#I need to finish my “Demon in the Wood” meta as well

[aleksanderscult]

I think i remember leigh writing something along the lines of that 'wanted best for his people and he was a tyrant' etc, basically a nuanced view. Do you have it? I don't remember where it was.

I think you mean this, right?

It's from her acknowledgements on "Demon in the Wood" (graphic novel). If this is not what you mean, tell me.

She always gives a very nuanced characterization about him which makes me mad because I don't understand her point of view for him at all. It only confuses me more.

"I want the readers to make their assumptions about him. I don't want to affect their view of him". Look. If you give your own opinion of him which will consist of ten pages then it's going to be the reader's problem if they want to "adopt" your view or not. Also, your readers are not stupid. They can distinguish their own assumptions FROM your own opinion. And if they can't, then they're not fit to read books and complicated characters. It's called critical thinking. You take an opinion, read it, see if it makes sense with the canon we have from him and make your judgement. Easy peasy.

Now about that note. I agree that Aleksander isn't purely a hero or a villain. He sees himself as the hero while Alina and the others see him as the villain. We, the readers, mostly see him as something in-between and, at the same time, something entirely different. A human that has lived for too long and as a result of his immortality and tragic events he has reached a point of desperation that make him act relentlessly against the corrupt monarchy and in favor of a persecuted group of people and a country that he has lived and loved for almost all of his life.

Therefore, his characterization is (I believe) something more than the archetype of "good hero" and "bad villain".

Is he a survivor? Yup. In all the meaning of the word.

Does he want safety for his people? Isn't that why he didn't give up on life already? It was the ambition that drove him the most and kept his heart beating.

Is he a tyrant? I think that term needs to be studied. Back in Ancient Greece this word had different meanings.

1) A ruler who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. The Darkling did that (good for him).

2) A person who rules without law, using extreme and cruel methods against both his own people and others. If Leigh means that then I'll have to disagree. First of all, we didn't see enough of the Darkling's rule to know if he was that cruel (unless she knows something we don't). And even from what we saw, it seems the word doesn't apply to him. He was sitting on the throne and listening to reports, signing paperwork, making an alliance with his enemy to feed his army. So where it the "cruel methods against both his own people and others" came from? He didn't have a beef with otkazat'sya that lived in Ravka and he certainly didn't want to hurt his own Grisha (unless they committed treason). So Leigh just threw that word in like it was nothing.

And, lastly, he brutalizes and exploits those who trust him most.

Brutalizes. Hmm....

Genya: she committed treason so he punished her.

Sergei: he committed treason so he punished him.

Baghra: committed treason so he punished her (and very lightly actually).

Yeah.. right...umm. Look. If he had attacked them or killed them for literally no reason then I would say "Yes, he brutalized them". But there was always a reason for his actions against them. He didn't see Genya on board and said "I'm bored. Gonna ruin your face 'cause I've got nothing else to do".

And he exploits them.

To exploit someone is this:

If my memory serves me correct, his soldiers (his Grisha) knew what they were serving him for. And he didn't use them for something completely selfish like "gaining power for myself because I like it" but he needed power to make Ravka better. So he didn't do it for selfish reasons.

The one instance where the term "exploit" may apply is when he gave Genya to the Grand Palace knowing what a pervert the King was. But then again, wasn't the Queen's responsibility to keep her safe?

[dreamsatdusk]

Once again, my focus for some long Grishaverse meta has risen from the depths and I realized I did actually mostly finish my reread notes for it last time!  Nice.  So while working on finishing the actual meta, some shorter posts may appear as I review said notes.

First up:  Did the Darkling introduce the concept of Grisha orders/talent specialization into the world ? And thus, by extension, cause a weakening of Grisha potential?

This is a concept I don’t recall really coming up until after King of Scars was released.  It presumably peeked out then due to various things said by Elizaveta’s merry band of Grisha, put together and construed a bit sideways.  But even in KoS, the concept of the orders is placed further back.

In Ruin and Rising, from an exchange between Baghra and Alina:

*

“He was a Healer?” I asked.  “I thought he was a Fabrikator.”

“Morozova did not draw those distinctions.  Few Grisha did in those days.  He believed if the science was small enough, anything was possible.  And for him, it often was. Are we not all things?”

*

I don’t recall anything that puts a timeframe on how old Baghra might have been when she had her son, so we don’t know how much time passed between the ‘those days’ referenced above and the Darkling’s own lifetime. Later in the same exchange in R&R, Baghra says the Darkling’s father was a Heartrender, with no equivocation about him having been something else as well.  

Are we not all things? is a quote from one of Morozova’s journals, as revealed by Alina earlier in R&R.  Zoya also references it in KoS, in the same section as saying of Morozova: "He had theorized that there should be no Grisha orders, no divisions between powers--if the science was small enough."

In The Demon in the Wood, Squallers, Heartrenders, and Healers are all mentioned. Like with the Darkling's father, there's no implication of multiple talents focused on.

So in general, though details are light, what there is suggests that post-Morozva, pre-Darkling, Grisha gravitated toward a greater focus on whatever their strongest abilities were.

Overall, I think the creation of the Little Palace did lead to far more refinement of skill on the part of Grisha however, in respect to their areas of strong talent.  For example, we hear from Fedyor that Corporalki “require the most training and the most study”.  We know they study anatomy - Nina even references her school texts at one point on that subject.  There are 'anatomy rooms' at the Little Palace for study and experimentation. Given their need to be familiar with the detailed workings of the body, this all makes sense and also strongly suggests their skills in particular would have vastly benefited from the ability to do detailed formal study. Likewise, the Material likely had lots of opportunities they would not have in the past.

[hamliet]

The Girl Who Gets to Have It All: Buffy Summers

So with @linkspooky​‘s encouragement, I have binged Buffy the Vampire Slayer and relived my childhood culture. And, it's a 10/10 for me. Not that it doesn't have flaws, but it's genuinely one of the best stories I've seen, with consistent character arcs, powerful themes, and a beautiful message. It's also like... purportedly about vampires and demons and superpowered chosen ones, but it's actually all about humanity.

Buffy was able to be a teenage girl, allowed to like the things teen girls are scorned for (boys, shopping, etc), to be insecure about the thing teenage girls are insecure about (future careers, dating, school, parents), and to be a superhero with its good and its bad aspects. The story wasn’t afraid to call Buffy on her flaws (sometimes she got in a very ‘I am the righteous chosen one’ mode) and to respect and honor each of her desires (to be a good person, to be loved, and more). The story listened to what she wanted and respected her desires, giving her the challenges needed to overcome her flaws while also never teaching her a lesson about wanting bad boys or romance is silly or any manner of dark warnings stories like to throw at teenage girls. 

It respected teenage girls--nerdy girls like Willow, jocks like Buffy, lonely wallflowers with trauma like Dawn, and popular/snobby ones like Cordelia, girls gone wild like Faith. It never once reduced them to the stereotypes that were lurking right there: each character was fully rounded, human, flawed and yet with respected interests and goals. This is so rare for a story that I’m still in awe. 

The story as a whole follows Buffy from 15 to 21, of her as she grows from teenager to adult. She acts like a teenager and grows to act like a young adult, wrestling with loneliness and duty. The adults, like Giles, Joyce, and Jenny, are not perfect either, but neither are they “bad parents” or “bad mentors” necessarily. Joyce in particular says something terrible to Buffy, but she tries to do better, and it’s rare to see a parent in YA stories shown with such nuance. Basically, it wrote the long-lasting adult characters as human beings, too. 

Speaking of growing up, I appreciated how Buffy’s love interests mirrored this. Angel was someone Buffy loved and admired, wanted to be like, but who was always either extreme good or extreme bad, and combined with Buffy’s own tendencies towards black-white thinking, made for a beautiful relationship to help her grow, but didn’t necessarily form a foundation for a long-term partner. Spike, on the other hand... they both saw each other at their worst and were drawn to each other even then, and were inspired to become better because they couldn’t bear to be a person who treated the other person so wrongly. They pushed each other to become the best them they could be, and believed in each other. Also, Spuffy is an enemies to lovers ship for the ages. 

(Also, most of the other ships were well-done or at least can be understood. Riley was very obviously wrong for Buffy which paralleled Harmony and Spike in being 100% wrong for each other. Cordelia and Xander were a fun ship even if we all knew it would never last, and Willow and Oz were beautiful and cute. But Xander and Anya and Willow and Tara? OTPs. As were Giles and Jenny, the librarian and the computer teacher.) 

That said, it’s not a perfect series. No story is. All of the characters and ships had problematic aspects to them worthy of critique, and the writing is very 90s in a lot of ways. It’s a product of its time, and in many ways it’s good society has progressed beyond some of the tropes/metaphors used in the show. In other way, though, the show was ahead of its time, and in a good way it wasn’t bound by the fear of purity policing with its takes on redemption (many characters would never fly today). 

So, in order of seasons ranked from my very favorite to my “still enjoyed it very much” (no season was actually bad, imo), here’s my review. I’ll also review my top 10 villains in the show, because Buffy does villains very well in terms of the redeemable and irredeemable.  

Season 7:  Yep, the final season was my favorite. 

Overall Opinion: Buffy's finale is literally "f*ck them men, our power is ours" and while it seems cheesy it actually works (also, f*ck in both a literal and figurative sense). The series strongly hit all the themes: love as strength, and redemption. Buffy consistently shows love as her strength--*all* kinds of love. Friendship w Willow/Xander, familial with Joyce/Dawn, romantic with Spike/Angel. These types of love are also never pitted against each other as is so often the case in current-day media. It's beautiful. Also, Spike’s confrontation with Wood was so powerful in terms of exploring forgiveness, redemption, and reconciliation: where they overlap and where they don't, and what it means to move forward. 

Unpopular Opinion: I have seen a lot didn’t like the inclusion of Potential Slayers, and while I agree they could have been better incorporated/characterized, it was a great way to show Buffy’s final stage of growing up to be ending her chosen one status and projecting/multiplying her powers over the world. 

Biggest Critique: Kennedy was female Riley--the anti-Tara to Riley’s anti-Angel (by ‘anti’ I mean opposite in every way). Kennedy was annoying and immature. Her role, like Riley’s, was less about exploring her as a character and more about her just being stamped as “love interest: lesbian.” 

Favorite Episodes: Beneath You, Lies My Parents Told Me, Touched, Chosen

Season 6: 

Overall Opinion: I said this on Twitter, but I felt like this was Buffy’s The Last Jedi or Empire Strikes Back moment. It is polarizing and dark, deconstructing the tropes it stands on--but by digging to the core of these tropes, it actually makes what’s good about them shine brighter. Everyone’s enemy was the worst versions of themselves. Giles left Buffy, Willow's struggle to relate to the world led to her trying to destroy it, Buffy hurt everyone through her anger, Xander abandoned Anya at the altar, Spike... yeah. It ages well as an integral part of the story, and the Trio were eerily prophetic. 

Unpopular Opinion: Dawn is a great character with a good arc. A traumatized teen acting out and struggling to come to terms with loss and identity? She wasn’t whiny; she was realistic. 

Biggest Critique: Willow’s addiction coding (I’ll discuss this below) and Seeing Red as an episode. I see the argument for both of its controversial scenes from a narrative perspective: Willow starts the season not grieving Buffy but instead being determined to fix it with magic and needs to learn to grieve, but. Still. Bury your gays is not a good look. For the Spike scene... he conflates sex/passion and violence (”love is blood, children” is something he said way back in season 3), but like Tara’s death, it had more to do with Spike (as Tara’s death did for Willow) than with Buffy’s arc, and as for the actual execution... they really botched that. Did it like... have to go on that long or go that far? No. Also, the framing was good, but inconsistent with the rest of the series (Xander to Buffy in the hyena episode, Faith to Xander and to Riley, etc.) 

Favorite Episodes: Once More With Feeling, Smashed, Grave

Season 3 (tied with Season 5):

Overall Opinion: The opening continuity of Buffy meeting Lily/Anne after saving her life in Season 2 was sweet. The Witchhunt episode had really powerful subtext: stories of deaths that aren’t even true are actually demons that possess the town and convince them to turn against their children in the name of protecting the children. It’s a good commentary on, oh, everything in society. Faith’s character arc was fantastic, and her chemistry with Buffy was off the charts (look, I may be Spuffy all the way, but Fuffy has rights). The finale was satisfying in so many ways, seeing the entire graduating class unite to destroy the Mayor and the school with it, symbolizing Buffy et al’s readiness to move on to college. Oz's relationship with Willow was very sweet and meaningful for a first romance for Willow. 

Unpopular Opinion: I actually don’t really have one. Maybe that the miracle in Amends was earned? I think you can make a decent case that Season 3 is the best written of the seasons, but can only truly be thematically appreciated to its full potential in the light of subsequent seasons (which finish Faith’s arc and deconstruct Buffy’s).  

Biggest Critique: It forgot Buffy killed the hyena guy in Season 1, making her continual insistence that she can’t kill people very ????? 

Favorite Episodes: Lovers Walk, Amends, Graduation Day Part 2 

Season 5, which ties with Season 3:

Overall Opinion: The entire season is about family and what it means, from Tara’s to Buffy’s to the Scoobies. I loved Glory aka Enoshima Junko as the Big Bad, I loved Dawn’s interesting meta commentary on retconning (like, the fact that she’s retconned in matters), and most of my ships are still alive. Joyce’s relationship with Spike is one of the most heartwarming aspects, and Spike’s arc’s desire is clearly highlighted: he wants to be seen as a person. The episodes after Joyce’s death are the most honest portrayals of grief I’ve ever seen, and absolutely brutal to watch. 

Unpopular Opinion: Buffy’s choice at the end seems a deliberate inversion of her choice at the end of Season 2 (sacrifice a loved one to save the world), but it actually isn’t: much like at the end of Season 2 where Buffy skips town because she’s devastated after killing Angel and doesn’t want to sort out being expelled, her mom knowing she’s the slayer, and her own trauma, Buffy’s sacrifice here was as much about her wanting the easy way out of relationships, family, college, etc. as it was about saving Dawn. Buffy’s death is coded as a suicide, which Season 6 emphasizes as well. 

Biggest Critique: Like Season 3, I don’t have a lot to critique here. I wish the suicidal coding had been a little more obvious in Season 5 itself, but also I’m not sure it could have been more obvious; it’s pretty apparent if you pay attention. Maybe also that Buffy and Riley’s relationship failing should have been more squarely blamed on Riley, you know, being insecure and cheating. 

Favorite Episodes: Family, Fool for Love, Intervention. 

Season 2:

Overall Opinion: Heartbreakingly tragic but exciting and revealing at the same time. It asked the viewer interesting questions about redemption and forgiveness and atonement through Angel being honest about his past, and then decided to show us his past now reenacted, challenging us. And still, we saw them save him in a parallel to saving Willow in Season 6 (but Season 2 was tragic because it wasn’t enough, while Season 6 was not). Jenny’s death was agonizing, and the scene were Angel watches Buffy, Willow, and Joyce get the news through the window was powerful. We didn’t have to hear them to get the grief. 

Unpopular Opinion: Jenny’s death isn’t a fridging; it works for her arc too when you consider her history. She worked to save the person whose life she was tasked to ruin, and it cost her her own--yet she still succeeded, because Jenny brought joy and wisdom to the show. Kendra’s death, on the other hand... was because they needed the stakes to be high--but we already knew that before she died. So, her death was useless. 

Biggest Critique: The subtext was Not It. It was essentially “do not have sex. Your older boyfriend will lose his soul, kill your friends, you’ll lose your family, your school, your home, and have to kill your true love or else hell will literally swallow earth.” 

Favorite Episodes: School Hard, Passion, Becoming Part 2.

Season 1:

Overall Opinion: I really liked it; it’s just lower on this list because the others are just better. It’s a great introduction to the series and to its characters, from Giles to Buffy to Willow to Jenny to Cordelia. It has great subtext a lot of the time (for example, Natalie French as She-Mantis is a literal predatory bug who engages in predatory behavior with students). Additionally, it subverts the typical YA trope of two guys and a girl, in which the girl is usually the least interesting character. Buffy and Willow were both fully fledged characters from the beginning with distinct strengths (even before Willow became a witch, as she wasn’t one in season 1 yet), while Xander was the more ordinary of the group. 

Unpopular Opinion/Biggest Critique: Xander’s arc showed its first flaws that unfortunately continued throughout the series: his writing was either very good or very indulgent in ways it never was for other characters.  (cough, the hyena episode, cough, in which he gets to skirt responsibility--and acknowledges that he is skirting it--for something the show will later hold others to account for). Xander’s just kind of inconsistent, which weakened his character over all. (Which is why both his love interests--Cordelia and then ultimately Anya--were good for him: they did not indulge him.) 

Favorite Episode: Witch, Nightmares. 

Season 4:

Overall Opinion: it’s still a good season. It’s a good portrayal of college and the growing pains of branching out, the strains of college growth on relationships (romantic and platonic). It shows us the first hints of Spuffy, giving us some serious Jungian symbolism between Spike and Buffy early on, and does well in establishing Xander/Anya and Willow/Tara as beautiful OTPs. Faith and Buffy’s foiling is fantastic. The Halloween episode was very fun as well. However, it suffers because its Big Bad, Adam, is not all that compelling thematically--yet, he could have been. See, the final battle pulls off the Power of Friendship in a really strong way but notably the season does not end there. Instead, it ends on dreams of each character’s worst fears, continuing what we saw in Nightmares in Season 1. Why? Because it shows us that the characters’ wars aren’t against monsters, but monsters of their own making: their flaws. Adam, as a literal Frankenstein, exemplifies this, but it wasn’t capitalized on as well as it could have been. 

