place.

“What would I do without you?” he sighed contentedly, wishing he shared her complete conviction.

Mead pinched his cheek teasingly, the happiest she had ever been. “Now that’s something you’ll never have to worry about.”

#michael langdon x reader #michael langdon imagine #michael langdon #ahs apocalypse #ahs: apocalypse #cordelia goode #madison montgomery #zoe benson #myrtle snow #miriam mead #ariel #baldwin pennypacker #behold #john henry #ahs: coven #american horror story #fanfiction #fic #reader insert

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orionsangel86 · 7 years ago

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13x12 - Episode Review - What is Fifth Base Anyway?

So the people at Google must have been confused when they discovered the number of searches for “fifth base” drastically went up overnight… Steve Yokey you cheeky bugger I love you! (Show of hands everyone who did this? Go on, admit it!)

This episode was really good. One of the stronger ones of an already very strong bunch as season 13 continues to exceed in quality. It had jokes, it had deep emotional revelations, it had Cas once again using his SuperPower of sassing the fuck out of things to get what he wants. Yeah it was pretty awesome! So let’s delve into the main points.

The Red Herring Love Spell

We were all expecting this to be an episode similar to 12x11 based on how it was marketed to us. Dean is under a love spell! It’s up to Sam and Rowena to save him! That seemed to be the gist of the PR team’s focus. As ever, PR is not Showrunning and this turned out to be one giant red herring.

The love spell lasted all of five minutes. So why bother? WHY was a love spell even PART of this plot?! Seriously? Someone tell me how this episode couldn’t have followed the EXACT same narrative with the sisters using some other spell to force people to do things for them? The fact is, that love spell was pointless for the plot but excellent for getting people thinking about LOVE. Specifically, Dean Winchester and LOVE, or at least, what love should be, and what it most definitely is not.

Aside from the fact that the clunky music whenever the love spell was invoked made me cringe, I thoroughly enjoyed how innocent it all seemed. Dean got to play Prince Charming to the princess and provide her with a gift of her choosing. I think it says something about Dean that the love spell encouraged this fairy tale vibe specifically for him, when for Dale at the start it was all about him playing protector and hero through violence and theft. I just thought it was an interesting statement about Dean’s wishes and desires compared to other men. Though I gotta admit, the gift giving, goofiness and oh I dunno, protecting his lover from a gun? It all seemed rather familiar to me… Hmmm…

I mean who else has Dean previously entrusted with powerful one off weapons?

Who else has Dean had to recently protect from a pointed gun much to his own horror rather than the recipient who is unlikely to be harmed by a regular gun anyway?

Who else makes Dean goofy and pull these silly delighted faces?

*looks into the camera like on the Office*

Yeah, but see these are not really examples of true love, even though they are all things done with Cas. What IS true love in season 13 is something that subtextually KEEPs getting referred to in EVERY EPISODE. That in 13x01 – 13x05 Dean was deeply lost in grief. Deeply mourning over the loss of Cas – someone who he is truly in love with. Love makes you do crazy things? Yeah, and as Billy said in 13x05 (Yokey’s last episode FYI) Dean wanted to die. Cas’s death had brought him to that level. The fact that now it is SAM who is feeling low, feeling powerless because of the loss of Mary and Jack, and Dean is able to remain focussed and have HOPE that they will save them, continues to be astonishingly hypocritical of Dean given where he was when Cas was dead. But it does keep drawing our attention to that fact, and for that I love it.

Bonus point for “I think you may be right, I think its time we go ahead and call Cas…” … “I’m in love” because Yokey could have written Sam saying ANYTHING at that point but he chose to remind the audience about Cas at that exact moment… as Dean announces he is in love, because the two are connected (and because it then wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to assume that Sam’s initial reaction is “Oh… so you finally admit it?”)

(FYI this crappy gif is my own. Don’t judge. It’s the first I’ve ever made.)

Sam’s mild amusement here just fits the “oh so you finally admit it? We can call Cas and start the wedding preparations?” interpretation and NO ONE can stop me seeing it that way! :D

Bonus Point two for the mentions of “Soulmates” (which relate to Angels in the show) and “Cosmic” (which again, tends to relate to angels and Cas).

Bonus point three that this is an episodes marketed as Dean being in love! LOOK AT ALL THIS HETEROSEXUALITY! It seems to scream at our general audiences, and yet, as always in SPN, if the GA are seeking heterosexuality, they are to be disappointed. They got a 5 minute mini love spell plot and Dean once again is without even a hint of an actual true female romantic partner. Nope, sorry heteros seeking a woman for Dean. You won’t find that here!

