#But its the same thing with sammy and simone

[finalgirl1984]

Yeah, yeah it’s the killing and eating people show, etc., etc., but having Shauna gleefully hunt, string up, and then use Mari’s hair to decorate her cult leader uniform…

[cs-fox]

https://www.tumblr.com/cs-fox/770969455991930880/hybrid-au-tf141-a-request-from-a-poll-i-did-a

Reader being unsure of why the hell there’s a random cat on base but doesn’t know it’s ghost, gives cat a name(almost definitely a tomcat so he’s got puffy jowls/cheeks) and gives the cat a collar and spoils the shit out of the cat and when the cat disappears for hours at a time(ghost training rookies or whatever) reader worries and then at night the cat comes back and immediately acts like everything is all okay and fine

Cat name ideas: Sapling, Shelley, something with maybe an S or a G(for Simon or Ghost)

You hadn’t expected the tortoiseshell cat you’d met the day before to stick around - so you assumed it had bailed through your open bathroom window when you found out your quarters were free of any animal.

It had been a sweet creature, curling up on your pillow as you slept, and bounding around your quarters as you washed your hair. It’s honey gold eyes - God, they were beautiful.

You tried to ignore the fact you couldn’t shake the feeling those same eyes were watching you as you did your reps in the gym.

That was quite easy, of course, your Lieutenant’s training sessions were brutal; so when you collapsed onto the squishy couch in the middle of your room the last thing on your mind was cats.

A sigh left your lips as your sweat-soaked skin cooled under the subzero A/C. It quickly turned into a squeak, though, when something soft and warm tried to jump into your lap.

The cat.

It looked like a bundle of darkness, mottled fur rippling as it settled between your legs, paws kneading your aching thigh.

‘Fuck -‘ you groaned. ‘Watch it, puss. That’s sore…’

‘Mrrrow,’ the cat stared up at you with those adorable eyes.

Slowly, you leaned back, head lolling back (because you were much too large for this couch’s short backrest, compliments of a military diet and three hours of training a day) and closed your eyes.

You woke up from your nap about forty-six minutes later by your watch, and stood up to stretch.

‘RROW!’

‘Shit!’

Two doleful amber eyes stared up at you reproachfully, and the cat stalked off, tail in the air huffily.

‘No… I’m so sorry,’ you groaned, running a hand through your mussed hair.

You ambled into the kitchenette, flicking on the kettle and reaching up to grab a mug from one of the tiny floating cabinets above your microwave.

It only took a minute to rummage for the teabags this time; your fingers scrabbling at a beaten-up box inscribed “Earl Grey” for a second before you managed to untangle a pouch.

You were just about to pour water over your teabag when you heard a soft noise. The cat had vaulted up onto the countertop, and was now watching you with great interest. If you didn’t know better, you would’ve thought he was asking for a cuppa.

‘If you say so,’ you shrugged, pouring a little of the deep amber liquid onto a saucer and pushing it across to the animal. It began to lap at the tea, purring loudly.

‘Fuck me dead,’ you chuckled, taking a sip. ‘Even the cats here like tea.’

After a second of silence, you hummed out a thought. ‘You need a name, don’t’cha?’

The cat didn’t respond. Duh.

‘What about… my mum’s cat used to be named Sammy. What about Sammy?’

Again, no protest from the cat.

‘Sounds good, then.’

You pretended to toast the animal, lifting your mug and raising your eyebrows with a grin.

/\

You didn’t seriously expect the cat to stick around that night, but lo and behold, there it was, curled up on your covers when you rose at 5:37 AM.

It shifted, and made a noise as though for all the world it was yawning, before its eyes locked on you.

For a moment, you simply stared at each-other, the cat looking absolutely terrified, before it scrambled to its feet and fucked off out the open bathroom window.

‘Hey-!’ you tried, but smacked a hand to your forehead. Cats were cats. You’d eat your holster if it came when you called it.

‘Bloody animal,’ you swore, already starting to pull on your shorts, attempting to psych yourself up for another early-morning gym visit.

AAAACK I LOVE THIS IDEAAA

ok I’m relating to reader sm. I talk to animals like that too girlie 😂😂🥲 I’m insane ❤️❤️❤️

[dykexenomorph]

thank u @whodoesnataliehave for the tag!!!!!

YJ TAG GAME

1. Are you team Rational or Supernatural? I swap back and forth rapidly LMAO. When I started the show I was very much in the supernatural camp, then i swapped to rational for s2, and now for s3 i have no clue what i think. its both. its neither. idk man.

2. Who is your favorite teen timeline character? TRAVIS!! and lottie, but less so this season than before bc shes been reduced to insane trip sitter LMAO

3. Favorite adult timeline character? lottie please please come home the kids miss you </3

4. What is your favorite needledrop? SOMETHING IN THE WAY NIRVANA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love nirvana very much and was happy tht it was one of the (slightly) less obvious picks for them. (also rlly enjoyed miss world by hole. I LOVE HOLE!!!!) (also also zombie by the cranberries.) also not the point of this question but if they dont put a pixies song in this show soon someone is going to suffer...... 5. What is your favorite ship lottienat you are so so real. TO ME..... 6. What is your favorite episode? its been a minute since ive seen most of s1 and s2, but i remember liking burial (s2e7) a lot!! seeing all of the adults interact w each other was rlly interesting to me (and i love lottie so ofc i was happy to get so much lottie content) 7. Who do you want the antler queen to be? is it insane to say that i dont really care? i feel like there is a lot of more interesting things we cld be theorizing about. i dont really know that i care that much about whoever their final "leader" is. 8. What is your favorite scene in the entire series? man this is hard bc its been SO LONG since ive seen most of them? im a lottienat so ofc "good game, you fucking loser" comes to mind. i also like the ending of burial where all of the adults dancing is juxtaposed w shauna beating lottie up, its a rlly interesting scene to me 9. A theory or prediction you have about Season 3. aside from the bingo card my sibling and i (hello theeb.) made, i havent really had any crazy theories this season? at least not any that havent been instantly debunked once a new ep is dropped LMAO 10. Which character do you relate to the most, and why? i am van they are me........."and why" what even do u want from me pal. we're just the same person ok. i literally am a dyke who collects physical media..........what do u even expect me to say....... 11. What is the craziest thing you've done in the name of Yellowjackets? i dont know how to answer this. nothing i am. Normal. 12. Whats your most controversial Yellowjackets take? people are finally being normal about travis (and they're becoming normal) about lottie, so i dont know that I have many contriversial takes?? the only thing i can think of is the fact tht i am very quickly becoming the #1 taivan hater, but thats just bc i love simone and sammy a lot and the way the writers are treating their charas is pissing me off. (still love tai and van tho obviously, they're in my top 3 w lottie <3). TAGGING: @hex-rex @autism-swagger @dykelottienat @autistictransbiankumatora anddd @t-valentines

[dakotaversions]

lotta discourse going around on yjtwt rn b/c where else abt the fact that its rly likely that tonights episode is gonna have a Melissa is the 8th survivor reveal and how the writing esp. in the later stages of season 2 and into 3 has fallen into a pattern of treating the POC characters a little sub-optimally and like. this is all true everyone has a point and i do think a lot of the characters who've been sidelined throughout season 2 had that done messily and that Melissa's whole thing in season 3 is too sudden but like. fandom spaces have no room for moderation now it's all either people losing it gloating over Melissa being the eighth survivor or people being like 'Melissa has literally no character' and none of these people are right?

like yeah! sure! i'm happy Melissa survives i like her enough but oh my GOD people are being such assholes about it? and there's definitely a compelling core to her character w/r/t the way Shauna uses then abandons her in the wilderness and the way she presumably comes back to take some sort of vengeance in the adult timeline but also coexisting with this is how interesting it would've been to see Akilah's season 3 arc keep playing out with her as a survivor [side note but in the part in last week's episode that mentioned i think Gen and one of the others not surviving was one of them Akilah?? i forget but if it wasn't then there's a chance] and same with some kind of, like, grand reintroduction for Mari or something i don't fucking know.

and like. yeah thats the core of this we don't fucking know shit there's no shot season 3 is a planned ending or anything it could continue smooth as hell into a fourth season and we could get another survivor reveal there bc i'm not sure if 8 is like a confirmed number and if so where it comes from and there's still time for the writers to maybe take on some of the points being made and pull back some of the character decisions and varying prominences of storylines and presences of POC characters b/c the way some of them [Simone and Sammy, jesus] have been just kinda abruptly shelved is messy, messy writing. idk. we can only hope

[bitternanami]

i didnt really understand why the yellowjackets s2 finale was called 'storytelling' when the scene where a story gets told is so short, and gets interrupted right as it starts anyway. not just that, but the name seemingly has nothing to do with the adult timeline at all.

but i think its supposed to be a reminder that a Story Getting Told can encompass a lot more than the plot of a movie or a fairy tale, and that a close-watch will emphasize that larger notion, saying things that arent true in a way that makes it feel as though they are. that they might as well be. self-deception, in other words. storytelling.

(spoilers for both seasons under cut)

what im finding is that van is getting to be really thematically important. even from the start, she never ever ever stops contextualizing her experiences thru stories, not from the point they crashed up to now, because media makes Sense, a narrative makes Sense, and what the team is going through now doesnt but she can force it to anyway if she just frames it right.

she asks taissa and herself why shes survived all of these things, because she doesnt know what the next narrative beat is for herself. van cant figure out an outline and its incredibly upsetting for her because her still being here Has to foreshadow something. there MUST be a meaning to it. finding that meaning is the only way she knows how to cope with this.

but by this point van has already found meaning, because to the group, she now embodies an idea. she has from the start: shes the storyteller. shes where everyone turns for escapism. shes the one to tell people what they need to hear to make things fit into a narrative, a cause-and-effect, springboarded from the things lottie is perceiving.

we see this in her scene with travis most obviously, and its chilling, and its exciting, because she understands what shes supposed to do, now. finally, she has a narrative for herself, and shes going to lean into it as hard as she can.

iirc van is the first person to use the phrase 'the wilderness chose' in response to death (they all chose, it was easier like this. all of them are capable of killing a child, and they could try to grapple with that and reconcile that with their senses of self, but the toll would be immense. what van is saying makes much more sense.) thats the story they all keep telling each other, telling themselves, over and over and over. the forest itself wanted this, we didnt make this decision, it wasnt us, it wasnt us, its not our fault.

and then, years later, the story goes: we can separate ourselves from the people we were back then. we can live our lives like none of this happened at all. (is it any wonder that taissa, queen of willfully ignoring her problems, still feels so comfortable with van, even with decades of separation between them)

so the throughline, then, is that theyre all still telling that story, and it feels realer than anything else theyre experiencing. realer than simone or sammy or jeff or adam or jessica felt, certainly. they let themselves believe it up until the point where they cant anymore. the truth catches up with them at the same time that the violence does--it falls on one of their own, a teammate, at the hands of another one, right in front of their eyes. its hard to make the story fit right, after that. when season 3 happens, itll be interesting to see whether they continue to try anyway

[rain-orshine]

rewatching yellowjackets and I have a dilemma

I like all the adult characters. I think they're pretty complex and have good acting

I like all the young characters for the same reasons (imo the teen timeline has the best writing/acting but all of its ultimately pretty good)

my problem is this: I feel a real disconnect between some of the adult/teen characters. like, I feel like the Natalie Sophie plays is a different Natalie than Juliette plays, same for Shauna, and Tai to a degree

like I understand obviously things will change as it's 25 years later but like I can see Courtney's Lottie turning into Simone Kessel's Lottie. Even more so for Sammy into Christina. Like I can see the baseline character connection between them

but sometimes Natalie, Shauna, and Tai feel like watching two different characters when we switch timelines

[preseriesdean]

Talk to me about s2 supremacy. Spare no details.

