#Chuck Versus the Broken Heart

[renegadesstuff]

Charah 🤍

[alecsalamander]

Wendy and Cat! 5 + 17 + 19

5. Can they cry on command? If so, what do they think about to make it happen?

Cat absolutely cannot. Cat’s cried like maybe 3 times in his life since the age of 14, he especially can’t do it on command.

Wendy absolutely can. And he doesn’t even need to think of a sad memory, he’s just secretly a dramatic bitch.

17. What do they notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?

Cat notices that he looks just like his mom. He very rarely looks at himself in the mirror as a result. Other people usually notice that he’s attractive, unless he’s currently speaking in which case they notice that he’s an asshole.

Wendy probably notices if he looks well-rested or not? He’s not super haunted by any aspect of his appearance. And usually the first thing people notice about him is that he’s the world’s most beautiful man with the most welcoming vibes. 100000% husband material. The PTA is obsessed with him. Everyone at the grocery store is in love with him. He’s left a trail of broken hearts across the last 40 years of his life (he’s basically oblivious to all this, or desperately avoiding it). Where’s the ultimate Wendy post hang on

Anyway

19. What would they do if stuck in a room with the person they’ve been avoiding?

Depending on the timeline that very well could be each other 🤪

No but Cat would be stuck in a room with his mom, who he has avoided reconnecting with or even really thinking about in general because it’s a mess of ugly and complicated emotions he genuinely does not want to deal with. Does he hate her? Fuck yeah. Does he miss her? Every day. Does he wish she had stayed gone and never reached out to him? Absolutely. Does he have her number saved in his phone just in case? Sure does. But if he was stuck in a room with her??? He would find a way to avoid her while in the room. Zero eye contact. No acknowledgement. Probably would pretend to check his phone for texts or emails. Like would pretend so hard he was alone in that room.

Wendy isn’t really avoiding anybody? He would be stuck in a room with the physical manifestations of past mistakes a la chuck tingle but instead of fucking if he would just also pretend very hard that he didn’t notice anyone else with them.

Gold medals in avoidance, the both of them.

[unleashthejohncasey]

2x18 Chuck Versus the Broken Heart

[castiel-left-his-mark-on-me]

“Since I had to bury him …” Dean alone.

Dean alone had to be the one to bury Cas in the Malak box. You would think—like the last time Cas went insane, that Dean and Sam would be working together to wrangle him in; but that doesn’t seem to be the case in the future that Chuck is showing us. In fact, the entire time Dean is speaking—there is a divide, an obvious separation between what is Sam’s and what is Dean’s. Sam’s intentions versus Dean’s. Sam’s motivations versus Dean’s … and Sam’s heartbreak versus Dean’s. And Sam’s heartbreak has left him chasing a certain death, whereas Dean’s has left him hopeless. It has left him defeated, and it has left him alone. Alone to be the reasonable brother, and he’s emphasizing that with comparisons.

Where Sam is fighting because he lost Eileen—Dean isn’t fighting with him in order to make him see that these battles won’t bring her back. Just like they won’t bring Cas back.If they could, then all the fighting that he did for Castiel would have been worth it. All the hurt, all the spells and trials and prayers and wishes would have saved Dean’s best friend, his reason for going on, his profound bond. Dean would have fought to the ends of the earth; but at some point, he knew—he had to accept that this was it.

And I feel that Castiel had to have accepted it too.He had to be the one to show Dean. He had to be the one to tell Dean to stop.

As an angel, the mark would have affected him differently. He has no soul to twist, so the only thing it could affect is his heart; but—just like when Dean was being overtaken by the mark, the memories, the shadows of his past, what he used to feel and care for were all still there in the back of Cas’s mind, just tapping on his walls, reminding him that whatever this is—isn’t him, just as Dean was probably reminding him with every breath he breathed.

“Cas—this isn’t you! You wouldn’t do this! You need to fight it! Please! Please fight it, Cas!”

And he would be screaming the words so loud and so often, that eventually, one of those walls in Cas’s mind—one of those thick, black walls that the mark had scaffolded inside him, up from his grace, around his heart, all the way along his spine to block out the light in his eyes … one of those walls would crack, just a little, just enough, the slightest shift for Dean’s words to get through. And in that brief, fleeting moment of murky clarity, Castiel—angel of the Lord and best friend of man—one man, would reach out to Dean and convince him that this is as far as they could go.

“Dean—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I have failed you again.”

And with tears in his eyes—brought about by the pure relief of hearing his friend’s voice again, Dean would shake his head as he pulled Cas close. “No, Cas. You were saving us. You saved all of us, just like you always do. You saved me, just like you always do.”

The angel would close his eyes as he embraced his charge one last time, but he would not say aloud that it was their last, because that would be his biggest failure of all. “Dean, you know what has to be done” he said with tears in his own eyes now, because Dean Winchester could always bring them out of him. He could always bring Castiel’s heart to the surface.

“No, Cas. We’ll find a way—we always find a way” but for the first time in his entire life, Dean didn’t actually believe those words.

“Dean … please. I can’t hold the mark back much longer” and as he finally pulled away, feeling that curse yanking on his consciousness like hook and rod, Castiel pleads with the man one last time, looking him the eyes—one last time. Seeing the moment, and hating the moment that Dean realizes this truly is their one last time.

The Malek box was dragged to the garage and loaded into Castiel’s truck; and the entire drive to the coast was silent. No music. No jokes to make light of what this was. No talk of Sam, and how they left him back at the bunker because Dean couldn’t—he just couldn’t take the way his brother was looking at him. How Sam would look at Cas—look down at the cuffs they had put Cas in. Look at the warding they had scrawled across the angel’s trench coat … the angel’s idea, and a good one, but the graffiti was like a thousand stains on a pure white sheet. It was dirty and wrong, and that read loud and clear in Sam’s eyes, and Dean couldn’t take it. “Goodbye, Cas” his little brother said, just before awkwardly hugging the angel, still obviously cautious since the last time they stood so close. That encounter left Sam with a broken nose and three cracked ribs; and it left Dean with PTSD, because only moments later, as his brother laid unconscious on the floor, the darkened angel turned to him and began cutting himself. Dean had to watch in horror as Castiel sliced up and down his own body with his blade—screaming and laughing maniacally, knowing that his own pain would hurt Dean more than anything.

Dean shook his head and focused on the long stretch of highway that would take them to the ocean, not wanting to think about that horrible memory or his brother’s face before they left with the Malek box in tow. He didn’t want to think about any of it, because the hurt would swallow him whole the moment he let his guard down.

“It’s beautiful’ Castiel whispered, standing at the edge of the cliff, watching the moon shine on the open water, blue and bright, just like how his grace used to shine in his eyes.

Dean would remember that moon until his very last breath.

“I don’t want to do this, Cas.” The words came out crooked, lopsided with tears and pain, and the last bit of hope that the angel would turn around and tell him the mark was gone and everything was going to be okay again.

“You have to” was all his friend said—his back still to him, still focusing on the crashing ocean a thousand feet below.

The box was hauled to the edge. An ugly mass on the perfect landscape. A cancer, seeming to grow before Dean’s eyes, threatening to swallow everything in sight … and the only thing the man could see right now was Cas. Cas and the moonlight, and halo it seemed to make above his head.

The angel was the one who opened the box. Dean couldn’t bring himself to do it.

The angel opened it and then stepped inside. He crouched down and then sat, instantly wheezing as the mark fought against his efforts. “Dean! You need to close it now! You need to lock me in!”

The tears began to stream down his face as Dean forced himself to step closer.

“Dean! Now!” Cas screamed, thrashing himself against the metal inside. The mark on his arm burned red-hot, so bright that Dean could see it glowing through the angel’s marked up sleeve. “Dean!”

The man’s knees gave out as he stumbled forward, grabbing the lid to the box and bringing down, until it was just a third of the way from being closed. His tears fell onto Castiel’s shirt, and the angel’s own tears slid down the sides of his face as he looked up into Dean’s eyes for the very last time.

“You … you were the best part of my life” Cas choked, against the lump in his throat and against the mark.

Dean gasped on his sobs, unable to muscle out any response—hand trembling as it continued to hold up the lid of the box.

“Dean, thank you. Thank you for giving me my freedom.”

Dean broke, throwing the lid back as he threw himself forward, embracing his friend, his angel, once more—once more than the angel ever thought he’d get, so Castiel leaned into him, burying his face in Dean’s neck, fighting back the darkness in his mind with every last bit of free will he had.

“I love you, Casitel.”

The words echoed in the box, barely audible through Dean’s sobs, but Castiel heard them—and Castiel felt them, and with a gentle pull from the man’s arms, Castiel pressed his forehead against Dean’s, and he said them back.

For a moment, they stayed that way—and for that moment, there was peace. Peace in the world, peace in Cas’s mind, peace in their hearts. For that moment, all their moments came together; but that moment was stolen in the place of another. That moment was overtaken by the mark, just as it overtook all things.

“Dean!” Castiel threw his head back, his skull cracking against the metal floor, so hard that is made the side of the box shiver against Dean’s chest. “Shut it now!”

“No!” Dean pleaded, but he knew it was no use.

The angel’s eyes flooded black, and a wicked grin slipped across his face. “Aw, what’s the matter, Dean? Didn’t get your goodbye kiss?”

Dean stumbled backwards, watching as the angel he once knew, his best friend and his whole heart, disappeared once and for all.

“Let me out and I’ll give you all the kisses you want.”

The shell of the angel began to rise, but Dean rose faster and brought down the lid on his head.

“No! No! You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you like I did your mother! You’ll be dust when I’m done with you!”

The voice—that once so familiar, so welcomed voice, shrieked and screamed from inside the box, and Dean curled to the ground, holding himself against the night and crying into the dirt. “I’m so sorry” he wept. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you!”

He repeated those words like a mantra, even as he used the last of his strength to push the box to the edge of the cliff. His words hung in the air beneath Cas’s screams as Dean pushed the box over and into the ocean. The moon watched as Dean looked down at the waves, his own tears mixing with them as his words fell too, fell into the chaos with Dean’s heart.

Dean considered throwing himself in as well. If not for Sam, he would have.

