#[i have rebloged so many gifsets of this scene already but its never enough]

[jademickian]

oh man, haven't done tag games in a while, sorry friends 🥹 i've been passive the last few weeks because uni is really taking most of my time and energy, but i appreciate the tags and i love love reading your answers<3

ok enough blabbering, thank u @callivich, @lingy910y, and @mickeysgaymom for the totally optional, fun gallavich questions tag!

What’s a fic you’ve read more than once?

Stuck at Three for Days - delicious banter, laughed my ass off

another kiss is all it takes - so fuckin sweet, dude

Like Real People Do - just finished my reread last month:)) i needed the comfort

Cooperative Gameplay - currently rereading! i miss the feels

Sometimes I reread bits and pieces from ORFNSP and since we're alone because they changed my brain chemistry. I will eventually get around to actually rereading them.

2. What’s a gifset you always have to reblog?

You know the one... this legendary world heritage gifset

3. What’s a headcanon you can’t stop thinking about?

not sure if this is counted but i always like to think that once, ian got struck with grief about monica's death on her death anniversary. mickey asks him what's wrong and he opens up about it. ian will say it's stupid but mickey will truly handle it with grace and say nah man it's not. because yahknow, he gets it. and ian melts at it, because no one has acknowledged his grief like this before. mickey teases him about it a bit, sure, but deep down he held ian's mourning warmly, like petals on his palm. and they went together to the cemetery that day, simply sat in front of her grave and talked. the good things, the bad. and that despite it all "hey, tleast she popped out an alien lookin mfer i ended up marryin." they get pizza after.

4. What’s a fanart you love looking at?

Van kiss by @lingy910y

Prince Mononoke by @darthvaders-wife

Prison Boyfriends by @gallavichonly

Part of Our World by @steorie

It's Okay by WhatsaMattavich

This Kiss by @deathclassic

SO MANY others actually if i could fit them all here

5. What’s an idea you’d love to create if you had the time/inspiration?

i actually have a LIST lmao. one of those has something to do with art because i cannot take my mind away from human mickey and manananggal ian (manananggal is a Philippine myth creature with wings and can separate the upper half of its body from its lower half).

6. What’s something you’ve discovered since entering this fandom? A new trope you love? A different analysis of the show? Something else?

oh man. believe it or not, i was never into fics. i was in fandoms before, but i just couldn't get into fics within those fandoms (i tried). this is the only time i truly liked and LOVED reading fics. it really speaks volumes about the talent and dedication, and i'm glad i got to experience it.

it's also fun reading metas on the show and getting different perspectives, especially on characters. one of my favorites (just because i was so distressed about it the first time i watched it) are analyses on the city hall scene and ian's hesitation on marriage. after reading up others' thoughts on it explaining the why's, i totally felt some relief and was able to get some sleep. lol

7. What’s an underrated trope or concept you’d like to see more of?

apocalypse aus 👍

8. What’s your favourite season? And has this changed after multiple rewatches of the show?

The first five seasons are gems to me. but i truly love season 2 because it's so chill (at least compared to some of the heavier seasons after) and the gallaghers move as a unit. special mention for season 4 because it holds Emily and Lazarus.

9. What’s a plot hole you wish had been answered or resolved?

same qualms with @mickeysgaymom about mickey's mom. brain rotting over it.

10. What scene or moment do you feel isn’t discussed enough?

not gallavich related, and i'm sure people have already mentioned it, but sometimes it hits me how smart debbie is. like, i know she's smart, but people easily forget from all the chaos. at the heart of it, she's a fast learner and also would and have excelled academically.

11. What line/dialogue/description from something else (a poem, a book, a tv show, a movie, or something else) do you feel describes Ian and Mickey’s relationship?

aaaa @lingy910y beat me to it! it's totally "I'll take care of you. / It's rotten work. / Not to me. Not if it's you." but if i could pick another, maybe "I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world."

12. What do you think is next for Ian and Mickey post-finale?

they'll grow old together and be just as in love, no matter what happens in between.

tagging @mybrainismelted, @scurvgirl, and @lupeloto if u wanna join!! raahh

[hickeys-dickey]

Pls share your thoughts about the gays in THAT scene… I would love to read them!

Ahh you are too kind, I am but a little swiss cheese brain but I'll try my best to sum up my thoughts, I have too many! I wanted a chance to grab some screenshots too! I'm going to put a read more because this is a long one buckle up lads.

So obviously the whole punishment for Hickey is designed to humiliate him (I would imagine this is one of the reasons his punishment isn't explained to him, because if Hickey truly was a naval petty officer he would know, and I think it's another way for Crozier to essentially say "I see you" and not in a good way). The fact we're not shown the other whippings shows the importance lies in the scene with Hickey.

I've seen a bit of discussion about his charge of "dirtiness", which isn't listed initially when we see him being questioned by the Captains, and whether or not it alludes to homosexuality but on a quick cursory search it does seem to have been used as a euphemism where an outright accusation of sodomy would mean a death sentence. The way Crozier throws it out there, no doubt to heap the humiliation onto Hickey and add crimes to the list to cover the fact he added lashes on to the punishment essentially for a bruised ego (but that's another matter), suggests a whole lot of venom to the accusation. Hickey's pointed look at Irving and Irving's quick shift of his gaze down suggests they both know exactly why Crozier has listed this among Hickey's list of crimes, and Hickey looks furious for it.

But I think this is also ultimately where the panic begins to set in. Again, there are far greater minds than me who have made excellent posts about queer coded characters in the terror, and I think it's no surprise that most of them are the faces that are focused on in this scence. It is clear long before this moment that Crozier's leadership is lacking, and people have already begun to voice concerns fairly loudly. Tozer for one is livid in the wake of Heather being injured, and the marines have clearly started distancing themselves from both the officers and the men. I feel like this scene, for a lot of characters is a point of major shift in either allegiences or character.

Tozer and the Captains are the first faces that are panned to in this scene and I think the expressions speak for themselves.

Tozer is visibly upset/concerned after the first lash. I do think guilt probably has a part to play, in that is was him whole told Hickey where Silna was, and presumably approved enough of the plan to not rat him out to anyone. Again, very probably part of Tozer's anger at Heather being injured due to what he sees is Crozier's poor management. Fitzjames is stoney faced, but is also the only one looking. As a man who many have noted pushes himself to pick emotional scabs, I think it would make sense for someone who is also notably queer coded and stuggles with trauma to make himself look directly at someone being whipped for a crime he himself might commit. Crozier isn't even looking, whether out of suddenly doubting his harshness or simply triggering something in his own memory it's not clear. I think the end of this shot also speaks for itself.

(Fig 1. Three Concerned (very likely not straight) men contemplate)

The lads at the back behind Mr. Johnson are all looking Directly At the whipping as it is taking place. Interestingly none of the men at the front near the table are looking. This is the stewards, officers, and marines. Whether out of respect or also Concern at their own skins (I think every one of these characters has been addressed as being queer coded at some point, minus the marines who are all, except Tozer, fairly nameless characters).

I'm not a gifmaker which is unfortunate for this section, though this is what is gifed in the beautiful gifset by sashneeka I reblogged (x). Tommy is also visibly upset, whether because he knows Tozer was involved in the plot to kidnap Silna and is concerned for him and any of the rest of the crew who had assisted in someway or voiced support. Billy interestingly does look briefly, and sets his jaw after in a way that suggests he's trying to fight the guilt of being the one to tell Irving about the whole affair with Hickey to paint himself in a better light. It could just as easily be Billy there on that table being lashed, but he somehow rationalises it in his head (probably because Hickey is a little bastard) that he was right in what he did. He does look down fairly guiltily after this, so maybe he hasn't quite settled on an opinion. Jopson also looks incredibly concerned/unsettled, and interestingly looks at Hickey right up until the whip hits where he flinches, and not for the only time in this scene. From what we know about Jopson's past, though not at this point, it may well be he is remembering similar punishment/mistreatment and like Fitzjames looks enough to pick the scab open and flinch from his own trauma.

The closeup of Hickey shows the full extent of his rage and humiliation building, and as I think Adam himself said, they whipped something out of Hickey that day and let him reach this potential that lay inside him (to become an even bigger bastard). He's fully severed all ties and feelings of loyalty after this and it becomes full on train to manipulation station from this point. I have a lot of Thoughts about Hickey also (which I am sure you are all aware of) but I think there was some semblance of Hickey attempting to start afresh on this journey, or at the very least keep his head down and go unnoticed. The trouble is, he notices Crozier as a flawed man, and one not from the upper classes like himself, and his ego can't help but think we're not so different, that could be me with the right connections. Well surprise lads, its murder time now and he's gonna make this old man pay for not recognising initiative but punishing it. I do wonder if Crozier wasn't booze sick and rattled from losing even more men under his command, would he not have come down so harshly for someone clearly defying the Articles to do what he thinks is right and save the men (a la Crozier and his fuck you I'm directly contradicting an order and leading this rescue party myself).

Tozer gets another wee closeup here and again looks like he has resolved something in his head too. Most likely that he thinks Crozier an unfit leader, and admiring Hickey for having the balls to do what he did (Hickey also never reveals anyone else who came with him, and when he talks about Hartnell and Mason's part in taking Silna it highlights their skill and bravery and (he thinks) commends them to the Captain. It's probably the only time we see him building up and applauding others). He looks dead ahead here and seems to have a very steely gaze, like yep fuck it looks like I'm going it alone now. It is interesting that Tozer goes from this to notably disliking Hickey (both at the start and when they are packing up - "you've just given me an excuse to give a big shove". This might be anger at Hickey having caused all the issues with Silna after the fact when Heather gets killed at Carnivale), but still follows him in the end. Hickey has the ability to kill, manipulate, steal, basically do whatever needed for their group to get ahead, which means Tozer can be part of the group and not have to dirty his own hands. I think Tozer probably has a complicated relationship with Hickey, but he does fall for the charm hook, line, and sinker, and the fact he seems concerned for him here suggests how easily he is sympathetic to those he sees as being wronged.