thank you for asking and allowing me to gush 💕

maybe most importantly: it still has that early seasons 2000s vibe with flip phones and tape decks and newspaper articles and wide angle shots and americana and grainy film and desaturated colors and grittiness and loose layered working class clothing and shitty motels and grungy bars and this rough edge to everything

another main point is that it finds the perfect balance between monster of the week episodes and a season-encompassing story/myth arc by generally combining the two when necessary, unlike some of the later seasons

an overarching theme is the morality of hunting and whether or not truly every “monster” is really evil or deserves to die: “what if we killed things that didn't deserve killing?” (bloodlust, the usual suspects, croatoan, hunted, born under a bad sign, roadkill, heart) which plays into my next point

the pacing of the season works really well to set up everything about the season finale: sam's storyline with simon said, croatoan, hunted, born under a bad sign; and dean selling his soul, first through john’s deal with azazel, then with children shouldn't play with dead things (“what's dead should stay dead” / “when someone's gone they should stay gone. you don't mess with that kind of stuff”) and crossroad blues (“i think you did it for yourself. so you wouldn’t have to live without her”) and somewhat in croatoan where he's ready to die with sam

literally every single episode is a certified banger in my opinion. i can only think of 2 episodes that didn’t hit the mark too well for me personally but every other one i could rewatch endlessly, and those two still objectively have merit within the framework of the show/season

i won’t talk about each and every ep, but specifically the entirety of playthings, one of the most, if not THE quintessential, gothic episodes of the show. immaculate vibes.

the usual suspects, which shows how well sam and dean work together without even being in the same room and just how generally Weird they can be to outsiders, as well as continuing the theme of “demons i get / people are crazy” which was first set up in s1

as well as the entirety of what is and what should never be. no further explanation necessary i think.

also sam and dean look really nice

cinematography is on. point. the entire time. these shots alone from 2.09 and 2.04. museum worthy.

sam and dean’s relationship is just. sublime. “we were just starting to be brothers again” (2.01) – “he's the only one who gets to call me [sammy]” (2.03) – “you make a move on him, you'll be dead before you hit the ground” (2.09) – “if i ever turn into something that i'm not you have to kill me” (2.11) – “i can't, i'd rather die” (2.14) – “i thought it was supposed to, to be this perfect fantasy” / “it wasn't” / “we never went hunting and you and me just never, uh... you know” (2.20) – “i had to look out for you. that's my job” / “and what do you think my job is?” (2.22)

without taking the focus off the brothers as its core or feeling suffocating, s2 introduces more recurring supporting characters (bobby... kind of, as a rollover from the s1 finale; jo, ellen, ash, gabriel, victor henriksen, gordon walker) and expands on the monster lore, lending some depth to the spn universe before it begins to really ramp up with heaven and hell etc. from s3 onwards

the music was so good, too, although that’s true for other seasons as well. from ‘bad moon rising’ playing on the radio after the car crash in 2.01 and ending with ‘don’t look back’ in 2.22 and everything inbetween; dean singing along to ‘can’t fight this feeling’ in 2.05, ‘hellhound on my trail’ in 2.08, ‘renegade’ in 2.12, ‘back on the road again’ in 2.14, ‘house of the rising sun’ in 2.16, ‘silent lucidity’ in 2.17, ‘rooster’ in 2.19, ‘americana’ playing during sam’s death etc.

they just... did not hold back in all hell breaks loose part 1. earth shattering.

season 2 is funny (hollywood babylon, “maybe the spirits are trying to shut down the movie cause they think it sucks”) and heartbreaking (all hell breaks loose) and silly (tall tales) and deep (what is and what should never be) and philosophical (houses of the holy) and tragic (heart) and creepy (croatoan and pretty much all the rest) and intelligent (the usual suspects) and beautiful to me 💛

[gorseflowers]

this is an edit of a very old draft from when i first watched the show but i love how much of shauna and taissa's plotlines as adults is repeating patterns and how much of it could've hypothetically been avoided if theyd talked things out with their spouses sooner (but of course there was never a chance that either of them could do that). like to an insanemaking degree theyre both so closed off to everyone but eachother from this deep seated belief in and fear of their own wrongness and it results in this unfolding tragedy of both of their adult lives falling apart

teenage shauna cheats with jeff because she wants to feel wanted and this (in her conscience) leads to someone innocent dying. adult shauna cheats on jeff because she wants to feel wanted and this leads to someone innocent dying. obviously theres important differences but the point is the fact that it all happens again, and the second time round not only was jeff not cheating on her first, he read the journals, knows all of the secrets that had weighed on her throughout their marriage and kept the distance between them, and he didn't care. if she'd told him years ago, it could've theoretically been fine, but fundamentally she couldnt let him that close either way. I think she told herself it was about what happened in the woods and she told herself he would never look at her the same way but deep down she didnt want to give him the chance to forgive her in the first place.

teenage taissa committed to being a leader for the common good and it resulted in van nearly dying. adult taissa commits to being a leader for the greater good and its shaping up to result in simone divorcing her. when she first tells simone about the sleepwalking, simone's reaction is to suggest ways to get her professional help, which taissa shuts down in favour of telling simone to leave bc shes afraid of hurting her and sammy. and crucially she says that since it started in the woods and stopped when they got rescued, she never saught help for it - if she had, or if she'd told simone earlier on, it might not have gotten that bad. but the need to shape how shes seen by the public extends to her own family, the need to maintain control manifests as a denial of the problem, she doesnt want simone to know those parts of her because she's so afraid of what's within herself that she cant acknowledge it until its no longer an option to ignore.

and none of this pretense extends to eachother. shauna and taissa understand eachother in the way only two people who went through hell together can and you can see it in the scenes where they fall asleep next to eachother -- there's no denying anything because they percieve eachother so clearly, but at the same time they dont quite forgive eachother because they cant forgive themselves. and that's the fear that keeps them from seeking understanding from their respective spouses: that they might be forgiven, that they might not be. and so the pact of secrecy has ruined both their lives, and since it comes from the idea (the fear) that what they did was completely unforgiveable, then really its the shame of their survival that's fueling all of it. both their families are falling apart, and chances are they're going to end up exactly where they started when getting back to the world after the crash - burdened with the knowledge of what they've done, the only two people capable of understanding eachother.

[teabookgremlin]

alright here we fucking go. i took 4 pages of notes on 02x01 last night, so here is the typed up/hopefully more sensical/overview of my thoughts on yellowjackets 02x01

also before i get into it i just wanna say that i literally felt high in the last like 5 minutes leading up to midnight. like exact same feelings as the time i took to much of an edible so yellowjackets is a drug confirmed

spoilers below the cut!

- obviously tai and van tying their arms together so tai doesn’t sleepwalk really stood out to me, i’m glad tai was able to tell van about the problem and that they were able to find a bit of a solution. also its just cute i love my little lesbians

- lottie’s rituals to protect nat and travis, found the blood water interesting and hope for more blood rituals cause that’s fun

- “primal, elemental self — nothing more painful than hiding that self” this lottie quote just stood out a bit and i liked it

- THE START OF THE JACKIE GHOST/HALLUCINATIONS i’m so ready i loved them playing mash and it playing out to describe shauna’s future as basically what it becomes. then her telling jackie about how things with jeff started? this better lead to a love confession i swear. then the ear and into her pocket it goes

- feeling bad for adult tai but like also simone does need to get out of there with sammi like run girl

- nat and travis still going out looking for javi is SO SAD cause like he must be dead but ugh poor travis (and other sentences i did not expect to type)

- gotta take a moment and appreciate how insane it is that it took and affair, murder, and blackmail for jeff and shauna to start communicating/have a decent relationship. also the thing about her being turned on by him with someone else? okay girl we know who you’re talking about

- THE EAR FONDLING SHE’S SO INSANE

- misty and crystal’s loser girl friendship already means the world to me i’m so ready

- curious as to if javi is actually alive bc lottie believes he is, i feel like at this point her shit is fairly accurate but we’ll see

- i laughed out loud at jeff in the car listening to last resort this show is truly a comedy

- need the lottienat enemies to lovers arc asap

- okay TAIVAN TIME: “i’m never gonna be scared of you” <3, literally obsessed with the i love you scene that is peak romance, literally kicking my feet and giggling and i didn’t not fall asleep to fantasies of being tai in that scene

- curious about the animal mask ritual, leaning towards it being either initiation or sacriface

- and finally SHE ATE THE EAR! what the actual fuck. this is fully not how i thought the cannibalism would start but it makes soooooo much sense. cannibalism as a function of grief, jackie consumes shauna’s life so shauna physically consumes her, the clear like NEED to eat it from shauna, the secrecy of it all. lets hope next ghost jackie scene is a confrontation into love confession

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this week - 39

I spent over 50 (!) hours on the sofa this week, (enjoying myself 85% of the time)...

Sløborn, an ominous Danish-German TV pandemic series, very much like Soderbergh’s ‘Contagion’ and in ‘Black Mirror’ style. Normal life of a small island community between Denmark and Germany breaks down and completely collapses when it is hit by a lethal bird flue like virus.

It was extremely prescient, as it was shot in 2019, before Covid! Conceived as Si-fi, it looks today like TV, because the series was able to capture everything that happened around the world after January 2020 in accurate details.

With Roland Møller (of ‘Riders of Justice’). 7+/10

✴️      

My introduction to “The grandmother of The French New Wave”, Agnès Varda (Hard to believe that I never saw her films before!):

✳️✳️✳️ “Inspiration, Creation and Sharing...” Varda by Agnès, my first Varda is her last 2019 auto-biography, in which, at 90, she shared footage and stories from her life and work. The first sample clip (of meeting her Uncle Yanco in Sausalito) won me over, and the rest convinced me to catch up on everything I’ve missed through the years. What a wonderful artist!

✳️✳️✳️ Cléo from 5 to 7. A feminine film about female identity - a new favorite! A beautiful singer must wait 2 hours for the results of her cancer tests. With a magnifique mid-film scene (at 0;38) of the heartbreaking chanson 'Sans Toi', marking the beginning of her quiet transformation.

✳️✳️✳️ Vagabond, a story of a lonely, young woman, an unapologetic drifter, unglamorous, aimless, independent, desperately lost. Dark and nonjudgmental exploration of the refusal to conform to anything. 8+/10.

✳️✳️✳️ (For Sammy - Per our conversation). The Gleaners and I, "The eighth best documentary film of all time”, per ‘Sight & Sound poll. Derived from the famous painting by Millet. Simply wonderful!

✳️✳️✳️ One Hundred And One Nights, 100 year old Michel Piccoli “Monsieur Simon Cinema”, hires a young girl to reminisce with about the history of cinema. An unsuccessful Meta-film that nevertheless is a love letter for cinephiles. Populated by 3 dozens of Who’s Who of French (and World) stars, playacting in this symbolic, Fellinisque fable that draws upon the classics. Mastroianni, Depardieu, Belmondo, Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Anouk Aimée, Fanny Ardant, Gina Lollobrigida, Jane Birkin, etc, etc..

(Photo Above).

✳️✳️✳️ The Young Girls of Rochefort, the wonderful, colorful, sentimental musical by Varda’s husband Jacques Demy, with the most beautiful woman in the world and her sister. Romantic eye candy set to music by Michel Legrand. A year later Deneuve would do Belle de Jour, and Françoise Dorléac would die in a car accident, 8+/10

✳️✳️✳️ Even better, The Young Girls Turn 25, Varda’s 1993 behind the scenes documentary and return to small town Rocheford, to show how it changed the town and left an impression. 9/10

“...The memory of happiness is perhaps also happiness...”

✴️         

The other Jacques Demy modern opera The Umbrellas of Cherbourg knocked me over all over again. Catherine Deneuve’s angelic beauty in this film made me cry for the duration like a baby. And not only at the train station when they say goodbye forever.

10/10

✴️          

Night moves, a tense thriller by Kelly Reichardt, about three radical environmentalists who blow up an Oregon dam. Slow and tense, and like her ‘First Cow’, watching it filled me with constant, low-level anxiety. The off-screen sabotage is placed at the exact mid-point of the movie: The first half is the preparation for it, and the second half shows the aftermath of the act. 7+/10

✴️        

2 unexpected Small Town gems by Miguel Arteta:

✳️✳️✳️ The good Girl, an odd and surprising mismatched romance between 30 year old Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal (22) as employees of a Texas big-box store that is always empty. Her voice-over reminded me of True Romance’s Alabama Whitman. 7/10

✳️✳️✳️ Ed Helms, a sheltered insurance salesman from the backwaters of Wisconsin, goes to an convention in the big city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The nearly conventional story arc has some genuinely heartfelt funny moments. With Maeby Fünke, as Bree the prostitute and Sigourney Weaver as the ex-teacher he balls. Also a surprising drug party, where he smoke crack cocaine and loves it. 5+/10

✴️          

Same theme of people prostituting their own ‘morals’, the notoriously-prudish 1993 Indecent Proposal didn’t age too well. “Billionaire”-porn that asks the question ‘How much would you pay for one night with Robert Redford?’ Gratuitous semi-naked Demi Moore included.