Unpopular Opinion: Beer Bad isn’t a bad episode, at the very least because Buffy gets to punch Parker. It’s not one of the series’ best, obviously, but it does give Buffy an arc in that she gets her daydream of Parker begging her to come back, but she has overcome that desire and her desire for revenge. If we wanna talk about bad subtext in Season 4, Season 2′s Not It sex subtext continues in the Where the Wild Things Are episode in this season; it’s a powerful callout of abusive purity-culture churches, until the fact that the shame creates a literal curse undermines the progressive message it’s supposed to send. Also, the Thanksgiving episode (Pangs) is a nightmare of white guilt and Oh God Shut Up White People. 

Biggest Critique: Riley is awful. Like Kennedy, he had “love interest:normal” stamped on him and that was it. The thing is, he could have worked as an Angel foil, representative of the normal-life aspect of Buffy to Angel’s vampire/supernatural aspect, but the writers never explore this and seemed to even try to back away from that later on. They threw all the romantic cliches at the wall to see what sticks, from klutzy “I dropped my schoolbooks, that’s how we met” to cliché lines that had me rolling my eyes. Do you know how bad a romance has to be to make me dislike romantic tropes? 

Favorite Episodes: Fear Itself, Hush, Restless

Villain rankings: 

Dark Willow, the only villain to be truly sympathetic. While the addiction coding was insensitive and, while unsurprising for its time, aged extremely poorly. That said, Willow’s turn to the dark side after Tara’s death worked well for her character and the story: it was believable and paid off what had been building since Season 1's “Nightmares” episode (Willow’s inferiority complex). 

Glory managed to be genuinely terrifying, and humorous/enjoyable too. Her minions and their numerous nicknames for Glorificus were hilarious, as was her intense vanity. Her merging with Ben--a human being who genuinely wanted to be kind and good--added complexity and tragedy to her role. 

The First. A really good take on Satan. The seventh season as well as the First’s first appearance in season 3′s “Amends” had kind of blatant Christian symbolism, and so the First being essentially Satan works. Their disguising themselves as dead loved ones and the subtle manipulation they used to alienate people was really disturbing and well done. 

The Mayor, who was a terrible person but a truly good father. He provided an interesting contrast to the normal ‘bad dad’ bad guy character, in that he provided Faith exactly what the other characters refused to: he saw the best in her and offered her parental support, while the heroes didn’t and wound up pushing her away. 

The Trio, who were villains ahead of their time: whiny fanboy reddit dudebros, basically. The stakes seemed so much lower than fighting Glory, a literal god, the previous season. But that’s why they worked so well for Season 6′s human themes, and were especially disturbing because we all know people like them. I also appreciated the surprisingly sensitive takes on Jonathan and Andrew, who got to redeem themselves, but Warren did not, and I don’t think he should have either. 

Angelus + Drusilla. I’m ranking them below the Trio because Angelus was just sooooo different from Angel that it was difficult for me to feel the same way for him. He was still Angel, so it wasn’t possible to enjoy his villainy, but he also wasn’t nearly as sympathetic as Dark Willow, had no redeeming qualities like the Mayor, and wasn’t as disturbingly realistic as the Trio. However, the emotional stakes were excellently executed with him as the Big Bad, in that you were never quite sure how to feel and it just plain hurt. Also, Drusilla was a favorite recurring character. She was sympathetic and yet batsh*t enough to be enjoyable as a villain at the same time. 

The Master, who was just completely camp and really worked as an introductory villain. He was scary enough to believe he was a threat, and was funny enough to introduce the series’ humor as well. He was, like Glory, an enjoyable Big Bad. 

The Gentlemen, the one-off villains of Season 4′s Hush who were genuinely terrifying. It’s not as if they got a lot of explanation or any backstory, but they didn’t need it. 

Caleb, the misogynist priest. Fitting with the First’s Christian symbolism, Caleb serving as a spokesperson of all bad religious beliefs felt appropriate. He was also a good foil to Warren--being actually supernaturally powered instead of a wannabe--and to Tara’s family in being full-out evil. I despised him. 

Snyder. Okay Snyder is not a Big Bad like Adam is, but let’s face it: Adam is lame compared to the other villains. But Snyder as a principal? He was so irritating and yet really well used in the series to critique overly strict, hypocritical teachers. Like, we all know teachers like him. I loved to hate him, and his ending was so satisfying. 

[rueluxprince]

My beaf with the Nie Sect

- meta. We extrapolate from book canon like good English majors.

- Hopefully there won’t be a part 2

So. The Nie Ancestral Hall. The Stone Castles in the novel, more commonly known as “man-eating castles”. A Thing I Deemed To Have A Problem

Okay. The gist of it is this: after their owners death, the Nie saber spirits becomes uncontrollable and restless. They create a lot of destruction because they are half sentient and want to continue their life’s calling, which is killing evil spirits. The solution of appeasing these sabers were to bury them along with their wielders with a bunch of fierce corpses, so they can continue to fight with evil spirits and not bother the living. This practice was started by the sixth Nie head for his father and grandfather.

Which begs the question: how did the Nie Sect acquire hundreds of fierce corpses per generation to keep for their ancestral tomb? Where did they get them?

Hypothesis 1: the Nie Sect disciples knew to capture fierce corpses while out night-hunting instead of exterminating them.

Question to the hypothesis: fierce corpses aren’t that common and are stupidly strong. It takes a lot for a person to rise up in undead as a fierce corpse. One of them is enough to kill more than dozen nominally skilled cultivators (see Wen Ning vs Jin sect at Qiongqi path, Wen Ning vs Jin sect at Qiongqi Path and finally Wen Ning vs Jin sect at Koi Tower). This why Wei Wuxian is so feared, because he can make fierce corpses as easy as he makes banana bread and make them obey as easily too.

So, Hypothesis 1 isn’t that efficient and costs a lot. Both in time and Nie disciples lives. Remember, they need hundreds of fierce corpses per person.

Hypothesis 2: the Nie Sect just buys fierce corpses off sellers. Which is what they (NHS) said they have been doing for generations.

Questions to the hypothesis that is more fact actually: Where the fuck do they buy it from? Are there merchants that just have a dozen or so fierce corpses lying in their basement? They can capture these highly dangerous highly uncontainable things while proper disciples can’t?

Which. As we dig deeper. The most logical conclusion being: there’s a supply chain.

Nie Sect needs fierce corpses to build their ancestral tomb: demand. They fulfill that demand by buying said fierce corpses off sellers/merchants specializing in such trade, which is more efficient than collecting one by one themselves. The sellers fulfill their demand of fierce corpses to sell by either contacting a third party or building their own private militias to collect fierce corpses for them. Fierce corpses are hard to capture but now a person becomes one is fairly well-known, so the more efficient and cost effective way of fulfilling said demand would making them yourself.

How do you make batches of fierce corpses? By rounding up a lot peasant families and torturing them to death. Or get their family members to watch as their parents/siblings/friends get tortured to death. Best chance of getting a truly fierce corpse out of it since everyone is getting soaked in resentment. And there are chances at play, since not everyone resents so hard and so true to rise as a deranged zombie. The supplies needed would be greater than the end product.

And so the sellers tortures people to death in their underground cell blocks, all tied up and chained, and when some of them rise as fierce corpses they are perfectly contained. Then they are sold to the Nie Sect, who has a large demand for them, for a bunch of restless sentient sabers to play with, for all eternity.

Again. It is eternity. Fierce corpses don’t enter the wheels of reincarnation. They don’t have next lives. Their souls are forever stuck in their bodies until some cultivator brings them to rest.

So ah, even if we believe Nie Huaisang’s words that no one is murdered to turn into fierce corpses, (Which personally I don’t believe because there’s no way you get that many dead people in one place without some murder), there’s still the added bonus that these people are stuck there forever. Like. Their whole souls are stuck there forever? To suppress the sabers of the Nie family? Like, your first thought of seeing a being not at peace isn’t “liberate, suppress, eliminate”, it’s instead “I’m going to use it for my own family’s purpose”?!

Thus. What the fuck?! Why the fuck are your stupid ass swords so fucking precious that I have to sacrifice my family to be brutally tortured so they can be appeased?! And don’t give me the “oh the sabers will wreck greater havoc if we don’t do this” bullcrap. No way they can kill enough people to equal seven generations of fierce corpse piling in the hundreds. And besides, you could just fucking melt them down??? And if you say “no that’s disrespectful to my ancestors”, yeah well getting brutally tortured to death is disrespectful to my life so shut the fuck up.

And what’s more: if you disturb one of the castles and destroy a corpse, the castle seals itself off and you become imbedded in the walls as a replacement, if you manage to get away the castle imprints a curse on you so you’ll be dragged back eventually. (See the entire Jin Ling incident.)

Which. Okay. Wow. That’s fucking terrifying.

So. Hypothesis again. Say I went off to the morning to sell some firewood, and when I come back in the evening my parents and my four siblings are gone. They’ve all been kidnapped by a group of bandits. I follow their horse trail to their base. The bandits walk in before I can free my family and a dozen others from their cells and so I’m stuck to watching from the back window. Before my eyes a dozen of people are systemically mutilated, dismembered, maimed, and overall just tormented to death. I am powerless to anything but watch. I run into the woods, vomit, and collapse into a dead faint. I wake dehydrated but determined to least get my families’ bodies back. The bandits have moved my parents onto carts again, I follow them to a scattering of stone castles and watch men in cultivation uniforms shove my parents bodies inside the grey walls. After their work has finished and left, I rush in to chisel my mother’s body out. After an hour I can finally lay her down on the floor and are ready to begin extracting my father, before the walls suddenly move forward and drag me inside them. I scream in total darkness for what feels like forever before I no longer have enough breath to do so. I die. I stay there forever.

(Note 1: apparently Nie Mingjue began compiling corpses when he was still alive, and according to Nie Huaisang the number accrued was in the high dozens but still aren’t enough to appease his saber spirit after death.)

(Note 2: a more direct comparison can be seen in Jin sect’s demonic experiments under Xue Yang. They need fierce corpses to experiment on to see if they can get one that’s sentient like Wen Ning, fierce corpses are rare, they toss in entire sects to be tortured to death in front of each other so they get more of them quickly. Etcetera.)

[therealsaintscully]

My list of X-Files inspired BBC Sherlock fic prompts

 I recently finished reading @88thparallel​‘s fabulous “Written in Ashes”, a BBC Sherlock fic inspired by the X-Files episode Demons. I’m a huge X-Files fan myself, and the idea of adapting an XF story into a Sherlock one sent me down a rabbit hole. I decided to compose a list of ideas, all up for grabs, for X-Files plots that can be adapted in interesting ways to a BBC Sherlock casefics.

Below you’ll find a list of X-Files episode with their original description, and some suggestions based on my knowledge of the two shows of what makes the plot an interesting one to write. As I mentioned, these ideas are PROMPTS, suggestions - feel free to write them. In fact it’ll be my honor! Let me know if and when you do (I might even create a collection for them in AO3).

Ice (1x07) - Mulder and Scully  investigate the death of an Alaskan research team. Isolated and alone, the agents and their accompanying team discover the existence of extraterrestrial parasitic organisms that drive their hosts into impulsive fits of rage.  Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: extreme nature adventures (mountains, snow, remote research facilities); isolated together with strangers in a distant location (Ice was supposed to be a bottle episode); a lot of suspense as Mulder and Scully’s trust in each other is put to the test (a handgun showdown), physical inspections rife with sexual tension, ooo! 

Darkness Falls (1x19) - Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate when a team of loggers disappear without a trace. Initially suspecting eco-terrorism, the agents find themselves trapped by a seemingly ancient menace lurking in the woods. According to Wikipedia, “Chris Carter was inspired to write this episode based on an interest in dendrochronology (sic? that’s how it’s spelled in wikipedia), a subject that involves analyzing annual growth rings found in non-tropical tree species.”  An interesting topic to develop!  Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Just like in Ice, opportunity to write magnificent nature descriptions; also like in Ice, Mulder and Scully have to fend to themselves against the ‘others’; wonderful quotes such as “Rugged manly-men. In the full bloom of their manhood.” and “Come on, Scully. It'll be a nice trip to the forest." A Three Garridebs moment could work here!

Pusher (3x17) - Ah, Pusher. An early Vince Gilligan classic! Mulder and Scully’s assistance is requested for a case involving a man, who goes by the pseudonym "Pusher", seemingly capable of bending people to his will. The suspect uses his mysterious abilities to manipulate Mulder into a dangerous end game.�� Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Many parallels can be found between Modell and Eurus and or Moriarty; the game of cat and mouse in hopes of luring Mulder as the end game is quite similar to the TFP/TGG; the final game of Russian roulette with Mulder at the end is a classic MSR scene which could be lovely to write for John and Sherlock (Gillian is amazing with that One Tear™  while she threatens Modell); an opportunity to instill a fear of a very specific shade of blue in your readers; a chance of a sequel, since Modell returns with a vengeance in Kitsunegari.

Jose Chung's From Outer Space (3X20) - Mulder and Scully hear, and promptly investigate, a story about an alien abduction of two teenagers. Each witness provides a different version of the same facts. Within the episode, a thriller novelist, Jose Chung, writes a book about the incident.  Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Humor! Lots and lots self-aware, meta-type inner-jokes humor as an observant book writer describes Mulder/Sherlock’s many weird traits.

Avatar (3x21) - Assistant Director Walter Skinner  is accused of murdering a prostitute, Mulder and Scully investigate to determine the truth behind what happened. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: A fine chance to turn Skinner into Sholto or one of John’s other army friends (Skinner discusses trauma from his days in Vietnam in this episode, which could be adapted to Afghanistan). John Asks for Sherlock’s help on behalf of Sholto/said friend and there’s a thrilling prospect of some good old jealousy :) *After writing this I kinda fell in love with this idea and I might attempt writing this, but I’m absolutely not claiming this exclusively! If you like the idea go ahead!

Paper Hearts (4X08) - Another Vince Gilligan episode, my go-to one these days for when I miss the show and need a good dose of Mulder and Scully. I can go on and on about why I love this episode but I’ll spare you from that right now ;) Mulder and Scully find that a child killer who Mulder had helped to apprehend several years earlier had claimed more victims than he had confessed to; and in the resulting investigation, learn that the killer is now claiming to have killed Mulder's sister Samantha. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: The Alice in Wonderland theme in the episode is somewhat reminiscent of the Hansel and Gretel theme from TRF so Moriarty could be one way to go; another way to go is have Eurus as a villain in a TFP plot fix-it (if you find the Sherrinford plot exaggerated), with Sherlock’s hope of finding Victor’s body by the end of the game.

Zero Sum (4x21) - In the episode, a case Mulder is asked to investigate is covertly covered up by the agents' boss Walter Skinner, who has made a sinister bargain with The Smoking Man. Scully is missing in this episode (Mulder cites her cancer treatments; Gillian Anderson was filming something else at the time). Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: A wonderful opportunity for a Lestrade-as-Skinner story!  (and you’re given a fine chance to write a Lestade naked with nothing but pants situation); Mulder is a bit lost without Scully in this episode so that’s added background Johnlock angst; the story can happen when John is away, either during his honeymoon or after Mary dies.

The Pine Bluff Variant (5x18) - This is an underrated episode which I quite like, personally. Scully grows suspicious of Mulder when she thinks he may be helping a terrorist organization. Scully begins to wonder if he is now a traitor to the FBI. It is eventually revealed that Mulder is working as a mole in the group, and he is trying to stop them before they are able to use a biological weapon—that may have been created by members of the U.S. government—which causes rapid degeneration of human flesh. Cool plot points you might enjoy: alternating POVs between Sherlock and John; a lot of tension between John and Sherlock while John is suspicious; Mycroft recruiting Sherlock to appear as a traitor.

Triangle (6x03) - What can I possibly say about Triangle that hadn’t been said before? Cool plot points you might enjoy: An AU-within-AU opportunity - a chance for John and Sherlock to meet in a WW2 era, saved by rebel-Nazi Lestrade, Sherlock’s irregulars are The Lone Gunmen, a kiss, a punch, “You’re my one in five billion” (remember when there 5 billion people on this planet?) :) If you do write this, please make sure present John and past John pass each other by and get a strange, tingling sensation as a result! It’s one of my favorite scenes in the entire show.

Dreamland I & II (6x04 and 6x05) - Mulder and Scully visit Area 51. But when the agents witness the flight of a mysterious craft, Mulder and a member of the Men in Black switch bodies, unbeknownst to the others. In part two, Scully begins to suspect that her partner's strange behavior is more than it appears to be, while Mulder fights to return his life to normal before it is too late. Cool plot points you might enjoy: Humor, humor and more humor. Mostly Morris Fletcher trying to bed John (=Scully) who promptly pulls a gun on him. That should be an awesome scene to write in and of itself. And let’s not forget “Lately, for lunch, you've been having this six-ounce cup of yogurt, plain yogurt, into which you stir bee pollen because you're on a bee pollen kick even though I tell you you're a doctor and you should know better.“ as well as “I’d kiss you if you weren’t so damn ugly.”

Tithonus (6x09) - Another underrated episode. I think it deals with the theme of death’s inevitability rather beautifully. Scully learns that she, but not Mulder, is being given a chance to prove her worth at the FBI, and—paired with a new partner—she investigates a crime scene photographer with an uncanny knack for arriving just in time to see his victims' final moments. What she does not expect, however, is for Death to play a role himself. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: John exploring on his own, for one reason or another, attached to another investigator (things happen!); this episode further explores a theory referred throughout the show since Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, that Dana Scully is immortal (she seems to avoid death in this episode as well). It’s an Appointment in Samarra sort of story.

