#this makes me think back to that gifset of him as a baby 😭😭😭😭

[themeraldee]

Homelander with an SO who makes things like clothes, blankets, etc and homelander comes home to the penthouse and there's the softest blanket he's ever felt, like specifically ordered fluffy fabric that wouldn't bother him and on the corner is his hero name embroidered in soft thread.

Maybe he was complaining about having to get a new one due to never being able to find ones that felt right so his SO went. "I know what I must do."

You can't tell me he wouldn't be sobbing!!

Not only is this handmade by his SO, made with all the love and care, specifically with him in mind, from the fabric to the the embroidered details, it's also exactly what he has always wanted.

He was so attached to that baby blanket of his. The only reminder that he was a sweet innocent baby at one point. So now it brings him back to what it would be like to have a blanket made for him as a child, made by someone who wholeheartedly loves him. Being in someone's loving care and attention. And if that doesn't heal a part of his inner child.

He's clutching it so gently, worried that holding it too tight might damage the fabric. This is officially his most prized possession.

You find him in his penthouse, curled up on the couch, clutching the blanket close to himself, tears down his cheeks.

Immediately worried you're running up, sitting right next to him already trying to get him to share what's wrong.

He's sniffling, his voice all wet and choked up as he says.

"You made this... for me?" His lip quivers as another round of tears make their way out.

"Yeah. Of course I made it for you. I know you've been complaining about the current one and-" He doesn't let you ramble on about why you made it. Because it doesn't matter. You made it for him. Not bought or gotten someone else to make it. No. You poured your heart and soul into this blanket and now it's his. And it's perfect.

He hugs you tight and you feel the sobs shake through him as you coo sweet words in his ears about how much you love him, stroking his back and his hair. After calming down he settles against you, the blanket already drawn up around him while you both spend the rest of the day lounging on the couch, just being next to one another or watching movies.

All while he softly strokes his fingers over the embroidered corner. It's already obvious that nobody could pry this blanket from his dead cold hands.

[pluckysidekick]

It’s Wednesday, my fellow Drewds! Going into the holidays I can’t help thinking about how our favorite Crew are celebrating the holidays. Can’t wait for all of the @secretsleuthexchange fics, gifsets, and fanvids we’re going to get!

In the meantime, I was inspired by a poll from @burningblake about which classic “standard” song best represents Nace (all excellent choices). I wound up making a Season 4 playlist of standards from the Great American Songbook, and a few other classic tracks, that represent their Season 4 journey for me. If you’re interested in this sort of thing, here we go!

I’ll be linking the Spotify tracks, but you should be able to find them all on Apple Music or YouTube. If you want a link to the full playlist, just hit me up here or on Discord.

1. The Nearness of You - This Hoagy Carmichael classic brings to mind Nancy and Ace’s inability to stay apart every time they’re near each other in Episode 401 🥺. I love the Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong duet, but I picked Norah Jones’ version from her 2002 debut album because it’s just so perfectly wistful.

2. Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby - this so so cool track was written by Louis Jordan, but I first heard it on Tom and Jerry (that’s the fighting cat and mouse cartoon in case you’re too young to remember them). I immediately envision the back and forth argument Nancy and Ace have throughout Episode 402 in the lyrics of this song. Ace just wants to know! I adore Joe Jackson’s version, but I went with Dinah Washington and Quincy Jones from 1956 because it is absolutely perfect.

3. Night and Day - I like to imagine that Nancy and Ace stayed up all night talking at the end of 402. This song perfectly embodies their relationship at this stage 🥹. It was written by Cole Porter for Fred Astaire to sing in the original ‘The Gay Divorce’ Broadway musical (catch the film, a classic Fred and Ginger madcap musical romcom with such amazing dancing🕺🏼). But I had to go with Frank Sinatra from 1957’s ‘A Swingin Affair’ because it’s such a classic swing tune.