Related: “Stop hitting the button!”

✴️        

Wildland (Kød & blod = Flesh and blood), an uncomfortable and claustrophobic Danish gangster thriller about a 17 year old girl who moves in with the criminal family of Sidse Babett Knudsen, her estranged aunt. 6+/10

“For some people, things go wrong before they even begin”

✴️     

Jim Jarmusch‘s Broken Flowers, a touching road film with Bill Murray, as an old ‘Don Juan’ who receive a pink, unsigned letter from an old lover, letting him know that he has a 20 year old son he never knew about.

Loveliest film of the week.

✴️       

The 2 films directed by Tom Ford:

✳️✳️✳️ A single Man, a sad and lonely gay professor, closeted in 1962 Los Angeles, is preparing to kill himself with a gun, after his boyfriend / love of his life had died in a car accident. Mute and haunting aesthetics in the fashion designer’s debut film, based on a Christopher Isherwood novel.

The ‘Stormy Weather’ dance scene between Charley and George. 8/10

✳️✳️✳️ Nocturnal Animals: Amy Adams is an unhappy owner of a fancy art gallery who receives a disturbing book manuscript written by her ex-husband, which symbolizes their relationship 20 years prior. Rarefied visuals and distinctive style.

Starts with an astonishing scene of obese old ladies dancing naked at Amy’s gala event. Michael Shannon rules as a dying Texas detective! 6+/10.

✴️        

Jean Vigo’s 1933 classic Zero for Conduct was so blatantly anarchistic, it was immediately banned in France until after WW2. In silent film style, it tells about a group of mischievous kids who rebel against the authorities of their old-fashioned boarding school. Part-inspiration for Truffaut's 400 Blows.

✴️      

Anatomy of a murder, Otto Preminger’s 1960 courtroom drama, with opening credits by Saul Bass. Crisp black & white cinematography, and with rape victim Lee Remick playing it as an outgoing loose girl of ambiguous morals, a modern floozy. 7/10.

✴️                

Blush, a wondrous, spectacularly-animated, wordless short by Joe Mateo. What starts as a riff on ‘The Little Prince’, ends up like the opening montage from ‘Up’. The obvious realization that this is a personal metaphor makes the story even deeper.

I watched it twice back to back. 10/10

✴️       

If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast - 95 year old Carl Reiner asks a bunch of charming nonagenarian friends how they manage to live so well for so long. Their answers may (not) shock you...

Spry Dick Van Dyke (92) and half-his-age wife end the film with a lovely rendition of “Young at heart”

✴️            

Hi-school-level adaptation of Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the 21st Century. A breezy discussion of how slave economy and colonialist military repression 300 years ago turn into extreme capitalism of inequality & tax-avoidance today. America is now similar economically to what England was in the early 1800s. A tiny percentage of society controls almost all its wealth. (Full text of the book here).

✴️            

Ride the eagle, a flat new indie about a guy whose estranged hippy mother leaves him her cabin at the lake when she dies, but only if he complete a certain list of tasks. Could be so much better, but the actor playing the guy was just so terrible. Unlike JK Simmons who had a small role. Best detail, when he discovers that all the cabinets in the house are full with pot.

✴️       

Old, my first, (and possibly last), M. Night Shyamalan. The seductive premise of a secluded beach at a fancy tropical resort that ages everybody who comes there, turns into an unconvincing Twilight Zone bore.

...”(Gurgling sounds)”...

✴️      

First watch: I never saw (any) Planet of the apes before, and in spite of my misgivings, gave it a go. 100% anthropomorphic, it couldn’t visualize a universe different from the American mindset of that period. Preachy and very Rod Sterling-like. "It's a madhouse in here”. Pass!

✴️         

The latest Veritasium YouTube video about bowling current technology. Always interesting.

- - - - -

Throw-back to the art project:

Planet of the Apes Adora. 

- - - - -

(My complete movie list is here)

[jurassicparkpodcast]

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Season 3 SPOILER Review!

The Third Season of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous has arrived – meaning we’re bringing you some more content around the show, including our spoiler thoughts on how the third season did when compared to the first two. If you haven’t seen Camp Cretaceous Season 3 yet then click off this article now, as we are going to be discussing some of the key set pieces in this series which make it by far the best one to be released to date. Let’s get into it!

We’ll start by summarising the third season – and, in particular, it’s story. The story of the Campers attempting to get off of the island whilst uncovering that a terrifying new hybrid has broken loose is interesting, with plenty done to explore more of Isla Nublar and, indeed, the terrifying work which Doctor Henry Wu was doing in the shadows of the former Jurassic World. Although the kids ultimately escape the island, this isn’t without a few interesting sequences sprinkled in throughout – including direct tie-ins to Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, and also hints at the future of Mantah Corp and their research into InGen’s work. The third story feels incredibly well balanced – with lots of fantastic set pieces balanced with meaningful storytelling and interesting characters alongside brand-new dinosaurs. The third season brings us a much more grounded story which aims to fill some of the canonical gaps left by Season Two – creating a story which feels satisfying and fulfilling.

The third season maintains the same cast of characters – with each of them getting plenty of interesting development. Darius, for example, spends some time earlier in the season filling the holes in his notebook – giving us a fun look at a Dilophosaurus drawing indicating he encountered this animal on the island at some point. Kenji struggles with the kids liking him and feels the need to use his wealth to impress them, whilst Sammy worries about what Mantah Corp may have done to her family back home. Each character feels three dimensional in the third season – with some great development showing how they have adapted to their environment. Of note here in particular is the character of Yasmina, who selflessly heads across the island in search on an anti-serum when Sammy is poisoned by the quills on the Scorpios Rex. This animal itself is handled incredibly well – with the kids feeling genuinely in danger at some points throughout the story.

The other dinosaurs in the story are good too – including surprising appearances from both the Ouranosaurus and the Monolophosaurus. These animals do go against the pre-established canon of the island a little bit, with neither of them ever mentioned as being present on Nublar, but it is possible that the prior existing list was only ever intended to reflect the public-facing dinosaurs. These animals get some interesting sequences throughout the story – although there are a lot of the Monolophosaurus at one point in the story. Beyond the small canonical issues here, the only other real issue I had with Season 3 was the fact that the Scorpios was developed before the Indominus Rex. This does retroactively go against a lot of the pre-established timeline in things like the viral marketing – but it is possible that the Scorpios was hidden from existence altogether given it was seen as a failure by Simon Masrani. It is interesting to note that the Scorpios was able to reproduce asexually – suggesting a second E750 which is present in the show was able to grow to maturity incredibly quickly. Perhaps this can be explained by the enhanced growth Bumpy also inherits, however. These small issues aside, Season 3 took big strides to fix my issues with Season 2 of the show – creating a much more well-rounded experience which fits better within the universe of the films.

There were a few moments throughout Season 3 which stood out to me as building on the critiques on Season 2 – the first of which was the Ouranosaurus Attack at the dock as the kids attempt to patch up the damage which Tiff’s boat has sustained. I loved how the ambience in this sequence felt reflective of sequences in both The Lost World novel and in Trespasser – with some fantastic, tense sequences utilising natural fog and darkness to really elevate the stakes and create something which felt darker and scarier in tone than anything beforehand. We don’t often see herbivores as direct threats for the human characters in Jurassic, so the attention to ambience and atmosphere throughout this sequence really helped to make the Ouranosaurus feel more intimidating when they eventually attacked. I also loved how this sequence is later explained as the animals behaviours changing due to the ecosystem being tilted off-balance by the Scorpios Rex – a fun note which perhaps suggests that the Spinosaurus may have had a similar impact on Isla Sorna. This was a really fun sequence and one which I thought was worth highlighting here as I really enjoyed it.

Next up I wanted to talk about a sequence which hits the nostalgia factor and tones it up to eleven – with the pair of Scorpios Rexes hunting the campers through the original Visitor’s Centre. A lot of the sequences in the centre feel very similar to those in 1993’s Jurassic Park – with sequences in the kitchen, in particular, recreating shot-for-shot some of the moments from the kitchen sequence in the first film. I really liked these call-backs as whilst they were quite overt, they felt as though they fitted with the show, and worked incredibly well. I also love how the series initially shows Blue nesting in the Visitor Centre before she heads to the Ford Explorer, as this underpins how much of this animal’s present-day existence is nested in Henry Wu’s past work at Jurassic Park. The Visitor’s Centre is also ultimately destroyed by the Scorpios Rexes during this sequence – with both animals buried by the rubble. Whilst some fans may be upset to see this location destroyed, I loved how it underpins a very core concept moving forwards – highlighting how Henry Wu’s arrogance and continued ignorance in the implications of his science has ultimately destroyed the legacy of the work that both he and John Hammond attempted to do.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that the third season features two bonus episodes – with the final two episodes tying directly into the Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom opening sequence. After Season One of the show, I tweeted one of the writers asking him if there was a chance we’d see reference to this in the future, so seeing this recreated shot-for-shot in the show with the kids watching on as the Indominus sample was extracted was awesome. It was also really cool seeing how Wu’s additional mission was to retrieve his laptop – noting that without it, the work he needed to do on the Indoraptor would take years and not months. This perhaps explains why the animal we see during the Lockwood Manor auction sequence is only a prototype – as Wu ultimately leaves the island without this information. It is interesting seeing some of Wu’s dialogue with Brooklynn throughout these episodes – with the character perhaps showing some small semblance of remorse. Ultimately, however, he leaves the kids on Nublar – reinforcing his status as a character with a questionable moral compass moving into Jurassic World Dominion. I have to admit – the way this tie-in played out was handled masterfully, and I was really happy to see things unfold in the way they did. I genuinely screamed out loud at my screen with happiness at one moment – emphasising how much work went in to nailing this crossover. It’s clear that the team working on Camp Cretaceous went to great lengths to smash the third season – and the result is some fantastic crossover which pays off and builds the lore of Wu’s work in meaningful ways without any of the massive contradictions I was worried these sequences may introduce.

The Series ends with the Campers finally escaping the island – heading off in a repaired boat, although we do see at the very closing moments that something else is on-board and hidden in the lower decks. This poses an interesting question in its own right, as it has been pre-established that Scorpios can self-reproduce – so is it possible a third hybrid existed on the island? If so then this could pose a grave risk to people on the mainland when the campers return there. We also know that Mantah Corp may potentially still be at play – with a quad-copter drone observing the Scorpios Rex on the island. Is it possible this shady corporation may now recover the carcasses of the dead hybrids for their own experiments? And what happened to the pilot of the Helicopter which the kids crashed in? She didn’t appear to have been eaten – but we never see her again after the crash sequence. These are just a handful of the questions we were left with at the end of Season 3 – implying there is more story to be told, even if the third season felt like it reached a nice natural ending for the series as a whole.

Overall, the third season of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous is fantastic. Do not sleep on this season. It adds a lot to the lore of Doctor Henry Wu and his research, and it builds out a lot of interesting lore for the experiments which were happening on Isla Nublar. It also sets up some interesting plot threads for the future without them feeling overly intrusive and detrimental to the wider story telling in the Jurassic universe. Season 2 of this show left me feeling a little deflated, but Season 3 left me feeling reinvigorated. This wraps up the story of E750 and the wider universe in meaningful ways, and is a fantastic and more mature Jurassic adventure which adult fans will enjoy. I can’t wait to see the reception to this season – and how it informs Jurassic content in the future.