Dean alone, stood on the edge of the world and gave up hope.

Dean alone, gave up his everything.

Dean alone.

Dean was alone.

[iwaxpoetic]

fic: like you’d get your knuckles bloody (betty/archie, riverdale)

fandom: riverdale pairing: archie andrews/betty cooper, barchie There were so many choices that felt so small at the time. It seemed as if she blinked while getting a refill of her milkshake at Pop’s and woke up in a forest, covered in her boyfriend’s blood. She had been so many Betties between them - in a bunker, at the farm, chasing down a masked killer, in a black wig, holding Chuck Clayton’s head under water —

Standing beneath her porch light, her heart in her throat while Archie Andrews said, “I can’t give you the answer that you want.”

Was that the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?--

Betty Cooper, before-and-after.

Her sense of narrative structure made her wish it was as easy as a before-and-after.

There was such clarity in a defining moment, in being able to spot the time when everything changed. There was a Cheryl before and after Jason died; a Jughead before and after he slipped on the Serpent jacket; the Breakfast at Tiffany’s Veronica before she turned In Cold Blood.

There was no clean before-and-after for Betty Cooper. There were so many choices that felt so small at the time. It seemed as if she blinked while getting a refill of her milkshake at Pop’s and woke up in a forest, covered in her boyfriend’s blood. She had been so many Betties between then - in a bunker, at the farm, chasing down a masked killer, in a black wig, holding Chuck Clayton’s head under water —

Standing beneath her porch light, her heart in her throat while Archie Andrews said, “I can’t give you the answer that you want.”

Was that the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?

——

The old Betty, wherever she began and ended, was characterized by her discipline.

Every day, she suited up in her prim cardigans and slick ponytail, ready for another day as the dutiful daughter, the doting sister, the star student. She could handle any pop quiz, any turbulence in the Cooper household, any pressing deadlines at the Blue and Gold. When the pressure got to be too much, she would clench her fists and breathe through it.

And every night, she looked out her bedroom window at what she really wanted. Second floor, second window from the back, calling to her like a lighthouse. Archie’s window was lit up at all hours of the day and night, whether he was strumming his guitar or dozing off with a movie on. It was her nightlight. She fell asleep to its comforting glow, knowing their time would come one day.

She had to be disciplined, because she was hungry. Sometimes it scared her, how strongly she felt. There was a bottomless pit of want inside of her and she tiptoed around it, testing the edges but never letting herself fall in. Betty didn’t want to be the kind of person who was dragged around by her id. She wanted to be the person that other people thought she was. Sometimes that meant sleepless nights helping Polly learn her cheer routine, piling more volunteer hours on top of her already packed schedule, turning the other cheek to another Blossom insult.

Season five Betty Draper, Cheryl had once called her, as if she knew the half of it.

——

Betty had never thought Archie would love her in the exact way that she loved him.

She knew that love took different shapes in each container. She could see the way her mother and father fit together, pushing and pulling but ultimately a team, making each other better - a real laugh, in retrospect. One of her favorite memories was being eight years old, when Alice had just broken a big story. The pride lit her up from the inside and Hal’s beaming face reflected it right back. But she had also watched from next door as the Andrews fell apart. Fred and Mary lost something that seemed sweet and steady and kind, and then Fred puttered around that big house alone.

She thought about what that love might feel like, when it finally came.

Archie was all sweetness. Being his girlfriend would mean never walking to school alone, sporting his letterman jacket at games, and dancing together at prom. It would be afternoons working on a jalopy in the garage and nights cuddling together on the sofa. He would write songs about her and she would proofread his college essays and they would move to New York together after graduation.

It would be an awful lot like being his friend had been since they turned 13 and their parents had put a moratorium on sleepovers, except that she would get to touch the abs that had been taunting her. The heart that beat under those defined pectoral muscles was pure gold and it was an even better prize.

Something murkier lay beneath the surface for Betty. Sometimes she wondered if she loved him or if she coveted him. She wanted to know every thought in his head, every dream in his heart. Long before the school hallways had started to echo with Archie got hot!, she had been daydreaming about ways to get his hands on her. There were no dibs on a person, but she saw him first and had seen only him since.

Betty had never thought that Archie would burn for her, but she basked in his steady glow. Archie lived closer to the surface - he wore his heart on his sleeve and an easy smile on his face. That was one of the things she loved about him. They would be so happy together, but his devotion would never match hers.

It wasn’t until she was standing at the edge of a shallow grave, looking down at his terrified, resolved face with a shovel in her hand and a gun to her head, that she realized they may have misjudged each other.

——

A dam had broken in Betty Cooper earlier that fall.

It could have been one thing or any number of things —  Veronica Lodge sweeping into town, Polly’s mysterious disappearance, Jason Blossom’s body washing up in Sweetwater River. It was an unusually active September, especially by Riverdale’s sleepy standards.

For Betty, it felt like the foundation had been cracking. With one firm tap, it was gone.

You are so perfect. I’ve never been good enough for you, I’ll never be good enough for you.

The careful balancing of what she should want versus what she did want is what had kept her in check for all these years. No one else seemed to have the same qualms. Betty couldn’t imagine Cheryl or Veronica denying themselves a thing. In fact, she knew they wouldn’t. Veronica had talked a big game about turning over a new leaf, but after less than a week in Riverdale, Veronica had seven minutes in a closet and Betty had a box of Magnolia cupcakes.

Only Betty had the discipline to decide to be something and then become it. It had gotten harder for her to see how that was a good thing.

— —

Jughead’s interest in Betty was both a balm and a sting.

Boys had never been interested in her. She wasn’t sure if it was because word of her strict parents preceded her or because her crush on Archie was so obvious that it was not worth getting their hopes up. Whatever the reason, she had made it sixteen years without being asked to the drive-in, having a note slipped in her locker, or having rocks thrown at her window by someone who wanted to date her. She did all those things with her best friend and had become aware that it was not the same.

Until Jughead crawled through her window and gave her her first real kiss, she didn’t realize exactly how different it was.

Being on the other side of the equation was a revelation. It was amazing to think that there was someone who liked her more than anyone else, who thought about her when she wasn’t around, who wanted to kiss her and hold her hand and maybe more one day. Jughead was a good person - he was cute and smart, with a wicked sense of humor that tickled at the dark side she kept such a lid on - but what made him special is that he thought she was special. Betty had never come first to anyone before and she dove into intimacy with the same enthusiasm and determination that she put into any task.

But it was her way to acknowledge the cloud even while she focused on the silver lining. Besides her, Jughead was Archie’s best friend in the world. If other boys had avoided her due to some unspoken claim, surely he would find her to be even further off limits. If Jughead liked her, it was because Archie never would.

Somehow it was more devastating than the rejection itself. A dramatic showdown in formalwear still fit with the narrative that she had imagined for Archie-and-Betty. Power couples faced obstacles. Even after homecoming, even after Melody, even after Veronica, a part of her still though she should be patient. It was the utter lack of drama in her courtship with Jughead that made it real. There was nothing to be dramatic about.

She made her peace with it, first with her nails dug into her palms but then genuinely. The pieces of her heart felt like they were rearranging. Jughead had burst his way in and made his home right in the center. The part that housed her feelings for Archie was smaller, but the scars had made the walls thick and tough.

She would always love him and now she knew what shape it would take. She felt lucky to have enough love in her life that she could feel the difference.

It took a few months, but Betty started to think Jughead might be her soulmate. They both felt a personal obligation to clean up Riverdale’s seedy underbelly, loved books and old movies, and, most importantly, they hated the same things about her. On his lips, “perfect” was scornful. After all of those years pursuing perfection, she wasn’t too fond of it herself.

——

People gave you a wide berth in the aftermath of a showdown with a killer.

Betty was distracted and distant in the weeks following the altercation with Joseph Svenson. People around town stared and whispered even more than usual, but they looked at her with pity and awe in their eyes. Even her mother and Jughead gave her space, assuming that she was reeling after weeks of cat-and-mouse.

When she was alone, Betty didn’t think about Joseph Svenson at all. She thought about Archie Andrews.

It wasn’t about the kiss, although it was hardly the one she had scripted for them long ago. She thought about the way that he had grabbed her hand as she put the pieces together and started to spiral, the only thing tethering her to this earth. She thought about how instantly he had responded to Get in the coffin or I’ll shoot her in the head right now.

To be willing to die for someone was the kind of sweeping statement of love and dedication that was easy to say because it was so unlikely to be tested. It was reserved for the most important people in your life, the ones that you would do anything to protect. When she was in danger, Archie hadn’t batted an eye. When she closed her eyes, all she could see was him lowering himself into a coffin for her. She had been looking at that face for years and years, had known it when it had a beaming smile of mismatched baby teeth, had admired its changing angles. His jaw was clenched but his eyes were as warm as ever when the lid closed over him.

It was unbelievable to think that only weeks ago, kisses and milkshakes had made her feel special. It wasn’t fair to hold up a high school romance against the ultimate sacrifice, but the tectonic plates of her life had shifted again. It was a secret humming under her skin. It was heady to know that there was someone in the world who would do anything for you.

In a way, the showdown with the Black Hood was the most romantic night of her life. That was Riverdale for you.

— —

Betty stopped thinking about Hal Cooper almost as soon as he was locked away. She had spent so much time pouring over the Black Hood and puzzling over her family secrets that when she tried to align the man with the father, none of the pieces fit quite right anymore. After the loss of Hal and Polly, the Cooper family structure coalesced neatly around Betty and Alice as if it had always just been them.

Compartmentalizing and moving on was another discipline that Betty excelled at. Most of the time, anyway.

She thought about Fred Andrews all the time. The lights were out in Archie’s room for the first time that she could remember, but she knew that he was home. The loss was unspeakable, so she never tried.

— —

Even for someone good at compartmentalizing, it could be hard for Betty to separate the way she felt about Veronica from how she felt about Veronica Lodge.

The simple truth is that they were friends because Veronica had decided they were friends. Betty had been skeptical but a little bit flattered. She had written Veronica off at first, sure that she would move on and nestle in at Cheryl's side like two rich bitch peas in a pod, but she had persisted.