4. April in Paris - I’m not crying, you’re crying. Warning, there’s going to be a lot of crying in this playlist. Nancy telling Ace the story of her parents’ honeymoon in Paris in Episode 403, that shy smile when she tells him she always wanted to recreate it with someone, GAH. I had to pick the wonderful Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown on trumpet, simply exquisite. I’m going to have to take a break to sob quietly in the corner. “What have you done to my heart” indeed.

5. Fever - There was only one song, and only one version of this song, that matches the heat Nancy and Ace generated in the infamous Sigil scene. Peggy Lee burned the house down in 1958 with this track. “What a lovely way to burn” - Nancy can relate.

6. So in Love - Another genius Cole Porter song, written originally for Kiss Me Kate, but sung here by the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald (my personal hero). I had to pick it for THE KISS. They are just so in love 😭. A beautiful song and a beautiful rendition worthy of Nancy and Ace’s love. The fact that Kiss Me Kate is a musical about bickering exes who eventually find love again makes it even more perfect.

7. Crying - Roy Orbison, 1962. Need I say more? I may never recover from the final scene of 403. This song at least helps a little with the pain by naming it. Roy hits some insane notes in this song—the intensity matches both Nancy and Ace’s misery in that moment.

8. Good Morning, Heartache - More like Good Morning, Sorbet. In Episode 404, Nancy drowns her sorrows in her favorite frozen dessert to deal with the heartache of gaining and losing Ace. And no one does heartache like Billie Holiday, who recorded this song in 1946. Heartache haunts Nancy all throughout S4, and this track represents it perfectly.

9. I had two contenders for the Nace scenes in Episode 405, both from the early 60’s. I Fall to Pieces, released by Patsy Cline and The Jordanaires in 1961, was a country crossover and Patsy’s number one hit—an incredible track that embodies Nancy’s emotions on seeing Ace again. She can’t even look him the eye at the beginning of the episode. Which brings me to my other choice, Walk on By, written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach, and famously sung by Dionne Warwick in 1964. Nancy puts up a brave front for most of this episode, but inside she wants to break down and cry.

10. Episode 405’s speed dating montage is one of my favorite scenes of Season 4. Again I have two contenders—why should I have to choose? Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s One For My Baby (and One More for the Road), as sung by Ella Fitzgerald (again ‘cause she’s the best), is an ideal soundtrack for Nancy’s increasingly desperate descent as she spends every would-be speed date talking about Ace and THAT KISS. Equally appropriate is Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life—velvet-voiced Johnny Hartman and saxophonist John Coltrane’s 1963 track positively drips with ennui, elegantly over cocktails, of course. If you’ve never heard this one, please give it a listen. There’s even a mention of a week in Paris 🥺.

11. Episode 406, with the infamous Spider Prom, is Ace’s episode IMO—we finally get to see how he’s dealing with the loss of the love of his life and his best friend. He so desperately wants to somehow get back to being friends with Nancy, he resorts to spending countless hours with the help of S4 MVP Nick trying to catch Chunky Velez for her. Can’t We Be Friends? is the perfect song for him in this episode, gorgeously sung by Ella and Louis. That is, until he spies Nancy and Tristan dancing, and realizes what he can never have. Etta James’ blistering track I’d Rather Go Blind captures Ace’s feelings in that moment. He may have been the one to halt their attempts to brake the curse, but he’s hurting just as much as Nancy is.

12. I’ve got two seminal songs to represent Episode 407. When Nancy realizes that Ace let Chunky go, and hears his admission that seeing her with Tristan hurt, it positively screams Cry Me a River. No, not the Justin Timberlake song 😅. This epic torch song was famously sung by Julie London in 1955, and expresses beautifully Nancy’s scorn at Ace’s hypocrisy even as she admits that he broke her heart.