Written by: Tom Jurassic

[zmediaoutlet]

have a cigar

new fic for the Sunday Morning Porn Club; having some s2 feels and thinking about how big and wild and uncertain Sam was in those early days. But also thinking about porn.

title: have a cigar pairing: Sam/Dean rating: E length: 5500 words tags: Season/Series 02, New Relationship, slight D/s, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Post-Episode: s02e05 Simon Said            

summary: What happened with Andy and Ansem unsettles Sam. Dean doesn't seem worried.

(read on AO3)

They’re over the state border from Oklahoma into Kansas when Dean indicates that he’s getting off the highway. Sam looks up at the sound of the blinker, looks around. "What, gas?" he says. They’re not that far out from Guthrie, so unless Dean has to pee—

"Nah, we’ve still got a hundred miles left in the tank," Dean says, rolling the car smoothly onto the offramp. Wellington, Kansas: population 8,105, and exactly no reason for them to be stopping. Sam frowns across the bench and Dean glances at him, and then rolls his eyes. "Jeez. A guy can’t want a break? We were up all night, man, dealing with the psychic twins. Plus you got a head injury. Sue me, I’m taking a minute."

"It's not really a head injury," Sam says. Kansas outside the car windows—mid-morning, green. "We told Ellen we’d be right there." He rubs his hand under the edge of his cast, rolling the tendons under his thumb. "What if she’s got a case or something?"

"Then it can wait half a day," Dean says, and it’s a little louder than it needs to be. He’s got a grip at ten-and-two, his jaw square. Sam looks at him and hears his voice in a perfect echo, saying you’re all part of something that’s terrible, and he bites the inside of his cheek so hard that it throbs but he doesn’t say anything, after that.

Outskirts of towns tend to look the same. Truckstop, motel attached. A McDonald’s. Dean pilots them to a vaguely dirty Mexican place that looks like it last had its decor updated in 1987, and when they’re at the dented formica table with their plastic menus Dean lets out a sigh that sounds like it came from his feet. "You think they’d give me a margarita at, uh, 11:32 in the morning?" he says.

He does look tired. Sam sucks the sore inside of his cheek. "Probably goes great with huevos rancheros," he says, and gets Dean to smile at him, so—all right. A little break.

The food’s bland, given the cornfields all around, but comforting too. They don’t talk much. Dean looks over a copy of the Wichita Eagle that someone left behind, in some obituary-scanning reflex; Sam swirls his fork through his larded refried beans and looks out the window, thinking. Andy, and Ansem. Brothers, though Andy didn’t know it until it was too late, and Ansem went bad but Andy—

Dean knocks his boot into Sam’s ankle, and Sam flinches but when he refocuses Dean’s looking at him, kinda soft. Kinda not soft. Kinda defiant, in that weird way that he’s started to do, and Sam feels heat rush into his cheeks, seeing. Dean smiles like he won something, even if his ears go pink, too, and he wipes his mouth with the balled napkin and says, "I’m going to the can," and Sam says, "Oh, great, thanks for the update," because they are brothers, and Dean smirks and walks off with a kind-of swagger and it’s not Sam’s fault that that calls attention to the shape of his ass, but Sam’s looking, either way.

The waitress offers more iced tea, when Dean’s gone. "No, gracias," Sam says. She raises her eyebrows a little but puts down the check. Sam leans back in the booth, spinning his unused knife as best he can in his busted hand, looking again out the window. Trucks, and a cornfield, and blue skies. Plain and familiar, and if he tries to imagine a demon coming here, a darkness swarming over it, somehow it just—doesn’t compute. But there was Andy, and Ansem, just a hundred miles south of here in an easy calm town that had no idea what was coming, and they brought murder with them. Killers, and freaks, and the town and its people hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve it.

"What, you forget how to pay a tab?"

Sam jerks, brought back to earth. Dean’s standing slouched, one hip leaning on the table, rifling through his wallet.

"Swear, you’re a lousy date," Dean says, dropping a pile of cash onto the little plastic tray, but he’s got a smile threatening, tucked into the corners of his mouth, and Sam’s—god, he didn’t know it could—this is—different.

A motel. Corn-themed. "Real original, huh?" Dean says, under his breath, but he gets them a room, and when they’re inside with two queens and steady A/C and the shades pulled, leaving them in privacy, he drops his bag on the closer bed and looks at Sam sidelong and says, "I’m gonna shower first, ‘kay."

The bathroom door closes before Sam can say a thing. He blows out the breath stuck in his chest and sticks out the Privacy Please tag, and then he sits on the end of the bed he guesses is his, and looks at the bathroom where the shower’s hissed on, the pipes clanking inside the walls.

Not so—obvious, usually. They’ve only been—it’s been like this, between them, for—what, a few months. Barely. Since Dad, and the brutal weeks after it, and a weird raw conversation in pre-dawn light that led to Sam putting his hand on Dean’s face and Dean snarling and then practically shoving him onto his back, and—

It’s new. Dean seems to seesaw back and forth between pretending like it doesn't exist, in the light of day, and a raw grasping want that kind of scares Sam, even if it's maybe the hottest thing that's ever happened to him. No one he's ever been with has wanted him this much. He's never wanted it this much.

He washes his face in the sink. When he pushes the damp edges of his hair back he looks—okay. A little tired, but decent. His head does hurt, actually, where Tracy tried to brain him. Where she was forced to.

Sam closes his eyes. Jesus, he is tired. And—pissed off, too. When he thinks about it. Freaks, all of them, and Sam's got the visions and the migraines and this horrible feeling in his gut like something's gonna happen, some tidal wave of shit that's going to crest the horizon, and he's not going to be able to do a damn thing about it.

Andy, and Ansem. Speaking their wants into reality. Max Miller, moving things with his mind. Sam, and his dreams, and it wouldn't have to be bad. Except it always ends up bad. Death, somehow waiting, and he strips off his jacket and his boots and crawls onto the nearer bed, and buries his face into the pillow, and tries to listen to the steady familiar sound of the shower going and tries not to think about that dark wave. Drawing nearer, cresting.

*

A honk wakes him up. He blinks, drags in muffled air. When he turns over Dean's sitting on his bed, frowning at the curtains. "Just 'cause you can't drive," he mutters, and then looks back down at Sam. "Oh, finally."

Sam drags a hand over his face. No drool, that's something. He yawns, stretching out on the bed. "How long was I out?"

"Couple hours," Dean says. He points the remote and Sam sees the TV on, muted, a newscast—and off, just as fast. Politer than Dean usually is.

"Should've woken me up," Sam says, and Dean rolls his eyes and says, "You need all the beauty sleep you can get," and Sam smiles, can't help it, and he goes to sit up but Dean puts a hand on his shoulder and he stays put. Surprised a little. Dean, looking at him.

"Sammy," Dean says. He's tipped in toward Sam, in a t-shirt and boxers, and the look he's giving Sam is steady, considering. "You didn't have any crazy dreams, right? No big visions?"

Sam blinks. "No."

"No," Dean repeats. "So we don't have to light out of here and haul ass to, like, Weehawken or something?"

"What?" Sam says. "No. Weehawken?"

Dean shrugs. "Tried to think of somewhere that'd suck." He sucks his lower lip into his mouth, looking at Sam, and then throws a leg over Sam's and settles himself in Sam's lap, just like that. Sam grabs his hips, startled instinct, while Dean shifts and his ass sits warm and heavy against Sam's dick. "So. Want to screw?"

Jesus. "How romantic," Sam says, but his mouth's dry. Light of day, just straight-out like that. Yeah, this is new. Dean pops his eyebrows, grins in that goofy way where he's trying to be funny or sexy or something, but for Sam it just reminds him how this is—them, the two of them together like this despite all sense or reason, and his stomach flips like encountering some new nasty thing but it's just—Dean. He gets a steady look, that grin going smaller, and then Dean leans down over him and braces his hand on Sam's pec to balance and kisses him like it's his right to do it, plush and immediately wet, his mouth like something—like a dream—

Sam pushes up on an elbow, kisses back. Dean tastes like toothpaste. His stomach, warm and soft under the warm soft t-shirt, and when Sam squeezes his ass with his good hand Dean makes a little noise into his mouth, tips his hips down. Hard already, pressing into Sam's stomach, like he was waiting maybe, like maybe he'd been fooling with himself hoping Sam would wake up. Sam bites his lip because it turns out Dean likes that, even if he bitches after, and he dips and kisses Dean's throat because it turns out Dean likes that, all his vampire comments notwithstanding, and Dean cups the back of Sam's head and digs his fingers into Sam's hair and Sam flips them over, easy reversal of their weight with Dean's thighs splayed out around his hips, and Dean says fuck under his breath when Sam tugs his shirt-collar down and bites at him there, but his chest pushes up into it like a chick wanting her tits played with, so that's clearly okay. "Vampire," Dean says, predictable already, and Sam grins and then sucks there, slicking his tongue against the little dents of his teeth. Dean's hips kick up and his thighs squeeze Sam's hips, but he groans too, and says, "Moving me around. You're such a control freak."

Their hips grind together. Even through his jeans it feels incredible, his dick chubbed up to match Dean's. "Like you mind," Sam says, even if he can feel the heat rushing up into his face to say it, flat-out like that. When he picks his head up Dean's eyes are heavy, his ears that bright red they always are when he's turned on, and Sam licks his lips and watches Dean's attention drop to them. Jesus. "You want me to stop?"

"Didn't say that." He tugs at Sam's arm and Sam lifts up, kisses him open, and Dean's leg slides against his, his hands framing Sam's waist, dragging up his back. When Sam pulls back to breathe Dean's lips are puffed-wet, red as his ears, and he's—fuck, he's hot. Sam drags a thumb over his cheek, swipes the wet off his lower lip, and Dean smiles a little. Like he knows what Sam's thinking. "Just saying. You gotta be in charge, huh? Never would've guessed, Sammy." He catches Sam's wrist and fake-whispers, like a shared secret: "That was sarcasm."

Sam snorts. "Yeah, you're hilarious." He braces his cast on the bed, tugs out of Dean's grip and slides his hand down to grip Dean's dick. So close it's easy to watch Dean's eyes go a little wide, his lips parting. "You wanna shut up now?"

Dean's thigh slides against his hip. "Make me." Sam squeezes and Dean sighs out hot against his face. He blinks then, a flash of smile. "Hey, maybe you could. Use that mojo."

Sam doesn't understand for a second. He pushes up higher on his elbow, frowns.

"Get me to do whatever you want, huh?" Dean's cheeks are very red. "No control issues then. What Sammy says goes."

With his dick this hard Sam doesn't know how to react. "Dean," he says, helplessly—some mix of turned on, of pissed off. Like Sam could be like—like he could be Andy. Ansem. Some nasty magic, getting Dean to do anything. "I wouldn't."

Dean licks the point of one canine, eyes on Sam's mouth. It's not picking a fight because he's so obviously hot for it that Sam's body reacts like a strange compulsion, stretching out over his brother, pinning him down. He rocks his hips into Dean's, pins one of Dean's arms down by the wrist, and Dean groans, arches into it. "I know you wouldn't," he says, rough. Sam leans back, his stomach flipping uncertainly, and Dean grabs his neck, arches up, wild and intense and amazing like Dean always is in bed—wholly present, wholly wanting, like no one else ever has been. Everyone is always thinking about something else, always holding a little apart. Not Dean—Dean's here, pressing his dick up against Sam's dick, holding Sam close, leaning up and kissing Sam's jaw where he hasn't shaved in a day, breathing hot against his ear, saying tight and sweet, "Tell me, though—tell me, what you'd make me do—what you'd say, Sammy, tell me—"

—and Sam says, coming up from some deep place, "I'd tell you I was gonna fuck you," and Dean groans like Sam punched him in the solar plexus—a deep short breathless grunt, breaking Sam's grip to grab his hips, his ass, hauling him in like Sam's already inches deep. Jesus, jesus, Dean wants it, even here in this little dump of a motel room at three in the afternoon, the light coming in muffled through the blinds. Vivid even in the muted grey, Dean's eyes visible and his mouth wide and his face an open book, a crazy thing. No secrets, anymore, Sam's sure of it. Sam grabs his face, dips his thumb between Dean's lips. "Jesus, Dean—yeah, I'm gonna fuck you. You're gonna let me. Aren't you."