No one had ever wanted to be her friend that desperately. Despite what her frilly pink sweaters might imply, she had never been much of a girl’s girl. Her only real friends were Archie and Kevin. That had always been more than enough for her, but there was something to be said for having Veronica in her corner.

But the only person better at compartmentalizing than Betty was Veronica Lodge. Veronica could claim that she was destined to be Betty’s best friend while snatching her lifelong crush out from under her. She could disavow her family’s shady business dealings, then join Lodge Industries and keep quiet about their plans for the Southside. She could love Archie, then sit by while her father destroys his life.

Betty had been tap dancing around questions of morality for a while. One did not get to make too many principled stances when their boyfriend was a gang leader who once partially skinned a woman, and she tried not to throw too many stones from inside a house where she had once blackmailed Cheryl Blossom into testifying on behalf of FP Jones. As she started to shed more and more of her Nice Girl persona, Betty thought she had become more understanding of all the gray in the world.

In a sweltering court room after Labor Day weekend, Betty had found the thing she could never forgive. She watched stupid - noble, self-sacrificing, stupid - Archie jump at a plea deal for a crime he had not committed, all to spare them another trial. Veronica had cried and dropped her head into her hands, but Betty could still see flickers of her in Hiram Lodge’s satisfied smile.

Betty held her friend as she cried and clamped down on her latest intrusive thought - none of this would be happening if it weren’t for you. From learning to read to wrestling him from Ms. Grundy’s clutches, there had never been a problem Betty could not solve for Archie until he crossed Hiram’s path. There was nothing Betty wouldn't do for Archie, but there was nothing she could do for him now, so she averted her teary eyes and tried not to let in the darkness that always seemed so close to the surface now.

Meeting Veronica Lodge was the worst thing that had ever happened to any of them.

— —

When Betty used to dream of Archie as the leading man in every romance, she had imagined kissing him with a frequency that made her blush to think about even now.

She had been inexperienced and was not even sure what she was longing for. In her mind’s eye, she saw him in everything -  the foot pop at the end of The Princess Diaries, the foggy window in Titanic, on the dock in The Notebook - hell, even Spiderman dangling upside down in the rain. It was a collage of images that she could not quite attach a sensation to, but it made her blood run a bit hotter.

When Betty tried to flesh out her fantasies, she relied on a few tangible things she did know - the smell of his cologne, which she had picked out; his increasingly hard biceps, flexing under her fingers when they linked arms on the way to school; the way his hair felt when she playfully ruffled it; the slow drag of his fingers across her back and stomach, when he was winding up to tickle her.

It was almost like an out of body experience when she flung the microphone to the ground. Betty was somewhere else in the garage as she and Archie sang, circling the microphone, their traded glances growing less playful and more searching, until he swung the guitar behind his back and reached for her.

The touch of his hand was like it had always been, the tether that held her to earth and made sure she didn’t miss a thing. Betty had never been more present. After all those years of patience and restraint, she couldn’t get close enough.

— —

There was no clear before-and-after for Archie Andrews.

He had come a long way from being the boy-next-door. He had been the star football player and the sensitive musician. He had been groomed by his music teacher and apprenticed at the foot of a mobster. He had started a youth center for the underprivileged and shattered his hand pulling Cheryl Blossom out of a frozen river. It felt like a lifetime ago that it had just been Betty and Archie in a booth at Pop’s, but Betty didn’t feel like he had changed at all. When she looked into his eyes, she saw the same person staring back at her that she always had.

When there was such a bone-deep understanding, how could she ever feel like he was different? With every step he took, she was right there too.

It dawned on Betty that maybe her before-and-after had happened long before she started looking for it. There was a Betty Cooper before she loved Archie Andrews and she had been living in the after since she was 11 years old.

She flipped through her diaries, years and years of little choices. Her next one felt big.

[alittlebitbrave]

Favourite chuck episodes from any season?

hi friend!!

season 1 - pilot (”not sure i can receive calls because i never got one from you” OK SARAH WALKER COMIN OUT SWINGING), versus the tango, versus the imported hard salami (how could you not like this one?!), vs the nemesis. 

season 2 - versus the first date (a given, I feel), versus the seduction, versus the break up, versus the cougars, versus the delorean, versus the santa claus, versus the suburbs (wow s2 had so many bangers didn’t it?!), versus the broken heart, versus the first kill, versus the colonel, versus the ring 

season 3 - versus the three words, versus angel de la muerte, versus the beard, versus the other guy (!!!!!), versus the role models

season 4 - versus the suitcase, versus the cubic Z, versus the first fight, versus phase three, versus the leftover, versus the balcony, versus the seduction impossible, versus the first bank of evil, versus the cliffhangers

season 5 - (i’m gonna be honest i’ve prob only seen this a couple times). versus the baby, versus the bullet train, versus sarah, versus the goodbye 

[victorianoir]

Do you think Sarah was in love with Chuck before Chuck truly fell in love with her? I’m rewatching 2.07 and just couldn’t stop thinking about him telling Sarah it feels good to be with someone who knows the real him and I struggle with his feelings/attitude/actions towards Sarah in the Jill arc and just how broken Sarah seems during it. Just made me curious what your thoughts were during those episodes! :)

I think Chuck is a huge massive colossal IDIOT about Jill 100% of the time. In my head, Sarah does fall for Chuck around the same time he falls for her, MAYBE a little sooner? I don’t think she knows it, but she definitely fell for him at some point during that very first date. She literally says that in Chuck Versus the Other Guy.

But as for the Jill arc (barf!!!!), Chuck is a complete and total jackass through all of that, but I also think the poor guy is just trying to find something he can hold onto that is *normal*. He’s still in love with Sarah through all of it. But he’s immature (they both are) and has HUGE hangups with Sarah but especially with Jill. Jill is like his kryptonite and not in a positive way, like how some people use it sometimes. She’s literally like.... Chuck poison. He absolutely puts WAY too much importance on his relationship with her in college, probably because it was most likely the only big relationship he had before Sarah came along. And it ended so horribly and was linked with such a catastrophic event in his life. 

So he has this idealized vision of Jill from college, in spite of the fact that she treated him like SHIT when she found out he “cheated” and got expelled. But then on top of that, the Intersect has uprooted his existence. Everything is up in the air. Nothing is solid. Nothing is there to reassure him or make him feel like his feet are on the ground. He can’t even be with the woman he loves because she’s his handler and a CIA agent. And here comes this piece of his past before all of the Intersect shit, someone who like got her fucking talons all buried in him, and she knows just how to manipulate him to make him think she loves him which is like...21 year old Chuck’s DRREEEAAAMMMM... and she uses the shit out of him. 

Like imagine....Jill knows about his involvement with the feds, knows Casey and Sarah are agents...and she’s totally disconnected from all of it and wants to be with him. Finally he has something to hold onto.

Am I excusing the way he treats Sarah? No. He says some shit. And he’s an idiot. But I think she gets everything I talked about too...to a degree. He wants and deserves something regular, something grounding, someone he can actually be with. And it hurts for her to see him like that with another woman, but she’s realistic about the fact that she and Chuck just aren’t gonna happen because they can’t. (But also she’s like wtf Chuck she used you and destroyed your heart can you at least find a better one cuz this one’s shit)

That all said, I do feel like Sarah might’ve fallen first, BUT I don’t think the Jill arc is a good determination of whether Chuck’s in love with Sarah or not. I think he’s a fucking idiot...who still loves Sarah even if he’s trying to date Jill again.

[wiz-witch]

DuckTales 2k17 3x03: Double O Duck In You Only Crash Twice

"The Lost Harp of Mervana!" So fun fact: all I know about James Bond is from the Mythbusters episode, that Jimmy Neutron special, and Goldmember. And I haven’t seen either of those in over a decade. So let’s see how many references fly over my head.

Also this is my second viewing but I’m going to try to keep my commentary as if this is my first

“Dew-ble O Duck” Dewey, sweetie, I will pay you to stop

Wait her name is Red Feather? Boo

Obviously evil guy is obviously evil

“What are you doing?” Being a theater kid with middle child syndrome

...Wait, Ben can sing??

Okay, that was impressive

Yay foreshadowing

Dewey: “Oh fuck, he’s messing up, this was a bad plan”

Daw, Dewey calls him LP

Also I cannot get over the fact the glasses they were wearing in the released screenshots were VR glasses

Hey, it’s the Phantom Blot! I can’t wait until you do something cool this season

My favorite House of Mouse shorts were the ones with him (and one where Von Drake tried to take Mickey’s heart. Yup, the show had more influence on Epic Mickey than causing the company to get Oswald back)

Aw, he sad :(

“Am I a joke to you, lad?”

“Uncle McDee”?? :D :D :D

Webby is a bro, and Scrooge is everyone’s uncle

Ball pits are terrifying, and this just proves it

I love how Heron’s welding mask is built to compensate for her mask. It makes her look like a plague doctor

Yes, intruders in the very public Chuck E Cheese knock off. Geeze, got Magica working there, got Phantom Blot as the mascot, got a FOWL lair underneath... Frank? Why is there so much evil in the Chuck E Chee--oh, wait, never mind

Are we ever going to get the full intro with Della?

Yeah, his kids come here all the time, why are you surprised at this?

He’s asking the important questions

She didn’t want to answer because she made it

I love Whack a Mole. I had a home version even

That is such a mood. I hate being in public.

...Ouch. Those things are heavy

...That’s all.

That legitimately looked like something out of the Carmen Sandiego choose your own adventure

Wait, how did they even know the passcode in the first place? It’s not like they were given a briefing or anything

...what.

Dewey has the brain cell at the table

jlkajlkdajlkdsj SOMEONE PLEASE GET ME A REACTION GIF OF DEWEY SILENTLY GOING ‘WHAT?’ WHILE WATCHING THIS DISASTER

I love the cutting between the game and reality. I also love how Steelbeak felt the need to put on the glasses to beat them up

Webby, that is not how you hold a skee ball

Himbo versus... Is there a term for a himbo who’s an ass? Is it just “attractive idiot”?

...Did I just imply that Steelbeak is attractive? Ew

Webby was right, it is a trap!