Their fight, and Nancy’s subsequent dashed hopes that Ace would call her bluff and come back, makes me think of Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye. Another Cole Porter masterpiece sung by Ella. What can I say? You can’t top perfection:

Every time we say goodbye, I die a little Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little Why the gods above me, who must be in the know Think so little of me, they allow you to go

I dare you to listen to this track without weeping over the Nace of it all. Enjoy!

Well, Drewds, we’re just past the halfway mark of Season 4 and this post is already a novel, so I’m going to stop here for now. What did you think of my picks? Any you think I missed?

I’ll do a Part 2 as long as I get a few notes on this one 😂 . It will feature more classic songs that represent Nancy and Ace as they head into the back half of the season. I know it’s going to get rough ahead, but I promise the music will be sweet.

Update: Part 2 is here!

[bonesandthebees]

Oh yeah, I honestly don’t get Cole as a character, like I liked him in the first few episodes and then his desicion making in 5 just makes no sense to me and ruined the character, but then they do the huge time jump so by that point even more of his character has shifted (and I don’t really get the point of him aside from being antagonistic. Which, there’s conflict enough without him).

And I think that thing that threw me off about the time skip is the fact that while they had been jumping in time already, I did not expect them to jump that far in one to (let alone at the start of an episode without transition, it felt like coming into an entirely new story) also I struggle to distinguish characters with similar features. All white guys with similar length brown hair look the same to me. Not because I can’t tell their faces apart, but because I forgot who is who. “Okay so this is a different guy now, but which one?”.

Tbf, I also liked the set up / opening of ep 6, but there were just too many new characters at once and I did not have the brain power to process that. So now I keep up entirely via the trending page on here when anew episode drops (which mainly gives me the gifsets of the good bits of each episode and people going insane about their favourite characters (+ cheering when certain male characters suffer the consequences of their actions). Other times I look at the family tree in horror. I looked away for 5 episode, HOW?!

P.s. I am very upset that the entire plot is basically pitting Rhaelicent against each other because they would have been so powerful together!

-🌲

for me cole is just epitome of a misogynistic 'nice guy' kind of guy. he supports rhaenyra because he's attracted to her and thinks they can be married, but the minute he learns that's not going to happen and that he can never be an equal to her because of her position as heir he turns bitter. I do agree that what he did to laenor's lover didn't make a ton of sense, but I interpreted it as a manifestation of cole's frustration/bitterness/jealousy over rhaenyra denying his proposal and marrying laenor + the guilt he feels about breaking his vows of celibacy for her only for it to be 'for nothing' (again, her denying his proposal). plus there was probably some good ol homophobia in there too knowing criston. often the men in this world don't really know how to channel emotions outside of committing acts of violence so that's just what I took it as.

very fair points about the timeskip. it's definitely jarring if you're not expecting it. and yeah after a certain point it can be difficult to distinguish everyone 😭

honestly keeping up via the trending tab works lol, sometimes it's just easier that way if you don't have the time/brain power to keep up with new episodes. but I will say the show itself is really good and if you ever do think about picking it back up to watch again it's very enjoyable. you get used to the huge family tree after a while 😭😭😭

you see to me that's what's so intriguing about rhaenicent. they would've been incredible together, but because of circumstance, the way they've been raised, and the patriarchal society they live in they're driven apart. the tragedy of their lost friendship/baby romance is at the core of so much of what's going on and is such an integral part for both their characters. the two of them are just so full of tragedy and grief and resentment for one another but the love is still there too as much as neither of them wants to acknowledge/admit it

[theangiediary]

hey Angie i love picking your brain and was wondering if you had thoughts on dad!dean or even Dean with Jr.? I saw you mention the idea of dean as a father in the tags of a post and it hasn't left my head 😊

Oh man, I feel like I’ve called him mommy more than dad 😭Very different vibe (horny. it’s horny).

Unless this is about the “Dean sleeping on the couch” gifset?