Monday (6x15) - Mulder and Scully are stuck in a deadly time loop. It’s a story that writes itself! Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Sherlock or John having a really bad morning, over and over again.

Alpha (6x16) - Mulder and Scully investigate several killings blamed on an Asian dog called the Wanshang Dhole, thought to be extinct. Mulder and Scully join an obstinate Sheriff, a seemingly eccentric hunter, and a reclusive canine expert to find it. However, there is more mystery to the expert than meets the eye. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: I enjoy this episode because it has some gentle but obvious MSR moments. Scully is suspicious (and low-key jealous) of Karin Berquist’s involvement in the case and it colors her opinion of the investigation. A key quote in this episode, preformed softly and beautifully by Gillian, is: “She's enamored of you Mulder. Don't underestimate a woman. They can be tricksters, too.”

The Unnatural (6x17) - This is a weird ass episode, let’s admit it. This is DD’s love story to baseball and it’s silly and sometimes boring/slow. BUT, it has lovely MRS moments.  Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: The structure of story within a story (Mulder retells his time spent with Arthur Dales who tells him the story of Josh Exley) is interesting enough. The opening and closing scenes are lovely as well of course!

X-Cops (7x12) - Mulder and Scully are interviewed for the Fox reality television program Cops during an X-Files investigation. Mulder, hunting what he believes to be a werewolf, discovers that the monster terrorizing people instead feeds on fear. While Mulder embraces the publicity of Cops, Scully is more uncomfortable about appearing on national television. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: It’s your chance to write a Sherlock crossver fic about an X-Files crossover episode. If that’s not cool, I don’t no what is.

Hollywood A.D. (7x18) - Let’s admit it, Hollywood A.D is not a good episode, as funny as it is. This episode was one of the first signs the show had lost its edge, possibly because they thought this would be their truly-this-time last season. However, it IS funny and gave rise to fans claims that by this point, Mulder and Scully were Definitely Sleeping Together. Wayne Federman, an entrepreneurial Hollywood producer and college friend of Walter Skinner picks up the idea for a film based on the X-Files, however Mulder and Scully find that the level of realism in their fictional portrayal is somewhat questionable. Meanwhile, during the filming of the movie, Mulder and Scully research the mysterious "Lazarus Bowl", an artifact that supposedly has the exact words that Jesus Christ spoke to raise Lazarus from the dead recorded on its surface. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Lots of inner-jokes and crack humor, many fluffy moments, the chance to imagine who’ll play Lestrade, Sherlock and John in a BBC Film, Lazarus could refer to The Fall(!), which could be the plot to said film.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe - Mulder and Scully have both left the FBI, but when an FBI agent is mysteriously kidnapped, and a former priest who has been convicted of being a child molester claims to be experiencing psychic visions of the endangered agent, they reluctantly accept the FBI's request for their paranormal expertise. I know, I know. Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t like it either at first, but a) compared to the revival seasons, it’s not that bad and b) in terms of established relationship angst, it’s a fucking goldmine. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: A chance to write a post-recent-retirement fic for Sherlock and John, with a lot of tension in their established relationship based around John’s reluctance to return to their lives as investigators. IWTB has quotes like “This isn't my life anymore, Mulder. I'm done chasing monsters in the dark.” and “This stubbornness of yours, it's why I fell in love with you.”  So there! Don’t dismiss the idea so quickly!

Wow, this turned out longer than I expected! I hope you liked them, and even if you don’t write anything - I definitely enjoyed this exercise.

My finished fics are ready to be read on AO3 :)

[caranfindel]

Initial reaction 15.14: Last Holiday

Well, friends, here we go. Are you ready?

(I'm not. But here we go anyway.)

THEN: Cuthbert Sinclair. (Really? That's a deep cut.) Abbadon. Larry Ganem. (And S8 Sam, who is fucking gorgeous.) Oh, and God and Jack and all that stuff, in case you forgot.

NOW: Sam's in the library, doing research, and is distracted by some ominous noises. Ominous in a machinery-breaking-down kind of way, not in a monstery kind of way. Enter Dean, wearing an apron. "What's with the apron," asks Sam, "because it's only protecting your jeans, not the Red Shirt of Bad Decisions." At least that's how it sounded in my head. I mean, who only gets dirty from the waist down when they're cooking? (Well, that lends itself to all kinds of double entendres, doesn't it?) Or maybe Sam doesn't say that because he hopes the RSoBD will be destroyed in a tragic burger accident.

Seriously, Dean, that shirt is precious and you need to protect it, no matter what Sam thinks.

Dean complains that the pilot light keeps going out, and the hot water is unsatisfactory (and we know how he feels about his showers), and Sam reminds him that if the bunker was ever state-of-the-art, it was in the 50s. They exposition for us that Jack is hiding in his room. "Can you blame him?" Sam says. "His soul is back. Everything is hitting him. Everything he's done..." And Sam continues, but I'm sorry, I'm stuck here, thinking about re-souled Sam with everything hitting him. {sob} However, neither of the Winchesters seem to be thinking about this, so. Carry on.

The guys remind us that if Jack kills God, he'll have to kill Amara as well. Which I assume means Amara isn't going to get killed? Just saying. As much as I talk about foreshadowing (too much, please stop!) this show teases us with anti-foreshadowing with equal fervor. And Cas is apparently looking for Amara? What does he hope to accomplish? "Excuse me, but we're killing your brother, so you have to die too. Condolences. But if we follow canon - not that there's any reason to assume we will - you have to die at about the same time. So I need you to come with me while we figure out where he is and how to kill him."

There's another ominous noise, and Dean says "Oh, come on. Now the air?" I hope he means the air conditioning, and not the air purifying/exchange/whatever that Ketch shut off when he locked them in the bunker back in... whatever the BMoL season was. Hey, remember when the guys were locked in the bunker and they were running out of air and they wore single layers and goggles and got all sweaty and depressed? Because I've kind of never gotten over it. But I digress.

Sam is surprised that Dean expects them to fix it. "We've fought the devil," Dean says. "I've killed Hitler. I think we can handle a few old pipes." Surely this isn't the first time they've had to do some repairs around the place.

Deep within the bowels of the bunker, Sam reads some ancient instructions and complains that they can't just call a plumber. Dean refers to the bunker as the most "secretive, secure supernatural hideout in the world," which makes me laugh, because remember when Larry Ganem told Sam it was secure against all manner of evil? What a joke. Is there anything or anyone evil who hasn't been able to get into the bunker? My house is more secure against evil than the bunker, and all I have for protection is a circle of termite bait and a couple of ancient dogs.

They locate the "bunker grid control center thing thingy" (oh Sam, I adore you), complete with reset and standby buttons. Standby is glowing. Dean hypothesizes that it will work just like his computer, which needs to be shut down when it gets too many popups (I suspect you need some virus protection, dear boy), and slams down the reset button before Sam can stop him. Everything goes dark, but then starts up again, so Dean considers it a success. He calls himself "Meat Man" again and heads upstairs to finish cooking his burgers.

Time jump. Dean goes into his room, carrying a burger and a beer, and is astonished to find a middle-aged woman there. She's wearing a plaid wool skirt I owned in the 80s and is folding his underwear. "Oh, hello dear!" she says cheerfully. Dean yells for Sam.

Gosh, Dean, it's like this place isn't secretive or secure at all.

The horrified Shaggy and Scooby boxers are ~chef's kiss.~ Well done, someone.

Title card!

Library. The woman tuts at dust and wonders how they've lived in "this filth," which reminds me of an awesome Tumblr post which theorizes that faeries actually keep the bunker clean, and only first-born son Dean can see them. "Lady, who the hell are you," Dean demands, and is chastized for his language. He calls for Sam again, and gives him the story of how he walked into his room and found her "folding my underthings."

She explains that her actual name is indecipherable in "your tongue," but "Mr. Ganem called me _Mrs. Butters."_She's a wood nymph. And she's not in the woods, nymphing (thank you Dean) because she has more important things to do - she lives in the bunker and takes care of the Men of Letters. I.e., "my boys. My family."

Dean invites her to leave, but this is her home, and she's been here since "before the war." And she thinks it's 1958. "Well, I hate to tell you," Dean says, "but it's 2020." YES, DEAN, WE ALL FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT 2020. Mrs. Butters is horrified to learn all her boys are dead. And for some reason Dean tells her they were murdered by a demon instead of saying old age, or they went to a farm upstate, or whatever. She spots a photo of the last group of MoL, which we've never noticed before, and realizes that this is why they never came back from that last ceremony. When they didn't return, she decided to put the bunker - and herself - in standby mode.

But she also realizes that if these boys are like those boys, it's been a while since they had a home-cooked meal or celebrated a holiday. Or washed their clothes, as she makes a face. That's uncalled for, lady. We all know that Sam Winchester smells like rosemary and mint no matter how long it's been since he did laundry. Sam explains that they're not really "holiday people," which rings true coming from the guy who didn't want to celebrate Christmas and hates Halloween. (And only had one real Thanksgiving in his life and his brother still holds that against him but NO I'M NOT BITTER.)

Dean is more interested in what "standby mode" is. Mrs. Butters says the MoL used her magic to give the bunker "extra oomph," and snaps her fingers. Voila, extra oomph! There's some humming noises, the telescope alcove lights up (!), and an alarm sounds. Because the map table is actually a monster radar, and it indicates a nest of vampires 50 miles away. And gives the address. WELL.

{Sidebar: Why didn't the BMoL know the AMoL had this capability? Why was their focus on "you're not as good as us" instead of "you used to be as good as us; what happened?" Discuss.}

Do I care? No. Because look at these precious perplexed faces.

Dean's ready to go (and it earns him another stern warning about his language), but Sam wonders if they can trust her. "Look at her," Dean says. And I agree. She's a dumpy middle aged woman in a brown plaid wool skirt. She's basically me. And who could be more trustworthy, more concerned with the Winchesters' health and safety, than me?

Um. Anyway.

Not to change the subject or anything, but the pretty is strong tonight, y'all.

Dean suggests they give her the benefit of the doubt, and if it turns out she's not what she says she is, "then we deal with it." The music turns ominous. "What about Jack?" Sam asks.

Oh, Jack is actually in this episode? I thought maybe they were explaining his absence earlier, like they always do with Cas. (Because I always cover the guest star credits on first watch. Spoilers.) But it turns out Jack is actually with us tonight. Sitting on his bed, looking depressed. Dean knocks on his door and tells him they're going out, and there's a "probably harmless" guest making snickerdoodles. This sparks Jack's interest. It would work on me, too. I love snickerdoodles.

Impala. Sam's not sure it's a good idea to keep Mrs. Butters around, even if she is legit. He's concerned about Jack, but Dean brushes him off.

He'll be fine. I mean, I've been through worse and look at me. I'm the picture of health.

Ignoring your trauma doesn't make you healthy.

Sure it does.

Oh, Sam. Just listen to yourself. No, I mean, please. Listen to yourself.

Sam feels like Jack is hiding something, and I wish there were someone around who had also done awful things while un-souled, and remembered what it felt like to deal with that afterward. Someone sympathetic and empathetic. With soft puppy dog eyes and beautiful hair. Oh well. I guess Jack will just have to go unburden himself onto whoever he comes across.

Bunker. Mrs. Butters brings Jack a sandwich. He doesn't open the door, but she leaves it for him.

Vampire nest. A couple of vampires are watching Dark Shadows (so meta!) and drinking blood stolen from a blood bank. So, are these, like, maybe not bad vampires? Maybe they don't kill people? We'll never know, because Sam and Dean walk in and cut off their heads. And come home to... Christmas. Lights are strung all over, jazzy Christmas music is playing, there's a huge decorated tree and gifts, and Mrs. Butters has a tray of homemade cookies. "We are so keeping her," Dean says. Sam looks unsure.

Kitchen. Mrs. Butters tells Sam that since he and Dean have been so busy killing monsters, they haven't had a chance to celebrate anything. But I can barely pay attention to a single word that comes out of the woman's mouth because LOOK AT SAM IN THIS T-SHIRT. LOOK AT IT.

Single-layer Sam is something to celebrate.

She insists that Sam "enjoy the world you're fighting for" (which is never gonna happen, lady) and excitedly talks about all the holidays she wants to make up for. Then Jack enters, and her mood changes instantly. Even Jack's adorable little dorky wave doesn't melt her. "What are you?" she asks coldly.

Enter Dean, wearing a real-life version of the purple "sleeping robe" and nightcap he wore in "Scoobynatural." OH MY GAWD. I really hope this was a surprise for the rest of the cast.

And I also hope he's not really going commando underneath... or do I?

Mrs. Butters is distracted enough to decide that if the boys vouch for Jack, he must be okay. She hands Jack a smoothie but tells Dean he must have tomato juice due to his cholesterol. And she pronounces it the Patrick Stewart way, not the Mark Hammil way.

Before Dean can drink his to-mah-toh juice, the monster radar alarm goes off, and the guys rush off to prepare for a hunt. For future reference, when you leave the kitchen, Sam's room is to the right and Dean's is to the left. We next see the guys fully dressed, receiving sack lunches from Mrs. Butters. Dean's sandwich has the crusts cut off. {Sidebar: Sam never had someone to cut the crusts off his sandwich. Hold me. And also, how many reminders am I going to have of "Dark Side of the Moon" tonight?} She tells Sam the monster is a lamia, the blessed knives are in the trunk, and she just waxed the car so Dean needs to take it easy.

As the guys rush off, she turns to Jack and his smoothie mustache. "Well. What shall we do with you?"

NOTHING GOOD, I'M SURE.

As Jack helps wash dishes, he fills her in. Lucifer was his father, Mary was his family and his friend but he killed her. Mrs. Butters is very supportive, telling him "life gives us second chances and it's our obligation to hold onto them." And she presents him with another smoothie.

Montage! Thanksgiving dinner. More hunts. More sack lunches. Halloween (and even Sam seems to enjoy it). Fourth of July. (Yet another "Dark Side of the Moon" shoutout). A hunt requiring the grenade launcher and Thor's hammer from that episode whose title I can't remember! Sam's birthday! By the way, none of these holiday celebrations include Cas.

Mmmm. So worthy.

Time jump. Jack catches Mrs. Butters looking at something in a file cabinet and being very sneaky about it. He requests another smoothie to get her out of the room, and then finds what she was looking at. It's her MoL file, including a reel of film. The film shows Cuthbert Sinclar talking about File 5150 (aw, RIP Eddie Van Halen). The subject was actually recovered from the Thule (aw, "Everybody Hates Hitler") and we learn that wood nymphs "react violently when home or family are threatened." Sinclair says he "conducted a series of experiments designed to show this strange and magical being of our mission" and convinced her to join the MoL family. Huh. Wonder how he did that. Then Mrs. Butters demonstrates her devotion by literally ripping the head off a Thule. "Son of a bitch," says Jack, because he's been spending a lot of time with Dean.

Jack runs into the war room looking for Sam (and yes, I'm petty enough to love that he looks to Sam first), who is off getting ready for a "big date." Huh. Okay. Mrs. Butters offers him soup, but then Sam walks in, giving off some pretty strong Hot Professor Sam vibes (hello again, "Everybody Hates Hitler") with a sweater vest and tie, and I am thrilled with this development.

Thrilled, I tell you.

Mrs. Butters tells him he looks wonderful but offers to trim his hair (back off, lady, I will cut you) and Dean enters in time to make a weak Abercrombie and Bitch joke. Sam tells him Eileen's in town, and he's taking her out to dinner and "some privacy, something."

"Heavy on the something," Dean says, and we're going to talk about that later, I promise. But for now, Mrs. Butters tells Sam to take one of the old cars from the garage. Finally. Can we just make this permanent? Can Sam have his own fucking car, please? She produces a bouquet of roses from nowhere and sends him on his adorably anxious way. Then she tells Dean she found a broken TV in one of the rooms and fixed it. "The Dean Cave?" Dean is off like a shot. I wonder if that's the TV he smashed with a hammer, and if so, how did she fix it? (Also, hello again, "Scoobynatural.")

Jack is still unsettled. He follows her into the dungeon and tells her he saw the film. {Sidebar: The film showed her killing one of their enemies because she's protective of the MoL. Is it really that awful? Discuss.} "And how did that make you feel?" she asks. "You relished his pain, didn't you, Jack?" Oh, turns out that was a setup - she wanted Jack to see the video, so she could confirm that he was a bloodthirsty little monster. And do the Winchesters know how powerful he has become?

They should be scared of you!

I would never hurt them.

You have before, haven't you? Have you ever thought that Sam and Dean keep you in here, closed in, secure, because they're scared you'll do to someone else what you did to their mother?

Well, I mean. Now he has. She flings Jack into the wall. He tries to use the glowy eyes on her, but he finds himself powerless. She snaps the magic handcuffs on him. "You didn't think those smoothies were for your health, did you? Oh, I've learned a few things while I was doing the dusting around here. A little yarrow root, some ground jawbone for texture, and voila! You are as weak as a puppy."

Wait. That's all it took? To power down a nephilim, who is canonically more powerful than his archangel parent? So when the Winchesters were trying to take down Lucifer and AU Michael, all they needed was some yarrow root and ground jawbone? And the answers were all right here in the bunker?

(Sigh. Don't think about it. That way lies madness.)

(Also, canon! Ha ha ha ha.)

She tells Jack she's making the bunker safe again and getting rid of all the monsters. Like you, sweetness. Aw. Sad Jack.

Kitchen. Dean comes in looking for a snack and is immediately presented with some kind of grilled sandwich. She tells him to eat it, because he'll need his strength when they go kill Jack. Aw, that's the sound of a heart breaking.