Okay, as someone who’s been hit in the face a lot and wears glasses, those glasses should’ve broken from that

Oh my gods...

Aw, sad baby

Ooh, are these the guys I have beat up Huey in my FOWL fics?

Did Steelbeak spend too much time with Quackerjack or something?

...Okay, part of me is actually highly disturbed at the fact Steelbeak changed their clothes while they were unconscious

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chip and Dale! Rescue Rangers...

they play the f*cking theme song...

Daw, he helped them, and they helped in return

Oh snap

Webby is DoneTM

“This department has worked 322 days without an accident” I feel like that’s a facility record. Would be at my work

.......what.

I love how he didn’t know what the device did and knew it was a game and still sacrificed himself for Dewey. That’s adorable

Did you guys really get multiple lives in that game? Because it seemed kinda insta-lose

Also, are the glasses currently off or are they still seeing things differently than we are?

Oh, I think this is a direct Bond reference--it looks like something from Jet Fusion

Why is he British?

...Please give us our himbo back. Please. I will pay money for that.

Aw, he calls him Dewford now. I do not like this, please make it stop.

...was that English?

Me either

“Oh heavens, you don’t want them to think you don’t know what you’re doing” My constant monologue at work

that was epic

Why is he still wearing the glasses?

“They’re back?” Okay, those two words bring a lot of questions I want answers to

Huh. Guess I wrote the wrong triplet getting kidnapped by FOWL

#priorities

Scrooge... Sweetie...

I love how Webby keeps wanting to kill Funzos employees... Oh, what if all of them secretly are part of FOWL?

...Except Magica. Maybe she was hired so they could see if she was FOWL material

Oh, I wanna break that innocence so much...

....... [slams head on desk]

Okay, how could Launchpad hear Dewey clear as day, but Dewey can’t hear anything Launchpad is saying?

Aw, that fear on Dewey’s face when Launchpad crashed... Oh, what if unconsciously Dewey knows this is real now but hasn’t quite consciously processed that?

He’s Launchpad McQuack, that’s how.

Dewey is Done with this guy and is showing signs of being like his brother

Well that’s unnecessarily badass

How can you be so DoneTM when being tied up like that. Also why is he tied up up there

Boo, bad pun

No, “Me” was correct there

I’m sorry, is that just going to become their thing? Just casually coming into a scene to help rescue the Ducks and then leaving?

...Oh you are not doing this.

We were robbed of a hug

Okay, the subtitles say this is Dewey singing, but it doesn’t quite sound like his voice while his song earlier did. WTF

"Stop the evil conspiracy out to get us.” Hey, Launchpad, before you do this, PLEASE TELL HIM ABOUT FOWL SO SOMEONE KNOWS

Launchpad has ADHD and RSD

That was adorable. Dewey is a good kid. Reminds me of half my cousins, but a good kid

...Wait, wasn’t that shot in the original season 3 promo?

Dewey, why did you jump, that was really unnecessary

Well, there’s that hug I wanted

...what.

Because of a joke from a friend, I’m mentally retconning that line into “Huey’s going to freak when I tell him that I--we beat the game.”

Seriously, I love how it took him not being in an episode to not have a mild breakdown

I hate how realistic that is

Let’s see, one ball got him 2 tickets, and one quarter gave him 5 balls...so one quarter equals 10 tickets, which means a dollar equals 40 tickets... That comes out to 75 grand. Scrooge, wtf

I love how Dewey clearly is trying not to crack up

I’m sorry. I cannot get over the subtitles calling him “Suave-Pad”. Who on the crew came up with that.

Ooh, are they going to learn?

...I hate everything.

Scrooge’s reaction is mine

Well, that explains a lot

Okay, if she specializes in rays but Bradford doesn’t want more rays... Imagine them looking for fresh brain...

Shut up, I like hurting Huey, let me do so in peace until canon gives me the conspiracy theorist Huey hunting down FOWL I was promised

...Okay, that is the most terrifying thing this episode.

Me picking up pretty much anything in the house for the first four years of my sister’s life

So what’s next week? ["The Lost Harp of Mervana!"] ...ARNY MAERMADIDS NEAZXT WEK!

[nitephoenix]

Second Chance Confessionals

Warning: Desperada Spoilers (some small Refekdoll references too), some angst, few curses, and longer than I intended .

Notes: so i basically re-wrote the episodes ending some. I'm on mobile so forgive any bs mistakes. This is also my first fic for any fandom ever, but I'm a sucker for reveals. Anyways, enjoy my trash writing!

******

He was on his 25,903rd try.

He knew it would probably fail. Just like everytime before. Maybe it was his selfish need to succeed, save her, have her praise him, Adrien, as her savior. Maybe it was the fear of being anything less than perfection, instilled in his head from his father. But he just couldn't give up yet. They always succeeded someway or another when he was Chat Noir. So, why wasn't it working as Apsik?!

He knew. Oh, he knew it would fail yet again. So, what the hell? Might as well get a practice confession in there, right?

"You know, Ladybug?" Her beautiful blue eyes turned to him as they ran for their lives yet again.

"I'm also Chat Noir, and I've been in love with you ever since our eyes met-".

A number of emotions flashed on her features in those few milliseconds. But upon the love declaration, her eyes blew wide and she tripped over her own feet. He stopped in his tracks as a golden shot from Desperada just missed the fallen Ladybug.

Thinking quickly, he jumped a top of her, rolling them under one of the parked vehicles on the road. Just before Desperada fired off another shot. Ladybug was still staring at him with wide eyes.

Well, this could have gone better.

Right next to them was a man hole cover. Before he could process it, Ladybug threw off the cover and dragged him into the sewers. Above them the car disappeared as they started to run to a more secluded area. In reality, Ladybug ran and dragged him behind her. His mind all the while screaming, "Danger! "Danger!". She all but chucked him into a supply room, slamming the door behind her. Her back was facing him, both hands on the door and as tense as a coiled spring.

Boy, was he royally fucked.

Fidgeting with the lyre, he began, "La...Ladyb-".

"Don't. Speak."

She finally turned to him. Her hand up commanding he pause. Her face appeared void of emotion, but he knew that fire burning in her eyes meant he was in for it. All through, why were her cheeks red?

She closed her eyes. "I'm...I'm about 100% certain I heard you correctly." She took a deep breath and exhaled, finally opening her eyes and looking dead into his. "But, I need you to repeat what you said...one more time."

"Ladybug, I really don't think that's necessa-".

"Aspik."

"I..I can j-just reset everything and it'll be-".

"Adrien."

"R-really it's no biggie! Just let me use my powe-".

"CHAT NOIR! ENOUGH!"

He flinched away from her. She had her fist clinched, face still flushed, and eyes that could kill. "Repeat what you said. Right. Now."

He sighed, dropping his head, and slowly repeated his untimely confession. "I said, 'I'm also Chat Noir, and I've been in love with you since our eyes met.'..but really, it's been since you told off Hawkmoth on the Eiffel tower when we defeated Stoneheart." He didnt dare look up at her. He still had a little time before his transformation gave out. If he timed this right, he could get it all off his chest, use Second Chance, and this could all just be added to the bad memories from today. He lifted his head. Just as she was about to open her mouth, he let it all out.

"You chose me. Adrien. You trusted ME with helping you, saving you. And I..I just thought that maybe...since Chat Noir can't have your love, maybe Adrien could? But I failed. I failed and I failed and each time I had to watch you die and start all over. O-only for you to just die in front of me again! But I couldn't give up, because what good is Adrien if he can't keep you safe! What would there be about me to love if I fail as your partner?!" At that point he had tears blocking his vision, and he couldn't see the tears falling from her eyes aswell. He was too far in to stop now.

"No matter what I do, I'm just a screw up! I can barely be a good friend as Adrien, I can't save you as Aspik, I need you to guide me as Mister Bug, and I'm n-nothing but a-a clown as Chat Noir!" He was heaving from the outburst. Eyes pouring with all the held back emotions. She stared back at him with tear streaks etched down her lovely face.

Now she seen him for all he was. A failure and screw up no matter the mask he paraded around in.

"I don't deserve you to love me. Not as Chat Noir, and definitely not as Adrien. I'm going to stop pursuing you. You deserve someone better than me to love you and protect you. I hope that boy you love is everything you need him to be, that I can't be. You wont have to worry though. I won't let you remember my identity, or just how much I've really let you down." He reached for the Miraculous, about to turn back the clock once again. A whizzing sound filled the room. Ladybug's yo-yo konked him in the center of his forhead, causing him to stager back a bit and reach up.

"OW! What the heck was that for?! I was about to fix this!"

Her yo-yo was on the ground, string slack, and she had a panicked look in her teary eyes.

"Y-you ridiculous..snake. Cat. Cat-snake, boy. Whatever! How..how DARE you!" She was trembling. Her voice was cracking and laced with hurt. But she did her best to hold steady to anger.

"How could you possibly thin-". She started speaking when teal sparkling light engulfed Aspik, returning him to Adrien. Sass landed in his palms, clearly exhausted.

"I'm sorry Sass. I shouldn't have kept trying. All I have is some camembert." He reached in his shirt and handed the cheese to the exhausted Kwami.

"Thank you, Adrien. I understand." Sass began to nibble the smelly cheese. Plagg, having witnessed everything, floated down from his perch a top the lockers next to Sass.

Seeing Plagg was like a bullet to the heart for each teen, but for different reasons. Adrien began silently berating himself. How could he have pushed Plagg aside so easily? Just for a love he could never obtain? He really was the absolute worst.

Unaware that across the room, Ladybug was having an internal crisis. Seeing him turn back to Adrien made it real. Seeing Plagg in his hand however, made that reality sink in.

"Oh my god...oh god..", she whispered to herself. Falling to her butt and leaning back on the door. She just stared across the room. What was she supposed to do now?

Adrien looked over at the shell-shocked Ladybug. He sighed and sank down to the floor, moving the Kwamis so his lap. He gave a humorless chuckle, "I guess I really messed up this time. And I can't turn back time so you'll forget it. But, before you take Plagg, can I help you beat Desperada and tell him goodbye?"

That got her attention.

"Wait...t-take Plagg? Why would I-".