Gibby getting Hickey's blood on his hand (ayy) seems to visibly make him blanch, and I do find it interesting that the shot then pans to Tommy as though they are looking at each other when they are stood side by side. The similarities between them maybe? (I've seen and reblogged a lot of discourse about Tommy loving Tozer, maybe another nod to no one being so different to the man on the table?) Irving doesn't get much of a close up in the rest of this scene but bless him he looks equal parts terrified and guilty (another man who has been noted as having a list of many things to distract from the Gay Thoughts like why do you need to distract from Gay Thoughts Irving?). He also has the Far Off Look of trauma about him, probably because he too could just as easily be on that table.

I have many many thoughts about the way Hickey turns to look (and fucking smile???) at Crozier next, which is when Crozier is looking directly at him and Fitzjames looks at him. Like if I were Crozier I think my fucking blood would chill, look at this man. Being humiliated and lashed still hasn't broken him, if anything he has just become fully unhinged and looks at Crozier as though to say "did you really think this would work?". I would also say, this man has fairly quite for someone who is at this stage something like 22 lashes in? Like what the actual fuck Hickey?? I fully belive Hickey to be a psycopath, and most of what he does in the beginning of the series is an attempt to stay hidden until they get to Hawaii and he can ditch the crew, but I think it is fairly safe to say he isn't hiding it any more.

And he knows this is going to make the men doubt Crozier - I can't do a proper search because I am using my work laptop atm, but I seem to remember reading that a punishment greater than 12 lashes required a court martial (probably why Little steps in to say so when Crozier orders his punishment as well as them technically being lost at sea), which would be another strike against him as a Captain. Not only that, but Crozier does seem to grant him some mercy in letting him only be lashed I think 23 or so times? Probably because the tension is fucking palpable in this whole scene and Crozier can either choose to claw back some sense of control on the matter, or deal with the consequences of many people admiring Hickey for what he has done for the crew and start a mutiny. I think this is the first time Fitzjames sees the damage Crozier is doing to himself with his choices as Captain, and is probably just as concerned at the look Hickey is giving him. He knows this has unleashed something in this tiny rat bastard too, and that he will become the physical manifestation of Crozier's self-destructive tendancies. Crozier perpetually comes to everything just a fraction too late to change anything - he never saves any of the men, only comforts them as they die, and a lot of this has to do with his own ego and bad decision making, and I think this is the first example here of the fact his actions are having an effect on others to the point it will be his downfall.

Anyway, to round it off, I think this scene really epitomises the notion that Hickey is a mirror to the rest of the men, and they see their flaws in him. Those who have questioned Crozier's captaincy look concernced knowing they too could be being lashed. They too would have tried to get Silna to stop the Tuunbaq hunting them. Those who are queer or queer coded know they too could be being lashed for it. Crozier himself sees his unwillingness to follow the Articles in him, sees his own insubordination, and feels what Sir John meant when he said his position afforded him deference. Hickey may as well be a metaphor for all the men being lashed, theres not one among them who haven't voiced wanting to do what he has done. Let them without sin and all that. This is make or break for who holds loyalty to the Captain, and the turning point for who is going where. I think everyone except Jopson, Irving and Fitzjames ends up in the mutineers camp, and Irving ends up killed and mutilated by Hickey and Fitzjames is scavanged by them. Theres not one of them that isn't haunted by what happened in this scene, and Hickey would end up being the death of every single one of them. The only one who remains loyal after this is Jopson, who thinks his care and duty to the Captain can outweigh his other sins. Fitzjames and Crozier have a stronger relationship once he recovers from his withdrawal, yes, but Fitzjames also keeps him in check now (I'm thinking of Edward Little being threatened with flogging again because of course I am), and it is another step too late for Crozier's self-destruction. I've seen a Hickey/Fitzjames Christ analogy on here before too, so I hope you'll forgive me in comparing them, but Hickey in this scene really does get punished for everyone else's crimes in this scene, and becomes a sort of Christ-like figure, reborn as a complete version of the worst of himself from the pain of being lashed. They whipped something out of him!! Anyway, that about sums it up!

[easilydistractedbyfanfic]

You think Shiedheda will go after Raven to hurt Murphy in the near future?

Hi! Happy prequel day! I know not everybody is excited about this ep but mannnn I cannot resist the LORE behind this show! So I am looking forward to tonight! I hope you are too!

Been trying to think about this situation a little more, but ultimately - YES.

Last week, right after the ep, I posted some immediate thoughts that you can read here if you missed it. In it, I said that the chess game between Sheidheda and Murphy seemed to really be foreshadowing what could happen. Murphy plays very early with a move called the Queen’s Gambit (same as the ep title), and it’s a risky choice, putting his queen in danger - which we know was literally happening in the ep as well, because Em0ri was in danger because Murphy made the choice to play chess to begin with instead of going to her party. Of course, he didn’t KNOW this was Sheidheda’s goal and he was absolutely manipulated right into doing exactly what Sheidheda wanted.

During the game, we don’t know it at the time and neither does Murphy, but Sheidheda is deliberately drawing the game out. There is a move Sheidheda makes that isn’t especially aggressive and Murphy says “You could have taken my castle.” Sheidheda then replies “Oh, I’ll get it soon enough.” and I don’t know, maybe some of you heard me scream at that line! LOL!

Because “castle” is an older chess name for the ROOK piece. And rooks are also a name for ravens/crows. Castles=rooks=ravens=Raven. There’s already been a lot of chess speculation in fandom that Raven as a character may represent the rook piece anyway, but now IMHO, it’s pretty much a given for me based on these few lines.

In addition, there is a helluva lot of subtext happening during this game. Kudos to JR & Richard for this scene, seriously. Sheidheda TELLS Murphy something bad is about to happen from his (Murphy’s) perspective, and insinuates that Sanctum’s queen (clearly Em0ri) is enjoying the role of being on a pedestal - enjoying being WORSHIPPED. We’ve already seen hints of this in both this ep and previous eps and Sheidheda’s comment tells the audience that he is not only aware of what Em0ri has been doing/saying, but he knows it’s a comment that will get to Murphy. And it does, because Murphy then tries to put the focus on Sheidheda instead.

Listen - y’all know I’m not interested in Memoraven. I’m just NOT. There’s been no evidence whatsoever in any season that Raven & Em0ri are attracted to each other or want anything beyond friendship, and anyway, I think Raven deserves to be picked first and I don’t like the idea of her coming into something that’s been established for years. I will never think that’s fair to her. However - I can absolutely see how Memoraven fans could take this conversation from Sheidheda as foreshadowing too - like... uhhhhh, wow, dilf demon (stole this term off a lovely twitter and now it’s how I think of Russheda in my head oops) really did tell Murphy that he knows it must be hard to settle for one woman when he could really have as many as he wanted as a god. And note that Murphy does NOT say he’s not interested in that - he says “you don’t know Em0ri” like the only reason he doesn’t have more than one partner (girl OR guy, IMHO) is because that’s her choice, not his. The insinuation here, good lordt.

Sheidheda wants Murphy’s queen and his castle aka he’s going after Em0ri and Raven - this is ESTABLISHED in the chess game as far as I’m concerned. Sheidheda takes Murphy’s queen piece in another move on the board AND we know that Em0ri is captured in the ep as well. Sheidheda also says to Murphy that how he will respond to the LOSS of his queen will tell him (dilf demon) whether Murphy is a leader or a follower. Murphy objects, saying he’s neither, and Sheidheda immediately scoffs & labels him as a REBEL. Then there’s all kinds of more subtext about Murphy’s motivations and Murphy makes another move and takes dilf demon’s piece and Sheidheda comments that its an avenging move and predictable, and how chess is about strategy and choices blah blah. Anyway I recommend watching it all again, it’s hot. LOL.

Also, I know there has been a great gifset done of that last awesome transition (yay Lindsey) by @wolfheartgirl where she shows how Em0ri the person is placed on the chess board and what ramifications this position has based on Murphy & Sheidheda’s other pieces. I will reblog that gifset after I post this.

But in my VERY typical VERY wordy way - oh heck yeah, I think Sheidheda is holding a grudge against Raven. Don’t forget that scene in s5 where Murphy, Abby, Raven, Em0ri, Jackson, Miller, Gaia and Madi are all locked in the Sanctum jail and Raven’s putting some puzzle pieces together about the commanders in Madi’s head and Sheidheda is literally saying to Madi don’t tell HER anything. He KNOWS Raven is a threat to him, and it’s Raven who takes out the Flame. I don’t know if Sheidheda knows all the details but Raven has been closely linked to Becca throughout the series and I think there have been some hints in canon that Becca in the Flame was one of the things that could have been holding Sheidheda back before now. We know the Flame has been degrading over time. Lots of spec on that but I don’t think it’s out of line for Sheidheda to want Raven specifically OUT of the game.

IMHO I hope Raven gets back to Sanctum in 7x09 for this to start unraveling!

Thanks for the ask, friend! What do YOU think??

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

How do you choose quotes to make edits for (like do you have a list that you choose from or is it whenever you see something good) and how do you choose which characters/scenes etc to gif to go with them - like for example the last set you did with the ‘carry you with me’ quote. How did you choose which scenes to use and pair together with the quote (sorry if you’ve answered something similar before)

I’ve done some live edits in the past to kind of show my process with making very specific edits

(Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link)

But those are like, specific to each edit, so I’ll also give a general answer. I’m putting it below a “Keep Reading” because it’s a very long answer :)

How do you choose quotes to make edits for?

My other fandom page, @Rhysand-vs-Fenrys , has endured weekly reminders to watch The Untamed for like... 8-9 months now (Friday at 9am, usually an aesthetic GIFset I reblog from someone and add links to the bottom to the different platforms to view it on).

To be fair to them, I decided most of my edits would be done with quotes from the Rhysand-vs-Fenrys fandom (Sarah J Maas book series). Some quotes are very famous within that fandom and came to mind immediately, and I went through the Goodreads quotes lists for it.

As for other quotes, some I knew off the top of my head (the Carmina Burana, Aeneid, and LOTR ones) and some I just did a general google search for quotes with different themes like power or fate or love and saved the ones that kind of sparked my interest.

As I feel like doing an edit I’ll just look through the list until something snags on my eye and go with that. Most quotes gave me immediate ideas and I saved a little bulleted point beneath it saying what I thought of when I read it.