Dean is disappointed that their good thing has gone "full Nurse Ratchet," and glances longingly at the sandwich he has to leave behind. He takes Mrs. B's knife and suggests they let Jack go and pretend this never happened. The only logical conclusion is that Dean is under Jack's spell, so he gets tossed into the dungeon too. Oh, cool. Does that mean Sam gets to be the hero and save them?

Spoiler alert: Ha ha ha ha no.

Hello, Demon Dean. That's the only other time we've seen this expression, isn't it? {Or is it simply the only one branded onto my brain? Discuss.)

Map table room. Sam comes in and is met by Mrs. B. "Bit past your curfew, Samuel," she says curtly. He's no longer wearing his tie. Hmm. So, let's talk about the Eileen situation. Isn't it weird that (1) Dean didn't know she was in town, and (b) she's not spending the night at the bunker? Wouldn't you think she'd be a house guest? I mean, she's not "in town" for the heck of it. The only thing that would bring her to Lebanon would be Sam. So why isn't she here seeing Sam? Is she just driving through on her way somewhere else? She can't even spend one night in the bunker? And the tie? If Sam removed his tie, doesn't that strongly suggest Dean was right about the "something" going on? Did they do it in the back of the old car? At a hotel? I have questions, friends.

Anyway. Sam asks where Jack and Dean are, since it's late and they should be sitting around the map table waiting for him to come home and not, like, in bed or anything. "Well, I have some good news, and some bad news."

HERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS INDEED.

Honestly, I like this look better without the tie.

Time jump.

So, Jack has taken over Dean's mind. And they're both downstairs, right now, ready to be killed by us.

You were always the smart one, yes.

Sam, who is the smart one, says he's going to go to his room and get his gun, and he'll meet her in the dungeon. "And we can... get to the killing." I LOVE HIM. {Sidebar: I have watched his fake relieved sigh several times and it makes me smile every time.} Once he’s safe in his room, Sam calls Dean and starts to tell him about Mrs. Butters.

Went psycho, we know.

Why didn't you call me?

Well, I mean I, you know, I figured you were "practicing your sign language."

And that's more important than coming to save you?

...

Dean?

It's been a while for you, man, you know?

Aw. Always the supportive big brother. {Sidebar: As long as Sam is doing something Dean thinks Sam should be doing. But I digress.}

{Sidebar: I love Dean, y'all know I do. Warts and all. He'd be boring if he were perfect.}

Dean suggests Sam shoot her, although they don't know if a gun will kill her because neither of them got around to researching it because they were distracted by Christmas and Thanksgiving and breakfast on Boxing Day. That's how you get killed, guys. {Sidebar: How much do I love that Sam calls it Boxing Day? For my Brit friends, that's not really a thing in the U.S., although it's gradually starting to become one. And I love it.}

Dean then suggests that putting the bunker in standby mode might put Mrs. B in suspended animation again. Meanwhile, Jack and Dean are stuck in the dungeon. Jack suggests using his power to remove the cuffs, but Dean points out that the power surge would catch Chuck's attention. But what power surge? Jack already tried to use his power against Mrs. B and it turned out he didn't have any.

Jack suspects there are other reasons Dean doesn't want him to use his power, and suddenly decides it's time for a deep conversation.

Do you still think I'm a monster? Okay, I'm just gonna say this, okay? Just get it out there. Jack, I'm trying, okay? I really am. But what you did, that's not easy to forget. Now, I was angry with you. For a while. And maybe I still am a little bit, okay? But I'm not gonna let some evil Mary Poppins take you out. You understand?

Okay. Good talk.

Sam shows up in the library looking for Mrs. B, and trying to hide his gun, as if he hadn't told her he was going to his room specifically to retrieve said gun. But Mrs. B realizes he's trying to kill her, and freezes him. She's not mad, she's just disappointed. She tosses him into a chair and keeps him there with the power of her mind, not with rope or anything, in case you were wondering. {Oh, hello, "Funeralia" and "The Trap."} She tells him that when the MoL first found her, she didn't realize how important they were. But Mr. Cuthbert explained it to her. And since Sam is her favorite, she's not going to give up on him. Yet. She's going help Sam the same way Mr. Cuthbert helped her understand. Well, that doesn't sound ominous at all.

He's my favorite too! And I also think he needs to be hurt! See, she's basically me!

Dungeon. Dean is going to try to chop Jack's handcuffs off.

You're sure this is gonna work?

Let's say yes.

Aw. That was a perfect opportunity to bring back "maybe 90% sure." And it doesn't work - Jack is sent flying into a glassed-in cabinet that I've never seen in the dungeon before. Dean says "dang it" before remembering that he can use his big boy words, which is adorable. And then he gets an idea.

Upstairs. Mrs. B tries to convince Sam that Jack is a monster because he's Lucifer's son. Sam, of course, takes the opposite side of this debate. "Now, Mr. Cuthbert taught me that pain can be a wonderful teacher. Let's see if it can't correct your ways."

I SWEAR, Y'ALL, SHE IS ME.

Sam could sneer at her and say "I've been tortured by the devil himself; what can you do to me?" but we don't have that version of Sam any more. Mrs. B, without tools, yanks off one of his fingernails. {Oh, hello "A Very Supernatural Christmas!"}

Meanwhile, downstairs, Dean has a different theory on pain. It's just "weakness leaving the body," he tells Jack. We get a little "on three" bit, where he actually does the thing on one. And the thing is that he tries to cut Jack's handcuffs again, but this time Jack is strategically placed in front of the dungeon door. So when he's thrown back by the blast, he ends up breaking the door down.

Upstairs. Sam's been relieved of even more fingernails.

Downstairs. Dean takes a hammer (!) and smashes the reset button. Why doesn't he just push it with his hand? I mean, sure, we get the hammer, and the red lights and warning klaxon, and all of that turns me into Pavlov's dog {Hello, "Soul Survivor"}. But still. Seems unnecessary.

Upstairs. Mrs. B seems to be gone, and Dean bends over like he's untying Sam's wrist. But Sam's wrists aren't tied to anything, so. I got nothin'.

Downstairs. The runes that seem to hold Mrs. B in stasis light up, but do not stay lit. Well, that can't be good. And then the bunker grid control center thing thingy starts shaking and springs a leak. Ooops. Here she comes, complete with glowy green eyes.

Upstairs. Dean finishes untying Sam from the chair he wasn't tied to, and remarks on how gross his tortured hand is. Mrs. B shows up, yells that they've all been very bad, and flings them across the room. She's sure Sam will thank her someday for killing Jack, because it's so important to kill monsters and keep the MoL safe. It's why she couldn't go back to her forest. Sam explains to her that Mr. Cuthbert tortured her and used her, and Dean tells her Jack is going to save the world. Oh, okay then. The regular lights turn back on and Mrs. B tearfully says she misses the MoL so much.

Aftermath. Mrs. B heals Sam's hand and apologizes and all is immediately forgotten and once again, Sam gets to forgive his torturer and turn the other cheek. Yay! Sam, what was it you said earlier?

Gif stolen from @michaeldean

The guys send Mrs. B back to the woods, but first they have this conversation:

Sadly, without my magic, the bunker will revert to standby mode, so. Ah well, things were getting too easy anyway, you know? Who needs a monster radar? Or whatever that telescope thing is? It's an interdimensional geoscope. It's a what? I looked in it earlier; I didn't see anything. Oh. Well that's not good.

Holy crap, you guys. Interdimensional. It let the MoL look at the alternate worlds. And now you can't see anything because all of the alternate worlds have been destroyed. Gotta admit, this is an excellent little twist.

Jack presents Mrs. B with the photo of the MoL. "Oh look," she says. "The man who tortured me and kept me from my home, right here, front and center." Well, no, she doesn't. But I do.

Mrs. Butters gives them some last instruction. "Dean, eat your vegetables. And Sam, cut your hair. And Jack, go save the world." Well, I'm in favor of one or two of those things.

Try to tell me I'm wrong. Just try.

After-aftermath. Jack tells Sam that he doesn't know if he can kill God, since he was sidelined by a wood nymph "because I was stupid." He asks if Sam thinks he can do it.

"Jack, you're the only who can." No pressure.

Dean shows up with a truly awful-looking birthday cake for Jack. "I made it myself. Obviously." But Jack is thrilled because it's from Dean, and it means Dean loves him and has forgiven him, until the plot requires otherwise. He makes a wish and blows out his single candle. Fade to black.

So! There were parts of this that were simply marvelous. There were parts that were kind of dumb. There were parts that would have made me very angry if I weren't so tired and jaded. But the good parts were darn good, and the pretty was dialed up to 11, and we all know I'm a sucker for a pretty episode. And there was NO B PLOT. AT ALL. Thank you baby Jesus.

And let’s just refuse to consider the possibility that these were, in fact, their last holidays. Thanks.

Now I get to see what you thought about it. And, as always, please help me stay unspoiled for future episodes, including episode titles and casting info. {smooches}

[thecagedsong]

Cool, so one of my fandoms is having a really bad day, and since I care about Fablehaven until this monster of a fanfic gets finished, how about some wholesome meta? I don’t really care what the drama was about, so don’t tell me. We’re all a little high strung, and I tend to take disagreements personally in a way that I’m working on, and don’t need to be involved in. 

Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, who wants to talk about the Five crowns? Because I had a 14 hour car ride yesterday, listening to the second half of Evening Star and Shadow Plague, and I am so ready to let you all in on the code I cracked. I found the unifying magic diagram of the Fablehaven verse. The key to ultimate satisfaction, and if there was a magic research journal in universe, I would post this in and win the Top Magic Nerd of this Century award.  My goal is to make this as accepted canon as possible, because I am ridiculously right. No characters involved, so no drama except of the scolastic kind, relying on heavy references to canon. 

Ready? 

SO, I made a pretty big claim. But I’ve been toying with this theory since before Dragonwatch three came out. I need some reviews before I inform Brand Mull that I’ve cracked his secret and won the game. If this symbol isn’t on the spine of the Journal of Secrets, what is even the point. 

A good symbol does three things: identifies the pieces you are dealing with, helps the viewer reach a new understanding about the pieces, and map onto the cultural understandings of the audience. aka a cross with four quadrants of airplane, mitochondria, love, and toe nails is a terrible symbol. See common memes for usually pretty good symbols and graphs. 

So you got five crowns right? That means you have a pentagon and a five pointed star, and the biggest trick was figuring out where each crown went, and how they related to each other. 

Examine five-part belief systems, see where the crowns match, unifying symbol explains everything, move on. Easy.

NO.

You wanna know why?

BECAUSE FIVE POINTED STARS AS SYMBOLS ARE MORE WORTHLESS THAN AAA BATTERIES FOR WATCHING TELEVISION

Okay, a bit of an exaggeration, obviously they are very useful for things like organizing systems within a single body. Who functions as the head, the shield arm, the pivot foot, etc. But the point of that diagram is that they are equally important and dependent to every other part. Which doesn’t work when the different groups keep trying to break each other’s kneecaps (see b5: fairies v demons).

It also falls apart on the five-piece cultural scale. The most well-known 5-piece cultural scale is obviously the chinese elements: Fire Wood Water Metal Earth.

Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert on those at all. But it all broke down on fire, TBH. Were dragons fire? But a large point was that their breath weapons weren’t always fire. Were demons fire? Even the ones covered in sludge. Were demons earth? Was the underking earth? All I got were fairies as water, in the end. If someone wants to give that a go, be my guest. 

I drew so many pentagrams trying to figure it out, and it never worked. No matter the arrangement, it never told me more about the crowns except that there were five of them. I was about to despair. 

But then the muses sang: The Forgotten Crown. 

(That’s the title of my thesis, btw)

Like I said, five pointed stars were trash for this system, but what if I added another crown, one that no one bothers to count, because by their nature, they can’t do anything. That’s right:

The Forgotten Crown of the Fair Folk. 

The symbol slipped into place like sharp pointy things into Warren. And now I can get to the real meta after sharing this image:

Isn’t it beautiful? After I cracked this code, I showed it to my little sister. She smiled contentedly, calling it satisfying. It is so satisfying. It speaks to so many levels of understanding. 

First, I depicted for you, we have the morality and the terrain triangles. 

Morality triangle is the easiest, if you feel uncomfortable labeling drown-happy naiads as good and all demons as evil, congrats, thinking about the nature of good and evil is precisely what Mull was going for. Since I am suddenly one of those people, I’m going to be using the creation/destruction dichotomy, but acknowledge that both of those work. 

Fairies can be most easily understood when Kendra asked the Fairy Queen what she should do with her life. She’s an unlimited fount of the Fairy Queen’s own power, allowed to do whatever she wants, and the Fairy Queen tells her to nurture life. Be fruitful, put good things in the world, help people grow. Their goal is to create, their magic is defensive, beauty is wonderful for its own sake. The better you are at respecting and nurturing life, the stronger your magic is. Dryads are responsible for the whole forest, and throughout the series they are seen as more powerful and serious than fairies, which can make the plants they interact with grow and hamadryads, who are connected only to their tree. Certainly more powerful than the petty, waterbound naiads. 

Ganalus’s speech to Seth about his own nature is where you can understand demons in this world. They like to destroy and torture, they find amusement in things like plague and clipping live beings to their belts and dragging them around. They are driven by the need for more power and control. Their nature is to harm and break apart, and that has its place in this world, but we care about the stuff and people here, so mortals and fairies have got to keep these punks in check.

And of course, the Fair Folk. Here’s where this triangle gets fun. The worst of the worst gets to be Demon King, the best of the best get stronger fairy powers. That means the most neutral of the neutral get to be the leader of the Fair Folk. We’ve heard references to the main city of the Fair Folk: Selona, somewhere in Europe, and a mysterious exert that I’ve seen images of with Lord Dagrel that I’m trying to pin down. I’m posing that their powers come from being neutral. They talk about the terrible consequences of the last time they went to war, what if it the equivalent of their fallen state, when they break their neutrality, and changes them fundamentally. 

This breaks down the most, but they are the Forgotten Crown for a reason. They hold themselves apart from issues of the other crowns. No one even remembers that they have a crown, because as Seth and Celebrant have shown, who cares? They aren’t going to do anything about it. Everyone collectively forgot/don’t care about them. But their abilities are equal in strength to the others, but different in use, and less valued by those who have battles to fight. Their neutrality puts them exactly between good and evil, creation and destruction. They take the choice not to act, and there is power there too. 

Next is the Terrain Creatures. 

Sky giants control the sky, obviously. Thronis and his ability to control the weather, their height, while their feet are on the ground, far as we know, everything important happens in the sky. 

Underking gets under the ground, again, obvious. Different from the other two points of the terrain triangle in that there is a lot of creature classifactions in their domain, but think of how big the surface of the earth is, underneath it, all theirs. 

Dragons, they dwell in the sky and below the surface, putting them in both. Water dragons and Dromadus both primarily function beneath the surface, and their wings let them be in the sky. while not stronger necessarily than the other terrain crowns in their own domains, they are top of the food chain for the creatures living on the ground, and could probably take out the undead that venture near the surface, and I have high hopes for seeing a Sky Giant v Dragon in the next book. 

Cool, we got our organization of information. We learn something about them based on their placements within the triangles. But is that our symbol? No! Symbols are different than graphs, we should be able to squeeze ridiculous amounts of meaning from them, and we aren’t done yet. The two triangles map really, really well together.

What does the placement of the two triangles together tell us about the individual components?

a WHOLE TON. This is what makes this symbol the most satisfying, the triangles create two separate categorizations of their powers and abilities, but they inform each other. The morality of the terrain beings, and the domains of morality beings. 

Dragons run the whole spectrum from creation to destruction. We see a lot more of the destruction dragons, because our kids are in a war, but Raxtus hits really close to the Fairies and can heal and grow with his breath weapon. We also have wizards, who chose mortality for the ability to use magic to create. All the way to effing Navarog, honorary demon. They run every shade of the creation/destruction spectrum. We also see dragons that don’t depend on destruction because we know that there are some that agreed to behave if it meant they weren’t shoved into sanctuaries. 

Sky giants, the group we know the least about, are good enough that their queen was deemed able to be the caretaker of a dragon sanctuary, so no inherent thirst for destruction and chaos. But they run the neutral side of creation, they weren’t going to step in to stop the demons, they like magic and creating from what we know of thronis, but they fit right here. 

Underking - fall between neutral destruction. The underking wasn’t orchestrating the opening of the demon prison. They crave life, its a food source, but more than that, they want to endure. They might fall closer to demons in their taste for extinguishing life, but they need their wanting of life to continue existing. They might have individual prizes and desires for life, but because they depend on wanting life for their own continued existence, they will never organize themselves into taking over the world. Congrats, you’re only half as destructive as demons.

The morality on the terrain is much easier to see blatantly. Fairies have wings, but in no way do they control the sky, and they live on the ground. Demons...I’m sure some of them fly, but they tend to prefer caves like Granulas and pits like Jubaya and Kurisok. Prefer the night, though the light doesn’t harm them. Fittingly, the Fair Folk do not have the ability to fly on their own, and they live on the ground, not under it. 

sO SATISFying how those fit together. Are you weeping yet? This is harmony on the organizational level. 

But I claimed this was the perfect symbol, the ultimate. There is one more layer describing how every piece relates to every other piece, per the best symbols. 

Opposites

This is the least defined level of interaction, and each line is unique, while still being opposite its counterpart. We’ll start with the ones we have the least information about and go from there. 