"I blew my secret identity. I'm a lousy Snake and obviously don't deserve to keep being Chat with my identity comprised. Like Chloe with Queen Bee. It would be too dangerous with you knowing, right? And I...I can't put you in anymore danger. Just please, this one last mission and a goodbye?"

He thought- no. He couldn't possibly think she'd do that...right? But his speech replayed in her head. How little he thought of himself in all his forms. How undeserving he felt of love and how much he felt the need to prove his worth. Had she done this to him? All the rejections? Unknowingly crushing her own crush? And then there was his damn father. She swore if she could she'd tie Gabriel up and dangle him over the Seine until he vowed to treat Adrien like an actually son. Not some over glorified employee. She slowly dragged herself over infront of Adrien, sitting on her knees. He looked broken and bewildered. She noticed his hand cup against Plagg ever so slightly. Maybe he did make a huge mistake, but she needed to help him see not all was lost.

"Adrien, I'm not going to take Plagg."

"W-what? But..I..".

"Yes, you messed up. You revealed your identity and now that can't be fixed. But you didn't fail, Adrien. Your power was to turn back time when something went wrong so we could fix it. And that's exactly what you did. You still saved me. So you messed up a few times, it-".

"25,903."

Ladybug stopped. Furrowing her brows she asked, "What?"

"This was the 25,903rd time I tried. I would of probably tried about 10 more before finally giving up. It..its been months, and I still failed." He looked up at her. He seemed so fragile and small though she knew he wasn't. He tried for months. Months?! Oh dear god. She had to get him to see it was okay. That she was okay.

"An-and you still saved me."

He looked at her skeptical for a beat, "How?.."

"I'm here, right? I tripped and Desperada almost got me, but you rolled us under that truck and saved me again!" She held out her hand for his. "See? I'm right here and safe. Thanks to you."

He tentatively took hold of her hand. He knew she was alright, but feeling her there made it so much better.

"Besides, it wasn't all your fault. I was so caught up in the fact that you were, well, you." She gestured to him with her free hand, " That I got a bit distracted and wasn't on my A-game."

Wait. What? Why would he distract her? He narrowed his eyes. She was a whole lot more responsive and, well, "un-Ladybug" like around him versus Chat.

Ladybug could see the gears in his head turning. Damn her blabbering mouth whenever he was around. Oh god, she just realized again that he was ALWAYS around. She looked down at Plagg, who wore the biggest shit-eating grin she'd ever seen. Amusement twinkling clearly in his acidic eyes. He had to know about her crush. He knew, and the little cheesy bastard was having the time of his life. She prayed to Tikki for any extra Ladybug luck and back pedaled as fast as she could.

"Ahhhh hehe well... you see what I meant was-".

"ADREIN! LADYBUG! Where are you guys!?"

Their heads whipped to the door. Luka was looking for them. Ladybug got to her feet, thanking Tikki for the distraction. "We need to let him know we're okay." As she reached for the handle, a large hand took hold of her wrist. She turned and, since when did Adrien get a whole head taller than her?

"Ladybug, I know we still have alot to talk about, but I think I know at least one way to fix some of my mess. Brave, determined, and kind? I think Luka would make a much better snake than I did." She started at him for a moment. Her brain almost failing to process what he meant.

"What about you?"

He smiled softly and looked over to Plagg sitting on his shoulder. "I think all black suits me much better, wouldn't you agree M'lady?" Her jaw dropped. She knew it now. But every little detail just concreted it more into her head. The boy she'd been so hopeless for was also her partner. And apparently, just as hopeless for her. She had to get out of her own head and get back into "Ladybug mode" if she wanted any chance to beat Desperada. She looked up to him and nodded. "Okay, Luka it is, Kitty." His smile could've lighted up the room.

"I, uh, I guess I'll suit up first? Plagg, Claws Out!" Before she could object, a green flash burst through the room. When she was able to see, there in Adrien's place, stood Chat Noir. He pulled the Snake Miraculous from his pocket and placed it back in its box, "we um...we better get going if we want to beat Desperada fast." All she could do was nod and watch as he opened the door and called for Luka.

"Luka! Over here!" The guitarist rounded the corner, spotting them and came to their sides.

"I'm so glad you guys are alright but um...where's Adrien? He was supposed to be hiding in the lockers with me but wasn't there." Chat put a hand on his shoulder and told him, "Adrien's fine. We hid him somewhere else so you would'nt be found at the same time. But we do have a favor to ask of you."

"If it's anything I can do to help my family and friends, just name it," Luka said with a smile.

Chat held out the box, " Luka Couffaine, this is the miraculous of the snake, it grants the power of second chance. You will use it for the greater good. You'll return it to Ladybug when the battles over." He looked down at Ladybug smiling, then back to Luka. "Can we count on you?"

Luka took the box from Chat with a determined, "Without a doubt!"

***********

Desperada was finally defeated. Luka returned the snake to Ladybug. "Thank you for helping us today, Luka. I hope we can count on you if we ever need Viperieon again."

"You sure can, Ladybug. But don't we need to go get Adrien out of his hiding spot?" Before she could reply, Chat stepped in, "Don't worry. We'll go get him and send him up sssssupper quick," and gave Luka a wink. With that Ladybug grabbed Chat before he could protest, and they swung off. Luka cast them one last knowing look before heading back to the ship.

In an alley near the Couffaine ship, Ladybug landed, letting go of Chat and hugging her arms around her self.

"M'lady, are you okay? I know we need to talk, but we only have a few minutes left." She looked up at him stunned. "You aren't going to ask about my identity?"

Chat shook his head and lowered it. "I messed up today, bug. I know you didn't want to reveal ourselves to each other, and...I disrespected you. I knew you didn't want to and I did it anyways. I should of known that even after 25,903 times it could have possibly worked, but I took the chance anyways assuming it wouldn't. And here we are. I'm lucky enough you're letting me keep Plagg. I don't deserve to-".

"ENOUGH!" Ladybug erupted with fury. "Don't you DARE say that you don't deserve to stay a hero or deserve something like love, or respect, or attention or..or anything! Don't you dare say you're not worthy of those basic human things! You shouldn't have to fight for someone's love or time! You aren't a clown or a screw up! You save me everyday. Every. Single. Day. You're the one person I can always count on. Sometimes even out of the mask! You're not useless or a failure! And...and I," tears started to fall from her mask, " I'm so, so sorry if I've ever been one of the people who made you feel like that, Adrien!" She jamed the balls of hands into her eyes trying to stop the tears. Meanwhile, Chat's body went rigid at the sound of his civilian name. Still trying to think of what she meant by "out of the mask", bright pink light flowed down Ladybug's form, leaving a crying Marinette Dupain-Cheng in her place. Tikki flew into her purse, knowing this would have come sooner or later.

Chat about had a stroke. Of all the people, he would have never imagined he'd be lucky enough to find Marinette under the Ladybug mask. Before his heart could soar, it crumbled. She was with Luka, wasn't she? He must be the guy she talked about being in love with. He could see why. At least he got to be her friend, right? "Marinette...?"

Her face whipped up twoards him, then down to herself. "Oh no. Oh my god. Master Fu's going to be so upset! Hawkmoth is going to win cause now you know an-".

"Marinette! It's okay!" Chat took a hold of her hands, bringing her back down to earth. "Just breath for a minute. In. Out. In. Out. Better?" She nodded up at him. "It"s okay, I..I didn't mean to upset you," he looked up to the sky, "I just can't stop messing up today." He looked back down at her. "We need to get you back to Luka. I'm sure he'll make you feel better. We can sort all the rest of this out later if you want."

"Why do I need to see Luka?"

"He...", it was killing him to say this," He's your boyfriend." Marinette stared at him like he had a second head. He felt his transformation give out, leaving Adrien Agreste standing in an alley, holding hands with Marinette, who looked like she just seen a ghost.

"Cha-A-Adrien. Luka isn't my b-boyfriend."

Oh.

"Oh...okay, s-sorry. Still...everyone is probably wondering where we are. And I have to get back to my house soon since 'practice should be over'. Ya know?" He was about to let go of her hands when Marinette's grip tightened.

"Adrien, I know you to need. I-I mean need you to know! UGH!" She dropped her head, taking a deep breath. She picked her head up but kept her eyes closed. Picturing she was just talking to Chat. "I need you to know that I never meant for you to feel unwanted. I meant what I said when we fought Anansi, you're irreplaceable to me. As a f-friend, as a partner, as...as anything more." He seen a blush spread across her cheeks. "You're never a failure to me. As Chat Noir or as A-Adrien. You're brave, kind, compassionate, smart, and you are actually pretty funny...you just have terrible timing." She finally opened her eyes and looked up at him. "I'm really glad you're my kitty."

He started at her, a goofy smile stretched across his face. "I'm the luckiest black cat in the world to have you as my lady." Both of them stared at each other for a moment. Cheeks red, and small smiles adorning thier faces. Marinette felt a bit bold, so she let go of his hands and cupped one of his cheeks. She lifted up on her tippy toes and pressed a small kiss to his other cheek. Much like she had the day of their class picnic. "Everday Ladybug", he had called her. Boy, if he only knew. She backed away a step while he was still in awe. She looked so shy and embarrassed. He thought it was absolutely adorable.

Adrien decided to break the silence first, "So...um, what do we do now?"

Marinette looked up at him, cheeks still a rosey shade. "I guess, maybe we go speak to the guardian later. He needs to know we know about...each other. We will also have to be more careful now, I think. We..we can talk more tonight, on patrol. I don't want your father or Ms. Tsurugi to to be upset with you or...Kagami."

His hand went up to the back of his neck. "Yea, me either. So, we can talk more tonight?"

"Tonight." She smiled up at him. They both turned and headed for the Couffaine ship. Wondering if this second chance was what they both really needed.

***********

And end. Part 1 of 2 maybe? I guess if enough people like it I'll make a second part. I suck at endings. Feel free to leave any tips or helpful criticism. I literally winged everything after she brought them back into the sewers cause that was all i had planned out. Thanks for reading! :)

[theunstoppableforce]

Favourite chuck episodes from any season?

Sorry it took me a while to reply! 