For serious: by s6ish, when he’s calmed down from the frat-y fuckboy ease of s1, he acts A LOT like a typical white, blue collar upper midwest dad. Believes in hardwork, humanity (or at least Good People), beer, and rolling his eyes at fancy tech. If this wasn’t Supernatural he’d have 3+ kids, a big belly, and a New Years resolution to go to the YMCA more often with his slightly anxious God-fearing wife.

I might be projecting. Just a little ;)

But anyway this IS Supernatural so let’s talk about that.

Dean’s Iconic interactions with kids includes:

Ben

Lucas (Dead in the Water)

Timmy (Bad Boys)

Bobby John

In the first three, YES Dean is pretty good with them. He empathizes and connects in a way that solves the case (Lucas/Timmy). However a key component here is that those boys remind him of him. Ben (despite being not related (cop out)) is a mini-Dean, and even the others are parallels. Would Dean be good with a kid who acted completely differently? One with disabilities, or a girl?

[I think the show answers this somewhat with Claire and Jack, but that’s.. beyond my wheelhouse sorry.] [There’s also Emma, but.. she was woefully underexplored as a character before Sam killed her. An Amy/Benny plot device]. 

In comfort/“good days” Dean is great. And he’s certainly willing to make sacrifices. But... the other “kid” of Dean’s is, well, Sam. He brought Sam to the hospital when he broke a bone, he fed and cared for him days on end, I mean come on. There’s “watch your sibling while we go on a date”, “pick up X after school” and then there’s THAT.

Did Dean do a good job? Eh. He was a child himself. And what parent does it perfectly? etc. I think something that’s consistent though with his character is that he’s 1. dramatic 2. flustered in conflict.  

All that to say: he’d be a mostly decent father. Say things in anger that he may or may not apologize for, that his kid(s) would have to internally forgive him for- that “you hurt me, but family means loyalty/duty, so...”. I don’t think he’d rock a PFLAG sticker or handle his daughter’s complaints about a sexist teacher well. But he’s nurturing: he cleans! Nests! He changes diapers! In a room full of other people, they look toward Dean to keep a baby safe! So he’d make the other moms at the neighborhood cookout jealous. Sam (bc let’s be real, that’s the only real co-parent option, wincest or no) would have to put up with a LOT of “You’re so lucky 🙂” comments.

⬆️I am very fond of semi retired SamDean, who are known by Lebanon’s waitresses as a cute “keep to themselves” gay couple. I guess you can throw Dean Jr in there (hopefully named something else). I think the fact that so much of Spn is biology/bloodlines, it's a good thing that they'd have to adopt, magic, or at least be very intentional about how this child comes to be. Which is good, because if that baby looks just like Sam did, prepared or not Dean's getting like 12 new disorders. OR if we're not doing Wincest and Sam's married to some thin thing who popped out Dean Jr. and Dean's the uncle he's always wanted to be, then sure! I think the above stuff works for that, maybe even better bc he can hand the boy back when it gets Too Much. Never forget, it was Bobby John 🥲.

[alexshenry]

That tian + smiling gifset makes me want to cry, I’m so soft for him (how dare you put that back on my dash)

Anytime i think of how much sorrow Tian went through, I'm so thankful for every smile we got to see 😭😭😭😭 no character deserves a happier ending than him. But ughhhh, no I get you okay, any time I see Tians face my heart breaks and I want to give him a billion hugs.

i miss my baby

[septembersghost]

frank says, quit. dean says, that’s not even an option, i’m not walking out on my brother. i think, baby, you’re going to die and leave your brother in his grief for decades...how is that better. you never had to leave each other or separate anyway. that’s not...the conclusion to draw. it wasn’t hunting keeping you together...screw destiny. we do have choices. he said that himself. those heavy moments of silence as the weeks pass without bobby, at least they’re together. sam has no idea what that weight is going to be.