How do you choose which characters/scenes etc to gif to go with them?

I have some rules for what I look at for edits:

1. Once I have the quote divided into how many GIFs I’d like it to be, the first line of text is the theme and the last line of text is the tone. This is explained further lower down

2. First GIF has to be the star of the quote or, if it’s a group one, a high profile character.

3. NO LITERAL GIFS. Know if something is literal, I hate it and I only used it because I had no other choice. For example, in the “carry you with me” edit there is one that is “Walking in the light”. Originally it just worked out that the GIF of Wangji walking would have fallen there, with Jiang Cheng and Wangji as “the words that dance between people” and the final GIF in the edit (’Remembering being alive together’) being the teahouse. I rearranged and redesigned the entire edit just so Lan Wangji would not be walking in a GIF that had the word “walking”.

There are a few others, but those are more nit-picky. Those three above are the main ones, and they apply to every GIFset.

I’ll make my example the “Carry You” GIFset you referenced, which feeds into your final question---

...the last set you did with the ‘carry you with me’ quote. How did you choose which scenes to use and pair together with the quote (sorry if you’ve answered something similar before)

First off, here is the “Carry You” edit for anyone who wants to look at the thing I’m talking about

I almost didn’t even consider this quote because I immediately knew it’d be about Wuxian and Wangji, and that I would want to exclusively rely on the period where Wangji thought Wuxian was dead, which equates to A VERY NARROW SELECTION OF SCENES AND SHOTS OMG.

--- Wangji looking at the sky

--- Mo Manor

--- On Dafan Mountain

--- Tea with Jiang Cheng

--- Flashback to Burial Mounds burning

--- Flashback to saving A-Yuan

--- Flashback to being whipped

--- Flashback to Cold Pond Cave

That was enough to populate a 6 GIF edit if I really picked at the bones, so next I look at the first line of the quote: “I carry you with me into the world”. That became the theme of the entire edit. The final line is the tone- “Remembering being alive together”.

So every single GIF from the first to the last and anything in between had to have a direct line to ‘Remembering being alive together’ and an overall feeling of wangji ‘carrying (wuxian) with me into the world’. So what does that mean? Living your life in the spirit of that person. Chosing actions to honor their memory, either in behaving as they would or changing something bout yourself that was in conflict to them.

The original plan for that edit was as follows (these are direct quotes from my edit plan written in my shorthand):

“I carry you with me into the world”  ➜  Ep 1 looking at sky (no Wuxian scene selected)

“Into the smell of rain”  ➜  whipped alone, w/wuxian

“and the words that dance between people”  ➜  Ep 2, JC in woods (no Wuxian scene selected)

“and for me, it will always be this way”  ➜  Ep 1, holding sword, wuxian burning (my shorthand for when he gets smokey)

“walking in the light”  ➜  Ep 1 with ducklings, in burial mounds with A-Yuan

“remembering being alive together”  ➜  Ep 2 tea w/Yiling meal

I was just going to throw those shots side-by-side, but then I thought about how cool it would look if I could actually put Wuxian across the table from Wangji in that last one. I was still in the planning phase, which is why I never came up with a Wuxian for the first 2 GIFs.

At that point I started thinking about how it would fit the tone and theme so much better if I could make all of them that way. So at this point I abandoned the written plan and as I kind of thought about and processed what i wanted to do, I went through Episodes 1, 2, 44 & 46 and grabbed Wangji’s shots alone.

I decided- no reason just felt like it- that I wanted to step into this edit, rather than begin it already in process. I tried making a few GIFs of Wangxian for that “I carry you with me into the world” and just didn’t like them. I really wanted it to shine through that this was a theme and not tie it to specific scenes. Then I saw that slow pan of Bichen’s hilt that you see in episode 1 and was like “I bet I can find a Chenqing from the right angle to match that...”

**at this point I should say my rule for this edit was that every single shot of Wuxian had to be a scene Wangji was also in.

I decided to break that rule for the first edit, because Wuxian never holds Chenqing up against Wangji at the right fucking angle unless it’s pitch black in a thunderstorm and the tassel isn’t red in that shot so what’s even the point. So that shot is from Wuxian raising it against YANLI in Episode 21(?), rotated, horizontal flipped, cropped, spotlight on the tassel, selective color enhance, and a motion tracking filter just to smooth it out. 

Once I decide on the GIF itself, I look through the effects editor just to kind of throw everything at it and see what helps me achieve my mental picture, so it was a lot of dicking around to see if that would even work.

After that, focus went to *Wangji*. Pick WANGJI’s shot, and then look for a Wuxian moment from the right angle to match Wangji and ghost into the shot (which was hard as all FUCK. That last shot of Wuxian with the alcohol was a last ditch attempt to find a shot). As I said, I rearranged three GIFs just so I wouldn’t have Wangji walking during a GIF with the word “walking” in it. 

This edit was easier than others in that the first and last lines- “I carry you with me into the world/ remembering being alive together”- are really the only thing you need. Every line contributes directly to that theme, so the GIFs themselves are pretty interchangeable. 

I wanted JC there for “The words that dance between people”, which is why Wuxian has such attitude in that GIF- like he’s reacting to nasty words being exchanged (I decided it still worked in its new home of “walking in the light”). I decided I *loved* “the words that dance between people” being Wangji sitting alone at the table, not speaking at all. It has a sense of longing and regret that really suits the overall themes and tones.

I hope that made sense and answered your question? Sorry it was a long response, I wasn’t sure how much you were interested in hearing. But yeah, I do my edits live if I’m pretty confident in the game plan, so if you keep an eye on the page I’ll try to be better about scheduling those and not making them last minute.

I chose not to do this one live because I knew it was going to be really complicated and I wasn’t confident in the scenes. When I’m doing it live I feel pressured to make decisions very quickly so people aren’t bored and in the past have made GIFs I am not happy with just because I felt bad about waffling on shots. I wanted this one to really fit what I was imagining and to do that I had to be able to be indecisive. 

[bugtothefuture]

Isn’t it weird what happened since Brittana? I mean, it feels like a different century, doesn’t it? Sure, Glee was a FOX show and all, but still... To me it was one of the very first WLW ships that I was able to see being developed on TV... Sure there was The L-Word, Sugar Rush, Lip Service, South of Nowhere and all that, but I barely ever got to see a lesbian love story in a show that wasn’t written for exactly that target group...

and now look at all the wlw-ships we suddenly have. I see so many different gifsets of ships I adore that I could reblog... like, choni has blindfolded sex on my screen... a few years ago I excitedly met up with girls I had met on the internet to watch glee via horrible livestream at 3am, hoping to FINALLY get a little Brittana kiss (BECAUSE THEY WERE ALREADY DATING, DUH!) and experience it live, and nothing happened for so many episodes. Until we finally got that kiss in the Valentine’s episode that wasnt even passionate. In retrospective it was all so badly done because there was all of this build-up but no firework, if u know what i mean...  We never got any sex scene, only lots of talk about scissoring (because thats obvsly what we always do, smh) but no visuals. look how far we’ve come. I feel like one of those old lesbians who had to go to secret underground clubs and now looks at the younger generation with a silent tear running down their cheek. 

sorry, Im being melancholic here, I just rewatched a bunch of Glee episodes yesterday and kept thinking how much I used to crave this content on my screen and how little we got and how happy we all were about every tiny piece they gave us... I still think we’re not getting enough representation (cause everything should be gay, duh), but its been getting so much better.

[scrollingkingfisher]

Shipping it like the Titanic

Sam secretly writes fanfiction between killing monsters and fending off the apocalypse-of-the-day. In heaven, a newly recovered Gabriel discovers smut and decides to try his hand. Because that's all sabriel will ever be for either of them, obviously- a far-off fantasy.

There's no way what they're writing about could ever find its way into their real lives. No way whatsoever.

AO3

Rating: E for Lemon                                                                                                Pairings: Sabriel                                                                                                    Words: too many (10k and growing)

Written for the @gabriel-monthly-challenge and encompassing not one, not two, but three of the prompts! Woohoo! A record for me! 

This is only half of it, because, as usual, the prompt grew out of proportion, so there will me more. It’ll be posted chapter-wise on AO3, because I know me- there’ll be more details I want to add in!

tagging @warlockwriter, @archangelgabriellives, @archangel-with-a-shotgun, @archangelsanonymous, @ttttrickster and @revwinchester!

It started with the play.

Sam had almost forgotten about the Supernatural books- their lives went crazy on such a regular basis that any form of insanity that wasn’t directly threatening their lives tended to be quickly pushed into the background. But it all came back to him in vivid detail as he watched a fifteen-year-old with yellow contacts gleefully daub red paint onto the face of a plastic doll that he was fairly sure was meant to be representing him.

It had been a surreal experience, seeing those schoolgirls play out their various adventures. There was something almost… freeing about it, he realised as he watched the recording again on the way back to the bunker. It really put some of the crazy crap they went through into perspective.

And then Dean had to go and make a big deal out of the… interpretations of the supernatural books. And Sam got curious, okay?

So the next time he had a few hours to himself while Dean was out doing god knew what, Sam got himself a beer from the fridge, sat himself down at the library table, flicked open his laptop and opened a browser tab.

A quick search was more than enough to find what he was looking for. It wasn’t exactly well hidden. The first result in google was the official website for Chuck’s books- it hadn’t aged well. Even back in 2007 when the books were being published Sam would have said it looked outdated. Whoever had designed it obviously wasn’t being paid much. Who ever made official graphics in comic sans? He shook his head, backtracking.

But the link below that led to a rather better curated fan site. Sam narrowed his eyes as he scrolled down. There were the links to the publishers, but also PDFs of the later, unpublished books. There were dates for conventions along with links to get tickets. And at the bottom, there was a series of links to other websites, presumably places to chat with other fans.

He hovered his cursor over the link simply entitled tumblr and clicked.

There was so much. More than Sam had even thought possible for a tiny series of books with a cult following.