S01: The Pilot; Chuck Versus the Imported Hard Salami

S02: Chuck Versus the Seduction, Chuck Versus the DeLorean, Chuck Versus the Suburbs, Chuck Versus the Broken Heart, Chuck Versus the Colonel

S03: Chuck Versus the Angel de la Muerte, Chuck Versus the Other Guy, Chuck Versus the Honeymooners and all the ones after Sarah and Chuck became an item :p

S04: The whole season is a fave of mine

S05: Until episode 11. I pretend the others didn’t happen

Honestly, I just miss Charah so much, my heart aches. I need a movie already. 

[renegadesstuff]

They were about to kiss 🥹

[s4dboiarchives]

the people of 2019.

For the struggling heart thrown in the middle of a bustling city with no particular idea on how to survive, July breathes for you. The promise of a land filled with overflowing milk and honey but all that was received were buckets of sand and piles of rocks.

You came to the city with a hopeful heart and a duffel bag full of star studded dreams. You were told that the city is where dreamers come to live; this is where a dreamer’s journey begins. But I guess people didn’t want to tell that the city is also where you come to forget – identity. This city will strip you of your being and you begin to forget what you like – mirrors will not display a reflection, rather, someone you don’t remember or someone who’s oddly familiar, either way, it’s not you. This reflection will feel like flashbacks of the past staring right at you but you can’t seem to grasp the idea of who this person is. The city will wear you down like your favourite denim pants or your most worn Chuck Taylor’s – raw.

The city is where you will experience getting caught in crossfire – you versus you. Mismatching ideals and colliding thoughts. Your toughest critic will always be you and let me just say, nothing will be enough for you. This is a series of gunshot wounds that go right through the heart, and when you look for the shooter, you will realize that the gun was always in your hand.

August is one too many orders of café Americano at a local coffee shop for a burgeoning writer wanting to bleed out more words – wanting to prove something. Your mom phones you to ask how you’re doing and your dad says hello at the same time. You tell them about how this process is turning out to be harder than expected and the pressure feels like worlds upon worlds stacked on your shoulders – they are speechless, but that’s alright you know that they try to care, at least they try.

You prop yourself up once more and grab that pen and paper – write, like your life depended on it. One day, you hope everything will just fall into place, that this will all just make sense.

September is for the girl who breathes out smoke rings and wannabe halos. You still have your heart upon your sleeve – don’t worry, it will be okay. The bitter sting of heartbreak is a reminder that you are alive and the tears are assurance that you are still human despite the inhumanity amongst us.

This is for the lingering moments you cannot leave behind too easily – hands held, foreheads touching, and her lips. The acrid smell of rum attached to her breath but oh how you would love to bask in it again – one more, one more. Another rounds of lips locked, slurred conversations, and hazy looks. You think, “I hope she remembers; I hope she knows my name," but you're sure enough that she won’t, that this will all be faded in the morning, or probably right after. But right now, this is yours – claim it. The burning cigarette in your hand and heat from her body – feel it. The night is younger than you are, so live in this puerile moment – hold it the way your hands would want to grasp her being. Remember it the way you crave for her tongue dancing on your salty skin – flesh on flesh. Little girl, this is yours.

Cheers to the galleries and museums that have chanced upon the soles of your feet, to the busy market street and busy market vendors that has witnessed your scraped knees and wrong directions, and to the mugs of draft beer and one too many cigarettes that have kissed your unholy lips – October.

This is for the young boy with shaggy hair and grandfather glasses that managed to pull you miles away from home to walk down the halls of a musty gallery with old paintings that speak a language more familiar than you think. Listen to the eyes, they’re talking. Don’t whisper to the walls, they might be listening.

Young boy, so handsome yet naïve, I wonder why you chose to ignore the warning signs? I wonder if the blaring alarms were not enough to tell you that destruction was ahead. This was not your average girl fitted for the average boy – chaos. But then again, there is a certain beauty to this unorganized flurry of person. Young boy, I wonder what you see?

This is for the moments spent getting lost in old china town under the gaze of broad daylight – asphalt worn shoes and dusty fingertips. Let me hold your hand as our feet navigate us through this untimely maze; do not let go. Market streets and vendor eyes are watching, they silently tell us: “get out,” that we do not belong here; more reason to not be careful, more reason to wake the sleeping spirits of this old temple.

We will raise a revolution – allow me to usher you into the twenty first century: girls kiss girls and boys do the same with boys. This tongue has danced with many and written words on temporarily owned skin. These hands are soiled with prints from yesterday’s lover and are preparing to be held by a new one tonight. We will shake old china town with magnitudes that will make your knees weak. So, allow me to wear this baseball cap like the tiara you want it to be but will never be. I will smudge the red lipstick you want me to my paint on my lips and instead, streak them on my cheeks like war paint because this is war.

Let me spill your mugs of draft beer and crush your cigarettes because this is our turn. We will raise a revolution that will echo through the ages – you wonder why we do this. You wonder what we see.

November is a rollercoaster ride of emotions; up and down the belly of the beast we call life. This is for the girls who tried more than once, more than twice. This is for the girls who put their hearts on their sleeves and allowed the world to feel each beat – loud and clear. I see the effort marked on your palms and the sweat beading on your forehead – you have tried fixing the unfixable. My dear, let me tell you, not everything that’s broken needs to be fixed – shattered glass shines brighter than its whole. Wash your hands, wipe your tears, you have done well.

This is for the tiger stripes, bruised knuckles, and puddles of blood in pooling beneath your feet – I wonder if you knew that was blood? Or, were you too busy admiring the colour red? Beautiful, isn’t it? The stains on the bathroom floor would like to agree, they’d like to thank you for the splash of colour. Grime and plaster white were getting too old.

The coils of rope in the corner of your room would also like to say thank you; the feel of your skin on the abaca twine was home – you are home. They have never been held like that – fervent want exceeded by need. They thank you for needing them. They would like to say they miss you, that your skin is something they crave for, after all, you did spend a bit of time contemplating when you’d use the pretty necklace you forged them to be.

This is for you. Thank you for the vulnerability, not many are proud to talk about it, not many are proud to show. Thank you for the stories you’ve planted on your arm; I’m sure you don’t see the blooming flowers, so allow me to tell you that they are there – roses, daisies, and pink peonies. I will marvel at the garden you have made from your flesh and revel in the seeds budding in your heart. My dear, not everyone can do what you did. Rest – you have done well.

December is for the boy who slept with his jacket still on, wet hair, and shoes caked with mud – adventure. He will wake up to blurry memories and trying to remember what happened last night. What was her name? Where was I? What did we do? Your face turns a familiar colour of pink when it finally hits you, “Ah, yes.” Another beautiful story has been written. In the same manner, you lay on your bed, jacket, already dried hair, same shoes, and a smile.

It is slow mornings accompanied with a cup of hot coffee, two creams and two sugars, for the province girl who has just who has spent the last six months journeying through the iron clad and concrete city of the north. It is steam fogging up your glasses while you watch the two creams swirl into a small galaxy of milky brown while you sink deeper in your duyan. You insert through the casual conversations and laugh at the thought of some – home. This is what actual rest feels like, chirping birds and the sway of giant trees among you, not four corners of a barely filled smaller than small room and screaming cars outside your window. This is more than just the coffee, you think. This is more than just the conversations. You feel the breeze through your hair and warm sunlight glazes your cheeks with a soft yellow – my dear, the universe agrees.

This is for you – for everyone who has struggled through the year but has somehow managed to carry their burdens and finally lay it down. Rest, you have done well.

This is for you – the ones still carrying their burdens and is wondering when it’s all going to end or if it will ever end. You have been numbed by the circumstances.

This is for you – for the people who didn’t make it through. The world pushed you to your limits but do not worry, despite the pain, we will try to understand. You are made of stardust and galaxies that are bigger than what your body can handle; you were not built for this physicality.

We have been bruised, bloodied, and broken – this is part of us but do not begin to believe that this defines us because this is the world’s doing; this is what happens when world doesn’t understand who it’s dealing with. But do not worry, do not fret, we are meant for this world. We now lay to sleep the yesterday of good and bad which is 2019 and open our eyes to the endless possibilities and chances of the tomorrow we call 2020.

This is the beginning of our year, cheers to you!

[unleashthejohncasey]

2x18 Chuck Versus the Broken Heart

[harringrovehouse]

Billy finds out about the Upside Down in May of 1985.

He’s with Trish Coopernan at ‘Lover’s Lake’. They’re writhing around in the Camaro’s back seat, Billy’s hand shoved under her neon pink sweater, and her hand shoved down his pants as they french. He wouldn’t have even noticed anything other than Trish’s talons on his junk if Max’s name didn’t echo around him. His head slams into the ceiling of the Camaro and he swears, pushing away from Trish to glare out at the trees around him. It’s 11am, on a fucking Tuesday. He doesn’t give one single fuck about the ‘promise’ he made to Max. If she’s out here, at fucking ‘Lover’s Lake’ with that Sinclair kid instead of in her fucking science class, Billy is going to kill them both. 

Trish whines at him as he scans the tree-line, looking for a hint of red. Once he finds her he’s going to drag her ass back to school by the braids she instead Susan do for her and make sure she knows to stay put. He hasn’t decided what to do with Sinclair yet. 

A thick bundle of branches about 20 feet away bursts open and out comes Max. She’s got blood on her knee and her shirt looks like it’s been ripped in a few places. She looks like she’s been crying, her face is pale and her eyes are red. She’s doesn’t seem to see the Camaro, but she is searching for something, her head whipping back and forth. Billy feels his blood boil slightly. Okay, he was going to drown Sinclair when he caught him. Angrily he climbs back into the driver’s seat, tucking his junk back in and fixing his shirt, eyes locked on Max as she pants for air. Behind him Trish clambers up to the front seat, she’s also looking at Max with a concerned look on her face. 

“Isn’t that your sister?” She asks as she pulls her skirt back up, Billy grunts in repose and throws his door open.

“She’s not my sister. Stay here.” He takes off at a run. Max is just far enough away that he has to make up the distance.