(the closed captioning when sam is talking to krissy calls him “dean,” what happened there?)

dean encourages krissy to quit. (i love krissy sm, the best wayward girl who wasn’t even one...) tells her she can go to college. or even that she can do both things. (hunter/pediatrician.) he tells lee, quit. you’re doing this for your family? quit, for your family. she’s 14 years old and she’s already killed something, “what do you think that does to her life span?” god. at fourteen he’d already been inured to this, thrust into this, for ten years, and he never glanced at himself the way he can see and value the potential in this one girl.

krissy teasingly calls him an old man, he is only THIRTY THREE, find me wandering a cliffside

“It's nice to walk away from someone and feel like they could be okay.” 😭 

he fakes that incandescent smile because frank told him to, but also because of course he does. he’s done that for years. we’ve seen him do it. how many times did he have to do it? he did practically to his last breath. i think that’s why there are so many gifsets of him genuinely smiling, because everyone wants to hang on to the moments when his joy, however fleeting, was real. the fact that he could still feel it so spontaneously and unreservedly speaks as much to his strength as any physical capability ever could.

i remember many broad strokes from this season and so few of the small details that i’m beginning to question whether i actually rewatched it in its entirety? (i must have, right? i keep thinking and saying i rewatched everything before S10...i used to rewatch during the summer and at some point i stopped doing that, but obviously unreliable chronic fatigue brain has eroded more than i thought it had...or were S12-15 so frustrating and traumatic that they obliterated my own memories? i loved S6 more than i recalled and now S7 is having the same effect. is it the bias of seeing them alive and trying again? the remainder of S3 and then S4 and 5, all of which i saw after 15x20, were as powerful as ever, maybe with a newfound clarity, despite everything now being tinged by grief and even sharper edges, but those seasons are always like going back home, even if home sometimes is frightening and sorrowful and makes me cry, it’s comforting and familiar too. as a poet once said, if home is where the heart is, then we’re all just f***ed. i’ve sat through four season finales in less than two months, which means that song has played four times since november 19th? uh. the descent into madness is steep, hell is empty, all the devils are here, dreams unwind, love’s a state of mind...)

dean tries to open up to eliot ness, because dean is always seeking connection, understanding, validation, attraction, emotional support, mirrors, and people have the audacity to say he’s r*pressed (yeah, i’m censoring the word here bc i’m that annoyed at it) when he sits in cars and spills feelings to complete strangers due to his nature and empathic need to associate. eliot ness is as unhelpful as everyone else he does this with (and i adore this episode, as has been previously established, but!)

Boo-hoo. Cry me a river, ya nancy. Tell me, are all hunters as soft as you in the future? Everybody loses everybody. And then one day, boom. Your number's up, but at least you're making a difference. So enjoy it while it lasts, kid, 'cause hunting's the only clarity you're gonna find in this life. And that makes you luckier than most.

no wonder, it’s all no wonder

(time after time has so much in it, i could go on about it and its themes, and the fact that he gets to be a genius and beautiful and dress up and get overexcited with history/movie references, i’ll restrain myself, but even in 1944, they make fun of his enthusiasm. why is everyone else so lacking in hints of pleasure? where did dean even develop his humor? it has to be one of the most endearing and authentic things about him, and it’s totally his, and next to no one appreciates it, so this is something he cultivated and enjoyed on his own? he weaponizes it against the terror and brutality on his own? his defining capacity for love is such a combination of factors - inherent, nurtured, instilled, drilled into place, chosen, violent, tender, selfish, selfless - but the humor is simply a dean thing. how dare all the rest of them not cherish that constantly in the midst of all the bleakness t b h.)

chronos: “i know your future.” dude...they defy that future like they do so many others, and if there’s anything to take from ness’ little lecture, we have to believe that makes a difference.

edit: this quote of Jody’s... :(

It's weird, huh? It's like their life's a big puzzle. You just keep finding pieces of it scattered all over the place.