Basically, it’s not too much of a stretch to interpret this entire love spell mini plot as exposition for the TRUTH regarding Dean and “true love”. Because we all know it. It’s right there in the subtext. I just wish they’d make it text already.

Review continues under the cut as per usual...

Addressing Long unspoken Trauma – FINALLY

Officially my favourite part of the episode (unofficially my second fave part after “fifth base”), the conversations between Sam and Rowena about their trauma at the hands of Lucifer had me welling up. This is the first time in SPN history that Sam has actually opened up to ANYONE about his Lucifer trauma. Read that again. Be amazed that it has taken this long. Send Dabb and Yokey a fruit basket for this.

One thing season 13 has been excellent at doing, is making things textual that were previously only implied. This seems to be a continued trend following on from the reveal in 12x22 that Dean is effectively Sam’s parent (A fact meta writers have been talking about for YEARS.)

I don’t really have much to say about it actually, because it’s all just THERE in the text. It has left me kind of speechless.

SAM: Its not gonna change anything, you’re still gonna feel helpless. What Lucifer did to you…

ROWENA: I told you I don’t… before he crushed my skull, Lucifer showed me his face. His true face. I’m scared Sam. All the time.

SAM: I’ve seen it too. What he really looks like behind… behind whatever vessel… yeah it still keeps me up at night.

ROWENA: How do you deal with it?

SAM: I guess I don’t deal with it, not really. I mean I…Ive pushed it down, and the world kept almost ending and so I keep pushing it down and I dunno… I don’t really talk about it, not even with Dean, I mean I could… he would listen but, it’s not something I really know how to share.

…..

SAM: Even if you do get the book, and even if you get your power back. It won’t matter. You won’t ever be able to change what happened, you won’t be able to change how helpless you felt, or how helpless you feel. You’re still gonna get scared. That feeling, that feeling never goes away.

ROWENA: Never?

SAM: Never.

…

Honestly it’s perfect. Yokey has decided that enough is enough. We need to discuss this. We need to talk about the fact that our main characters have a shit load of trauma. It’s about GODDAMN TIME.

(x)

I just want to scream about the shots for a second though because god bless Amanda Tapping for being so excellent at capturing emotions. I am starting to think she is one of the best directors for it. The intimate long close ups on the actors faces as they open about this stuff, it just works. The soft music in the back ground pulls no focus away from the gravity of Sam’s words. It’s intense, and harrowing and kudos to Jared here because I think he must have been ITCHING for a moment like this for Sam for YEARS (and for god sake someone ask him about this scene at a con instead of more bloody prank questions PLEASE.)

I also love that it’s Rowena who Sam opens up to about this stuff, because she has that in common with him. I know that it can be argued that Cas has also experienced trauma at the hands of Lucifer, but since Cas is an angel it’s not the same. I doubt Lucifer’s true face would affect Cas, since Cas is already an angel with the ability to see and cope with seeing things that human minds struggle to comprehend.

I think Rowena and Sam is our new Dean and Crowley. They are enemies, but they have a mutual respect for one another and I see this as a really good thing both for Sam and Rowena. Because Crowley was changed thanks to his bond with Dean (love for Dean), he was able to find redemption in that. Rowena could also now find redemption, especially considering her newly powered up status. For Sam I think it was a smart choice to give Rowena the pages at the end. It wasn’t just about the bond they formed over shared trauma, it was Sam knowing that Rowena is right, that Lucifer will always find a way back, and Sam knows that eventually he will have to face him again, and he needs all the help and power he can get, so a powered up Rowena is a powerful ally to have against the creature that tortured and broke both their spirits.

Am I shipping them? No, not really. I still think Rowena is a villain. I never shipped Drowley, though I acknowledge it’s existence in the show as basically a hairsbreadth away from canon. (it’s technically just as close to canon if not more so than Destiel and strongly implied that they hooked up in various episodes). But if the show did go there with Sam and Rowena I wouldn’t mind it as such. I just don’t think it would be endgame. But sure, it could work for a while. I see them more like frenemies with mutual interests. Besides, I’m a Saileen girl all the way and will continue to hope for Eileen’s resurrection this season.