He ended spending most of the afternoon falling into the apparently bottomless pit of online fandom. The raft of empty beer bottles at his elbow grew as he roamed his way through the understorey of the internet. He scrolled with fascination through blogs full of pictures edited to look like them, through fan theories of what they were like, and then speculation about things the books didn’t show. Continuations, ‘missing scenes’, and… other things. If Sam never had to accidentally read another poorly-written full-frontal account of Cas and Dean’s fictitious sex life, it would be too soon.

And, well, there were so many things they’d got wrong. Or not quite right. But Sam didn’t feel right about commenting on people’s stories; they didn’t want some randomer coming along and critiquing their characterisation.

So the only way to correct it, he thought with tipsy confidence, was to write it how it had actually happened. He started off small; wrote a few of their more recent hunts, made a blog, and before he could think about it too much, pressed that ‘post’ button.

When he woke up in the morning, he was surprised to find all the notes and comments. Apparently, people liked his writing. A lot.

So he wrote more. And more. Soon Sam was pretty sure he had an addiction. It wasn’t like he had any lack of free time in which to write- Dean was always so stubborn about which of them got to drive, so he had hours and hours of sitting in the passenger seat to fill, and there was only so long he could spend researching.

So his blog quickly grew.

At first, it was strictly real life that he wrote; hunts they’d recently been on, anecdotes, slices of their lives. It helped him to cope, to get all of his thoughts and emotions out of his head and onto paper. But soon, he was branching out into ‘fix it fic’- for him, it was wistful thoughts about possibilities of what could have been if they’d taken different roads. If they’d just managed to save a person here, trusted someone else there. One or two about what might happen if Cas and Dean ever pulled their heads out of their asses.

So he was pretty deep already by the time he stumbled across the Sabriel.

He had just woken up when he found it. He was sitting at the bunker kitchen table, scrolling through his feed over a cup of coffee. Gifset, meta analysis, pictures, art, gif-

Wait.

He got the the end of the post and just stopped scrolling for a second, blinking. Had that art been of him and Gabriel? He scrolled back up.

It was. They were hugging- the artist had got the height difference right, he distantly noted. It was a good likeness even. It was quite chaste compared to a lot of the things that crossed his screen, but there was… something about it. He blinked some more, feeling his forehead scrunch a little as he narrowed his eyes at the screen.

He wasn’t offended by it or anything. Mostly, he was just confused.

Him and Gabriel? Really?

Why?

He and Gabriel had barely known each other. The archangel had hardly talked to him. Even when he had, those words had more often than not been angry. They had started off hunting him after all. And they hadn’t parted mystery spot as friends. Hell, on top of that, Gabriel was dead! Long dead!

Sam clicked on the artist’s profile and scrolled further down, a huff of amused disbelief breaking out of him. The art definitely wasn’t a one-off, and judging from all the reblogs, they were far from the only shipper. No matter what had really happened, these people seemed to think that they had potential.

He sat back, resting his phone down on the table and considering. Huh. What would that even be called? Samiel? Sambriel?

He checked the tags. Sabriel, apparently.

It was impossible. Totally and utterly implausible. Maybe that was what drew him to it. There was no way any of this could work its way into Sam’s real life. He didn’t see any harm in it.

At first it just amused him. But gradually, over time, he found himself starting to seek it out. The ‘incorrect quotes’ made him laugh, either because they were hilariously out of character or (more often than not) hilariously in character. The mood boards made him smile. The art sometimes tugged too-tight at his heart, but it was always amazing. And the fic was something else.

Before he knew it, he was following a whole host of sabriel blogs, reblogging their content to his own. He even made a few friends.

And, gradually? He was starting to see it too. The books had been more revealing about Gabriel than he ever had been in real life. Meta posts pointed out the similarities between their characters, between their stories, and it made Sam realise that they really hadn’t been that different after all. Gabriel had been just as desperate and afraid as he was back then, he’d just had different ways of hiding it. And if the scant number of scenes from Gabriel’s point of view were as accurate as the rest of the books, it certainly looked like he’d had a soft spot for Sam, much as Sam thought he’d never showed it.

Just how many of their interpretations were true? he wondered as he stared at his dimmed computer screen while the streetlamps flashed past on another midnight road. Was there a possibility that, if Gabriel was alive, they could have got along?

He felt a little pang at the thought that they’d never talked at all, really, before he died. Sam felt he knew the archangel better now than he ever had back then. Knowing what he knew now, he wished that he’d at least been friends with him.

In a way, fictional Sam had it better than real him did. The more he read, the more he realised he was craving what his fictional self had; stability, a partner. Someone to come back home to, someone to wrap his arms around at night. It wasn’t like there could ever be any permanent lovers in his real life. He could never keep what he did a secret, or drag someone into this life. And after Eileen, he didn’t have the heart to date anyone within the business. The mortality rate for hunters was just too high.

He looked out the window, shaking his head at himself as they rushed through the night. How sad had his life become? A little voice at the back of his head whispered maliciously. Was he really sitting here daydreaming wistfully about a normal life like some kind of caricature of himself?

Well maybe I am, he retaliated almost angrily. He had few enough permanent good things in his life, and his writing was a lifeline that kept him afloat. It was an escape from the violence and monotony of their lives. It wasn’t hurting anyone. If he wanted to fantasise about having somebody who cared about him, then what the hell, he was gonna do it.

With renewed determination, he opened a new document and started to type.

                                                            ...

So it went on. He wrote when Amara rose. He wrote then their Mom came back from the dead. He wrote to forget his torture at the hands of the British Men of Letters. He wrote when Cas died, when he lost their Mom, when they found Jack, when Cas returned from the Empty. It was his crutch; whenever things got bad, out came a fresh google doc and onto the page it all went. By the time they were trying to get their Mom back from the apocalypse world, his little blog had over two thousand followers all eagerly awaiting his updates.

So obviously, because this was the Winchester’s luck, that was when Gabriel came back to life.

                                                           .o0o.

Gabriel would like it noted down that it was Cas’ fault. For the record.

“Brother. You need to take a break.”

Gabriel looked down at him from heaven’s throne and raised an unimpressed eyebrow. It was a look he’d been perfecting these last few weeks since he’d come back upstairs to reclaim what was left of his birthright and discovered how almost frighteningly easily the other angels fell into line- the first time he’d done it, a cupid had actually keeled over.

Castiel, on the other hand, didn’t back down even half an inch. That seraph had balls of steel. It was one of the things Gabriel liked best about his brother- he had no fear of calling Gabriel out on his bullshit, unlike the rest of the cowardly sycophants up here.

“You have been snapping at the seraphim all week. I believe you need to, as Dean would put it, ‘take a load off’.”

He even crooked his fingers to make the air quotation marks. Adorable.

Gabriel heaved a sigh. “And what do you suggest I do? A zumba class? Go out and commune with nature?”

Castiel was undeterred by his prickly demeanor. “What did you used to do to relax?”

“Mess with dickheads until they died,” Gabriel answered. Cas stared at him blankly, waiting.

“... Make amateur porn?” he suggested.

Cas sighed, rolling his eyes and turning with a swish of trench coat. “Just… go and find something to do, Gabriel. Something productive. Read a book,” he called over his shoulder as he strode out of heaven’s throne room.

Gabriel scoffed to himself, slouching back on the throne to sulk. Read a book? Like literature could hold his attention at the moment. What he needed to do was get outta here and stop wallowing in his own juices!

But if he was being honest with himself (not something he made a habit of), he really didn’t know what he wanted to do once he did manage to get out. He was… aimless. And the longer he sat here with nothing to distract him, the more those memories lurking at the back of his mind dragged their fingernails against his consciousness.

You know what? Maybe he would read that book.

He stood and snapped himself to the nearest bookstore before he had any more time to chew it over. Walking over to the fiction section, he perused along the shelves. Yes, escapism, that was what he needed!

But nothing appealed. Every damn book he picked up seemed to be either a cheap Game of Thrones knock-off or vampire erotica, and he’d already had his fun with Stephanie Meyer.

He was about to snap himself away again in frustration when he paused. There was something poking out of the discount book bin. That cover looked strangely familiar…

He picked it up, smirking at the hunks on the cover, and turned it over to read the blurb. His eyes widened. Holy guacamole. He couldn’t believe it!

He started laughing, uncontrollable whole-body-shaking hoots that quickly turned into constricted wheezing, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. People started backing away from him, but he didn’t care. Oh, this was great! Of all the books that had to catch his eye, it had to be this one. If he didn’t know better, he’d say this was Dad-ordained fate.

He nearly skipped up to the counter, slapping the book down next to the cash register. “Hey, you got any more of these?”

The guy behind it eyed him with concern. “Yeah, should be more if you dig in the bottom of the bin. You like them?”

“Oh yeah,” Gabriel grinned like a slightly manic shark. “I’m a big fan.”

                                                                 ...

“Father above, their lives are depressing.”  

Gabriel tossed the last book off the dais with a sigh, lobbing it neatly through a wormhole. Well, that had helped pass a few hours, at least. But after binging his way through two entire lifetimes’ worth of tragedy and man-tears, he was outta reading material.

What now?

Idly, Gabriel pulled out the phone that Sam had given him the last time he popped down to update them. Installing WiFi in heaven had been the first thing he did when he limped back. His siblings would thank him. Eventually.

He typed ‘supernatural’ into google.

And, wow. His eyes widened. That was a lot of porn. Ah, humanity at their finest- it didn’t matter how angst-soaked the source material was, in his experience, there was always at least one fan who would say, “hmmm this needs more nudity!” And, apparently, this fandom had more than one fan who thought Sam and Dean needed more hanky panky in their lives.

He chuckled, scrolling down the entries. Damn, he liked these people already!

“Bingo.” He clicked on a link.

The site flashed up before his eyes, summaries and ratings in their colourful boxes catching his attention. Now this was more like it! He snapped himself up a big tub of popcorn and dug in.

                                                            …

He was half way through the tag when he started finding the sabriel.

For the first time since he’d started reading four days ago, his finger paused on the touchpad. His grin faded a little.

So they’d noticed that, had they? He’d thought it wasn’t too obvious from the books, but humans were intuitive.

Tentatively, he clicked. He read, getting more and more wound up the further down he got.