"Yeah," Dean says, deep and ready, and Sam kneels up, drags Dean's boxers down and watches his dick slap up against his stomach, and he rips his jeans open one-handed, feeling wild. Feeling powerful, and right, especially with how Dean's eyes drop immediately to see him get his dick out and his mouth works like he wishes Sam would just feed it in, like he wants it there, wants it bad, wants it—wants Sam—

"You're gonna open right up for me, aren't you?" Sam says, lightheaded almost, and Dean nods dumbly and spreads, grabs one leg up by the back of his knee so Sam can burrow fingers down into the dark place between them—soft a little, damp a little, and when he looks up into Dean's face Dean's bright fuckin red like he knows exactly what Sam's thinking, like he knew what Sam was gonna ask for. Sam spits on two fingers and feeds them in and finds Dean—open, kinda wet, and Dean says—"There was—the conditioner, in the shower—" and Sam groans wild because it's like magic, like some wished-for thing, like he's Andy and he said to Dean open yourself up for me and Dean willed himself fuckable. He feeds himself inside, inch after inch, and Dean's face flinches and his eyes squeeze tight but he's rearing up, gripping into Sam's shirt, his legs wrapping around Sam's waist, lifting off the bed practically with how he's trying to shove Sam deeper, gasping for more than Sam can give.

Sam gets his cast bolstered under the small of Dean's back, keeps his weight tipped up into the perfect place for Sam to grind into. It's not wet enough and Dean's not loose enough but it feels outrageous, and Dean's panting for it, pulling at Sam's shirt hard enough that a button pops. "Fuck, you can hold me up, huh?" Dean says, shuddery, and Sam presses up on his good arm enough that Dean really does go airborne, the strain intense but worth it for the noise Dean makes when Sam's dick jolts inside him at the new angle. Dean's face presses against Sam's, his nose bumping Sam's ear and his mouth wet at Sam's jaw, and Sam curls his hips in these short shallow pumps that wouldn't usually do it for him except that Dean's so wrapped-up close that he can feel every shaking thing it's doing, the insanity of what he can make his brother feel.

That he can make him feel—Sam groans, sits back, and Dean's clinging to him so tight he gets hauled upright and his ass shoves down on Sam's dick through sheer gravity, enough to make him tip his head back on his shoulders and groan out loud. Sam keeps him in place, holding his hips steady, and shoves up, up, watching Dean's throat go bright red, kissing there when he can't stand not to, anymore. Dean's thighs squeeze his sides and his dick's rubbing all over Sam's shirt and he gets both hands in Sam's hair, keeping him in place, and Sam's biting and fucking up and keeping both their balance and so it's a surprise, sort of, when Dean says nearly breathless against the top of his ear, "Tell me—Sammy, tell me something else, tell me what you want me to do."

Fuck. Sam bites Dean's collarbone hard enough that Dean yelps, squirms and yanks at Sam's hair to get him to pull back, and both feel so good that Sam just sucks harder before he lets go. When he tips his head up Dean's looking at him, red-faced and glassy-eyed, and Sam says without thinking much about it, "I'm gonna come in you, and then I want to eat it out. You're gonna let me." Dean's jaw drops further and Sam actually feels the spasm around the root of his dick, Dean's whole body clenching. Anticipation, he's pretty sure. Sam hasn't—they haven't done that, yet, but now it's all he wants, and he knows Dean will practically cry for it. Sam smiles at him, a weird sort of power filling up his chest, watching how his working dick makes Dean feel. "Later, too. If I want you to blow me. Tonight. Or at a rest stop—shit, parked out where someone might see, Dean. You'll do it, won't you?"

Dean groans, when Sam pushes up into him hard, keeping his hips held tight against Sam's so that he's full. The way Sam's learning he likes to be. "All right, Sammy," Dean says, soft, and Sam—fuck, he can't, he can't wait anymore, and he bears Dean back onto the mattress and lets his head bounce, and when he shoves in at just the right angle Dean shouts at the ceiling and then Sam's free to just—fuck him, to get his dick inside that hot friction where Dean's so ready for him, where he wants it because he—because he wants what Sam wants. Something Sam didn't get, when they first started this up, and it was rough and unspoken and awkward in the night. Everything he tried, something Dean just accepted and built higher, and when they kissed for the first time that wasn't like fighting it was something that—that Sam doesn't—god Dean feels good, and he's moaning against Sam's temple like he's getting some kind of dick-based religion, and Sam grips his hips and slams in without care or finesse and when he comes it's brutal, some unloading from the base of his spine, and he says—something—but his ears are roaring and his hips are flexing deep and Dean's nails are digging so hard into his back under his shirts that it hurts but even that feels good, at that second, the world aligning for a half-moment into being for fucking once in Sam's life—right.

He barely holds himself up, breathing hard into Dean's throat. Dean's still twitching, his dick like iron against Sam's stomach. He rocks against Sam, churning Sam's dick inside him where it's still hard, and they groan together, feeling it, but Dean groans louder when Sam slips out. They've fucked like this—a handful, two handfuls, of times, and they've swapped back and forth but Sam's only felt insane this way when he was on top, when he was in charge. With his body still ringing like a struck gong he licks his lips and then bites Dean's throat very deliberately, just below the amulet cord, hard enough that it'll leave a mark, and only when Dean's hissing does Sam think to ask—but. But he doesn't have to ask.

He releases his jaw, stretches it. Licks, against the hurt mark, and then crawls down the bed, kisses Dean's pec and his nipple and his soft belly and his hip, and brushes his cheek stubble and all against Dean's straining dick and feels Dean's thighs jump around his shoulders. When he looks up Dean's watching him, head off-center on a pillow and his eyes slitted, dark. "What am I going to do now?" Sam says.

Dean licks his lower lip. "You—" He swallows. "What you said."

"Yeah," Sam says, and pushes Dean's thighs up in time to watch his sore-fucked rosy asshole flex and drip, a runnel of white that Sam dips and collects with his tongue—salt, and bitter, but good enough that Sam's bones shiver in his skin. He laps across Dean's asshole and feels it so hot and soft, and Dean moans rich enough up above that Sam's own dick twitches, caught in a semi between his hip and the bed. He licks deeper, his tongue almost dipping inside, and then hooks two fingers in easy on the wet he left behind, and Dean cries out but only spreads wider, fisting himself and letting Sam do—whatever he wants, whatever he needs, because Dean is—because Sam is—

Dean comes quieter than Sam expects, every time. His whole body freezes for a second and then he makes this deep sound in his chest, in his throat, arching toward Sam like for comfort, almost. Almost. Sam licks him through it and then lifts up, holding his fingers tight up where he'd buried them, watching Dean's face while the last of it spurts from his dick, while he slowly, slowly relaxes into the bed.

It's—god. Afternoon. Why is that what Sam thinks, but it's what he thinks. Afternoon and the sound of a semi roaring to life in the parking lot, and Ellen waiting a few hours north of here, and the world resettling into something that has to be dealt with. Sam works his jaw, lets his fingers slip out when Dean spasms around them. He doesn't—he doesn't regret this, ever, not since that first time when they both had to take a minute—but he feels… He swallows, and sits back on his knees. Jesus, he's still dressed. Jeans and button-down and socks, sweat and worse griming him up. He zips up, feeling weird.

Dean rubs a hand up his stomach, smearing his own jizz over his belly and undershirt. His amulet's swung around on his neck, laying against the pillow. "Dude, that was sick," he says, but in a way that's weirdly admiring. Sam licks his lips, the remaining afterglow twisting in his belly. Dean lets his heels slip down the bed, his legs splayed around Sam, and he's red-faced still, but maybe that's just because they're both so—out there. Exposed. Even so, Dean touches his knee against Sam's hip, the corner of his mouth turned up. "Seriously. You're like a freight train when you get going, you know that?"

Sam swallows. Thick aftertaste in his mouth. "Shut up," he says, and finally goes for the buttons on his shirt. Jeez, Dean really did rip one off—Sam'll have to hunt for it on the carpet or wherever. He likes this shirt, it doesn't deserve to get ruined by—this.

"Hey, did you hear me complaining?"

Sam keeps unbuttoning, wrestles the shirt off his sweaty arms. He's gonna need a shower before they go anywhere.

"Sammy," Dean says, and Sam swings a leg over, goes to get off the bed. Shower, and clean clothes, and maybe they won't be late enough that Ellen asks questions—"Hey!"

Sam's forearm is grabbed before he can get away and Dean tugs hard enough that Sam'll have to wrench something to get away. He pauses, still on one knee on the bed, and when he looks Dean's up on one elbow, still naked from the waist down, frowning at him. "What," Sam says.

"What." Dean squints at him, and he's not blushed up anymore, not turned on. Looking at Sam like he wishes he could peel back Sam's skull and see what he's thinking, but Dean's never been good at that, really. Sam wishes he were, sometimes. All his life he'd wished for some kind of privacy, but then when he got it everything just ended up—worse. When it mattered Dean couldn't see him, see what counted, and now, with what's happening—

"Come back here," Dean says, firm, but his tug on Sam's arm is gentle as anything. Sam sits, half-on the bed with his hip tucked up against Dean's hip, and Dean's still looking at him with that intense so-thoughtful look, and it's—it's killing Sam, kind of, deep in his gut, that Dean doesn't know, that he can't know, that Sam's by himself here even when like five minutes ago they were about as close as Sam's ever been, will ever be, to anyone.

"You're wigging out," Dean says, after a few beats of silence, and Sam snorts and says, "Yeah, that’s me," and maybe it's bitter and too much and too weird but Sam doesn't know any other way to be, now, but Dean sighs and says, "Fuck, Sammy," kinda quiet. He reaches up and gets Sam by the neck and tugs him down, down, until there's no choice really but to kiss, and Dean opens up soft and wide and easy like they've been doing this for years, like he knows exactly what Sam needs. Sam gets a hand on his jaw, holds his face. His lips a little chapped, toothmarks on the inside like he was biting himself before to stay quiet, and when they stop Sam leans his forehead against Dean's, lets their noses brush together, breathes his air. Dean runs his fingers through the hair at the back of Sam's head, a slow carding pull. Sam sighs.

"I don't know if I need to give you like a signed customer satisfaction survey," Dean says, in his normal voice, "but that was good. For me."

Sam's eyelids squeeze tight without him even meaning to. Purplish sparky bursts against the darkness.

"Hey," Dean says, and pushes him back an inch. Sam doesn't open his eyes, just lets Dean move him, and feels Dean's hand on his throat, his thumb braced right over Sam's pulse. "Seriously. If it's too weird, or—or if you don't—damn, Sam, I know you want it. Talking like that. And I'm obviously good with it too, I just practically came my brains out. So don't let it be weird, okay. It's just you and me."

"Like that's not weird?" Sam says, weirdly croaky and feeling how his voice vibrates against Dean's grip. When he looks again Dean's face is striped with the light from the blinds, the sun dipping just enough. A band of shadow across his eyes, a band of greyed-out yellow across his nose, showing the freckles he pretends he doesn't mind. Sam pushes further up and Dean lets him go, frowning at him while Sam picks the amulet off the pillow, resettles it into its place over Dean's sternum. He fiddles with it, avoiding Dean's eyes. Sharp little horns pricking his thumb. How haven't they blunted, he wonders, after all this time. He presses his thumb harder into one, letting it hurt, and watches his hand rather than look at Dean's face. "I don't know, man. I'm just—that stuff last night, it's not—it's bad. I don't want that. The power. The dreams are bad enough, you know?"

Dean gets a grip in Sam's t-shirt—loose, but enough that if he held fast Sam probably couldn't get away. "If you hadn't had 'em we wouldn't have gotten there," Dean says. "Tracy probably would've died."

"Ansem might've lived," Sam says back, and Dean makes a tch sound, not very under his breath. Sam sucks the inside of his cheek, that sore spot. Still sore. Dean's better at this, Sam thinks. This calculation. Who deserves to live and who deserves to die. Who's good and who's not. Tracy for Ansem, Sam thinks, but Andy still murdered someone. Bullet to the brain, and now who's a monster.