Demon/sky giant: We know nothing, at the moment. They have never commented on each other, and have never interacted. Why didn’t sky giants show up to the Zzyzx party? Who knows! So I’m going to speculate here, and propose that they just really can’t stand each other’s presence. Demons stay away from sky giants, because giants are way bigger than them, and it is hard to feel powerful when you only come up to their knee, and sky giants don’t like demons because...eww, demons. 

Fair Folk/Dragon: We know that there are Fair Folk at all seven dragon sanctuaries. We know that the Fair Folk were there long before the sanctuaries were created. Fair Folk neutrality let both parties trust the dragons to part of their watch. It also seems that Dragons have a very difficult time staying neutral. We’ve seen a lot of flavors of dragon, but the one flavor we haven’t seen, possibly by its nature, is a neutral dragon. The closest we came was Dromadus, who was an abstaining pacifist for two books, but kept lending help to the innocent and those aligned with the innocent. His neutrality broke literally the week someone asked him to break it.

 Fascinatingly, the talents of the Fair Folk are actually the closest analog to the breath weapons of the dragons. One unique ability, can be augmented by training, can do something unique to the characteristics of the user. This is enough to make their uses of magic foils for each other in ways that they can’t be with the other races. In fact, they take human shape, their wizards act a lot like the talents of the Fair Folk.

Their final opposite string: physical appearance. Fair Folk are attractive (symetrical) humans. Dragons are hulking reptiles of scale and claw meant to let everyone who can see them know who is the top predator around. Fair folk are disarmingly beautiful. 

Fairy/Underking: The dichotomy that we know the most about because it’s the one the protagonists find themselves on opposite side of. I could double the length of this post talking about these opposite foils, but this is already ridiculously long, so I’ll keep it brief. Consult upcoming thesis for full analysis.

Most obvious aspect of this line? They literally cannot co-exist, one must overpower the other. Nova Songs are consumed by darkness, while crown-fueled Kendra literally turns the undead into bones and dust. The darkness and light can’t balance like the demon cursed area + Fairy shrine stone did in Shadow Plague, there is no middle ground.

While fairies and demons make the creation-destruction spectrum, Fairy and Underking make the Life-death line. Unicorns, who have so much life and youth that lectoblixes overdose to death on them, and the undead that give up the joys light and live to continue. Because Death lasts as long as life. 

And finally my favorite line of opposites, their crowns functions in exactly the opposite ways. The under-crown does not share power. It accumulates, you become one of consciousness of the crown. They swallow you up, and you will never take power from them. They will continue. Meanwhile the Fairy crown has had several owners, as identified by Risenmay in dw2. And the Fairy Crown shares magic in a way that the other crowns don’t. The fairy Queen shared her magic with Kendra, yes, but she also shared it with her husband. All the male fairies fell with the Fairy King, turning permanently into imps. Unless the Fairy Queen isn’t being honest about how that happened, that meant that the male half of the kingdom was under the authority of her husband when he fell. Which makes sense for this crown. One person can’t make a new person on their own, they have to have a male and a female genetic coding. For the crown that is all about creating and preserving life, that power isn’t meant to be wielded alone. The Fairy crown can share, can give, while the Undercrown can consume and take. They are complete opposites in this.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading through this preliminary thesis. Counterpoints, additions, and commentary are welcome. I want to flesh this out a little more before sending my transcendent, beautiful, unifying symbol to Mull and have him announce that I have officially cracked the code. Really tho, the fact that I can pull this together into a unifying symbol is pretty cool in terms of Mull’s worldbuilding. 

Well...only works if he acknowledges the forgotten crown. Dragonwatch 5: the Crown of Selona. I can’t wait. 

[shirtlesssammy]

15x04: Atomic Monsters

Then:

Becky was an obsessed, gross fangirl, and it was not awesome.

Now:

We open to the bunker under attack. Dean is in full beard and kicking ass. Boy, the director of this episode sure knows how to make Dean pretty. He makes it to the bunker’s kitchen to find Benny (!!!!) on the floor dying. 

I don’t rewatch Taxi Driver for a reason, Show. I loved Benny and Dean’s friendship, so while this was great just to have him back for old time’s sake, it still makes me sad that he’s still gone. (And spoiler, this is Sam’s dream. I just like to think about how Sam still thinks about this friendship he didn’t want Dean to have and it haunts him to this day.)

Dean’s looking for someone. He walks into the war room and finds him: Sam, all powerful on demon blood. Dean tries reasoning with his brother, but he’s past all that. Sam kills another hunter sneaking up on them, and then he kills Dean. 

Sam wakes up from his nightmare, gasping. SAM!

He heads to the kitchen to find Dean looking for cases, drinking coffee, and eating a plate of bacon. Dean says it’s veggie bacon when Sam tries to turn down eat some. Sam also tells Dean that his self-proclaimed nickname “Meat Man” isn’t what he thinks it means. Dean apparently knows exactly what it means and he’s standing by it. Ahem. Dean also calls Sam out on not handling their recent losses. The Just Brothers show is a real bummer.

Anyway, the case Dean found is in Iowa. There’s been a string of cattle mutilations and a young woman’s body found ripped to pieces. 

Also, it was real bacon and Dean’s a dick for trying to trick Sam into eating it. 

At Beaverdale High School, Sam learns Susie, the vic, was a popular girl and there’s going to be a prayer vigil for her at the school. Two parents show up asking about the game getting canceled --or rescheduled. They’re just can’t have that happen. There was going to be a scout coming to that game for their son, Billy. 

Sam is appalled (and I’m sad for him, so close to losing family he cared about.) The vice principal shuts down the pushy parents, and after they leave mutters, “I swear, the parents are worse than the kids.” 

Sam meets back up with Dean (eating again). Dean was just at the morgue and found a vamp fang. This one’s a weird one. Vamps don’t usually tear their victims apart. Also, she didn’t even try to fight off her attacker. 

Later that night, a fellow student leaves the school only to be attacked by the camera in the bushes!! 

Sam and Dean check out where Susie was found. No blood means she was killed elsewhere and her body was dumped in the woods. Sam soliloquies about how taking care of the monsters is their job and they carry the weight of everyone. Dean drinks from his flask. They are coping SO WELL, guys!

Sam gets a call that another girl is missing. 

WHOA. Becky, fangirl and Sam kidnapper extraordinaire, is married with kids and is looking forward to having the house to herself for the day. Just as her husband and kids pull away, she sees her old ex, Chuck, across the street. Run, Becky, Run! Chuck wants to talk. UGH. 

The VP fills the brothers in on the new missing teen. 

Chuck checks out Becky’s maquettes and learns that she’s a successful Etsy seller of Supernatural merchandise. She fesses up to how wrong what she did to Sam was, admitted to counseling. She kept writing. She wrote the good stuff, amirite? Chuck disagrees and thinks that people like the monsters. (Natasha: raises hand.) Becky’s a busy person so Chuck better cut to the chase here. Chuck won’t let the whole monster thing go. 

Chuck admits to having a falling out with the Winchesters. He also tells Becky that his sister won’t help, because “she sucks.” Becky can’t believe that Chuck thinks he can come crawling back to her. She’s got a good life now. She doesn’t need him. 

Becky’s nice though (can’t believe I just wrote those words), and asks Chuck, what makes him happy. Writing. She tells him he has to write. 

Back at the high school, Dean is interviewing a man in a beaver suit while eating a hot dog. 

JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER. (I’m conducting an experiment with my GA co-worker about Dean is bi-Dean/Cas. I can’t wait to hear what she says about this. She did call The Breakup a “bro-fight” so I’ll keep you all posted.) 

In the school gymnasium, Billy and Veronica bond over losing Susie. Billy’s mom interrupts and he runs away. 

The third-in-line-to-the-throne cheerleader practices her eulogy alone in a gym. I obsessed over this scene in this post about stories, because it was such a strange beat in the episode. The Winchesters confront her. They ask her to head off with them alone (GURL never do that with anyone you don’t know) when Sam notices that she wears braces. 

Sam and Dean leave the gym in a huff. Vampires don’t wear braces! Foiled by braces yet again! They go back to the drawing board. 

We finally get a peek in the happy lacrosse family’s home. Everyone’s argumentative and on edge, and when we get a closeup of the dad he’s washing blood off his hands in the sink.

The camera pans through the house to the garage where the kidnapped cheerleader, Tori, lies bound and gagged. UGH.

Chuck experiences the downside of Becky-in-momland: no booze! Chuck complains that he can no longer see Sam and Dean in his head and subtly touches his hidden bullet wound. Ooooo. Becky lays out some truths for Chuck. “You’re a writer. A writer who’s not writing. And when a writer’s not writing, they feel sad and they get lost. Why do I feel this way? Why am I so sad and lost? And what is all this naval gazing and hair pulling amount to in the end? Procrastination. Distraction. Just one million ways the writer avoids doing the one thing that is guaranteed to make the writer feel better. Which is…”

“Writing,” Chuck finishes the thought. Go Becky! Except…um…now Chuck is inspired to write again. And when Chuck writes? The world ends.

Chuck takes over Becky’s computer (RUDE) and starts his next opus on supernaturalstory-onebillionparallelworlds.com. 

Sam and Dean check out the security footage from the night Tori was abducted. They nab a suspicious vehicle and a license plate which lands them at...Billy’s house. 

At Billy’s house, strife continues to be the word of the day. The parents argue that they want what’s best for Billy - whatever that is. Sam and Dean head inside, looking as dangerous as panthers.

Sam heads for the garage while Dean cues the dad into a little fun fact: they’re not FBI. No, they’re considerably scarier than the FBI. Dean pulls out a machete which is probably NOT FIELD ISSUE OKAY. 

Sam discovers that the girl has been hooked up to an IV - she’s become a slow-release food source. The mom interrupts them with a GUN. 

Danger mom escorts Sam and the cheerleader back to the living room where they have a gun vs. machete stand-off. Obviously Dean would win this matchup, okay? He’d probably, idk, stop the bullets in his teeth or something.

Becky reads over Chuck’s work. She adores it! Chuck pushes for some notes. She asks for higher stakes and while we get distracted by her rambling about the lack of classic rock and Cas, Chuck’s expression grows GRIM and DARK and VERY SCARY. (Good job Rob, you talented cinnamon roll!) 

“You want jeopardy? You want danger? I’ll give you danger.” Thanks for the trip to CREEPY TOWN, Chuck. 

Billy heads downstairs and witnesses the confrontation between the Winchesters and his parents. Dean does his usual monologue, explaining how the dad got turned into a vamp, tried to eat cows, and started eating teen girls instead. But Sam observes Billy and points out something very different. “It’s not the dad, it’s the son.” Billy confesses: he was kissing his girlfriend when he lost control and ate her instead. Man, I HATE it when that happens. 

Billy told his parents, who covered it up. They kidnapped Tori as a longer term feed option. But now their son lays it all out. He’ll take the fall for everything, including Tori’s kidnapping and assault. And he’ll take a one-way ride with the Winchesters. 

UGH now everything is terrible. Dean executes the son in a dark wooded area as the rest of the world washes any trace of the supernatural away. 

Back with Chuck, Becky finishes reading his higher-stakes take. She’s disturbed. “You can’t,” she pleads. “This is just an ending.”

“Yeah,” Chuck says, pleased. “I don’t know how I’m getting there, but I know where I’m going.” That destination, to be specific, is just a tombstone with the word WINCHESTER on it. (Can I get a hell yeah for this meta-awareness and roundabout promise that we WON’T get this ending?) 

“You can’t do this to the fans!” Becky insists. But she’s prevented from saying more by her husband’s sudden return. She starts to explain the presence of Chuck, when Chuck just ZAPS her husband out of existence. Her kids call out and BOOM they’re gone too. I start to get worried that we’re gonna have some sort of icky reverse-Misery situation here when Chuck decides to zap Becky away as well. (Can’t wait until Becky kills God at the end of the series, guys!)

In the car, Sam directly parallels Billy to Jack. Dean admits that he wanted to “cash out” in the crypt, but that Sam’s insistence that they matter pulled him back. (Me: RLY?) Sam’s bitter. Dean’s tense. “We still do the job,” Dean says. “We do it for Jack. For mom. For Rowena. We owe it to anybody who has ever given a damn about us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. No matter what.” 

Dean goes on to say that with Chuck gone, they’re finally free to “move on” and EXCUSE ME while I go throw myself into a Destiel trash bin at that phrasing. Sam’s not in the Destiel trash bin with me, because he tells us he still mourns Jessica and now we’re HURTING for other reasons. SAM BBY! 

Back at Becky’s house Chuck continues to write...INSIDIOUSLY. I can’t wait for Chuck’s next book: Sad Boys in the Impala.

______________________________

Read These Quotes Backward for a Demonic Spell:

The end of the world is the end of the world

They have no idea what’s out there

But people LIKE monsters

I need wine

Why am I so sad and lost? And what is all this naval gazing and hair pulling amount to in the end? Procrastination. Distraction. Just one a million ways the writer avoids doing the one thing that is guaranteed to make the writer feel better. 

Nobody even mentions Cas

To see your child in pain rips your heart out

We can bury them out back. Under the peonies. Everything is going to be FINE

Fans are gonna love it

Oh, Becky. I can do anything. I’m a writer

We do the ugly things so that people can live happy

Monsters are cool. What? They’re all teeth!

______________________________

[theendisbeautiful]

Things we need to see before Supernatural ends:

-Crowley returning, ‘cause fuck dying to redeem yourself. -Also Crowley saying «I did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards) -> any Terry Pratchett fans here? -Sam and Dean actually talking about things that have happened to them (their childhood, dying for each other etc.) -Gabriel coming back from the dead and being his adorable self obsessed self, ‘cause Richard Speight Jr. is the most pure thing on this show and nobody can convince me otherwise. -Sam getting more of a relationship with Jack, ‘cause fuck Dean getting all the important bonds. I mean Sam was the one that believed in Jack from the srart. -Also let the bond between Sam and Rowena grow -> I need to see this platonic ship of mine sail. -Sam and Cas also need some more time together. -Generally more screentime for Sam aka. Jared Padelacki. I mean, I love me some Dean, but Sam deserves the freaking world. -And if somebody is going to kill God it has to be Sam. -The real Charlie also needs to return. I need me some geek love. And I wouldn’t mind Sam and Dean nerding with her, maybe doing another LARP or go to a Con. -Keving Tran also needs to make a comeback ‘cause he kind of sucked in the alternative universe and that can’t be how they send him off. ‘ -Another episode with the Waywars Sisters please -> I still don’t understand why the fuck they didn’t make that a spin off.. -Also we need more love for Jody and Donna ‘cause I love that they made themselves such a cute family. -Claire and Cas getting some more bonding time ‘cause I really feel like they robbed us of something really great when we only got like two moments or something. -Jeffery Dean Morgan as anything -> they could literally make him a plant in the woods and I would still die over his face. -Resolution to the original Bobby storyline -> like the last time we saw him was in season 10 when he was taken away by Anna and the other angels.. -On that note we need Bobby to make a comeback, preferably alive but I’d take another throwback to an old case during the apocalypse if that’s what it takes. -And we need some sassy Rufus in that episode as well ‘cause their chemestry is awesome -> they should just get their own show, that’s how amazing they are. -But if he doesn’t get come back from the dead, can he at least be happy in heaven with Ellen? -They need to fix the situation in heaven. -Speaking of fixing the situastion -> everybody needs to recognize that Luci was righ all along, even though he went about it the wrong way. -The return of Demon Dean -> the most sexy thing ever on this show. -And also shirtless Sam, ‘cause the statement above can be discussed. -I need to see some of Chuck’s multiverses ‘cause they made the squirrel-universe a thing and now they need to show it. In fact they should just give us a peak of all the most interesting ones. -Also, can we know if Chuck finished the Winchester Gospel (I wouldn’t mind reading that). -Cas and Jack getting to be happy as the father and son they obviously are. -I need my boys to get a happy ending. Preferably saving the world, dying in the process and than going to heaven. Of course Cas will visitt gem in their shared heaven. -Hungers funeral is all I will say. -Baby also needs to be okay no matter what happend. Like I don’t care if they have to bring her to heaven -> they’re going to give Baby her happy ending too. -Also can they celebrate Christmas one more time before the show ends? Or can we at least see them do something remotley normal? I just need a moment like Night Moves again.  -I just need a few episodes like season 1 -> just Sam and Dean hunting and lots of BM momenst (I live for those). -Death eating pizza. Nuff said. -Another meta episode. Like even more extra than French Mistake. -Dean aka. Jensen Ackles singing. -Sam finding his shoe -> I’m certain it’s been haunting him for like 11 seasons. -How about the Winchesters going abroad? Imagine Team Free Will hunting in like Mexico or Norway. -We also need another prank war -> I mean considering that Jared and Jensen is the actors and we haven’t gotten one since season 1. -Will the son of Amy come back to kill Dean this season? I mean he did say he would and Dean did believe him. -What happened to the boy in «I believe the Children Are Our Future»? Like he seemed pretty important and than he just dissapeared.. -They also need to fix the whole Adam thing.. I mean poor guy. -And while we’re on the topic of things disappearing and never being mentioned again.. what happened to Sam’s special demon powers? Did they just shrivel up and die? -Plus, like what the fuck happened to Garth? He was adorable when he was drunk and he’s actually pretty badass. Plus, he gives Sam and Dean hugs and they need that. -Overall we just need more hugs and love.  -Chuck needs to go fuck himself ‘cause what he’s doing with my boys is not okay.  -Reunion of Team Free Will (including extended family). -Did someone ever tell tell Sam that Dean called to tell him that he was sorry, and that it was in fact Ruby that altered the message? ‘Cause if not, they need to address this.  -And the whole thing where Dean tellls Cas that nobody cares about his feelings is still so horrifying.. therefor I need Dean to tell Cas that he does in fact appreciate him and that his feeling are validated. -Also what happened to the rest of the Leviathans? Are there any left? -I wouldn’t mind Meg returning as well -> she was actually pretty fierce.