Billy’s less than 10 feet from her when the trees move again, and out tumbles Steve Fucking Harrington. He grabs Max, scaring her enough that she screams before he starts to pull her back into the trees. Billy can’t see Max’s face but she doesn’t seem to want to go, she trips over her own feet and Harrington has to lift her back up before he takes off with her. 

“Hey!” Billy screams. “Harrington!” No way is he about to let whatever the fuck is happening right now happen. He’s going to finish what he started in October and destroy Harrington. “Harrington you sick fuck!” Billy yells as he forces his way through the branches. Who knew, King Steve, the man everyone at Hawkins high looked up too, was a fucking pervert. A sick fuck who trapped little girls in the woods. Billy wonders if the whole town knows, if all those kids hanging around Harrington have been dragged into these woods. The thought makes him want to throw up, he’s a lot of things, but he doesn’t fuck with child rapists. 

“Max!” The scream is followed by another one of Max’s high pitched screams. Billy turns toward the sound and takes off. 

He’s making a lot of noise, breaking branches as he races towards the sounds of voices. Tiny droplets of blood hit the forest floor as the jagged ends of the branches slice his arms and neck. There’s another scream and then the sound of something making contact with flesh, and then silence. Billy feels his heart pick up. The image of an unconscious Max laid out on the ground, bleeding and broken while King Steve stands over her flashes in his mind and Billy’s vision blurs for a second. 

He stops just long enough to pick up a thick branch, it’s heavy enough that Billy thinks he could kill a man with it. He plans too. New weapon in hand he shoulders his way through the last of the trees, a stray branch slicing his arm open and stomps his way into the most disgusting clearing he’s ever see.

The trees are rotting where they stand, huge chucks of bark have fallen off and black puss leaks from the wounds they’ve left behind. It smells like raw sewage, and death. Billy gapes at the sight. It’s horrifying and in the center of the clearing, surrounding by the dead beaten bodies of some animal Billy can’t make out are Max and Steve.

They both look like shit. Max is still bleeding from her knee, and Harrington’s got a nasty cut on his shoulder where his shirt sleeve is ripped and the fabric is stained with blood. Harrington’s got his arm wrapped around Max, that same nail covered baseball bat in his hands as he swings her away from Billy. Putting himself between Max and whatever just entered the clearing. Protecting her from the new danger.

There’s a silent, eerie beat as he and Harrington take each other in. Billy’s hand clenched tightly on the branch and Steve brandishing his bat like a pro. 

“Hargrove?”

“Billy?”

Max and Steve shout at the exact same time. It echoes once, and then dies. Billy wonders if this clearing is cursed. If every, and all sign of life dies here.

“Billy you need to leave!” Max says as she shoves Harrington away from her, no longer afraid of Billy. Especially not with the crowbar she’s got in her hands. Had that always been there, Billy isn’t sure anymore.

“What the fuck is going on?” He tries to put as much venom behind his words as he can but they still come out shaky. Max rolls her eyes and waves the crowbar at him. “Why the fuck are you in the damn woods with my sister Harrington!”

Max steps closer. “Billy!”

“Whatever sick game this is ends now Max!”

“Billy listen!”

“No! No fuck no. You’re fucking coming with me and we’re getting out of this fucked up town.”

“Billy shut up and listen t-“

A screech echos behind him. It sends shiver up Billy’s spine. He goes for Max’s arm, grabs her tight and starts to drag her away. Max’s fights him but Billy’s grabs the crowbar from her hands and gives her a shake. “We’re leaving Maxine!”

“Billy! You’re going the wrong way asshole!” Max screams but Billy doesn’t listen. He’s taking Max home and they’re leaving this fucking town, he’ll drive the kid all the back to California if he has too. 

To his left a bush shakes and Max freezes, eye wide in terror. She starts begging for the crowbar back, tugging at Billy’s hand and yelling for Harrington. Who comes running, bat in hand and eyes hard. Billy stares between them, ready to start shouting at both of them before the bush rips open and a monster jumps out. An actual monster. It’s face opens and then it screams, it screams in Billy’s face and then Steve swings. There’s a sickening sound and the creature recoils. Harrington starts to bash the things head in, what can only be blood splatters across the ground and whatever green is there dies almost instantly.

“Run!” Steve scream, turning to Max and Billy. Billy mouths at him, eyes wide as he stares down at the thing that Steve has just killed. “Billy lets go!” And then Steve’s grabbing his hand and hauling him across the black clearing back into the woods, Max clings to Steve’s other hand and suddenly they’re running straight into two of the other kids Max hangs out with. 

“Steve!” They scream as they almost collide with them. Billy stares at them in horror, they also look like they’d been beaten up. The one with the curls has a black eye and the one Billy is pretty sure is related to Nancy Wheeler has a huge gash over his left eye. “Max!” They scream and Max rushes forward to hug them.

“I told you to stay in the car!” Steve snaps at them, dropping Billy’s hand and rushing forward. Billy watches as he goes to shakesthem but ends up wrapping himself around the three of them and sighing. “Next time stay in the car you shit heads.” 

“What. The. Fuck. Is happening Harrington!” Billy hears himself say. The four of them turn around to stare at him. 

“Billy Hargrove?” Probably Nancy’s brother says and Billy gives him a look. Steve turns to him and they stare at each other, clearly Steve’s at a lose for words. His eyes flick down to the crowbar, and Billy sees him tighten his grip on the bat. 

“Woah there cowboy.” Billy says dropping the crowbar, which Max rushes forward to grab. “Not looking to fight.” He lifts his hands up to prove he isn’t a danger. “But you have to level with me here, what happened back there, they,” He motions at the kids. “You all look like you’ve just been to hell and back.” 

“We kinda have asshole!” Curly says, it might have impressed Billy if he wasn’t hiding behind Max like a scared little kid. 

Steve shakes his head and shoves the curly one behind him. “Look there’s something about Hawkins you don’t know.”

“Steve.” The kids hiss at him but Steve holds his hand up at them, eyes hard. 

“We tell him. He saw-“

“The last time you tried to tell him he kicked your face in!”

“I didn’t kick his face in!” Billy snaps. “I punched his face in.” He tries to look like that doesn’t bother him, like the idea of losing control like that again doesn’t frighten the shit out of him but it does. Harrington gives him a look.

“Yeah last time he didn’t seem ready to listen, but he’s seen them now. He’ll listen.” Harrington is looking into Billy’s fucking soul. Billy looks away first and he can practically hear Harrington smirk.

Harrington begins to tell him a story. It starts a year ago with Will Byers going missing and Barbra Holland dying, about Harrington finding out about the monsters because he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him and then Jonathon Byers kicked his ass and he showed up at the Byers’ house to say sorry only to find Wheeler and Byers armed to the teeth and a fucking demon crawling it’s way from the walls. Harrington talks about how the Chief of Police and Mrs.Byers went to another dimension and saved Will Byers, and how everyone thought it was over only Will started having visions and then Dustin Henderson, Curly, found a baby demon in his trash and kept it. Which lead to a full out demon versus Harrington and friends fight. Which ended in the gate collapsing and Will Byers being freed from being possessed. 

Billy stands there and takes it all in. He remembers arriving to the Byers house in November of last year, seeing red When Harrington lied about Max. Bursting inside to see the fucking mess the house was, broken glass and drawings of something all over the walls. Had Harrington been trying to explain all this crazy to him that night?

“Listen man-“ 

If Billy hadn’t punched first would he have been told this same bat shit crazy story or would Harrington have thought of another lie. He was still struggling to figure out if that mattered when Harrington spoke again.

“None of that matter now because we have to get to Hop and tell him what’s happening! We were getting ready to go camping when we saw the demodogs. My cars all the way on the other side of the clearing. We sent Lucas and Will to flag someone down and head to Hop but it’s not safe to be here right now, we have to leave.”  Billy knows they won’t make it all the way across to Harrington’s car. But maybe they can make it to his. 

“Give me that back.” He snaps at Max, yanking the crowbar from her grip. “Okay shit heads listen up! I’m going to lead us back to my car, we’re all getting in and we’re going to leave understand! Harrington you’re in back, Max behind me no don’t fucking argue behind me right now! Wheeler, Curls fall in line!”

There’s arguments but surprisingly everyone seems to listen, and then they’re off looking like a freak show as they wind their way back through the dead clearing where the many bodies of the demodogs lay bloody and unmoving. Billy tightens his grip on the crowbar as they approach the thick bundle of trees he and Max had forced their way through earlier. He puts out a hand and listens, everyone stopping being him. They wait a beat before Billy decides it’s okay to move again, he swings the crowbar and break the branches so they can walk without hurting themselves more. 

The sound makes him cringe but if what Steve says it true blood attracts this thing, the last thing they need is to bleed more. A bird shakes the trees in front of them and Curly screams, Billy’s whole body tense up as he tries not to swing at it. Letting the white creature fly off into the heavens. He watches it go with a sour look on his face, how is anything alive so close to that cursed clearing. He grabs Max’s arm and hauls her up a small cliff drop he hadn’t noticed earlier, ignoring the huff she lets out at being lifted off the ground by him. He sets her back easily and waits for the other three to catch up.

To his horror he watches as Harrington sets the bat down to help Wheeler and Curly up , Wheeler’s about as athletic as a new born blob fish apparently. Harrington hands Billy the bat and then hauls himself up next to Billy, who gives him the bat back the second his feet his the ground. 

“Plant your feet.” Billy tells him without the venom he used to have. Harrington actually smirks at him before taking the bat and ushering the kids back into formation. Billy takes the front of the line again, ready to bash some monster brains. He can see the edge of Lover’s Lake now, can make out the loud sound of his radio blasting Van Halen. They’re almost home free.

Something bursts free from the bushes in front of them, Harrington is at his side in seconds as they face down yet another demodog. This one looks different than the others. Bigger, almost older. Billy tightens his grips and swings just as the creature launches itself at them. He ends up missing it, but manages to stab it’s belly. The sound it lets out makes Billy’s ears ache. 

“Hold it down!” Harrington screams as he rushes forwards, boot flying out to kick the demodog in the side and his bat swing down. Billy waits just long enough for it to become distracted by Harrington bashing it’s head in before he twists the crowbar and yanks it out. 