"Sorry," Dean says, and for that Sam does look up, frowning. There's a glimpse of white teeth as Dean worries at one corner of his lip. "I guess it's not really a—I wasn't trying to make like it's not a big deal."

Sam shrugs. "Scares you, doesn't it?" Dean blinks, expression tightening. "You said. Freaks me out, too. I don't think anybody here's saying it's not a big deal." Sam lets the amulet go, rubs the pad of his thumb to feel the deep dents he's made. They look like holes in him. "It just—first it was Max and now Andy. It goes wrong every time."

Dean sits up, fast. "We don't know that," he says, more intense than he really ought to be when he's half-naked. "Sammy. We're not gonna let it go that way, okay? You and me. We can handle it."

He gets his hand on the turn of Sam's jaw, makes Sam look at him, and Sam does because it's not like looking at Dean's a hardship. He tries a smile and Dean nods, like Sam's agreeing to something. He really can't read Sam's mind. Sam wonders if that's something he'll be able to do, soon, coming down the pipe of this shitty year, but before he can tug away at that miserable thought Dean's leaned in and is kissing him, again. Soft, coaxing when Sam's stiff, and he puts one hand solid on Sam's chest, grounding and warm. Sam sighs, leans into it. It's nice, and he might as well let Dean have something.

"Better," Dean says, quiet, when they pull apart, and Sam nods even if it wasn't a question. He's let his hand fall onto Dean's bare thigh and he squeezes the muscle there, trying to say—he doesn't even know what. Dean kisses him again, quick, and then lifts his eyebrows. "You still going to make me blow you at a rest stop? That's nasty, man."

Sam huffs and Dean grins, even if it's small. "Don't need magic powers to know you're easy," Sam says, and even if it feels like an effort he manages to make it sound light.

"Damn right I am," Dean says, and Sam smiles and says, "Okay, okay, I'm taking a shower," and lets Dean pat his chest before he closes himself into the little room, fluorescents and yellow tile, bright and just a little dingy.

Andy said Tracy was scared of him. Sam believes it. He saw her face, this morning in the ambulance. That dim horror. Dean's not there. Scared of the situation, about what might happen, but he's not afraid of Sam, yet. Sam tips his head back against the door, imagining it. Taking Dean's hand and pitching his voice a certain way—that weird tone that he'd heard in Andy's voice but which hadn't affected him—and saying kiss me, and Dean going soft and easy and smiling, and doing it, no questions asked. Doing other things, just because Sam asked.

His stomach turns hard enough that for a second he really thinks he's going to puke. Hits different than it did when his dick was doing the thinking. The things he could do, with that power—he's lucky that it's just the dreams he has to worry about. Although—back with Max—there was that wardrobe, that he moved—

"Hey, get a move on," Dean says, muffled through the door. Sam opens his eyes, shocked back to the moment. "We get cleaned up and out of here, I only got to pay for a half day, and we've got to get up to the Roadhouse by tonight."

"You're the one who wanted a break," Sam says, and Dean says, quieter, yeah, yeah. Sam's breathing hard, remembering. That wardrobe. It came out of Sam like a punch, pure instinct, but—Sam's learned how to do a lot harder things than to throw a punch.

He strips out of his clothes, turns on the shower. Hot. Runs his hand under the water, waiting for it heat up, and thinks that, in the right circumstances, anyone can be pushed.

"Sam, seriously!" Dean calls out.

Sam folds his hand into a fist, hard enough that he feels the tendons strain. They're not going to let anything happen. He might have to ask Dean to swear that's true. For now, his skin's crawling, but that's okay. He gets in the shower. They have road to cover, before the day's done.

[joggerfive]

Fic: Christmas Mischief

This is my Discord Secret Santa gift for @notebooksnshoelaces <3 Hope you like it, my lovely! Happy holidays!!

Simon and Five become christmassy Township Troublemakers™ and bring some festive cheer to Abel with a few pranks and surprises! Set in S1/S2.

(Link to fic on AO3 if that’s where you prefer to do your reading)

---

“Hello there, my dearest Five.”

Runner Five looked up from their notebook towards the doorway of the rec room. Simon swaggered in then slammed himself down on the couch next to Five with a grin.

“Where did you even get a Santa hat?” Five wondered aloud, reaching over to Simon’s head to touch the white pom-pom that was dangling from the top.

Simon playfully swatted their hand away before it could reach the hat. “I shall answer your question with another question. Are you up for some festive mischief?”

With a glint in their eye, Five immediately shut their notebook as their reply.

-----

“Jesus, it’s cold out here,” Simon complained, “even on the move, I’m bloody freezing.”

Five shook their head as they picked up a dirty shirt from the side of the road. It would be good as new after a wash. They shoved it in their bag and quickly caught up with Simon once more.

“You’re just grumpy because Sam made you take off your Santa hat.” Five replied.

At the mention of his name, the radio operator’s voice started coming through the runners’ headsets.

“It made your headset sit all weird! I’m not having you lose vital equipment in the name of Christmas spirit.” Sam rebutted indignantly.

Simon gave a fake cough, then mumbled the word “grinch”. Five smirked.

“Hey! I am not a grinch! I love Christmas!” Sam replied, sounding offended. “In fact, when I was a kid-”

Five startled as Simon gave their arm a couple of taps to grab their attention. Sam continued his story into their ears as Three pointed towards a street. Five nodded silently in response. Time for part one of the plan.

“Sam,” Simon started with a smirk, “What was that about geese? You’re breaking up.”

“What? No, I said trees.” Sam replied, coming through perfectly clearly.

“Bees? What have bees got to do with Christmas?” Three acted as confused as he could, furrowing his eyebrows together even though Sam couldn’t see him.

“Trees! I was saying how my family would choose a Christmas tree together!”

“Choose a what? And it was free?”

“A tree! And I didn’t say it was free!”

Simon tried to keep the grin off his face as he looked over at Five, “Sorry Sammy boy, you’re breaking up. I guess we’ll just have to hear your story about the free geese and bees later on, hey?”

“There are no geese or bees!” Sam exclaimed, before properly taking in what Simon said, “Wait, you can’t hear me? You should be able to, we haven’t had any problems in this area before-”

“-am. I –an’t hea- you.” Simon spoke in fragments, pretending to get cut off. Five gave a quiet scoff at the ridiculous attempt.

“What? Three? Five? Can you still hear me?”

Five looked over at Simon with an incredulous look on their face. They couldn’t believe it was actually working.

“Ca- -ear –ou.” Simon continued.

“Guys? Oh God, why can’t you hear me? Has a wire come loose? I knew I shouldn’t have cleaned in here!” A slight amount of panic started to become present in Sam’s voice, causing a small pang of guilt in Five’s chest.

Runner Three let out a last few incoherent syllables before turning off his headset and motioning for Five to do the same. When he saw Five’s expression, he sighed and turned off theirs for them.

“Oh, stop your worrying, Five. He’ll be fine.” Simon shrugged, “Come on, it’s this way.” He turned down the street on the left, instead of the route straight ahead that Sam had originally planned for them.

“We could’ve told him, you know.” Five mumbled, but followed Simon regardless.

“He would’ve ratted us out and you know it.” He rolled his eyes when Five looked at him with an expression like they’d just hurt a harmless little puppy. Which was kind of how they felt. “Come on, this is for the Christmas spirit! Just a quick stop at this shop and then we can tell Sam we’re okay. Only a few stragglers in our way and we’ve dealt with much worse, right?”

Five gave a reluctant nod, “Fine.”

Simon gave a loud whoop and a fist pump, which put a smile back on Five’s face, as they ran towards their destination.

-----

“Why do these places even exist?” Five asked once they were inside the shop, poking a bobblehead of Santa to make it nod. “Surely they didn’t get any business for ten months out of the year.”

Simon called out his answer from the other side of the store, “Yeah, but I bet the two months they did get business were booming.” On the last word, a couple of bells made a loud noise as a toy fell to the ground, Simon yelling out a quick ‘sorry!’ as he picked the elf back up and put it on its rightful place on the shelf.

The two runners were currently grabbing supplies from a Christmas shop aptly titled ‘Christmas Galore’, which although it appeared to be barren in a few areas (the clothes and candle sections mostly) it still had most of its contents covered in dust. Seemed like kitsch holiday items were not the most necessary thing to scavenge at the end of the world.

“Hey, look!” 

Five whipped their head up from the Nativity display they were looking at just in time to catch the flying scrap of red fabric that was thrown their way. 

“Now we can match!” Simon said happily. Five looked in their hands and saw a Santa hat. Slightly smaller than Simon’s, but it would do. They went to try it on.

“Can’t put it on now, you dolt.” Simon remarked as he shoved something into his bag, “Don’t think we would’ve found festive clothing in the pharmacy Sam thought we were going to.”

Five shrugged, “Maybe someone at the pharmacy was really into Christmas.”

“Alright smartie pants, if you wanna wear it then fine, but you’re doing the explaining.”

They gave Simon a glare before relenting and shoving the hat into their pack instead. The pair continued to grab whatever festive items they could as Simon whistled some Christmas songs to himself.

-----

Runner Five left their bunk on Christmas day with a spring in their step and a poorly concealed smirk on their face. Late last night, the secret santas had been putting festive touches all around Abel whilst trying not to wake anyone up. Five thought back to the moment they’d both tried to sneak into the kitchen through the window and Simon’s foot had gotten caught on the wood, causing him to land on his back with a loud thump, and bit their lip to contain their laughter.

Speak of the devil, as soon as Five entered the kitchen, their companion was already sitting at a table (Santa hat and all) with a mug in his hands.

“Good morning and a very merry Christmas, dear Five!” He greeted with a huge grin.

Five simply nodded as they sat down next to him. They were less of a morning person, but they’d make an exception for one day out of the year.

Simon took this as a reply and continued, “Where’s your hat then? Thought we were gonna be matching.”

Five looked confused for a moment, “My hat?”

“Yeah,” He replied, “I got you a hat. Did you lose it?”

Their face stayed the same for a few seconds, but they cracked when they saw Simon’s crestfallen expression. Reaching into their back pocket, they retrieved their Santa hat and put it on with a cheeky smile.

Simon gave a chuckle, “Had me there for a second. Thought my partner in crime had given up on me.”

They were about to respond when Simon looked over at another table, brimming with excitement. Five followed their gaze, only to be chastised.

“Don’t make it too obvious!” Simon hissed, “Act natural.”

The two mischief makers gave as many casual glances as they could to the other side of the room as Sam walked in, still looking half asleep.

Sam’s eyes widened as he saw the huge box on the table and slowly approached it. Three and Five watched as Sam read the label that was on top, which addressed the present to him. The box was big enough that it covered up Sam’s entire body from view as he sat behind it, making the troublemakers slightly upset that they couldn’t see their victim’s face. However, they knew it wouldn’t be a problem for long.

They watched as Sam (or just Sam’s arms, from their perspective) quickly opened the first box, then halted before pulling out a slightly smaller - but still quite large – box. Next, when that box was opened, another one was inside.

Over the next few minutes, Five had resorted to covering their mouth with their hand to ensure no giggles escaped and Three was pretending to take frequent sips from his now empty mug to hide his grin. There was a small group gathering around Sam as he continued to open the boxes and more boxes would reveal themselves. He was now on his seventh box, and his expression had changed from glee, to confusion, to annoyance.

The final box was about the size of the palm of Sam’s hand and the fervour with which he opened it showed just how done he was with the whole farce. After all the fuss, he held up a tiny SD card between his thumb and forefinger, looking over it with distrust as if he expected it to also have something even smaller inside. There was a note attached, which had been folded as many times as it could to be as compact as possible. The note read:

“Thought this would be a useful gift. Merry Christmas! From, Santa.”

Three and Five watched with delight as Sam read and reread the note multiple times, seemingly only getting more confused. Eventually, the crease between his eyebrows left and he let out a chuckle as he looked to his right and saw the ridiculous amount of empty boxes and wrapping paper on the floor, then pocketed the SD card. He looked around the room with narrowed eyes, seemingly looking for a culprit, making Three and Five tear their gazes away from him.

“How about we go see our next lucky contestant, eh, Five?” Simon said quickly as he saw Sam rise from his seat, probably to go interrogate people about his gift.