[bittyreaders]

Cheating

Sans hummed as he knocked on the door to the Meta Space, rapping out a quick ‘Shave and a Haircut’ on the wood. When there wasn’t an immediate answer, he added a quick ‘Two Bits’ to the end. He then shoved his hands in his hoodie pockets and rocked back on his heels, waiting for her response. It would likely be one of two - either a cheerful “Coming!” followed by a grinning deer throwing open the door to greet him, or an equally cheerful “Fuck off!” as the harried author tried to beat another deadline. Either way he would enter the odd, dark room that compromised the authors mind and they’d have a quick chat, mostly about where she had been the past few months.

He, as well as the rest of the characters in her headspace, had been happy to hear she had a job in her field - teaching American history to seventh graders on a short-term basis while the real teacher had a baby. Despite gaining a full-time job she had promised to continue writing, planning to revamp the world building for her Bitty Reader series and work on her other stories. That promise had gone out the window within a week, and the creative part of her headspace had gone dark.

She was back now, however, and he planned on nudging her towards finishing some of her unfinished chapters sitting Google Docs. So Sans rocked back and forth on his heels, but heard nothing from the other side. Frowning, the skeleton tapped the door again, making sure it as loud enough that there would be no chance of the writer missing it.

Beyond the door something shuffled, and a series of whispers erupted, followed by someone shushing the other voices. So someone else had beaten him to the punch, huh? Stars, he hoped it wasn’t those creepy Five Nights at Freddy’s robots, or that skeleton Itward from Fran Bow. Those horror games freaked him out. Horror or no, though, he needed to have a word with the deer. Time to join the party.

The door swung open with a bit of a shove, but as soon as Sans had stepped into the Meta Space, three bright-blue bullets were soaring for his head. With a startled yelp and reflexes honed by pulling perfect pranks alongside his alternates, he teleported two feet to the left, farther into the room but out of the path of the bullets. Said bullets shot through the doorway and disappeared.

“Oh, uh. Hi, Sans!”

Sans snapped his gaze from the vanished bullets to the middle of the room. Rivet was there, though something was wrong. She was smaller than before, antlers mere bumps above her hair, eyes black ovals with small pie-shaped wedges cut from them. She was sprawled across the cross-legged lap of a large man with a purple-colored suit and a die for a head, while on either side of her sat two - boys? - with what appeared to be tea-cups for head.  The two boys and her had their gloved hands aimed at him, pointer finger sticking out and thumb raised to the ceiling, creating a ‘gun.’

All three immediately stuck their hands behind their back and gave him large, guilty grins. The die-headed man huffed a sigh and leaned back on his hands, eyeing the three as though waiting for them to give him trouble. The two boys shifted as Sans simply stared at them, prompting the deer to scramble to her feet and smooth down her pale green dress.

“So, uh, Sans,” she stepped towards him, having to look up to meet his eyes for once, “This is a pleasant surprise! But, uh, what are you doing here?”

The skeleton pulled his eyes from the odd-headed characters to meet the nervous black pupils peering up at him. If he squinted he could see a bit of pink in them when the light hit just right. The deers brows were drawn up in worry, and her ears were laying against the back of her head. She always did have a bad poker face.

“Just checkin’ in, kiddo,” he answered after a moment, taking up his ‘lazy-bastard’ mantle and shoving his hands in his hoodie pockets, rocking back on his heels and slumping slightly, creating a slacker chic look he had worked hard over the years to cultivate. “Haven’t heard from you for a while.”

“Oh well, you know, with the job, and the holidays…” Rivet wouldn’t meet his eyes, looking away and twisting her fingers together. “It’s just been busy.”

“Mhmm.” Sans eye lights flickered to the three still sitting on the floor. The dice-man - he hadn’t played the game, so he wasn’t sure of his name, and settled on calling him Dice - was watching with dispassionate eyes, which flashed green with malice. The two main-characters of the new game, Cuphead and Mugman, shifted uncomfortably in the larger mans lap. The red-colored one, Cuphead, glanced at the TV screen they had been watching, and Sans followed his gaze to see their game displayed, a ‘GAME OVER’ card pasted over the battlefield. A flower with a pointy nose was mocking them with a witty rhyme. The other character, Mugman, pulled down part of his straw (how did it work? Was it like a hat? Or another appendage?) and twisted it in his hands, like Rapunzel worrying her hair while waiting for her prince to come.

“Sans?” Rivet had come even closer and reached out to rest a hand on his arm. “Sans, I didn’t forget you, I promise.” She gave him a weak, hopeful smile. “I just got a little...sidetracked.”

Sans forced his grin back on his face and shrugged off her touch, then pulled his arm from his hoodie pocket and ruffled her hair, tangling the gray strands into a messy nest. “It’s okay,” he reassured her, “Cheating on your fandom takes a lot of time.”

There was a long pause as the woman froze, then shoved him away. “WHAT?” The deer demanded, shaking her hair out and glaring at him. “I’m - I’m not cheating on you!”

“Really?” Sans leaned to the side a bit, as though he couldn’t just see the others over her hair, and raked his eye lights over the trio and the TV. “Looks to me like you’re having a full-blown affair with the Cuphead Crew over there.”

“I - what - NO! I’m - I’m not cheating on you with the - the Cuphead Crew!” Rivet stomped her hoof, hands curled into fists and held tightly at her side. She opened her mouth to continue, but was interrupted by a smooth voice tinted with a Brooklyn accent.

“She’s right, bud.” A new character, made of black and white with horns on his head and an oddly-familiar smile on his face, leaned around Dice and winked at him. “We got a regular ménage à trois going on here.”

“Bendy!” Rivet whirled on the demon, cheeks flaring bright red as she snapped at him. Dice chuckled deeply in his throat, while Cuphead cackled and Mugman blushed brightly and hid his face behind his hands.

“Think about it, doll. For someone not interested in romance,” Bendy dragged his eyes over the other characters, expression sparkling with mischief, “You sure do keep a lot of us guys around.”

The deer made an uncomfortable noise, then whirled around to face Sans. “Ignore him! I haven’t even bought his game!” She demanded, trying to fight down the blush still staining her cheeks.

“But you did get mine,” a new voice chimed in. A tall, thin figure emerged from elsewhere in the room, holding a large bowl of popcorn, and joined the group around the TV, sitting with his legs crossed at the ankles in front of him beside Bendy. He had a black and white color scheme as well, except on his puppet-like mask, which had purple tear streaks, red cheeks, and red lips. “Well, two of mine. The two that were free.”

Rivet made a frustrated noise in her throat and wilted a bit as Marionette offered the popcorn to Bendy, who threw a handful in his mouth before saying, through the popcorn, “So this would be a ménage à quatre, then?”

“ARGH!” The deer threw her arms up in defeat, before turning and stomping off to a corner of the dark space, pouting.

“Look, bone-boy,” the dice finally spoke, sitting up and shooing the two cups, who hurried to check on the deer. She had made this new avatar the same height as them, Sans noted absently, and they threw their arms around her and began telling her how much of a jerk Bendy was. “Oie!” Dice snapped his fingers, and Sans dragged his gaze back to him, stepping further into the room when the man motioned him closer.

“What?” He snapped, not wanting to talk to the deers new fling longer than he had to. Honestly, it made sense. Undertale was over two years old, and there were newer games with rich storylines just waiting to be eaten up and fuel the creativity of the fandom. He’d need to go back and break the news to the rest of the gang. Oh, Papyrus would be heartbroken…

“Stop wallowing in yer self pity and listen,” Dice snapped, standing and brushing off his suit. He absolutely towered over Sans, his face cast in shadows near the ceiling of the Meta Space. “This place,” he motioned around with an elegant twist of his wrist, “Doesn’t belong to you,” he shoved a finger in Sans chest. “Or him,” he thumbed down at Bendy, who stuck his tongue out in response. Marionette grabbed his tongue and gave it a quick twist, making the demon swear at him using car horns and bird whistles. “It doesn’t belong to Mari there either, even though Hart has a soft spot for him.” Said puppet beamed at the mention and gave Sans a little wave, barely avoiding Bendy when the little demon snapped his shark-like teeth at his three-fingered hand. “It don’t belong to me or my buds either. It belongs to her.”

He motioned to Rivet, who had accepted the teacups hugs and was holding them both tightly. “She’s got enough room in here for all of us, but you ‘n your kin are the only ones she’s writing about.”

Sans jolted a bit at that. “Really?”

“Yeah. She’s got a crossover ‘tween me ‘n’ Mari but hasn’t worked on it for months,” Bendy chimed in, picking at a kernel of corn stuck in his fangs.

“To be fair, she was writing about me and my ‘kin’ first,” Marionette pointed out, his voice soft and even. “If Rivet was cheating on anybody, it was on me, with you.” Despite his face being a mask it moved as though made of skin (or magical bone), and his mouth quirked into a sympathetic smile. “I was mad when she stopped too. But just because she’s not writing about us or drawing us, doesn’t mean she’s forgotten us. She’s just a bit…” He paused, searching for the right word.

“Scatterbrained,” Bendy offered at the same time Dice said, “Easily distracted.”

“Yes,” Marionette agreed to both. “You may not be her favorite character, but you are far from being forgotten and left to rot. Er, or dust, I suppose.”

Sans looked at his slippers, brow creased, as he thought for a long moment. “Wait - who is her favorite, then?” He looked between the three.

“It’s it obvious?” Bendy rolled his eyes hard enough that his head actually lifted away from his shoulders, then resettled. “It’s that brother of yours, Stationary.”

“He means Papyrus,” Marionette cuffed Bendy on the head. To Sans surprise, the demons entire head was sent flying, rolling across the floor to the far corner where Rivet and the cups stood, complaining all the while. The deer glanced down and looked as though she was seriously considering punting the annoying demon head across the room.

“Her favorite, out of all of us, is Papyrus?” Sans asked, not sure he had heard right.

“Yes,” Dice adjusted his cufflinks, looking bored of the conversation.

“Heh,” Sans felt his shoulders slump, smile relaxing into something far more genuine than before. “I can get behind that.”

“Wonderful.” Marionette gave him a bright smile, then reached up with a too-long arm and gently tugged Sans to sit beside him. “Come, have a seat. She has been trying to pass this level for days, I believe she almost has it.”

Dice snorted and retook his own seat, crossing his legs once more and picking up the Xbox controller that had been dropped when Sans knocked. “Was she ever able to defeat you, in that ‘Genocide’ mode your game has?”

Sans plopped down between Marionette and Bendy (well, Bendy’s body - his head had been picked up by Rivet, and he was currently trying to tell the upset deer some extra-dirty jokes to cheer her up) and snorted. “Nah. She tried a few times, then rage quit and reset the game.”

“Heh,” Dice’s mustache twitched as he smirked, “Then I’ve already won the bet, Mari. Want to pay up before you embarrass yourself?”

The puppet sniffed and offered the popcorn bowl to Sans, “Not on your life, King Dice. I happen to have faith in our dear friend.” Sans snorted into his handful of popcorn at the pun.

“Your choice,” Dice conceded, reloading the level, then hitting pause. “Rivet, are we going to continue, or are you done for the day?”

The four (well, three and a head) in the corner jumped at his call. The two mugs let out a whoop at seeing the game reset and rushed back over, throwing themselves onto Dice’s lap and settling in to watch. Rivet glanced down at Bendy, who gave her a cheeky wink.

“Just remember, if ya ever need a smile, I know this great joke ‘bout these aristocrats,” he offered as she dragged her feet back over to the group. She gave him a weak smile, then dropped his head back on his shoulders. While Bendy readjusted his head, her gaze flickered to Sans.

“Sans, I’m not - I would never -”

“Eh, fuggedaboutit,” Sans waved off the half-stuttered apology, “It’s your headspace, not mine.” He took another handful of popcorn when Mari offered it. “Besides, I’m too lazy to hold a grudge.”

He wasn’t prepared for the hug and nearly dropped his popcorn when Rivet (god, was she tiny in this form! He didn’t know if he liked her better like this, or in her ‘Undertale’ form when she was taller than him!) threw her arms around him in a tight hug. “Thank you, Sans. I promise, I’ll never forget you, or Undertale.”

“I know, kiddo.” He gave her back an awkward little pat, then pushed her away a bit. “Now, show me how you fail at this game.”

“Sans!”

“She does it really gracefully.”

“Cuphead!”

“Swears like a sailor when she dies, too.”

“Bendy!”

“Don’t get your tail in a twist, girly. Now show this bone-head how Cagney kills you.”

“DICE!”

So...this is the first thing I’ve written in a few months, and oh my gosh it was cathartic! So when I bought Cuphead I had this mental image of Sans getting upset I was ‘cheating’ on him and Undertale, which became this idea. It was more of a warm-up write and an “I’M NOT DEAD” announcement. I have some new World Building stuff written for Bitty Readers, I just need to fiddle with my computer and see if I want to illustrate it. I may not - new computer, no art program I actually like. I had one, but it’s on CD and my new laptop doesn’t have a CD drive. Anyway, I’ll figure it out.

I hope you enjoyed this bit of meta-silliness! Every artist has their own little headspace, and this was a peek at mine. Love you all, and Happy New Years!

[cackieo]

I’m really not exactly sure how it has come to be the 2nd of September. Are you?

In this year, 2020, the year to end all years, we might (if we are hopeful) be thinking, one might expect that it would have dragged along interminably. And in some ways, I suppose it has. We certainly have been through an awful lot- and we are still mucking our way through as best we can. In my wildest dreams, I could not possibly have imagined a worldwide, terrifying pandemic and the emotional and economic toll that would take on all of us. Add to that the turmoil and polarized division our country is currently in due to racial injustice as well as a political climate that seems ripped out of a doomsday novel. The challenges appear to be greater every day. It’s hard at times – I’ll be honest, a lot of the time – to feel hopeful. So how I suddeny l find myself in September is a bit mysterious to me. I feel like I’m in some bizarre space/time continuum that is completely out of my control. No doubt I am not alone in that feeling. At least I hope I’m not.

I’ll try to bring you up to date with a very quick synopsis of what’s been going on. But first I’d like to move on to my exciting news.

And that is, I am thrilled to tell you, Glittermoon Vintage Christmas and I have been featured in the 2020 Flea Market Décor Magazine 2020 Holiday issue with a beautiful 4-page spread! Have a peek:

  Cover of Flea Market Décor 2020 Holiday Issue

The issue went on sale yesterday. You can find it on newsstands, in grocery stores, and pharmacies everywhere. I picked up a copy in the grocery store. Or you can go here to order a copy mailed right to your home.

The issue is chock full of creative, fun holiday decorating ideas. I am over the moon to be included in the company of amazingly talented people, some of whom I follow on Instagram. Let me know what you think when you get your copy!

Speaking of Instagram, I do hope you are following me there at GlittermoonCards. It’s become my happy place. Because you can better control what’s in your feed than on Facebook, which I have found to be so toxic and negative at times, I can’t spend a great deal of time on it these days. Instead, I much prefer to follow along – and make friends (albeit virtual) with – like-minded, positive people who post lovely visuals. In all honesty, I have struggled quite a lot to keep my emotional being centered this year; IG has been like a balm. Since we cannot see our friends in person right now, it’s become a sort of surrogate friend. I tend to follow designers and gardeners. One of my favorite designers (and Richmond native), Charlotte Moss, notably, helped keep so many of us out of the “weeds” this past spring by offering up weekly creative challenges that were not only fun but they also benefitted charity. An example of this was the Collage Challenge. For every collage submitted, Charlotte , a lifelong collage aficiando, offered to contribute $100 to Feeding America. In the end, that added up to a whopping $100,000 donation!

So, for the first time in forever, I made a collage. I have to say it was an almost perfect exercise to keep the demons at bay and, oh my, did it ever feel good to have the creative juices flowing again. This is what I came up with…a sort of Italianate/Into the Woods fairy tale.

My collage for the Charlotte Moss Feeding America Challenge

This space as well as my social media pages have always tried to be positive, politically free zones and that goes for now, too. Especially now. I made the decision early on during the pandemic to try to only post things on social media that might bring people a smile or something beautiful that gives someone a lift. I have felt deeply for those who were stuck in high rises or other places where they could not even see green spaces much less get outside to one. So, I posted a lot of pictures of my garden during this past glorious spring; truly the best spring I can remember – what a gift that was and how we needed it!  You’ll find lots of photos of how the garden has done this year as well as occasional peeks inside my house and whatever else might pop into my line of sight. So I do hope you will follow along and enjoy.

The other reason to follow me on Instagram is that I tend to post updates there first. I will be using both that platform as well as the Glittermoon Facebook page to keep everybody updated on what I’m making and what I’ve got that is available for purchase this fall. Because of the Coronavirus all the shows for this year have been cancelled – quite rightly. However, this makes for a challenging time for people like me to get what they make out there to the people who want to buy. I am still trying to figure out what is the best strategy for that so stay tuned on social media. I will, of course, also be posting here but not as frequently as on those pages.

Glittermoon Cards SPREAD THE LOVE PROJECT

When the Coronavirus first roared into our lives back in March, like everyone else, we were scared – not only for us but for everyone we care about.  With Mr Transplant, we knew we had to be especially vigilant and heed all the warnings the scientists and doctors put out there.