Narrative Mirrors – Witches and Winchesters

Ah narrative mirrors, don’t we love them? I especially love them when they highlight the Winchester family dynamics and just how screwed up they all are. Our witchy sisters fall extremely easily into this category. Jamie and Jenny or “J2” as I now plan to call them (I see what you did there Yokey). So J2 are motivated to do whatever it takes to bring back mum. Whatever it takes even though they are hardly competent witches and only seem to have one spell mastered – the love spell. The older sister uses her charm to encourage the victims to do whatever they wish for, whilst the younger sister is the smarter of the two, more skilled in magic (I wonder who they are supposed to represent?)

They have one purpose, and will stop at nothing until that purpose is fulfilled:

JAMIE: I’m sorry, I know I’m the big sister and I’m supposed to be the strong one or whatever.

JENNY: Yeah?

JAMIE: I just really miss her.

JENNY: I do too.

JAMIE: I know, and I like, really believe in us

JENNY: Jamie, I just want her back so bad

JAMIE: And we’re going to get her back, even if we have to cast every spell in this book and curse the souls of like a million people to make it happen.

Doesn’t this sound rather familiar? Like from 13x09:

DEAN: You were right, about mom you were right, this whole time we should have been looking for her

SAM: I was just hoping, I didn’t know. And anyway it doesn’t matter, now that we do know.

DEAN: We find her, no matter what it takes.

Which always made me kinda uncomfortable. There is a reason that Billy didn’t want Dean knowing their mum was still alive. Because Billy knows that the Winchesters would break the Universe to bring her back. “House of Cards” she called it. What’s the betting that thanks to Sam and Dean this “house of cards” is going to come tumbling down just as Billy predicted? Because I would put money on it.

At the end of the episode, we realise that Sam and Dean are in exactly the same place as J2. Jamie – the older sister, trying to support and reassure her younger sister, the one who “wants mom back so badly”. Jamie, unlike her sister, is totally focused on completing their task, whereas Jenny has her doubts. Just like Sam and Dean. We know that Dean is back to “We’ll figure it out” and “you and me” even though Sam is NOT on board with this, but like Jenny, Sam will follow Dean into a hornets nest if it means doing what they set out to do and save mum.

The girls mum came back wrong though, a zombie. When Mary was first resurrected she certainly wasn’t what the boys expected either, and now she is lost again, whose to say just what state she will be in when she is finally freed? Perhaps the message for the boys here is to actually let her go? As in, let go of the memory of Mary that they had sat on a pedestal (Dean in particular) and start to accept the woman their mother actually is, and let her do her thing, because otherwise it may kill them all.

And isn’t this moment just a perfect visual representation of the toxic co-dependency that is the Winchester brothers? Stab stab stab. One of them even has a hammer… LOL.

(Yup its another one of my crappy gifs.)

The Sassiest Angel in the Garrison

Oh Cas, I have missed your beautiful face…

(x)

(Dipper agrees with me)

Now I think everyone knows by now that I hate Lucifer. As in, I find the character extremely irritating and just want him off our screens dead and buried, and that Mark P can go annoy some other shows audience. The ONLY thing that makes watching Lucifer remotely bearable for me, is Castiel - wonderful, perfect, funny, grumpy, brilliant Castiel, sassing the fuck out of him. Bearing in mind all their scenes but one took place behind bars, I was as always captivated by Cas and the brilliant genius he is.

So far in season 13, Castiel hasn’t actually spent much time using his powers, his grace, to actually get anything done. What he has done, is be incredibly smart and used that tactician brain of his to talk himself out of any situation. Everything Castiel does has a purpose. He is generally a creature of few words (except when it comes to Dean) and therefore, whenever he does speak, it is usually with a great deal of thought. (There was a brilliant meta on the word “assbutt” and how it is the worst insult he could possibly throw at Lucifer and yet everyone still ridicules him for it. Don’t knock the word assbutt. Cas knew exactly what he was doing!)

And so Cas isn’t just being a sassy little bitch in this episode. He’s being a sassy little bitch with purpose. Lucifer may be powered down, but he still has power. Cas knows this. Cas knows that the best way to get Lucifer activating what little power he has is to make him angry. So what does Cas do? He sass’s him, over and over. Pissing him off until eventually, it works.

“Turns out rage is a good motivator”

Such a badass. Bye bye little Dipper.

This is why you should never underestimate Castiel. He will always get the better of you. He will always come out on top in the end.

“This is me, learning from my mistakes” he says whilst stabbing Lucifer at the end of the episode. I thoroughly enjoyed that moment of course, even if we know already it doesn’t stick. Since Lucifer is alive next episode. *sigh*.