With that, the two scurried out of the kitchen, finally letting out all their laughter once they were alone.

-—-

On their way to their next destination, they caught sight of Janine shouting up orders to one of the guards, who was up on a ladder desperately trying to grab something that was seemingly tied above the gates that allowed people in and out of Abel.

Simon instantly changed direction to head towards Janine, his smirk flawlessly changing to a concerned expression as he approached. Five tried their best to copy him.

“Jenny, what’s up?” Three asked as they got close, “Something wrong with the gates?”

Janine turned around, her red cheeks almost rivalling the red plaid shirt she was wearing. She looked aggravated and tired at the same time.

“It seems someone thought it would be funny to tie some… mistletoe above the gates.” She said snippily, staring upwards at the object in question with a grimace.

Simon let out a chuckle, “And that’s why you’re making poor Jacob here stand at the top of a ladder in the freezing cold on Christmas morning? Come on, it’s obviously just a bit of fun.”

Janine folded her arms as she scowled, “‘A bit of fun’, is it? It may be Christmas but we still have runners scheduled to go out today, and this…” she pointed up at the mistletoe, “thing will cause nothing but chaos.”

Five bit their lip to try and hide their smile as Simon replied, “Chaos? It’s just a bit of fake plant that lets people give kisses scot-free. That’s it.”

“When someone comes back through the gates, their first port of call is to go straight to the hospital for bite checks, not to…” Her nose scrunched up, “kiss someone. What if the person coming in is bitten? And the mistletoe malarkey gives them a few extra minutes to hide their bite? What if the person that’s bitten kisses another person?”

Simon hummed in thought, “I don’t think that someone that’s bitten kissing someone else that isn’t bitten would cause the other person to become a zom too. I don’t know though. Haven’t exactly been doing any kissing research.” His eyes lit up as he saw an opportunity, “Maybe we could do some research, ey, Jenny? Strictly for scientific purposes, of course. For the greater good of the township.”

Janine’s eyes widened, her cheeks once pink from the cold and exasperation now blushing for a completely different reason. “Would you like to take over from Mr. Quinn?” She asked Simon, gesturing to the man that was still trying to grab the mistletoe but couldn’t reach due to the fact that the ladder was too small. (Luckily, Five had the forethought to hide the taller ladder that Simon had used to hang the mistletoe up, and it was currently in one of the barns.)

Simon paused for a few seconds as he feigned thinking, “No, I don’t think I’d like that.”

“Then I’d suggest you leave swiftly. Before I make you do so.” Janine concluded.

“Righty-o!” Three replied, giving her a wink before turning away, “Good luck up there, mate!” He shouted up to the guard, who didn’t give a reply. (At least one loud enough that Simon could hear.) Three and Five began to walk away.

“Si?”

They both turned around as they heard Janine speak once more.

“Yeah?” He replied non-chalantly.

“How do you know the plant is fake?” She asked.

Simon paused, “What’s that, Jenny?”

“You said ‘a bit of fake plant’ when referring to the mistletoe.” She said calmly, “How do you know it’s fake? I can’t tell from down here. How can you?”

He quickly scoffed, “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Where’s someone going to find real mistletoe anywhere these days?”

Janine seemed to ponder his answer for a while, staring him down for multiple moments. Five was glad that steel gaze wasn’t on them, they weren’t sure they could handle the pressure as well as their partner.

“I suppose that’s true.” Janine conceded, though she still seemed suspicious. “Very well.”

Three took the answer happily, grabbing Five’s arm as he began to walk away from the scene of the crime once more. “See ya later, love!” He shouted as him and Five scurried away as quickly as possible.

--—

Throughout the day, people started reporting more instances of Christmas mischief.

In the hospital, there was tinsel of all different colours lining each cot. Maxine removed it from beds that were currently being used, just in case a patient tried to stand up and got their leg caught, but happily left the empty beds decorated, enjoying the little bit of brightness it brought to the room.

Jody had been gifted a single knitting needle, with a vague clue to tell her where the next one was hidden which caused her to go on a wild goose chase around the township.

Multiple people saw animals in the farmyard wearing festive hats and headbands, though most of them had wrestled them off by afternoon.

Sara had been gifted a bottle of whiskey, but a padlock on the top prevented her from opening it. There was a riddle attached saying what the combination was, but instead Simon and Five saw her asking around for a hammer or a crowbar.

All the individual jars and tins in the kitchen cupboards had been wrapped in patterned Christmas paper, forcing all the people working there to unwrap each and every one. (If they were to count the amount of ingredients, they would’ve realised that they were a few more than there were the previous day.)

Then, somehow, a rumour had started that Santa himself was going to be visiting Abel. The children whispered happily about it, the parents all gave each other broad smiles, and everyone was trying to suss out who this Santa could be.

-—-

That afternoon, hidden away in a barn as far away from the other residents of Abel as they could be, Three and Five were getting changed into their costumes.

“I still think I should be Santa.” Simon huffed from behind a stack of hay bales, his voice straining with exertion as he tried to get into his outfit.

Five replied, already dressed as Santa Clause, complete with a bushy white beard and big black boots (Evan wouldn’t miss his boots for one day, surely), “The Santa trousers were so short on you that most of your calves were showing. And the jacket showed your midriff. This is for the best.”

“What’s wrong with people seeing my wonderfully toned calves and midriff?”

Five rolled their eyes while fiddling with the fake beard.

Simon’s head popped out from behind a hay bale to glare at his companion, “You just rolled your eyes, didn’t you.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Five replied coolly, “Now hurry up, the kids will be waiting already!”

“Alright!” Simon huffed, “I’m coming out.” He let out a heaving sigh as he wondered out from behind his hiding spot.

Five let out a full belly laugh that would’ve rivalled Santa’s.

“Oi!” Simon shouted defensively over the sound of laughter.

“Sorry!” Five choked out, “It’s just… Wow. And I thought the Santa outfit was short on you.”

He was wearing a green and red elf dress that cut off at his mid-thigh, accompanied with an elf hat that had a golden bell on the end.

Simon folded his arms, then realised it made the skirt ride up even more, and brought his arms back down to his sides. Even in the low afternoon light, the redness on his cheeks was obvious.

“Oh, come on,” Five said, walking up to their elf, “For someone who’s streaked multiple times-”

“This is going to be in front of children!” Simon said indignantly.

“Yeah you’re right,” Five agreed solemnly, before breaking out into a grin, “They’re going to be scarred by your pasty legs.”

“Pasty?!” Simon cried out, “Hey, I-”

“Speaking of the children, we don’t want to keep them waiting, do we?” Five continued with a smile.

Simon let out a large exhale, “Fine. You’re right. Best get this over with.”

Five chuckled, “Aw, come on little elf. Cheer up. It’s Christmas!”

At that, Simon perked up. “Yeah, I guess it is. Alright. Let’s put on the best show Abel’s ever seen.” He held out his arm for his partner in crime, who happily linked their arm with his.

They walked back towards the centre of Abel together, Simon’s hat jingling the whole way.

[aion-rsa]

How Camp Cretaceous Connects to the Jurassic World Canon

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The following contains spoilers for Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.

At first glance, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous doesn’t seem to fit in with the violent PG-13 dinosaur rampage thrillers we’ve come to expect from the Jurassic Park franchise. Its comical and lighthearted approach to storytelling and character development, not to mention the fact that it is (rather beautifully) animated, makes it seem as though this was meant to be a spinoff franchise similar to Lego Jurassic World. But as the story of six teenagers beta testing Jurassic World’s new adventure camp attraction unfolds, it becomes clear that Camp Cretaceous is not only canon, but could introduce elements that may influence future plotlines.

Camp Cretaceous begins a few days before the events of Jurassic World, but even before the Indominus rex escapes and the timelines officially converge, there are tons of references to the movies. (I love that Mr. DNA makes an appearance in the video game Darius is playing.) Dr. Sattler and Dr. Grant, played by Laura Dern and Sam Neill in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III are mentioned as having written articles lately, both on the subject of fossils, rather than real live dinosaurs. 

And it is revealed that Bryce Dallas Howard’s Jurassic World character Claire Dearing’s nephews were never going to spend much time with their aunt that day, as she had intended for them to go to Camp Cretaceous rather than with her assistant Zara. But the campers’ shenanigans (namely ending up in the raptor pen and being involved in a stampede) overwhelm counselors Dave and Roxie; they need more staff, especially if more children are going to join them.

Though this change of plan may have turned out well for Claire, as her nephews would not have been present to give her that much needed moment of inspiration to release the Tyrannosaurus at the end of Jurassic World, it had rather disastrous consequences for Zara, who probably wouldn’t have been eaten by the park’s Mosasaurus if she wasn’t playing babysitter.

But the established Jurassic characters are not limited to mere references and unheard voices on the other end of a phone call, because our old friend/enemy Dr. Henry Wu (played by B.D. Wong in the movies but voiced by Greg Chun in Camp Cretaceous) makes an appearance when the kids visit the genetics lab. He’s in a hurry, getting ready for Simon Masrani’s visit to view the new exhibit. But of course he has time to show off for all of camper Brooklynn’s Internet followers.

The genetics lab is also where we get to meet Bumpy, the most precious little asymmetrical Ankylosaurus the world has ever seen. Not that he stays little for long; Wu tells the teens that the baby dinosaurs are designed for accelerated growth. This is a known fact in the books written by Michael Crichton, but is only mentioned in the movies in regards to the Indominus rex.

Also of note in the lab: a mysterious eyeball specimen that is never really explained, and a frozen mammoth specimen. Woolly mammoths, along with other extinct non-dinosaur creatures such as Dimetrodon and Smilodon, are featured in some of the Jurassic Park games, so perhaps this is a nod to that. Or, you know, foreshadowing that it’s possible to clone things that aren’t dinosaurs…things like little girls named Maisie, as seen in Fallen Kingdom. 

A lab worker named Eddie hints that he worked for “the other guys” but never explains what he means by this. Combined with the revelation that Sammy, one of the teenagers, was sent to the island as a spy for Masrani’s rival bioengineering company Mantah Corp, this would seem to suggest that there might be another company out there trying to clone dinosaurs. It will be interesting to see if that has any bearing on the events of Jurassic World: Dominion.

Despite a few misadventures and near-death experiences with a Carnotaurus (possibly the same one from Fallen Kingdom seen outside the Lockwood Manor, the one with the scars on his face), everything is going pretty good with the first group of Camp Cretaceous campers. But this is Jurassic World, and we all know that the good times were not going to last.

The children are never the center of the action that we see in Jurassic World, but they are often on the periphery. After her escape, it would seem that our girl Indominus rex might have caused a little more–all right, a lot more–death and destruction than we realized, terrorizing the kids and eating some park personnel before going back to terrorize Claire and Owen and eating… other park personnel.

But it’s not just the kids getting to experience the fun (sure, let’s call it fun) that is the Jurassic World incident. During the beginning of Indominus’s rampage, when Owen is watching the team’s heart monitors blink off to indicate each death, counselors Dave and Roxie have a similar moment of horror as walkie-talkie after walkie-talkie turn from screaming to static. When Simon Masrani’s helicopter crashes, we realize just how close the six main characters have been to the events we see in the movie. It’s almost identical to the live action version as the copter tumbles through the air and smashes into the aviary.

Though events occur at the same time and on the same island, Camp Cretaceous is not telling the same story as Jurassic World. The campers are trying to survive a different set of catastrophes than Owen and Claire, and they have their own stories to tell. After the first incident at Jurassic Park, and especially after the whole San Diego fiasco, the world was introduced to dinosaurs as something more than fossils. Darius, Ben, Sammy, Kenji, Yasmina, and Brooklynn have literally never known life without cloned dinosaurs in it. 

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Does that give them a different perspective than the adults? Does it give them a better chance of survival? Let’s hope so, because with the way season one ends, it looks like Isla Nublar isn’t done with our campers.