He snorted to himself as he reached the bottom of the page. Where was the danger? The drama? The strippers? He didn’t belong in a coffee shop AU! He pressed the back button, scowling. He searched the tag itself, and wasn’t much more impressed. Why was there so much domesticity? He was a maverick! A rolling stone!

Hey, maybe he should start writing? Show them all where they were going wrong? Because somewhere along the line they’d clearly got the completely wrong impression of his character.

And okay, he thought as he set himself up an account, so maybe they’d been right about him nursing a little crush on the younger Winchester from afar. That was fine! Nobody in real life needed to know! He could just bury that one at the bottom of the ocean in a mental curse box with all the other things he deliberately didn’t think about. As far as Gabriel was concerned, he would keep all his feelings right here in his chest, and then one day Sam would die, and that would be the end of it. And Gabriel’s heart would shatter into a million tiny shards and he would never be quite right again.

But whatever! Not like that was gonna spillover into what he wrote or anything. No, this work of creative genius was gonna be one-hundred-percent SEX, as many chapters of raunchy, kinky, personal-fantasy-fulfilling porn as he could get out onto paper. No feelings here. None whatsoever.

So he conjured a laptop, opened up a playlist for inspiration, and started to write.

                                                             .o0o.

The first time that Sam ever really paid any attention to Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets was when he reblogged the call-out post:

Fandoms-forevr: I don’t care what they say, Sam is always the worst character. No matter what else he’s done, the stans can’t deny the facts; he opened a portal to hell. He opened the cage and started the apocalypse. He’s a selfish, manipulative asshole. Tbh if Sam wasn’t in the books, Dean could be retired by now and not be dragged around cleaning up after Sam’s sorry ass. 

Sam apologists, don’t interact.

It had been nearly 3am and most of the way through a bottle of whisky, and Sam had reblogged it as an act of drunken self-flagellation. Then he had flicked his phone off, rolled over, and fallen asleep like a baby seal that had been clubbed over the head with a bottle of Jack Daniels.

He woke up to online carnage.

He thought that the notifications were a hallucination from his raging hangover for a second, but when he blinked they didn’t disappear. His eyes widened as he scrolled down the long list of angry reblogs. Some seemed to be arguing for him, some against him. Who the hell had started all this drama?

He scrolled down to the first reblog.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets reblogged: I’m sorry, but Sam? A ‘selfish, manipulative asshole’? What have you been smoking? Whatever it is, put that blunt down, cos it’s making you delusional.

First off, I know this post is about Sam, but you really think Dean would stop hunting without having to be literally chained to the floor? Puh-lease, that boy isn’t gonna stop moving until he gets hitched to Castiel.

Anyway, back to Sam. You’re wrong. Don’t know how you can’t see that, but here, let me take you to the character optometrist...

And then they went off.

The post kept going, a whole list of passionate arguments. Sam felt a smile twitch at the corner of his mouth. He might not agree with their points, but whoever they were, they had style.

Sam had seen people defending him before. He tended to avoid those sorts of posts; it made him uncomfortable for some reason. He knew he didn’t deserve these people’s praise. But for some reason, those usual feelings of guilt and inadequacy weren’t surfacing

The good feelings faded when he opened up his personal messages.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets said: Call yourself a Sam fan? I thought you were meant to be on his side?

Sam frowned at his phone. The reblogs, okay, but personal messaging? Really? His fingers poised over the keys to write an acerbic response, but he restrained himself. He didn’t owe random dickheads on the internet any explanations!

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets… why was that familiar? He’d seen them around once or twice before, he realised; sabriel wasn’t the biggest ship ever, so chances were if someone was on board then Sam would have at least heard of them.

But recently, Gabriel’s real life return had put a bit of a damper on his reading and writing. It was one thing writing yourself into a relationship with someone who was, to all intents and purposes, not real- it was quite another to write yourself sharing a loving embrace with someone who regularly popped in to give you updates on how heaven was doing under new management. He was surprised he could even look Gabriel in the face after some of the things he’d read about them.

That was it! Sam nodded to himself as he realised where he’d seen them before. The kinkmeme. Of course.

He opened up their A03 profile. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing in there less explicit than an E. Half of their fics made Sam blush down to his scalp just by looking at the summaries. There were some… colourful entries in there.

Sam hovered his cursor over the latest fic. With trepidation, he clicked.

“Spank me. It’s the only way I learn.”

Sam waved his cute patootie in the air, already marked with several cherry-red handprints like the naughty boy he was.

“Oh, you’re gonna learn, sweet-cheeks. And you’re gonna enjoy it.”

Gabriel ran his fingers across the array of toys before him, and as he glanced up, a sharp smirk tugging at his lips, he had never looked more dangerous. Dangerous, powerful and sexy. He picked out the biggest dildo, the one as long as Sam’s arm and twice as shiny, and in one swift thrust he rammed it into his tight little-

“Oh my god,” Sam choked, turning the laptop screen away a little. He needed a moment. That was… that wasn’t physically possible. Or at least, not pleasurable at all. It couldn’t be.

Was it?

He glanced back at the text. It was just morbid curiosity, that was all, he told himself. Just morbid... curiosity…

He read the whole thing. And then another one. And another one.

Sam surreptitiously adjusted his pants. Okay, so they could write, he thought to himself. That didn’t make them any less of an asshole. But he did decide to message them back.

Moose-of-Letters- Look, we’ve got different opinions. Could you just stay in your lane and stop bothering me?

It took a surprisingly short length of time before a reply to pop up.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets- I’ll stop bothering you when you aren’t reblogging hate posts

Sam scowled, feeling his temper rise. Who did they think they were, telling him what he could and couldn’t have on his blog? Like their own wasn’t a dumpster fire of discourse posts!

“What you looking at?”

Sam nearly jumped out of his seat, hiding his phone in reflex. Dean was standing behind him, grey robe on, steaming mug of coffee in hand.

“Selkie lore,” Sam grunted defensively.

Dean snorted. “What have selkies ever done to you?” Sam looked up again, frowning in confusion. Dean plonked himself down in the seat opposite, pulling the toast towards himself. “You look like you’re ready to open up a can of whoop-ass. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Sam muttered. “Late night, that’s all.” Dean raised his eyebrows but stayed silent, accepting his answer. Sam angled his phone away from his brother and typed furiously.

Moose-Of-Letters Commented: I’m not going to even bother arguing with you. If we can’t have a conversation like adults, then just fuck off.

He brought up their profile, his finger hovering over the ‘block’ button, but he paused. They were one of his followers.

Maybe… maybe he was being a little harsh. It had been a hate post, and he usually tried to be positive about all the ‘characters’, while he was sober at least- he didn’t normally put up with character hate. He’d been pretty vocal about it in the past. No wonder people had been taken aback, even if this one had dealt with it rudely. Slowly, he took his finger off the button, going back to the chat. How should he phrase this?

Moose-Of-Letters Commented: Look, some of the stuff with Sam is kind of personal for me, it’s a bit too close to home. I’m sorry if I got snappy with you.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets- Oops. Too late for that

What did that mean? As soon as Sam thought that, his feed updated. And there it was, right at the top.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets posted- The great battle for Sam’s dignity begins. Who woulda thought it but Moose-of-Letters is officially the enemy of the people. I declare war!! 

The text was followed by a gif of a pair or armoured knights facing off while brandishing rubber dildos. Already there had been another flurry of reblogs and arguments. Sam rolled his eyes, turning off is phone. Why did he even bother?

                                                              …

Gabriel was scrolling down his feed idly. Honestly, as much as he moaned about ruling heaven, there wasn’t that much to do. The most difficult thing he’d solved this morning was a disagreement between the Virtues as to whether the lesser cherubs should be classified using a tiered system or not. Who cared! It didn’t matter!! After that, the inane squabbles of tumblr discourse looked almost sensible.

Almost.

But then, he did enjoy causing chaos and then sitting back and watching everyone fall over themselves in indignation. That was just funny.

And what was even better were the increasingly frustrated and snarky reblogs he’d been getting from an account he’d decided to target after they reblogged that Dad-awful Sam hate post. They’d totally deserved it. He was amazed they hadn’t blocked him yet, but he was taking advantage of having someone to rile up while it lasted. Their replies had been getting progressively more pointed and it gave Gabriel a vicious sort of satisfaction. He was planning another volley of posts this afternoon, and he had some scorching insults lined up.

He reblogged some excellent fanart of Dean in a pair of pink panties (must remember to leave that somewhere for him to find), skipped over another post about the latest tumblr scandal (someone was making earrings out of human bones!?), but then he paused. He felt a flash of excitement- his nemesis was posting again.

Moose-of-Letters posted: Ugh, it annoys me so much when people try to pass Gabriel off as someone who just has loads of sex and eats candy and does nothing else. Like whatever, you want an outlet for your kinks, but it’s just bad characterisation.

Oh, he knew who this was aimed at. He felt his feathers fluff in annoyance. They were vagueing about him? And for all the things they could go for, they decided to take aim at writing. He quickly batted away a twinge of insecurity. It was his aesthetic! Who were they to judge his style? He could write Gabriel however the hell he liked!

He had a strange moment of dissociation where he realised he’d been thinking of himself in the third person, but he brushed it off. Obviously they thought they were just judging a character, but there was no way he couldn’t take this personally. Gabriel was offended on behalf of his fictional self. He opened up a direct message window again.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets- Look, if you’ve got a problem with my fics, just come into my comments and flame me like a normal person.

It didn’t take long for a reply to come in.

Moose-of-Letters- What makes you think that post’s about your fics? Hmm it’s almost as though you know it’s a flaw in your writing

And then, before Gabriel could do more than gape at his screen in disbelieving insult,

Moose-of-Letters- And it’s not that I don’t enjoy your writing, but I find your characterisation of Gabriel is off. You write him as though he’s just this candy-addicted nymphomaniac when it’s obvious that those things are shields. I was just trying to get people to appreciate that he’s clearly a much more complex character with deeper motivations!

Shields!? Where were they getting this stuff? Gabriel liked sex! He loved sex! All hot people all the time!

Well, the best defence was a good offence.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets: Well if you’re so high and mighty, how would you characterise Gabriel? Sensitive with a side of Single Man Tears?