As the pandemic really began to rage and tragic stories of heartbreak and death etched themselves upon our consciousness, I found myself waking up at 4 AM every night with terrible anxiety. Thinking about people trapped in nursing homes, all alone, particularly haunted me. I wanted to help – somehow – but simply could not figure out how. I made donations but it just did not seem enough. I don’t sew so I offered up fabric and some money to a vibrant local group of mask sewers. And while those were good things to do, it did not satisfy that urge to DO something more. But how? As the spouse of an immune suppressed transplant patient and a member of the “at risk” group myself (though I am in good health and refuse to think of myself as “elderly”), there is no question that I need to stay at home for the duration.

I kept thinking about my inventory of Glittermoon Cards sitting in my workshop out back. Everyone knows getting a card in the mail can cheer you up. It’s a simple gesture that makes you feel like you matter to someone. And there are so many people in need of a human connection right now. So, I came up with The Glittermoon SPREAD SOME LOVE Project. For $12, you receive: An assortment of 10 GLITTERMOON CARDS (valued at $30-40, specially chosen and packaged by me), FREE SHIPPING to you via USPS (lower 48 states only, please) and, in addition, for every order, I  MAKE A $2 DONATION to FEED MORE, Central Virginia’s food bank.Mail your cards to someone who you think needs a little love, whether it’s a stranger in a nursing home, a special caregiver, an elderly neighbor down the street, or anyone who you think could use some cheer in these strange and scary times. And then tell all your friends! Let’s start an avalanche of mail to the people who need some cheer during this dark time! Hop on over to my Etsy shop to purchase. If you are local to the RVA area, they are also in stock in my space at Crossroads Art Center.

Pre-Covid seems a very long time ago indeed and so much has changed. We were supposed to have our house and garden open in May for a tour in our Ginter Park neighborhood but, of course, that had to be scratched. As of this writing, it has been rescheduled for May 1, 2021. Put it on your calendar now! Naturally, we were in the midst of several house projects trying to get ready for the tour. I was still finishing up the bathroom renovation that began 18 months ago now 😳 and I was working on refreshing some of the downstairs rooms. And then, everything ground to a halt. At this point, most of those projects have now been finished – yay – and I’ve begun working on the upstairs which has started to look tired after 25 years. If you remember way back to last year, we were doing a total gut renovation of the master bathroom. To give you an example of how looooong the bathroom took, I just got the new curtain, actually an antique pillow sham that we repurposed, up in the window last week! The master bedroom (which was the workshop during the bath reno and thus completely trashed) is all pretty and fresh now and I could not be happier with how both it and the bathroom turned out. I’ve moved on to the tiny little room I call my “perch” and things are proceeding at a sedate pace but that’s just fine with me.  Here’s a peek at how the bathroom looked once I hung pictures but before the new curtain. You can refer back to this post from a year ago to see the “before.”

Typical Gabby pose

In late July, our beloved kitty, Gabby (Gabriella Glittermoon), whose face and name were on the back of every Glittermoon Card, left us for heaven. She was just a few weeks short of her 20th birthday and we are having a hard time to adjusting to the empty space that small but mighty being has left behind. As I wrote at the time, I had a pretty good feeling of who she was on the day I adopted her. As I drove us home, this little striped arm kept poking out of the cardboard carrier, feverishly trying to feel its way along the car seat. She was feisty and funny, contrary and cantankerous, precious and persnickety, and full of her own self worth. A warrior with a zest for life. She was loving. And she was deeply loved. Most of all, she was her daddy’s girl: his constant, boon companion, especially during these past challenging years. We miss her terribly.

Emma P Buttercup

At the same time, my sweet Emma developed some scary health issues, too. We are still working on trying to figure out what is going on with her but it’s been very worrisome for me. She’s my shadow and I don’t even want to contemplate what life would be like without her.

I’m all set to get cracking out there in Santa’s Workshop, Southern Branch. Everything is organized and in its place. I had a bit of a hiccup when the fluroescent fixture directly over my worktable croaked last week. Fortunately, my electrician was able to squeeze me into his busy schedule and came yesterday to replace it and another one with new, and very bright, LED fixtures so I am raring to go! When I was working on getting everything put away and ready for the 2020 season, I realized just how starved I’ve been to get my creative juices flowing and get to work making beautiful things to share with you. I looked over at all the Santas on the old workbench one afternoon and there they all were, with jolly faces alight, and my mood improved by leaps and bounds in just that moment. Here’s a look at how nice and tidy a couple of the shelves are…perhaps your mood will lift, too!

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By now, you’re probably as exhausted reading this as I am from writing it, so I’ll come to a close.

Despite everything that has happened this year, I have much to be grateful for. We have a wonderful team of doctors who are doing their best to keep Mr Transplant safe; weekly family Zoom meetings we began months ago and which provide a happy lifeline (quite honestly, we are keeping up better now than during normal times); a comfortable home that we love; and a garden that offers respite and peace. Our family and friends have so far managed to stay healthy. We are at an age where we do not need to worry about losing our jobs or the place we live. These are all big things. It breaks my heart for all out there who are suffering so terribly.

Every day, though, I am reminded that so much of our happiness and contentment is derived from the little things in life and it’s those things which keep me going on the difficult days.  For me, the natural world is the gift that keeps on giving. A chipmunk racing acoss the patio, the sibilant sound of the breeze rustling in the trees, my sweet dog’s delight when I decree it’s time for walkies, or a little wren singing her heart out are what bring me joy. I hope you have something like that, too.

And let’s all be kind to one another.

Stay safe out there friends. I’ll be back soon with what’s happening in the workshop. Until then, I’ll leave you with this thought and a few random shots from the garden this past spring.

“Be soft, don’t let the world make you hard. Be gentle, don’t let the people make you difficult. Be kind, don’t let the realities of life steal your sweetness and make you heartless.”

― Nurudeen Ushawu

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Exciting News!…Then Let’s Catch up I'm really not exactly sure how it has come to be the 2nd of September. Are you?

[fullmoonfireball]

OC Recap-thingy???

hecc i put this off for too long 

i dont really know what that anon meant when they requested this, but i hope this’ll do (readmore bc this is gonna be Long)

Crinoline Parisa

Ribbon’s mom

where’s her husband??? we just dont know

she’s doing her Best™ to be a good mom to Ribb

Lace Parisa

Mirror World!Ribbon

an edgy lil shit

very grumpy

why have i never posted a coloured pic of her

Shadeleine Walsh

Mirror World!Adeleine

Probably the OC I fiddle the most with.

She has a really strong Texan accent for some reason??? I don't know why I gave her it

Takes magic lessons from Wiz( that magician guy that no one seems to remember/care about?). As it turns out, their brand of magic is not anything she can pull off.

Works as their assistant sometimes... Even if it can be slightly terrifying because of their methods (their magic lets them make the tricks a bit more than just illusions). Shaddy has gotten cut in half (or more parts) more times than she cares to count.

Actually more interested in drama, but she's taken what she got.

She's good friends with Shadow Kirby! They hang out a lot!

Her name used to be Shado. And yes, that IS pronounced the way it looks like it is. She hated it.

Owns an oversized magenta sweater and wears it at ever chance she gets. Wiz hates it.

there wasn’t originally another character in this picture what are you talking about

Shadow Marx (left)

Mirror World!Marx (no duh)

Mild insomniac. He hates it.

Just wants to sleep, like any other noddy.

Dating Mirror Magolor

May or may not have kept him up with his late-night thoughts a few times.

Syzzle (right)

Mirror World!Gryll

Doesn't care about Star Stacker (or any similar game) in the slightest.

A complete NERD

Probably owns a library or something

Theatra (left)

Mirror World!Claycia

Complete drama queen

Which is good, because she's an actress.

Gay as hell for Shadow Elline

she’s supposed to have horns like Claycia, but I forgot them in this picture

Shadow Elline (right)

Mirror World!Elline (what a shock)

An inkbrush fairy-thing

Writes most (if not all) of Theatra's stuff

Gay as hell for Theatra

the ‘straight man’ of the duo, despite being neither straight nor a man

Mirror Magolor

Mirror World!Magolor (obviously)

An anxious little negg (nerd egg)

A cinnamon roll (unlike his counterpart)

Protect him

Knows nothing about where he came from

Dating Shadow Marx

Slightly annoyed by how much he keeps him up. But he stops rambling... eventually.

More info on him can be found here

Rose Symyva (left) and Violet Larivi (right)

They're married

Rose is pretty chill, Vi's a bit more eccentric.

Don't insult Violet unless you want to face Rose's wrath (which you don't).

I don't know much about them yet, they're mostly just designs.

Typhiste Nirymsu

DEAD (GOOD RIDDANCE)

He was An Ass

Dated Magolor at one point.

Used to be a prince (now he's just dead)

LEMME SMASH

Echo

Also dead, but less so.

Died from electrocution.

Doesn't remember anything about her life, which distresses her.

When she was alive her name was Iris

Updated version of one of my first Kirby OCs 

Niaviri Taysin

Also dead (for real this time)

A good little egg

Was a florist!

v gay with Odalania

Tislora Altryb 

Mags’ mom

v sweet egg

maiden name is ‘Azaress’

was closer to her son than Aparctias was

idk what else to say about her

Aparctias Altryb

Mags’ dad

firm, but kind

taught the egg most of what he knows about magic out of family tradition

also got him started on learning English

Hynwari (left) and Sanfyria (right) Rimaddim

only exist in the Popa AU

super dead, even in the AU 

both of them are Very Short (Sanfyria especially). they could make Meta Knight look like he’s average height

Popopo (the green half of Kirby)’s parents

she’s supposed to have speckles i just forgot them in the original pic

they were specifically targeted to be killed just so their son could be taken from them by Nightmare

Hazel Pesyphomia (left) and Amelia Evitheth-Pesyphomia (right)

MARRIED

Adopted a certain artist as their child.They love that noodle-orb a lot

Amy would absolutely fight you if you were to insult her wife or her kid.

Were honestly really scared the first time one off their kid's drawings came to life

Twila

You know her. She's the one with all of those scarfies.

Spoils those little beasts

Was actually supposed to be trained as a Spynum, not a Simirror, but was more interested in magic than archery.

Lives mostly-alone in the woods.

Amicia Tyopt

technically that’s not actually her in that picture but let’s look past that

as implied above, her body was stolen by sectonia (shown above)

idk anything about her personality yet tbh

Osgifu Amata 

handmaiden moth, in more ways than one

worked for Sectonia Way Back When

deceased

Eglantine Cujoi

Into™ gals

first body stolen by Sectonia

deceased in both body and mind

Kimiko

anime-verse oc

demon beast

just read this it’s got all you’ll need to know about her

Jordan (the one with the spear) and Coral (on top of Jordan)

BWD's siblings

Jordan is their older brother, Coral their younger sister.

He works as one of Dedede's guards. She's too young to work.

Jordan's a little jealous about Taylor (BWD) outranking him, but he's proud of them at the same time.Coral is a little ball of energy.

They were the other Waddle Dees in Dream Collection's intro, and the sleeping Dees with the eye implants next to Bandanna Dee in Robobot( in the modern train level I think?).

Odalania 

Dead

Really freaking good at magic

Lean Bean

Worked for Typhiste's family

Gay™ with Niaviri

also has a casual clothes ref

Magolor (not that one)

yes, every other time ‘Magolor’ has been mentioned I was referring to canon one. i call this one Old Magolor/Classic Magolor/etc. for simplicity

this is who canon mags named himself after

Old and Dead

one of the lor’s previous captains

lorlor

Cymboria Taysin

niaviri’s younger sister

she’s the bigger one

very sweet

good at magic

likes to travel 

often brings foreign flowers back to nia!

Morastrum Altryb/Nirymsu

doesnt exist in the mainverse

a Good Lil Girl

... even if her dads (mags and ty) are both Asses

last name depends on if Typhiste is alive or not

likes sweet foods

Myrdinia

mirror world!drawcia

an automaton made by wiz 

speech has a Low Quality Garble

incredibly bitter over the loss of her sister

always has at least 5 throwing knives on her

Glorious Nebula

really old 

their language shows their age 

how are they still functioning

no one’s really sure how they lost that quarter of their face

used to have one of those shooting star decorations, but it got broken off at some point i totally didnt just forget it

??? (left) 

old and dead

one of the ancients

married to garulin, was very happy with her

probably worked a lot on the clockwork stars, but did help with other artifacts as well

pleasant guy, but not really anything special if you ignore his place in history

Drusorig (middle)

also old and dead

another one of the ancients

i don’t have a proper ref for him, but there is this

he has dark fur, for all that matters

i dont trust him

very strong magic

the master crown was his own personal project

he didn’t trust anyone else with it so i think you can imagine who the subject of his experiments with it was.

destroyed most of the evidence of his experiments before his death so no one would know about them

it worked

Volzavair (right)

also also old and dead

guess who’s also one of the ancients (it’s him)

actually has a proper ref

SHORT

gay, but ended up marrying a woman out of convenience and desire for offspring

relatively weak magic, specialized in technology

worked on the Lor Starcutter, but died before it was completed

his oldest kid probably finished it

Kyneriun Snekell

press ‘f’ to pay respects

sweet pastel boy

loves baking

a little younger than magolor

Dalindia Nirymsu

dead

was queen regnant

could be a pretty strict ruler, but tried to be a just ruler

her husband is dead(er?)

ty’s mom

tried to keep him in line

Tiltaii

i’m not even sure if that should be their name but i’ll just... roll with it

theyre nonbinary

a literal doodlebug (pillbug artist)

painted these portraits

doesnt have any magical abilities unless floating their hands counts

bought Paintra from Paint Roller, and was... pretty surprised, to say the least when she suddenly came to life

regardless of their surprise, they’re trying to take good care of her

???

a honey bee

runs a cafe

very polite, but not a pushover

more or less a design with a few ideas attached at this point

Garulin

married to the unnamed green ancient

technically one of the ancients but not commonly acknowledged as one

pretty good at magic

mostly worked with the artifacts’ ‘mind’s, both through programming and magic

Shadow Sectonia

mirror world!sectonia (what a shock)

floralian jewel wasp

accidentally ended up corrupting other world!sectonia by having too much contact with her

naturally a wasp. hasn’t stolen anyone’s body

she’s too nice to do that

dead. actually got murdered around the same time her counterpart died

spoilery elements below (don’t worry he’s the last OC here)

Shadow Taranza

mirror world!taranza (who would’ve guessed)

overly-loyal

like, ‘would unhesitatingly die for someone he cares about’ kind of loyal

nervous mess, even before Sectonia died. that only worsened things

he’s not okay

[elizabethrobertajones]

12x15 watching notes

I actually finished watching the episode hours ago but right after I went and literally watched a big chunk of season 8 instead of this episode which is metaphorically a big chunk of season 8 >.>

this "expectations" thing is turning into a bit of a joke because I never know what to expect any more. This was much easier in Carver era :P From the previews it looks like a bit of a "monster of the week" with a hellhound and I sort of feel things are about to go up shit creek for Crowley and he's distracted with the Winchesters which is his life story, but MAY let them find out finally. Gonna make Mary working with the BMoL look like a good decision.

Also may be a way to un-Buckleming Crowley's choice with some better characterisation...

[rare edit to yell at past me oh my god. Also at Davy OH my GOD - note to self stop being so cynical about literally anyone but those guys writing :P]

As far as I can tell from the outside looking in, though Dabb's been working through a really serious important list of loose ends, this is from the odd pile of things that end up on his desk complaining about one of his episodes which is "we need more Winchesters in glasses!!!!" after he gave us a few minutes of it in 8x14, and he shrugged and went, okay, someone find a reason to put them in the glasses again. Why not.

-

Oh yeah we're on the monsters' side. Starting again with the cute vampire girl from last episode saying "they're dead. they're all dead" and Mary shown killing a vampire. Before any title cards. Mary's POV is on the other side of it. Telling us the world is changing and then Sam squinting suspiciously at Mick's briefing about exterminating all the vampires. And the "pick a side" thing for Sam - monsters on one side, mom on the other.

-

Awwwwww 5x20 Crowley and his hellhound. A simpler time. When they were trying to cram Lucifer back in the cage. Funny reminder now to have moments before Lucifer bound in Crowley's spare room.

-

Oooh right there's Kelly and Dagon stuff in this episode. I think Cas too? You know I completely forgot because the previews were avoiding them but I'm pretty sure one of the episode descriptions actually mentioned them... Whoops. I guess this episode is going to be split between all that. At this point I don't really trust the writing not to be ridiculously more complex and layered than I can guess from right here, so I'll just enjoy these cold open people camping and laugh that I wrote a Winchester family camping trip as the code to 12x14

-

I can't believe this guy is looking up bear attacks in the woods while they're camping. And she's a vet. Pfft :P How does he even have signal though.

Awww no they're going their separate ways. She seems unconvinced that it's going to work out anyway :<

He needs to stop asking trees to marry him.

Oh no now I'm invested in these people. They do not deserve to be eaten by hellhounds.

-

Nooooo

-

Oh no that was unintentionally hilarious with the puffy jacket throwing fluff everywhere.

-

Pfft some extras from the Walking Dead wander into the Bunker making obvious pop culture references. Do we even analyse that mention of Dad or do we just laugh hysterically and move on?

-

Wait so that time when they seemed to have it on set they weren't just fucking around with the baseball bat because they felt like making one but it was actually going to be in an episode oh my god

-

I wonder if Mary has been watching The Walking Dead or if she hasn't had time.