The post How Camp Cretaceous Connects to the Jurassic World Canon appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2FPhe1E

[charlieism]

Any podcast recs?

woo yes!! i love podcasts!! i’ll get right into my favs :D click the read more bc it gets kinda long

The Adventure Zone

If youre on tumblr youve probably heard of this already. It’s created by the McElroys, and follow the adventures of Taako, Magnus and Merle and a lot of fun other side characters all voiced by Griffin. Its hilarious and full of goofs, but the story it weaves Will make you cry by the end, there are so many plot twists, gays, found family tropes, its just ugh. amazing. very good to listen to if u want a laugh tbh, but the episode are pretty long, up to an hour and a half. but the story is beautiful, the characters are amazing, n i feel like im constantly laughing at jokes i dont even understand bc the mcelroys r Just That Funny. there are also other arcs u can listen to, like amnesty, which is about a trio of monster hunters, commitment, which is about superheros, and dust, which is a western supernatural mystery!

EOS 10

This is for sure one of my favourite podcasts ever. The characters are so easy to love and all so complex with very human issues, except its set in space surrounded by aliens so the shenanigans are never-ending and all so, so entertaining. the general plot is about dr. dalias, a surgeon on the space station EOS 10, and his friends and coworkers dr. urivdian, jane, and levi the hypochondriac, chaotic alien prince (and akmazian, the gay space pirate). the relationships between the characters are to die for, the gays are beautiful, and its fucking hilarious. 10/10 recommend, the episodes are relatively short between 10-15 minutes so its very easy to listen to.

Wolf 359

This was the second podcast I ever listened to, and will forever be held close in my heart. it starts off as a funny, light-hearted podcast based on the logs of communications officer doug eiffel, an astronaut aboard the USS Hephaestus, a spacecraft with only 2 other crewmembers, commander Minkowski and scientist Hilbert. eventually more characters are introduced such as captain lovelace, and the SI-5 crew Jacobi, Kepler, and Maxwell. the series goes from something entertaining and joking to a story with an unfolding plot that honestly blows me away, morally grey characters and the complex relationships between everyone, and amazing character development. the episode start out pretty short but they get longer as the plot progresses. you’ll laugh too many times to count, find yourself crying near the end and wonder how you got here, and fall in love w the characters, the jokes and the mystery. i cant recommend it enough (eiffels development ugh my fucking boy…..)

The Penumbra Podcast

This podcast is so fucking fun. its a detective-noir type storyline set far into the future on mars. it follows PI Juno Steel, a detective in Hyperion City, and all the cases he lands and has to solve. its intriguing as hell, the characters draw you in completely bc theyre so layered and complex but so easy to love, its gay as FUCK (theres only one straight person on mars lol) and its v enjoyable listening to juno’s character development and his interactions with other characters (namely nureyev and rita). im literally never bored listening to this podcast, and if the detective theme wouldn’t typically be your thing i swear you should listen to it anyway because with how its set on mars, in space, in the future, there are things youd never imagine and worldbuilding so smooth and surprising and fun. there are hilarious moments, tragic moments, heartbreaking moments, heart-healing moments, and just. the whole thing is brilliant dude. i adore it. (theres also a lot of mini episodes set in different universes like old western lesbians, and the Second Citadel, which runs alongside juno’s universe and is kind of a knights vs monsters fun thing but theyre also all bisexual lol).

Time Bombs

This is a mini-podcast made by the same creators as wolf 359. its only 3 episodes long so if u want something quick to listen to this is v good! its about a bomb squad on new years eve as Simon Teller tries to break the record of most bombs defused in a year. its very funny, easy to listen to, and just a fun lil thing!

Lake Clarity

Now this boy is a horror podcast. Its about a bunch of teens who go up to the abandoned Camp Clarity for a trip together before they graduate. they uncover abandoned military bases and a conspiracy, mutations and monsters, and get picked off one by one. i admit i never finished the second season but i greatly enjoyed the first! it was interesting (and they acknowledged the slightly basic set up in show a lot lol) but i like it!

King Falls AM

I only recently started listening to this one but its so good dude!! its set in a radio show in King Falls, hosted by Sammy and Ben. Sammy just came to the town from the city and Ben has lived in King Falls his whole life: we listen to the strange events happening around town as they happen and ben and sammy report on them, listen to the residents send in calls about their weird situations, meet new characters, and get a lil freaked out by some spooky things! its funny, its odd, its creepy at times, its the perfect blend of humour, supernatural, and horror!

And now for some honourable mentions

Welcome To Nightvale

This is one you’ve probably heard of as well. WTNV is a radio show hosted by Cecil Palmer, a citizen of the town of Nightvale, which has got to be the weirdest town in the world. its delightfully strange, entertaining, fun to listen to, and i havent finished it but i like it and i know a TON of other people adore it, its v popular!!

The Magnus Archives

Another horror podcast, I never got very far through it (mainly bc i just. struggle to listen to jon’s voice and accent rip) but the gist of it is a british archivist is going thru some archives n recording the stories. its full of monsters, supernatural stuff n creepy stories. people love it, if ur into horror n creepy stuff then i recommend this one!

The Bright Sessions

Another one I never got very far through, it follows dr. bright, a therapist for the ‘strange and unusual’ and her sessions with various super-powered people, for example empaths, time-travellers, etc etc. im not sure why i didnt get v far thru bc it is v intriguing and has a lot of potential, im sure id pick it back up one day! i think it could have a lot of cool overlapping storylines if u dig that!

Directive

This short podcast is very interesting, its about a man who is on a spacecraft alone looking after people in stasis for many years, and isnt allowed any real contact with other people on the ship outside of a video call once a night. there are plot twists, you will randomly find yourself crying by the end of it bc of the raw emotion, and it can be a little slow in the start but its worth the quick listen!! it goes into the effects of isolation and moral dilemmas on a person and is v interesting!

And now just some ones on my to-listen list that have been highly recommended to me!

Limetown

Wooden Overcoats

Within the Wires

Rabbits

Alice Isn’t Dead

[wayward-marvel-sommer1196]

Death At Halloween

Pairing: Dean x Reader; Dean x reader

Warnings: SPN canon violence, death, language, angst

Word Count: 1073

Summary: This Halloween you and Dean decided to take your five-year-old daughter trek or treating. However, when you get back to the bunker something isn’t right. What happens when Dean goes in to investigate? It will change your lives forever. (I suck at summaries)

A/N: This was written for Steph’s ( @torn-and-frayed​ ) Halloween with Dean Challenge that was Due way back on November 4th, 2017. Sorry, so late hun. Been going through a lot the last couple of years. My prompt was Death, and no it’s not the Horseman Death, sorry. This is very angsty. No beta. Feedback welcomed and wanted since I’m really rusty.

Written for @spngenrebingo​

Square: Dean Winchester

Tonight, was the night that all children dressed up as their favorite characters, ate a ton of candy, and had a lot of fun. They could do this because of the work that you, Dean and Sam did. You kept all the real monsters away so that kids could pretend to be them and be safe.

You guys usually kept extra busy on Halloween. However, this year was different, yours and Dean’s daughter was 5 years old and really wanted to go trick or treating like all the other kids. When it came to Simone you couldn’t say no, and you wanted her to have as close to a normal childhood as possible.

Simone was the greatest gift life could give you and Dean. You never thought about having kids in this life but after one reckless night, it became a reality. Dean was amazing with her despite being against the idea in the beginning. She understood as much about your life as a five-year-old could. She knew it was scary, dangerous, and most importantly a secret.

Since she was so good about the life you lived you, Dean, and Sam discussed it and decided taking her trick or treating wouldn’t be so bad. She dressed up as a “monster hunter” because she wanted to be just like you guys. You thought it was adorable and went along with it.

After two hours of going house to house and collecting all the candy little Simone could carry you decided it was time to call it a night.

“Alright Simone, its time to head back home. It’s getting late,” you said.

“But Mama I want more candy,” Simone whined.

“I think you have enough love bug,” Dean said.

“But Daddy I still have room in my bag.”

“You mean the bag that I’m carrying because it got too heavy for you?” Dean said with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah.”

“No love bug it’s getting late and you have to get to bed,” Dean said.

“Fine, but Uncle Sammy has to carry me home,” Simone retorted.

“You heard her Uncle Sammy,” Dean said as Sam smiled and gladly put Simone on his shoulders. You couldn’t help but smile at the little family you had before you.

Before you knew you were back at the bunker, but something seemed off. You, Dean, and Sam all gave each other a look signaling you were all thinking the same thing.

“I’m gonna go check the bunker. You guys stay here,” Dean said as he walked in. Almost immediately after walking in something attacked Dean throwing him against the wall so hard you could hear it outside.

You knew there was something in there and you knew you had to help Dean so you turned to look at Sam and then your daughter, kissed her, and made a run for the bunker door.

“Y/N, wait!!!!!! Come back,” Sam screamed.

“Uncle Sammy, what’s happening?” Simone asked holding back tears.

“Nothing sweetie. Everything is going to be fine,” Sammy lied to Simone as he hugged her and held her close.

You ran into the bunker to see Dean on the ground pinned by what you then realized was a ghoul and taking blow after blow. You grabbed the knife from your waistband and threw it at the ghoul landing in its shoulder. This distracted the ghoul enough to give Dean time to getaway.

You thought this would upset the ghoul but instead, it just turned to you and smiled. It came running towards you and you had no weapons left but your fists. The ghoul had your knife and Dean’s gun was on the other side of the room so you ensued in a fistfight with the ghoul. Dean grabs his gun to come help you but the ghoul grabbed the knife from its shoulder and sliced Dean’s arm that held the gun. He dropped the gun and the ghoul came charging towards you slicing your abdomen causing you to let out a scream.

Simone heard you scream and managed to wiggle her way out of Sammy’s arms and run into the bunker. Sammy went running in after her but was too late. Simone ran right into the ghoul who grabbed her.

“NOOOOO!!!!!” you and Dean both screamed at the sight unfolding in front of you. “Let her go.”

Tears started to roll down Simone’s face as she tried to wiggle out of the ghoul’s arms.

“Put your weapons down or the girl dies,” the ghoul said as he held a blade to her throat.

You and Dean complied and threw your weapons to the ground.

“Good. Now I’ll let her go if you come with me.”

You looked at Dean as he shook his head pleading with you not to agree.

“Ok,” you said much to Dean’s dismay. The ghoul smiled and let Simone go. You walked towards him and he grabbed your arm immediately stabbing you in the stomach and twisting the blade. You let out a scream and collapsed.

“That’s for my family, you bitch,” the ghoul uttered.

Dean immediately grabbed his gun and shot the ghoul dead. Simone ran into Dean’s arms with tears in her eyes and he held her tight.

Sam then ran into the room to see the horror that just unfolded. Dean kissed Simone’s head and handed her off to Sam as he ran over to you. He kneeled by your side and cradled you in his arms. You brought your hand up and cradled his cheek as you wiped the tears.

“Don’t cry De. I love you so much and need you to keep it together and take care of Simone for me and don’t let her forget me. This is not your fault. You need to remember that. You and Simone are the best things that ever happened to me and am glad to have known happiness in this short time,” you kissed his hand one last time before you closed your eyes and died in his arms.

After about an hour of beating himself up and chopping up wood Dean and Sam put your body in a pyre to give you a proper hunter send-off.

Dean grabbed Simone and held her tight in his arms as tears stained their cheeks while they watched you burn.

Simone looked up at Dean and asked, “Is Mommy in heaven now?”

“Yeah, babygirl she is.”

“I miss her already Daddy.”

“Me too sweetie, me too.”

Tag List

Everything

@supernatural-fanficuniverse​ @supernaturalmarvelfan​

Everything SPN

@jensen-jarpad @winchesters-favorite-girl @sisterwinchesterwriter​ @samslostshoe-deansbaby​ @lenaabs @a-fan-fighting-for-equality  @mogaruke​ @internationalmusicteacher​ @mashed-fandom-imagines  @maddybeck01​ @jensenjefferyjarednormanmisha @grace-for-sale @deangirl-samcurious-0124-0502 @sandlee44 @percussiongirl2017​ @myheroessamanddean @kindly-fuck-off @the—real-wombat  @damienswifeolicitydallysgirl​ @waywardasfudge @because-you-never-know-when​ @ellie-andthemachine​ @supernaturalmarvelfan @supernatural-strangerthings-1980

Dean Winchecter

@akshi8278