The jumping dots appeared under his reply. Then they stopped.

Gabriel smirked. Ha! Come back to that, dickweed!

But then the dots were back, the person on the other end obviously typing furiously. Gabriel watched, waiting for the answer to appear. What the hell were they writing, an essay? A novel? An epic?

Moose-of-Letters- Of course not. He’s an archangel, a warrior. But I think that Gabriel cares a lot more than he lets on. He’s got a huge heart, even though he tries his best to hide it because he’s been hurt by people he cares about. And I think that he feels a lot of hurt about his family. I think that’s why he gets so mad at Sam and Dean in TV land, because they remind him of his brothers, but he knows that he can’t yell at them directly so Sam and Dean get the brunt of his anger instead.

Gabriel winced. Not one of his better moments.

Moose-of-Letters- But I think that even more than loving his brothers, Gabriel loves humanity. In the Elysian Fields motel I think it’s clear that he feels guilty that he wasn’t strong enough to protect the humans from the apocalypse, even though that was never his fault. The Winchesters should have never guilted him into it, because every time he tries to help them he ends up dead.

Well, Moose wasn’t wrong.

The worst part was that he did seem to have Gabriel right so far. The guy had him bang on, whoopie for him. It wasn’t even like they were using that knowledge to insult him- they were defending him, even! But there was something painfully vulnerable about somebody laying out his character like that. Something violating. Like ripping off a scab and leaving the stinging, raw emotions underneath open to the elements.

And it made Gabriel angry. Suddenly, he realised that was what this feeling brewing in his chest and prickling behind his eyes was. His blood was boiling; who were these people to Know him? He hadn’t given out any of this information voluntarily!! It had been ripped from his control, the most intimate workings of his mind printed on pulp and handed out for people on the internet to pick over, like vultures at a carcass.  

Suddenly, the books didn’t seem so funny any more. He was starting to realise why the Winchesters had wanted them gone for all these years

Screw his Dad, seriously. A+ parenting all round.

He was about to angrily snap the laptop shut when another message popped up.

Moose-of-Letters- I think all the characters tend to underestimate Gabriel, in different ways, and I think that the writer did too. I just have a lot of admiration for his character because I can relate to a lot of what he’s gone through.

Gabriel deflated. These people didn’t know. They hadn’t got a clue that any of this was real. And this person in particular had obviously seen his character, him, for who he was, but they hadn’t run screaming. They were… defending him?

He stared at the screen, nonplussed. Why?

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets: You really like Gabriel, huh?

Moose-of-Letters: I think it’s impossible to spend all this time getting to know about someone and not care about them.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets: and you think you know him? The real him?

Moose-of-Letters: I’d like to think so. Hey, sorry I came off as an asshole. And I’m sorry if I’ve been an asshole about other things as well. It’s just something I’m really passionate about.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets: That makes two of us.

Gabriel quirked an ironic little smile to himself. Even here, in the underbelly of the internet, people were still reminding him why he’d always defended humanity. Their ability for change and forgiveness was something he wished angels had a hang of. He kept typing.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets: I guess I should apologise for the insults, even if they were super creative. And you’re not a bad writer yourself. My dad was a writer once, and you’re definitely better than him. I’m pretty new to it.

Moose-of-Letters: I’d be happy to give you some pointers if you’ll give me some! your smut is hot as hell ;)

Gabriel laughed, properly this time. Oh, he could already tell this was going to be a very fruitful alliance.

                                                          .o0o.

Goldenhorns posted- There’s nothing weirder than seeing Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets and Moose-of-Letters getting along. It’s like watching God and Satan getting pally.

Vatican-came0s commented: Correction; there’s only one thing weirder than seeing Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets and Moose-of-Letters getting along, and it’s seeing them give each other fic suggestions. How the hell is that even happening!?

Gabes-hoe commented: I have no idea, but they will have the most gorgeous plotty-smutty literature babies together

Guess_who_lost_a_shoe commented: I for one welcome our new fic creating overlords!

Gabriel smirked as he saw the post crop up on his dash. It was definitely more entertaining watching everyone’s sudden confusion at them getting along than it ever had been when he was trying to make them angry.

It was the strangest friendship he’d ever made, and coming from someone who’d spent several centuries as a trickster god, that was saying something.

But he and Moose (as he’d insisted on calling him) had started talking more and more over the last three weeks, and the more they talked, the more Gabriel was realising that they had in common. Seeing his own character through someone else’s eyes was fascinating. And Moose was great once he’d got to know him- they might have different approaches to writing fic, but he was kind, level-headed, and an amazing writer with some awesome ideas. Gabriel was writing more now than he had in months-

“Gabriel, are you even listening?” Cas’ deep voice interrupted his thoughts. Gabriel’s head jerked up to where he was standing in front of the throne.

“Hmm yeah. Uh. What?”

Castiel rolled his eyes. “You are distracted again, brother. At least pretend to pay attention.”

But it was no use, not when his new favourite commenter popped up in his notifications. Gabriel snatched a glance at his notes between appointments. Oooh, Moose was commenting on his WIPs.

Moose-of-Letters- Love the descriptions! Maybe put a short bridging scene between them meeting in the club and getting to the shibari, though? The transition feels a little abrupt.

Gabriel nodded to himself. Moose was right, it did need another scene in there before it got to the bondage part- he’d do that later. But working on his ever-growing library would have to wait. He turned his phone to silent, stowing it in a pocket. It was almost time for the weekly appointment he looked forward to and dreaded in equal measure; going to visit Sam.

                                                         .o0o.

Sam had spent most of the morning alternating between frantically researching or repeatedly checking his phone, trying to keep himself busy enough with making protective hex bags for the new hunters that he could stay calm and prepare himself for Gabriel's weekly visit. But he still didn’t feel either calm or prepared when the beating of wings filled the kitchen.

Gabriel appeared with a pop in front of him, tugging the collar of that leather jacket he favoured these days back into place. The archangel nodded at him, looking him up and down. “Sam.”

“Gabe.” Internally, Sam winced. Was ‘Gabe’ too informal? It felt too informal. Was it something he’d picked up from everything he’d been reading? He didn’t know any more! Fanfiction wasn't reality, he knew that damnit, but sometimes it just slipped out-

Gabriel, thankfully, didn’t seem to have noticed his internal struggle. He bounced on the balls of his feet, his arms swinging stiffly at his sides as he looked around the kitchen like he felt the awkwardness as keenly as Sam did.

The silence stretched out painfully. Sam had to say something. Anything.

“How are you?” he blurted, at the same time as Gabriel said, “So, wotcha been doing down here?” Sam snapped his mouth shut. Gabriel smirked, mischief twinkling in his eyes. “Ladies first.”

Normally, this would be where Sam would fire back something witty before they got down to business. But some fanart Sam had seen of Gabriel posing in an extremely short skirt and silky, lacy lingerie under it appeared behind his eyes like a goddamn real life pop-up. Sam cleared his throat, shaking it off.

They managed to get through most of Sam’s updates on the new hunters without him embarrassing himself, which Sam thought was a serious achievement. At some point they moved to sit at the kitchen table, Sam with his hands clasped in front of him. Gabriel was fiddling absentmindedly with one of the pieces of string Sam had been using to make the hex bags while Sam talked. “So yeah, we managed to get that demon nest cleared up before they could kill anyone else. I was worried we might have something more powerful on our hands, but it looks like it was just a very charismatic leader. I think he was running for candidacy for the king of hell.”

Gabriel nodded as he listened to Sam intently, twirling the string between his fingers, snapping it tight before letting it go slack again. “Good. As long as everyone downstairs is still distracted, we should be able to get established before they rally.” He glanced up. Was Sam imagining the way that tawny gaze softened when Gabriel looked at him? Was he searching for fondness that wasn’t there? He couldn’t tell any more.

Gabriel sat back with a dramatic sigh. “We’re nearly good to go up there, the souls and heavens are finally stable but I’m still trying to find another angel apart from Cassie with more personality than a banana skin…”

Sam found his attention trailing off, Gabriel’s hands holding his gaze, those clever fingers twisting and pulling at the string. A scene flashed past his eyes from Trickster’s latest fic that he’d read just that morning-

Gabriel gave one last tug on the ropes, pulling them tight. He looked down in satisfaction at the intricate series of loops holding his lover exactly where he wanted him- bent over the bed, legs slightly spread, back arched beautifully. An entire smorgasbord of skin, all laid out for him to enjoy.

Sam whined behind his gag. Gabriel could see him testing the knots, flexing his arms where they were tied behind his back, but he knew they would hold. Those tanned muscular thighs, gleaming with sweat, were straining against the ropes, but he was rocking against the silk sheets in a way that made it very clear he was still helplessly turned on.

Gabriel rested one hand against his back, stilling him. Slowly, he soothed the hand  upwards, and Sam melted at the contact. Finally he relaxed into the ropes’ embrace. The sight of Sam so willingly submitting himself to Gabriel’s complete control fanned the hunger burning in his gut flare into a roar-

“Sam? Hey, gigantor! Anybody home?”

Sam jerked, his eyes flashing guiltily to Gabriel’s. Gabriel raised a questioning eyebrow. Sam, to his mortification, felt himself flush scarlet. Gabriel’s eyebrow nearly disappeared into his hair.

Damn it, Sam, get it together! “Just… uh…” Sam cleared his throat. “Just thinking about demons. Uuuh, about going back to look for any we missed. Just in case. And we’re going to hunt wha I’m pretty sure is a chupacabra later, so… yeah. That as well.”

“Okay,” Gabriel still looked dubious. “Aaanyway, I gotta be getting back. The cherubs get jittery without someone telling them what to do every second of every day. But I should be back same time next week. What day is it again?”

Sam felt a lead weight form in his gut. He had to know, didn’t he? But time ran differently in heaven.

“It’s… it’s a Tuesday.” He couldn’t help the way his voice stuttered on that last word. Even after all these years, Dean still had to change the station whenever Asia came on the radio.

Sam saw Gabriel’s eyes widen. He froze awkwardly, his usual confident smirk slipping. Sam had no doubt that they were both thinking of the same thing- the six months that Sam had spent trapped in that time loop. The silence thickened.