The demodog screeches, it’s huge mouth opening wide as Harrington rains down on it. Billy straightens and joins Harrington in bashing the creatures skull in. Watching as it finally gives up and dies. 

“Lets go!” Harrington says, turning to the kids and grabbing Billy’s shaking wrist. The five of them break through the brush line and make a wild dash towards Billy’s Camaro. 

Trish is nowhere to be seen. Billy swears and calls out her name, hoping maybe she just needed to pee or something! But silence.

“Fuck! Trish!” Harrington calls out, shoving the kids into the car. “Trish it’s me Steve!!” And Billy’s reminded that Steve used to be the King of Hawkins. Billy goes to open the driver’s side, and find the handle is covering in blood. Billy turns to Harrington, lifting his hand into the air and they share a look, this isn’t good.”

“Get in.” Harrington says and he throws Billy’s passenger’s side seat back, climbing in himself and yelling at the kids to shut up! Billy doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s in the driver’s seat in seconds.

“Hold on.” He snaps at them, turning the car on and peeling out of the small parking lot. 

Behind them the trees rustle. Billy rips his eyes away from them before whatever is there can exit, he tightens his grip and focus on the road. Next to him Harrington whips around, eyes now locked on the road and hand coming up to grip Billy’s arm. It’s a heavy weight that Billy decides to ignore, for now. Maybe this town isn’t such a shithole after all.

[blairwarner]

Sarah in Chuck Versus the Broken Heart (2.18)

[aion-rsa]

The Trial of the Chicago 7: Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin Were the Martin and Lewis of the Radical Left

https://ift.tt/3497VU7

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan intoned on his song “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” influencing a group of young mad bombers to blow against the wind. The group at the center of Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 didn’t blow up bathrooms in federal investigative agencies; they protested bombings, and all other forms of violence, when they stood against authority at the Democratic National Convention in 1968.

The Youth International Party, or Yippies, was non-violent, even if one of the co-founders, Abbie Hoffman (played by Sacha Baron Cohen in the movie), wrote his first radical tract, Fuck the System, under the pseudonym George Metesky, a mad bomber from the 1940s. The other, Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong on screen), blew bubbles while dressed as George Washington at his HUAC hearing.

Rubin would go on to beat bongos as part of John Lennon’s morphing street musician crusaders, playing live at political demonstrations across America, while Hoffman was knocked upside the head with the guitar of The Who’s Pete Townshend when he interrupted the band at Woodstock. But Lennon had the last word about Rubin. “I gotta ask you comrades and brothers, how do you treat your own woman back home?” Lennon asked in the song “Power to the People.” He was singing to Rubin.

Abbie Hoffman was a radical. He believed in the redistribution of wealth and power, universal hospital care, and that the richest country in the world should not have homeless people. Radical, said his political enemies. Insane. Crazy like the Flower Power movement he was part of. Flowers don’t power things, oil does. Money does. Blood does.

Hoffman’s contribution to political literature was a guidebook on living free, and the first step was to take the title literally: Steal This Book. By the time Hoffman resurfaced from his years underground as a drug dealing charged fugitive, he expressed his primary concern, and that of many caught up in the insane no-tolerance drug policies of the time, with the book Steal This Urine Test. It didn’t suggest dumping them in the holy water. It waged guerilla warfare on the War on Drugs.

Hoffman was a born outlaw, a duck-tailed, leather jacketed teen rebel looking for a cause. Born Nov. 30, 1936 in Worcester, Massachusetts, he was expelled from Classical High School when a paper he wrote concluded God could not possibly exist, prompting his teacher to call him a Communist punk. Hoffman proved it by jumping the teacher.

Rubin was born July 14, 1938 in Cincinnati. His father was a union organizer. Rubin was one of the leaders of the 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon. After the heyday of the protest movement, Rubin moved from radical politics to freeing the mind with human potential, although it wasn’t free of charge.

Rubin was a burgeoning businessman, but was also an outlaw at heart. He even died breaking a law. One of the most basic laws almost everyone, regardless of class, color, or creed, thinks nothing of breaking. Rubin died of a heart attack two weeks after being hit by a car while jaywalking. The implications seem almost surreal, but the Yippie movement was filled with ridiculous ways to challenge legal authority.

Well before Rubin’s death in the ‘90s, he was there with Hoffman on Aug. 24, 1967, tossing fistfuls of dollars, real and fake, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to protest capitalism. Traders went crazy grabbing at the cash. The NYSE built a wall to stop the unfettered financial fun. The Youth International Party nominated Pigasus, a pig, as its candidate for president in the 1968 election campaign.

The “Chicago Seven” trial, named after Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers was tried separately from the original defendants, was loaded with courthouse street theater. They even wanted to design their own costumes. The first things Rubin, Hoffman, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, and Lee Weiner did when they went into trial was to stomp on their judicial robes. When Hoffman got sworn in as a witness, his hand was giving the finger.

The defendants were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot, but they were a riot in court. Sadly, the judge at the bench didn’t get the jokes. Judge Julius Hoffman’s humor went another way. He thought it was fitting to have Seale bound and gagged when he wanted to be tried separately, and didn’t like to be heckled. The giddy group of mischievous militants were cited for contempt over 200 times.

The Chicago Seven Trial saw the appearances of “cultural witnesses” like Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Arlo Guthrie, and Norman Mailer. Hoffman gave a speech saying if Abraham Lincoln were alive and in Chicago during the convention, he would have been arrested in Lincoln Park. When he was being sentenced, Hoffman offered to hook the judge up with an LSD dealer he knew.The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Chicago Seven convictions, cited errors by Judge Hoffman and criticized his courtroom demeanor. The Walker Commission, which investigated the disruption at the Chicago Democratic Convention, concluded it was a “police riot.”

The old guard Left was also lacking in its sense of humor. The militant youth movement, hippies, self-proclaimed freaks and Free Speech movers, were merry pranksters. Diehard socialists fought with placards, bricks, and feet. Hoffman tried to levitate the Pentagon. Was it childish? The demonstration would have heard noted baby-rearing author Dr. Benjamin Spock speak about the importance of protecting children of any age. The protesters were met by soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division. With poet Allen Ginsberg leading Tibetan chants behind him, Hoffman telepathically tuned in and declared the Vietnam War would end when the Pentagon started to vibrate and turn orange. 

The Youth International Party had no official membership or leadership. Before the Yippie movement, Rubin ran as the radical candidate for mayor of Berkeley, on a platform of exposing his opponent’s racist hiring policies. Hoffman was involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a radical community-action group called the Diggers, who kicked him out for being a media junky. Abbie published a book blowing “the hustle of every poor person on the Lower East Side,” according to Peter Coyote.

Following the trial, Rubin wrote the books Do It! and We Are Everywhere, which made him think he was a rock star. He appeared with Lennon, Yoko Ono, Bobby Seale, Ralph Nader, Chuck Berry, and George Carlin on The Mike Douglas Show. Until the end of his career, Douglas maintained that was the most interesting week of his entire career.

On Aug. 28, 1973, Hoffman was arrested in New York City for trying to sell $36,000 worth of cocaine. He said he was set up and entrapped. He jumped bail in 1974 and vanished, occasionally popping up to remind police he’d disappeared. Turns out he was actually working for the rock magazine Crawdaddy! as a travel writer under the name Barry Freed and had his face rendered unrecognizable by plastic surgery.  He surrendered to authorities in 1980, but not until after he taped an interview with Barbara Walters for ABC’s 20/20. He received a one-year sentence but was released after four months.

In the late ‘70s, Rubin discovered seminar training with est and sold a nutritional drink called Wow, which had plenty of kelp, ginseng and bee pollen. Bobby Seale was one of his salesmen. Having broken down the $20,000 financial firewall constructed after the fistfuls-of-dollars stunt, Rubin returned to Wall Street in the 1980s decade of greed and trickle-down voodoo economics. At first, he claimed he was trying to bring some consciousness to the spiritual center of capitalism. But then he sold his soul for a three-piece suit and became a broker. He opened Business Networking Salons, Inc., hosting parties at Studio 54, and said he was part of a real American revolution. Rubin and Hoffman went on a speaking tour giving public debates about yuppies versus Yippies.

Read more

Movies

The Trial of the Chicago 7 Ending: What Happened Next?

By David Crow

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Aaron Sorkin: Donald Trump Made The Trial of the Chicago 7 Movie Possible

By David Crow

Rubin took to the “Me Generation” with the same fervor he had with the cultural revolution of the 1960s. He embarked on an inner revolution, eating carrots until he turned orange. He also atoned for his misogynist past by discussing his own sexual shortcomings in the 1980 book The War Between the Sheets, which he wrote with his wife, commodities futures trader Mimi Leonard.

Rubin could afford it, he had by this time become a multimillionaire, having invested in Apple Computer. Hoffman never bit the apple, continuing in the tradition of American civil disobedience whether it came to saving trees from deforestation or Third World Countries from the U.S. intelligence community. One embraced the unfettered financial social coup, the other was disgusted with the anti-capitalist complacency of Reagan America.

Hoffman made a cameo appearance playing himself in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, the story of anti-war activist Ron Kovic. Rubin would have been quite comfortable as himself in Stone’s Wall Street, the embodiment of the “Greed is Good” mentality.

Hoffman was arrested In November 1986, along with Amy Carter, the daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, for trespassing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to protest CIA recruitment on its campus. The federal district trial which followed exposed CIA involvement in Nicaragua, along with decades of illegal covert activities.

Hoffman was found dead in his apartment, on April 12, 1989, in an apparent suicide. When Abbie died, Jerry was the only Chicago conspiracy defendant at the funeral. “I used to say, ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30,’” Rubin told a reporter in his financially fatter latter years. “Now I say don’t trust anyone under 50.” Abbie maintained the ideals of his youth, but found far fewer dividends.

The pair were happy to be the “clowns for peace” Lennon called himself during his and Yoko’s honeymoon protest. They brought the generational divide closer together by exposing the ridiculous nature of the divisions. Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 sets out to capture all three rings of the circus of political justice. Rubin and Hoffman were masters of ceremonies in the most unceremonious of ways.

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