Lucifer has been continuously hinting all episode that he want’s Cas’s grace. It seems possible due to pics from next week, that he may actually get what he seeks.

Cas has blood on his collar, which he doesn’t have at the end of 13x12. So is Cas about to become human again? Or at least graceless? It’s possible. @tinkdw wrote this post about it (yes I stole her screencap). We were discussing this in our group chat yesterday and thanks to the themes that would come from another human!Cas story I can certainly get behind it, even if I hate the idea that it isn’t his choice yet again. This time, having Lucifer steal his grace seems worse than the first time. But as I mentioned above, Castiel has already shown several times this season that his grace is in no way where his strengths lie. I just hope that it is still his choice in the end to give it up, or not regain it, however that story may pan out.

But yeah maybe prepare ourselves for a human Cas whose grace was stolen by Lucifer plot? I mean if it doesn’t happen great, but if it does... don’t say we didn’t warn ya okay? I know how sensitive we all get about Cas stuff - this is literally the first any of us had thought of this. Besides, he’ll still be amazing even if Lucifer does take his grace, He’ll get in a few more stabs before the end. No doubt.

Other Awesome Stuff

The “fifth base” scene. Yeah this was certainly risqué of Yokey. I was screaming about this to Tink in the chatty bubbles, trust a gay writer to throw in a gay joke aimed at our currently in the closet bisexual lead character and have him act all awkward like he doesn’t know what it is… *glances at Sam* What? Nope, I’ve never… There’s NO SUCH THING AS FIFTH BASE. Sure Jan. Just as I scoff at the idea of Dean not knowing basic French, the idea that Dean DOESN’T know what fifth base is, is absurd. These are purposely input into this episode to raise our eyebrows and DOUBT them.

Baring in mind the way Rowena asks that question “Did THEY get to fifth base?” not “Did YOU get to fifth base” strongly implies actually that Rowena was asking if Dean was pegged. Let’s get that clear. Once again, we have a bottom!dean joke in the subtext of the show. (At some point we need to round up EVERY reference to Dean’s ass and compare it to the other characters just to make this point.)

Oh gosh I haven’t even got to “What’s by is by” yet. The top result in google for this supposed saying is a destiel fanfic written as coda for this episode. There is NOTHING else. It doesn’t exist. What is Yokey playing at exactly? Bygones be bygones maybe? But she had to say it like that? After a reference to anal? To DEAN? Yeah I know everyone is probably already yelling about this on tumblr but still. This is a very huge WTF from me to Yokey that he would ever think we WOULDN’T pick up on this. He did it on purpose. It has a reason, just like everything else. The reason being “Dean is Bi”.

......

(x)

The final scene with Rowena is spectacular. It’s also oddly erotic but maybe that’s just me. Rowena is finally unbound, powerful, free, and probably quite deadly. Here’s hoping she raises a hell of a storm. I have always loved Rowena’s character so for me this idea of her being “unbound” and basically immortal is really interesting. I just hope this paves the way to her helping the Winchesters defeat the big bads to come. Because I see her becoming more of an ally as time goes by. I hope she continues to have a big part to play in the story, and after this final scene I am practically sure she will.

....

Castiel speaking about Jack like he’s a proud parent gives me life. He truly loves the kid. It’s beautiful.

....

Why does Lucifer attract so many dick jokes nowadays? I’m actually almost getting tired of them. For shits and giggles I’m gonna accept it at face value that Lucifer, unlike Crowley, is not well endowed. It makes sense. The tantrums, the violence. Little man syndrome. Pfft.

I’m also going to take it at face value that Cas is most likely huge. Yeah, that smirk is telling.

We all know he’s a big boy. ;-)

....

Hats off to Brenda. The biggest star of the episode. Never failed to make me laugh every time I watched.

You go Brenda. You were awesome.

Overall

Solid episode with lots of great moments. Now all I need is Cas to find the boys and get really pissy with them when he realises they didn’t ONCE figure out that Colonel Sanders was impersonating him. I mean sure, Dean has super low self esteem and was clearly grumpy with Cas at the start of the episode for only really checking in with Sam, not coming home after taking off, clearly CHOOSING the road over being at home with HIM... But that doesn’t excuse him being blind to Asmodeus’s impersonation. Bring on next week. I hope Dean grovels.

#supernatural #episode review #13x12 #destiel #spn meta #spn speculation #dean is bi #castiel #dean winchester #sam winchester #rowena #lucifer #season 13 #spn spoilers #my reviews #my meta

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