Gabriel opened his mouth as though he was going to say something, grimaced, and Sam waited, his breath catching for a drawn-out second. Were they finally going to talk about this?

Then Gabriel closed it again in a huff. Sam tried not to show his slump of disappointment.

“So, same time next week?”

“Yeah, see you-” there was a flurry of flapping and Gabriel disappeared, “-next week,” Sam sighed.

He rubbed his face tiredly with one hand. Well, that could have gone better. Time to drown his sorrows in fanfiction.

                                                              .o0o.

Gabriel was in too deep, and he knew it.

He scowled at his latest WIP. He’d retreated to his favourite spot in the Garden and pulled up the kinkmeme prompt as soon as he got back from his little trip earth-side in the hopes that it would drive any residual anxiety out of his brain. No luck there. This was supposed to be porn, dad-damn it!  So why were they still talking? Why were they having a meaningful conversation instead of getting down and dirty? Where the hell had all these feelings come from?

He leaned back against the trunk of the nearest tree, staring out moodily across the sunlit clearing and the vast forest beyond. The problem, he grumped to himself, was what had happened that afternoon. He had put his foot in his mouth, again. Which wasn’t an unusual occurrence. There weren’t that many safe topics outside of work when it came to Sam.

And he had wanted to talk to Sam about Mystery Spot this time, he had! He wanted to move past this. He’d tried to get the words out. But as usual, he’d frozen, and his cowardice had won out. And then he’d run away. What the hell had he been thinking!?

Sam was his friend. Probably his last friend outside of heaven (well, apart from Moose). Sam had seen him at his lowest, cleaned him up and taken out those damn stitches, brought him back from being locked within his own mind, hell, even jumped in front of him to deflect Michael’s blade during that last desperate battle in the apocalypse world. Gabriel had hurt him and he wanted to fix it, but he just couldn’t get the words out.

A gentle breeze stirred around him. He took a deep breath of the sweet air, looking out into the once-busy emptiness of heaven.

Well, if he couldn’t apologise to Sam, at least fictional him could. Maybe it was time to take a leaf out of Moose’s book.

                                                         .o0o.

Sam bolted up the stairs, flinging himself into the nearest room and looking around wildly. Unfortunately it looked like it was a dead end- the window of the deserted shack was too small to squeeze through. Should he go and try another room?

But he was too late. The sound of the chupacabra they were hunting climbing it’s way up the stairs reached him. Shit! He’d have to hide.

Sam looked around, spotting a cupboard in the corner. He grimaced, climbing in. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. Silently, he pulled the doors shut behind himself.

The creature reached the top of the stairs. There was a muted clicking of claws on wood. The overloaded groan of a floorboard.

The chupacabra stopped. It sniffed the air. Through the tiny gap between the doors, Sam could see its forked tongue flickering out to taste the air, bulging eyes peering around the room. Sam held his breath and hoped that its hearing wasn’t sharp enough to pick up his heart thumping against his ribs.

It hitched in a breath, and sneezed violently. Sam flinched. His grip on his machete was so tight that he was sure his knuckles were turning white. It snorted, shaking itself with a rattle of spines.

With another grunt, it turned to leave. Sam dared to take the thinnest breath. His muscles relaxed just slightly.

PING!

The monster whirled. It’s lamplight eyes pinpointed the cupboard. Sam felt his phone vibrate in his pocket with the notification and had a moment to screw his eyes shut. Fuck! Why hadn’t he turned it off when they started!?

Luckily, at that moment, Dean’s war cry split the air. Sam leapt from the cupboard, machete already swinging. He could berate himself later. Right now, he had bigger fish to fry.

                                                             …

“Was the flamethrower really necessary?”

Dean looked back in satisfaction at the smoking remains of the shack. “The flamethrower is always necessary.”

Sam rolled his eyes, sliding into the front seat. He hoped he got soot on the upholstery.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he was relieved to see that it didn’t appear to have been damaged in the fight. The screen was still whole. He powered it on, and there it was, the notification that had nearly got him killed.

Archive Of Our Own

[AO3] Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets just posted a new work :)

Sam groaned. Fanfiction was literally going to be the death of him.

                                                        .o0o.

Moose-of-Letters commented: Hey, I like the new fic, it’s different from your usual. Sorry I didn’t comment earlier, I was a bit distracted.

Gabriel smiled as he opened his email. His new favourite commenter had picked up on it, because of course they had.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets: Yeah, guess this fic is your influence ;)

It had stuck with him, that conversation with Sam. Or rather, the parts of it that hadn’t happened. He’d been thinking about it, really thinking about it, in the times between his heavenly appointments.

Re-reading the book featuring Mystery Spot from Sam’s point of view had been quite an eye-opener. He’d been so focused, the first time, on getting Sam to stop that he hadn’t truly realised what he was doing to him in his desperation. It had made him wonder- what would he do, if he could go back and change it all? Knowing what he did now, would he have been able to make a difference? He thought he might.

And if he were to talk to Sam about it now, what could he ever say to apologise to Sam for what he’d done to him?

A lot of that had made it onto the page. It was heavier than what he usually wrote, but somehow Gabriel felt lighter for it.

Moose-of-Letters: About the Mystery Spot, do you really think that Gabriel was doing any of that for Sam?

Gabriel sighed. He should have known that Moose would want to talk characterisation. What should he say?

Well, there was nothing stopping him from telling the truth.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets: I think he was doing that all for Sam. Gabriel was just trying to prepare Sam for Dean’s inevitable death- he knew the apocalypse was about to go down, remember? He knew what was coming, and he was trying to avert it.

Gabriel bit his lip, his fingers pausing over the keyboard. Was he really gonna pour his heart out to random strangers on the internet? Really?

But now he started, he just couldn’t seem to stop his fingers. And anyway, Moose wasn’t really a stranger at this point.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets: Gabriel couldn’t go to Sam directly because he’s got a soft spot for him. He likes him. He doesn’t like seeing humans get hurt who don’t deserve it, and the fact that his brothers are gonna cause so much destruction and he can’t do a thing to stop it is breaking his heart. That bit at the end where he gives in? He just couldn’t do it anymore, Sam out-stubborns him. He knows he wouldn’t be able to stand to see Sam hurting, and in the end? That’s why he failed. His love for humans is his weakness, the way he cares for Sam in particular.

There. It was out.

Gabriel pushed his laptop away, closing his eyes and resting his face in his hands. He needed a moment.

                                                        .o0o.

Sam sat back. Huh.

He honestly hadn’t expected Trickster’s first foray into more serious fics to be much good. Not because he couldn’t write- obviously he could, his work had been featuring heavily in Sam’s spank bank (as Dean would call it) for months now. Heavy-hitting just wasn’t his speciality, that was all.

But he had written it. And it was good.

It was emotional, and raw, and almost painfully in-character. Gabriel’s confession, his betrayal and his grief and anger and guilt were all so real that Sam wondered if Trickster had gone through something similar in his own life. He hadn’t been able to resist asking what Trickster thought Gabriel’s motivations were. He wished he could be as sure as Trickster was that Mystery Spot had been about Gabriel trying to save him. And he secretly doubted that Gabriel had given up his attempt because he cared for him. Not in real life.

But he could let himself live this fantasy for just a little longer, couldn’t he? He felt a pang in his heart that he was never going to have this conversation with Gabriel himself. This was probably as close as he was ever gonna get.  

Slowly, Sam started typing.

Moose-of-Letters- Well, I think you’re right about Sam being stubborn. But it wasn’t Gabriel’s fault that Sam didn’t learn that lesson- I don’t think he ever would have. He was in too deep to ever realise what Gabriel was trying to say.

Sam hesitated, biting his lip. He started typing again.

Moose-of-Letters- I think they would both have been a lot happier if Gabriel had been able to get through to him. I wish it had gone like your fic in canon.

Angel_In_the_Streets_Trickster_In_the_Sheets: You and me both, Moose.

Sam smiled sadly. If only.

Moose-of-Letters- I’m not sure you’re right about Gabriel’s mercy being his weakness though. His love for humanity is what makes him different from his brothers. It’s what makes him human- it’s the thing that really drew me to his character in the first place. His love for humans might put him in the firing line, but I think it’s one of his greatest strengths as well. And I think his incredible empathy is one of the reasons why Sam would love him, as well as everything else they have in common. When it comes down to it, he’s ready to lay down everything for humanity too. They’re really kindred spirits.

Moose-of-Letters- Maybe if you’re trying angst I should give smut a go :P

And really, everything went downhill from there.

Part 2, coming soon!

[manesalex]

Before I start writing and sharing my RNM rewatch thoughts, I wanted to post a little disclaimer of sorts.

I subscribe to this theory I read years ago (back in the days of LJ and I wish I had a link to it) that we all watch our own versions of any given show. For example, I watched The Walking Dead for years. The main character at the time was Rick. I did not watch The Rick Show. In fact, I didn’t even enjoy The Rick Show. I watched The Carol Show. I loved her in a way I thought I could never love a fictional character (I may already be worse when it comes to Alex). Whether or not Carol was treated as a main character or even present varied wildly, I watched for her. I still remember the days of season 4, when she was gone for an incredibly stressful nine episodes in a row. The Carol Show was on hiatus then, even though The Walking Dead was still airing. If and when they kill her off, The Carol Show will have been cancelled (I stopped watching a while ago though). I watched the rest of the show, but I watched it more casually. It was that show you can turn off at the end of the episode and set aside. I couldn’t set The Carol Show aside. (I also started watching The Tara Show when she appeared.)

So, how does that apply to my RNM watching?

I watch The Alex Manes Show. And sometimes The Malex Show. I love the other characters. I actually love them enough that I’d still probably watch and love the show if we had never met Alex (if they got rid of him, however, it would ruin it for me). I might even be a member of the fandom. But I watch The Alex Show. I instinctively watch the scenes for how they affect him. For how he’s feeling. For his story arc. I can step back and watch for the others and focus on their stories, but it’s not where I naturally am. I cried through the finale because of Alex and he wasn’t even on the screen. I’m that emotional disaster.

You may watch The Alex Manes Show and see everything completely differently from me. And that’s cool. I’m not going to tell you that you’re watching the show wrong (if I do, please yell at me) and I’d request the same courtesy in return.