as a final note, in the previous episode, frank says to an exhausted dean, “you look horrific.” he and i have VERY different definitions of that word, because dean literally looks like:

[taeraenini]

🐻: lmfaooooo not the dick joke 😭 but that was really funny of him 😌 id honestly loveeeeee 2 talk abt ten he’s so cool so your askbox is perfect tbh! wjxjrjs that pokemon metaphor PLEASE i took a bite of that fairyland food and now i’m stuck here 😭 i feel like i’ll tell on myself if i talk too much abt my biases but i’ll say that 2 of my faves are jaehyun and joy! and i’d love to hear about your favorite eras for ten, as well as some of your favorite songs (kpop or not!) :000

lol i’m sorry but i do love a brave dumb man who is not afraid to open his mouth and Say Things. i hate to admit it but it’d probably make my top 10 ten moments. i love replaying it in my head and just remembering everyone’s faces. and i’m laughing very hard right now bc you called him “so cool” and i’m just “but HE’S SO EMBARRASSING!!” haha xD 

and speaking of brave dumb men: jaehyun is also one bc you gotta be a brave dumbass if you follow a goose with a camera. they are savage beasts and it’s a miracle jung yoonoh is still among the living (T人T) this is my ways of saying “a+ bias choice” btw. i love him. he’s so weird and ugh THAT FACE OF HIS HOW DARE HE ( ≧Д≦) (his beauty makes me angry, i’m sorry ( ⁍᷄⌢̻⁍᷅ ))

lol but you called ten “cool” haha... i’m enjoying this too much (′ʘ⌄ʘ‵) 

AND JOY ☆ﾟ･*:｡.:(ﾟ∀ﾟ)ﾟ･*:..:☆ i love anyone who loves joy! i’m leaning more towards irene and seulgi with my rv biases but miss joy i love A LOT, too (*ꈍ꒳ꈍ*) so you have GREAT taste in humans, tiny bear! ♥

hmmm but my favourite eras... all of them? if it’s ten, then i love it. i’m a simple woman. but if i had to pick just one i’d say baby don’t stop... which conveniently started playing on spotify right now... i mean, it is a nct/wayv only playlist but still... do i have powers? Σ(‘◉⌓◉’) okay, but back to ten! i’m absolute trash for nct u and for empathy era and hate sm for not giving us any new content in centuries ugh. i’d kill for another proper taeten duet (maybe for something superm relate pls? pls, sm? i’ll take anything t.t) because i love ty SFM too and i think they worked perfect together both as performers (THE TALENT) and as people. i mean, their personalities are so different and their interactions are so interesting because of it? and bds era definitely proved that ty is a rl angel because ten was A LOT (read: his usual self ʅ（´◔౪◔）ʃ).

but for wayv eras i’d say... the current one? idk how it’s possible but he’s even more RADIANT? he literally glows and it makes my heart... ｡･ﾟヾ(✦థ ｪ థ)ﾉ｡ﾟ･｡ plus, him embracing his eboy look is just pure gold. 

hmm... my favourite songs... hmmm... i laughed a bit because i spent yesterday night being emo to tove lo’s romantics, lorde’s tennis court and partick wolf’s augustine. that was my entire playlist and i was very emo but the second i woke up my yestoday obsession came back bc i’m currently going through a yestoday phase (IT’S AN UNDERRATED MASTERPIECE). lol okay it’s an even harder question than the one about eras... hmmm but my current faves - aside from an underrated masterpiece yestoday - are pporappippam, domino, feel good (i want seulrene to perform it!!!), nature’s girls, apple and golcha’s omg. but i’ve been mostly jamming to 127′s bsides because i made a playlist when i was making a top 10 gifset (it was supposed to help me narrow it down to 10 lol) and now i can’t stop :((((( 

and what have you been listening to lately, tiny bear? ^^ oh, and what did you answer on the last question on the nvyctmail form? the one about fave nct title song and wayv bside? :D