You may watch The Liz Ortecho Show, for example. Or The Echo Show. Or any other version of the show. And that’s awesome! I’ll happily read your thoughts (when I have time because I have a whole ton of meta to read in my drafts). I’ll reblog gifsets. I may even make gifsets for you (I’m not open for requests yet to anyone but my Roswell mom friends, but that may change in the future). But that’s not the show I watch. And I hope that’s okay with you. If it’s not, well, I’m not a fan of “You’re watching this wrong”. What we’ve been given on screen is canon. Our interpretations of that canon are ours alone.

We all watch it through our own lenses and our own experiences. So I may bring up my own life experiences when I feel its relevant to explain my feelings, understanding, or interpretation of the show.

Also, I don’t write traditional meta per se. I never have. I just watch the episodes and write out my thoughts and interpretations while watching them. So I’ll discuss many storylines in each post. I’ll also probably be referencing things we’ve seen in the past and/or things we’ll see in the future (of what’s aired anyway). I’ll also probably be addressing some criticism I have of the decisions the writers have made.

Lastly, if you haven’t noticed, I tend to ramble. A lot. So, I apologize. But I promise to use the “read more” in future posts. Or, as I refer to it “the cut”. Because I may have joined tumblr a long time ago and I may be finally adapting to its medium, but I was most definitely made for LJ. See the rambling.

[meyerlansky]

okay so. end game thoughts about god of war:

IT IS 2018 AND I AM CRYING OVER A GOD OF WAR GAME WHAT THE FUCK.

literally none of the game of the year talk is overblown. i know it’s only may, the game came out in april and we still have more than half the year to go.

literally none of the game of the year talk is overblown. 

at all.

it is absolutely game of the year unless red dead redemption 2 pulls something REAL emotional out its ass in the final stretch.

the visuals are gorgeous and are going to earn technical/visual awards, literally i want to live in dark-elf-controlled alfheim and i cannot imagine what they could’ve done with asgard, vanaheim, and svartalfheim if they’d let us go there [i’d probably wanna live in svartalfheim tbh]

but even beyond that, there is something so single-minded and driven about the entire fucking narrative, and it’s not like i haven’t played games with one (1) objective before but something about this one felt very tightly focused on scattering faye’s ashes and nothing else

and maybe that speaks to the strength of how kratos is written? because i did every side quest. i’m two trophies away from the platinum and both those trophies are the collectible ones, but i indulged all of atreus’ “let’s go exploring!” requests, i’d done all of brok and sindri’s favor quests and finished muspelheim and nilfheim AND already taken out all the valkyries before going to jotunheim, and it STILL somehow feels like the tightest storyline in any game i’ve played in the last year maybe?

my one big criticism is the utter lack of female characters and the fact that faye gets fridged before we even meet her and that they rolled freya and frigg into one character and why does every important female character [all two of them] got a name that starts with an F

but i have the “not enough women” criticism of pretty much every game, and i enjoyed the rest of it. like. a lot.

so back to what i liked. THE DIALOGUE IS SO SNAPPY AND SO FUNNY AND ATREUS IS SO SNARKY I CANNOT BELIEVE I LOVE KRATOS AS MUCH AS I DO BUT I DO

listen. fucking end me, his entire scene with athena when he gets the blades of chaos from the house, the whole “you can’t change and will never be anything but a monster” “no, but i’m no longer your monster” AUGH WHY DOES IT KILL ME ON THE INSIDE SO MUCH I DON’T KNOW yes i do i do know BUT IT DOES

jesus christ i relate to kratos of all characters why is this happening to me

anyway

uh

i cannot believe mimir is a faerie?????? HE’S A FUCKING PUCA AND I’M SCREAMING OVER IT STILL

thank fucking CHRIST they did not make me watch kratos die in atreus’ arms at the end like that mural implied. i couldn’t have handled it. i couldn’t have SURVIVED IT YOU GUYS I’D BE DEAD TOO.

i unfortunately got spoiled for the big reveal wrt Who Atreus Is, Mythologically Speaking, which on the one hand is a shame because i probably would have lost my goddamn mind over it, but on the other it’s probably a good thing because i would have lost my goddamn mind over it and it was 9pm when i got to jotunheim and my neighbors would have come to kill me in the night for screaming “HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HE’S LOKI HOLY SHIT” over and over at my tv at 9pm at night

...that said, how exactly are they gonna handle him being... sleipnir’s mother

I MEAN I GUESS “CAN I TURN INTO AN ANIMAL” HAS A WAY DIFFERENT MEANING WHEN YOU LOOK AT IT LIKE THAT

anyway

again

i honestly don’t even know what else i want to say about the game, and i might come back and write up some more thoughts later on when i’ve had more than 45 minutes to stew on the whole thing, except that it was absolutely worth the purchase and i am absolutely going to go back and finish up the platinum and also expect many many many many gifsets in about a week or so because i am going through the tags and reblogging goddamn everything

holy shit this game was so good you guys

WAIT NO ONE MORE THING I CANNOT BELIEVE THEY CLOSED OUT THE POST-GAME THING WITH “HEY GUESS WHAT FIMBULVETR IS HERE AND WE’RE ALL FUCKED BECAUSE YOU MOVED RAGNAROK’S TIMELINE UP A COUPLE THOUSAND YEARS GOOD GOING LADS”

[highgaarden]

hi hannah. are there any kc fic writers you admire, that you can rec me? :)

do you mean strictly fanfic? because there are many people that i do admire on this site, and they aren’t necessarily writers. most of them tell a story of kc on their own through graphics, tags, etc, and i think would be a real tragedy if i left them out simply because they don’t publish fic. i mean, how can you not call them storytellers when a single graphic from them can make you moan for 493572349573 words of fic written for it asap?

also, i think i rec pretty much the same people every time, so i’m going to try a new route this time.

buckle up, this is going to be quite wordy.

there are many (and when i say many i mean only one, since her personality is multitudes) who would argue that she isn’t a fic writer, but there are also many (and when i say many i mean probably everyone who has ever known her) who would tell her to shut the fuck up. and by this i mean MELISSA aka @goldcaught. if you follow her you’ll probably already know by now that her tags mean Serious Business and a single line from her sometimes resounds more than an entire fic of mine ever could. sometimes if i’m ever fraught for kc inspiration all i need to do is drop her an ask or stare longingly at her graphics. she has a WAY of constructing them in her croppings and colourings that i think if fic didnt exist i could live off my kc needs on her graphics alone. 

there’s also @candycolamorgan, and never have i met someone with such individualistic style. everything’s so goddamn CLASSY - the colouring! the manips! everything just exudes class, like you know a lot of thought has been put into the entire process. and everything ties together so brilliantly - they feel so real, everything like stolen bits of their moments, and we’re lucky enough to have even a glimpse of them. one day i seriously must demand a colouring tutorial, because h o w. i fucking aspire. also, she writes fic! clever, sultry and delicious fic to boot!

@hotbloodedhunter is yet another person i fervently wish i could peek into the head of. pinterest queens, the three of you! you’ve no idea how many nights i’ve bemoaned your graphics simply for not being canon because you manage to capture a FEELING so well in them? i’m quite picky when it comes to AUs and i sigh happily over yours every time you post something new. i should probably be less of a louse and reblog things every so often, but i have this problem with wanting to find the right words to say and more often than not the moment slips away and i remain trash, always.

it is very rare that @darkenedhallways serves us some kc graphic goodness but when she does - OH WHEN SHE DOES, IT IS A SWEET, SWEET RETURN. thanks to tacha whenever i think of kc i think of the whimsy and the eeriness of a time post-mystic falls, post-end of the world, where everything is just this inky intimacy between them, where nothing else exists. tacha made a mix once and it is everything i ever want a mix to be but I CAN NEVER TRACK DOWN TACHA’S TAGS so i can’t find it but i remember how gooorgeous it was and it started off with paper aeroplane by angus and julia and its my go-to-song whenever i feel like writing something sparse and loaded and immortally kc.

@hybridtunnelvision, so underrated, yet everything is so gorgeously put together. from the colouring to the brave juxtaposition of simplicity and story. everything looks so romantic coming from you, marianna. i have to kick myself sometimes because when i look at something in awe and feel, even more awed when i realise it’s you who’d made it, and why am i even still surprised even!? 

@klaussified is my partner in crime for all things fic-gif related. if there ever was an au that demanded to be written, and if i wanted it to be elevated not just in format but in having its own little world, i go find alanna. i mean, the hell, mate. she makes writing so much more fun because i have someone to bounce ideas off, and then we build the story from there. if i have a particular scene in mind alanna has the graphic ready. and then there’s always a detail about it that makes me want to go back and add more, trim the excess, make it into something i feel is truly special.

nobody has really made me laugh the way @earmole has managed to make me laugh. and then i have to do a doubletake because in addition to being the snarkiest fucker around she also writes really great fic? and THEN goes and kicks us in the ass with her out-of-this-world gifsets!???!? you are honestly so wicked talented i get whiplash. i’m still waiting for my pacific rim au and i trust it in no other hands than yours. i am such a SLUT for world-building and i get that magic from you every time i decide to sit down and read (or reread, let’s be honest here) something of yours.

QUEEN OF ALL QUEENS, HARBINGER OF PAIN AND DESTRUCTION OF MY HEART, @parallel-outlines is an entire league of her own. i do not understand the exact mechanics of your mind, and i sort of hope i never do because i’m more than happy to be just an onlooker in this world of dreams you’ve concocted. your kc aesthetic is exactly what i hope for kc to be - sometimes it’s very easy for gif-manips to seem cheapened or contrived but you’ve a way of giving them a voice that makes the whole experience heightened. it’s so easy to forget the mess canon serves us on the weekly with your graphics around because it feels like we’re on a different show altogether? with the COLOURING and story-telling this is some netflix-level shit and i get so giddy whenever you post anything, anything at all.

and that’s just at the top of my head? i’m sorry if i left anyone out but these are just the omnipresent clouds of talent hanging over my timeline that i covet all the time. the amount of coveting i do is embarassing. i’m going to leave this here.