-

Being distracted by Mittens:

Wait - Sam is clean... is this meta or are we still in the pop culture reference?

mittensmorgul The things on Dean, "ghoul, wraith, siren."

elizabethrobertajones yeah They fought a SIREN WHAT HAPPEN I want to know everything

mittensmorgul I DON'T KNOW?!

elizabethrobertajones I bet if it was "back to back to back" they didn't have time for it to be complicated

mittensmorgul I mean, DEAN fought the siren, Sam is completely clean

elizabethrobertajones WHY IS SAM CLEAN

mittensmorgul And Dean's been wearing his underpants for four days People are screaming OOC

elizabethrobertajones oh god

mittensmorgul I have no idea

elizabethrobertajones Ahahahahah  "Frodo"

mittensmorgul Sort of reminded me of how he looked after he killed the stynes

elizabethrobertajones Is that a thing

mittensmorgul :D

elizabethrobertajones maybe they intentionally USE those code names maybe Mary talked to Sam wait if Mick is telling Sam where to go has he given them "back to back to back"

mittensmorgul yes...

elizabethrobertajones and Dean did all the killing and Sam was clean Okay THERE'S the symbolism I was looking for :P

mittensmorgul do go on... :D

elizabethrobertajones I am literally paused just at "Frodo" and his missing campers message so idk what happens next but yeah :P Dean's being used as the weapon here and Sam's coordinating Aka trying to turn him into Ketch or Mark!Dean Sam doesn't have any blood on his hands for these hunts and they're coming too fast for Dean to process them and work out shades of grey ....

mittensmorgul Yep

elizabethrobertajones which means the Negan thing is probably a reference to how bloody it has all been and not just a joke >.>

mittensmorgul nope

elizabethrobertajones they're trying to turn him back into a bloody single minded hunter like John this is awful I LAUGHED now I feel horrible about it all :P

elizabethrobertajones Also Dean not being a germ freak about it all is probably a bad sign >.>

-

elizabethrobertajones Oh no Sam lying epically

mittensmorgul yep

elizabethrobertajones reminds me of 8x01 when he tells Dean how he found Kevin but he actually did that Dean like Purgatory Dean Wait fuck that baseball bat is his purgatory weapon *slides under the table* Go away Negan This is worse than the Eliot Ness thing

-

this show is getting too meta for its own good... Is this what happens after 12 years?

-

Anyway Sam comes up with something to baffle Dean with his technology know-how implying Dean is too dumb to follow - Sam rattling off computery sounding things and Dean sitting there bloody and unwashed and the John-Negan baseball bat in front of him and Sam like "the computer told me" and Dean being like "lol computers are good at monsters and porn" - he really is in a bad way :< I think one of those things where they balance Sam and Dean out. But Sam is WORKING on Dean as he said he would last episode - he's intentionally wearing him out, letting him channel that need to kill things in a way Ketch couldn't get Dean to indulge in because Sam knows Dean better and where his lines are. Taking him back to back to back to back on hunts stops Dean from having down time and appreciating the finer things in life, so he gets less and less nuanced as Sam works him down >.> Because as last episode showed, Sam aligns with Mick, Dean with Ketch but, like, obviously NOT because they're both competent and kind and multifaceted. But Ketch is the Mark!Dean parallel, and wearing Dean down like this... yeah.

-

Honestly though baby wipes are so good they probably COULD get all that gunk off in an emergency

elizabethrobertajones Wait Dean is rejecting the Bunker's shower after flicking siren bits everywhere and being gross this is actually 8x14 inverted

mittensmorgul RIGHT?!

elizabethrobertajones we start with him loving the Bunker and bitching about Sam messing it up and in 8x13 he goes on about the water pressure and now he'd just be happy with baby wipes

mittensmorgul D:

elizabethrobertajones .... and in 8x14 he puts that pic of Mary down and it feels like home :<

mittensmorgul I think they really are doing their best to invert 8.14

elizabethrobertajones 10x22 also used that pic of Mary I hope it's inverted in other ways

mittensmorgul but...

elizabethrobertajones like signing up for crazy ventures to get rid of all demons/monsters

-

"You smell like roadkill" ominous.

"I'm using that fancy shampoo you keep hidden" I love that they read a bunch of fan fic before they joined the show

-

Okay so Mittens informed me there's mass hysteria about the next moment because of audio nonsense, which means I swapped from fuzzy bad sound to full crystal clear noise cancelling headphones with all the sound settings done properly, and caught Sam saying "love you too" to Mary and Dean like "catch ya later" to Cas. 

[side note: had no idea what she meant because I hadn’t heard a word of it before she told me there was hysteria] 

I'd already squeed just to see them pull up having these conversations because the set up is beautiful: Sam has picked a side and Sam and Dean are now at odds, and THESE are their sides. After last episode we could only hope/guess that it was logical that Dean n Cas might be a bit of a team in opposition to Sam, Mary and the BMoL but obviously that was just guesswork. Knowing Sam already IS a faction with Mary and Dean doesn't know it, Sam starting this with a mention of "mom" as they get out the car and this little, uh... symbolic diorama? unfolds shows very clearly he's communicating with his faction; Dean also on the phone shows that they have a split, that he's in contact with someone who could be HIS faction and even before he said Cas I kinda knew because see above, guessing, and also the fact that he IS in contact with Cas more. So yeah, lines drawn between them. Something about them getting out the car together but not looking at each other, talking to their respective sides is just... really really well done. Also the way they're talking over each other? They're distracted with their own things, and not communicating, not listening in on what the other's up to.

-

Of course then they summarise to each other - DOUCHEBUSTERS.

I am offended

-

Mostly because it's like "lol Brits"

I feel bad there are hunters they hate more than the Ghostfacers, honestly.

Dean has better news - something's killing angels in IDAHO. Specifically, the town that 7x15 took place in. So that's 9x06 and 7x15 all at once. Wheee.

-

"Diner waitress Sara Deshenski has met an untimely and violent demise at the hands of an irate alien, so says her diner manager, Herb Nelson"

Bloody hell another dollar in the space jar

they really are going for it this season

they're finally sending Dean to space :')

-

The picture of burned angel wings in a trashy newspaper is so sad though... Look at Cas being sad.

Look at him still not knowing how to do the badge thing. I cry. My heart is overflowing with love for Cas. He needs Dean beside him to turn his badge around and laugh gently at his mistakes.

It does suggest he's kind of stagnated as a hunter, because he hasn't managed to figure this out yet >.>

-

He's trying though - he's Solange now! He knows you rotate out the identity from time to time.

-

Oh dear, Cas dealing with a real conspiracy nut. In 6x21 we were ROBBED of Cas's side of the investigation into HP Lovecraft, probably because lovable comic beats were not how to make us think Cas was the bad guy but they’d be nothing else but, because that’s who Cas is, ALWAYS. Now, though, he's got to do all the social stuff on someone who's basically Ronald Resnik'ing this. I hope he has better luck not dying >.>

He has a pic of the Queen's head taped to an alien which just makes me wonder if this is a thing to do with the BMoL and their terrible terrible bad wrong intel... Sometimes they know a thing, mostly they don't... But they managed to scrape up a few grains of truth here and there. Obviously she's not an alien or lizard person but who knows what else she might be >.> I like the whole Torchwood thing where the Queen was a werewolf and that was a royal family thing :P

-

Cas hanging his head in despair that he's actually considering waiting to see what this guy's evidence is.

Poor Cas

-

*Cas attempts to smile*

-

this description of the alley fight is hilarious

Kelly as the brood queen - remember the season 10-11 hiatus stuff about Bugs as the mytharc after we spotted the little VFX insect escaping Amara's cloud?

-

Aw no the way he describes angel blades as "star metal" it feels weirdly poignant... Angels are cosmic - who knows what those blades are made of

(Zerbe knows, but aside from Zerbe)

-

"man in black - well, beige!" if this isn't foreshadowing Cas getting a better coat.

I love how yellow eyes is still like, actually really deep and weighty and dramatic and scary still. Most things on this show have been completely run down INCLUDING Lucifer into being over-done. Such a good pick for this season.

-

Obligatory bear or cougar reference. I know it's not hellhounds but 8x16 has Prometheus actually killed by a bear off screen and I find that hilarious and I'm thinking mid season 8 now. I think it was also initially reported in one of the cracky publications like the one Cas got ahold of (knowing he has to read that sort of nonsense to get a lead also is a sign of him developing as a hunter).

-

Oh gosh the perfect blurring of Baby's engine over hellhound growling. Listen to her, she's such a sexy beast :D

[edit at past!me: Okay I’m useless at predicting stuff but I wasn’t to know Dean x Baby would be a thing this episode so I’m proud of this at least... can you even objectify a car? She’s already an object]

-

Now we know that Gwen knows for sure about big invisible wolves coming after her, the promo scene where Dean jokes about what truth they could tell her and Sam describes how they lie (a lot) to her is even worse, because of course Sam and lying is clearly a huge thing this episode and he describes how the lie will "give her peace" and help her sleep at night. Dean's being manipulated by Sam (PS I did not sign up for this) is probably very similar - Sam thinks Dean will sleep better at night if he doesn't understand all the details of these jobs they're doing and he's keeping Dean in happy dumbed down hunter mode.

Playing INTO the top layer of Performing Dean, really.

-

Dean's only joking about the ridiculous truth because he doesn't know how important it is to HAVE the truth yet, and he's empathising with Gwen's position of being told the truth and finding it completely unbelievable because he's also at the point where he can't concieve of the truth.

-

Guys there is a hellhound sniffing your BUTTS

-

Sam n Dean are wearing black coats and hold their badges the right way up

-

Omg it followed them in.

AAAAH that's intense okay that's good writing. Thanks Perez. You are so good at tension. They all sit down and chill.

-

this completely changes "elephant in the room" to "hellhound in the room"

-

Anyway Sam does the Ronald Resnik thing with Gwen telling her with authority as the FBI that there was nothing supernatural about it

"You're no longer in any kind of danger okay?"

-

Also they really don't have the right approach because telling her there's no danger??? WRONG. They need to at LEAST follow the lead on her BF's deal to tidy up loose ends, such as the fact that demons often catch a dozen people at a time when they're doing the crossroads thing... They'd need to AT LEAST go back to where the deal was made and check nothing else happened?? Where is your instinct???????

Too busy lying to her

-

It's so horrible that their visit allowed the thing in and now it's in there with her

I AM SO WORRIED ABOUT GWEN HOLY CRAP

-

"Oh yeah she's gonna sleep like a baby" *cut to Gwen being stalked*

-

Oh no now she heard it

GWEN

-

Omg she's okay

-

*heart slows down*

-

Some nice relaxing Crowley and Lucifer nonsense to chill with

-

Crowley is really enjoying having a proper nemesis since the Winchesters are more like friends now so it's not as fun to catch them and chain them up and taunt them.

Crowley says he's ten steps ahead of whatever Lucifer thinks he's doing. HM. Well he sure wasn't LAST episode.

-

Well he's behind on his paperwork anyway. The ridiculous windows also suggest peeking in on it - the sense the secret will come out.

This is such a great writing/directing combo

-

Cut to Sam and Dean actually telling the truth

-

Sam leaves out the detail about Dean being the cuter brother

-

Pfft

-

Okay I nearly spat tea at Dean being like "make you feel better. It was his idea"

This whole lying thing really isn't working out for Sam. And Dean's reaction to it is killing me.

-

"Did you really want something like, a hello kitty backpack. or the death of an enemy"

-

Dean and kids... he gets them

- mittensmorgul tort reform

elizabethrobertajones what like the cake

mittensmorgul basically to eliminate the sort of "law suits" like that ridiculous baby nonsense torts are civil legal cases

elizabethrobertajones Aah so if he'd actually listened he could have got rid of all the silly petitions :P

mittensmorgul like suing people over EVERYTHING. Usually considered frivilous, petty, or vindictive nonsense yeah :P and it was item #42 on his list (which also made me think of Door #42 in Heaven, aka the "escape hatch"

elizabethrobertajones that seems like a fairly apt summary of the problems :P if they just listened and paid attention they would eliminate so many stupid problems by actually dealing with things like the bigger picture things like reforming the way things work

[here follows about 10 minutes of sending pictures of cake back and forth while we debate what a torte is in our respective countries]

-

Why is Crowley still clutching the key for Lucifer's Facilities room?

-

NOT MOOSE

PEACHES

-

God dammit has Berens been chatting to Perez about Drowley

-

GWEN. She's like the ultimate outside eyes on their life, suddenly getting the whole truth when Crowley bitches them out for the Gavin thing on speaker phone

It's brilliant

how has this NEVER happened before

12 seasons and there's still new nonsense to explore

-

"have the kennel guards killed" YoU'RE STILL ON SPEAKER PHONE GWEN CAN HEAR THIS

Dean doing the "blah blah" gesture while they're all listening in on this NONSENSE like it's no big deal, overhearing a meeting between the King of Hell and his advisers

(Also this is a great way to tie the seemingly unconnected minions to the main story aside from having them deliver news since they didn't come specifically to tell Crowley about what's up with the MotW it's all completely incidental and if Sam and Dean hadn't already been on the case, well...)

(ALSO I love how in one episode the whole dynamic of Crowley and Hell somehow feels so much more like a proper court? And he's got proper assets and people and... I don't know, I love this depiction of his life)

-

Crowley dropping in on the random MotW conversation

Aaah it's all shaken up

-

eeep clear shot of the moose skull in Cas's truck. DO NOT WANT

-

Aw Cas has a friend. Kelvin! Do things EVER go well when he and random angels work together? NO. But I like Kelvin because he seems to like Cas for now, and they're working on the same thing... HOW CAN THIS GO WRONG?

Aside from the fact he mostly appears to be here to be a redshirt for Cas unless he has Vital Info or something because Heaven has much better resources to track her than Cas who is doing it the hunter way.

-

Mom Hellhound... What a shocking twist :P I mean, I wasn't expecting this backstory because I didn't think there'd be one, but the fact this is the Mother of All Hellhounds and she was preggers when she escaped and Lucifer took her in like... wooow.

-

*snorts at how cool Gwen is at Lucifer being locked up* Like, cool, well, at least he's not our problem. I mean I have the king of hell in my living room but he seems reasonable, and they're all reassuring me that Lucifer is safely locked up so I'll just... Yeah. Good.

Also Dean again repeating the lie that's been told to him and backing up the story etc, happily going along with the truth as he knows it while we - and someone in the room - knows it's a lie

-

God really sucks at making things though. Like, he put so much violence into the world? Eve and Leviathans were his creations too and they were... not exactly perfect. Pfft.

-

Crowley is excited to work the case... Oh dear, now he's learning to be a hunter

-

"Just when I thought this gig couldn't get any weirder" "Oh it can always get weirder"

Thanks Dabb

-

Aww the demon minions are so competent at being sneaky good for them. I have no idea who I root for here. I don't LIKE Lucier or want him free, but Crowley's minions being hilarious is like... my favourite thing. Whatever they're doing. I just love it. So... little bit conflicted about what I want here

-

Although making demands of Lucifer is a bad idea.

-

When Dean says sticking with Sam to keep her safe, he MEANS it I mean Sam once fucking GUTTED a hellhound SINGLE HANDED like dang he's the best bodyguard you could ask for right now

"Take care of her" "of course" or does he trust-

wait

no he's just being precious about the car. A beautiful, beautiful woman.

I guess we know why Sam doesn't get to drive so often; Dean just is THAT precious about her

-

Sam is not here for Dean fantasising about the car

-

Crowley like "you."

"... why of everyone ever did I have to fall in love with YOU" probably

-

Uhoh Cas and an El Sol sign... He and Kelvin seem to be drinking water. The director appears to be like "how many angles of Misha's face are necessary? Better try one more just in case" *rotates camera to bask in him some more*

Heaven is stable in a way where there's nothing drastic to report. All the huge dramas since it was last a big plot thing itself have meant the angels have been trying to deal with everything and so busy headless chickening about all that they haven't really been in-fighting. The death of all the alpha personalities helps too I guess.

-

"This is an all hands on deck situation Castiel. Including yours" "Okay so you're here for my hands" Yeah that was snark. A grade snark. In a Cas way.

"you got more field experience than the next thousand angels combined" I don't know if I should be more sad for Cas or Heaven

-

El Sol over Cas as Kelvin asks him if he would go back to Heaven - all his sins wiped clean... And challenging him over what he feels is home. Earth is quirky and smells like hay (pfft Cas's truck) but does it FEEL like home to Cas? he already FINALLY feels welcome in his family with the Winchesters and has expressed openly that he loves them and they proved that he was family to them, so emotionally he's really tied down already. But what feels like HOME to Cas?

-

And yeah this is happening in Idaho. 9x06. The FIRST time Cas gets asks what he is, what he wants to be... Oh gosh. Finally. FINALLY. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

-

*quietly takes off my Dean!girl hat and puts on the Cas!girl one*

-

Now this mission has a different hook for him. The angels know he's already working it but Kelvin offers him a different sales pitch because they know that Dagon is going around killing angels just as Cas does, or at least SOMETHING massively more powerful than the average angel is - his help is suddenly very necessary because they are SCARED and Cas is COMPETENT. So they can give him the resources he needs - much like the BMoL are offering to Sam and Dean. Do the dirty work for them and be rewarded with a platinum membership card

-

Holy fuck Joshua

-

Dabb...

...

...

I don't have the brainpower to hold together the threads of the show directly connected to Dabb

-

elizabethrobertajones "The Gardener's got a plan" this does make me think of Metatron though I like Joshua but... it's sort of ominous these small time angels with a big time connection to God and God is not so great himself

mittensmorgul yep

elizabethrobertajones in the 9x23 thing [rewatch; not currently posted because this is literally how far I am] I got distracted writing about Metatron answering to "God" because he's modelling himself AFTER god and later talks about how God was not such a great Creator and how Metatron saw behind the curtains like.. Metatron's plan is sneaky and awful and cruel but he was behaving like God??

mittensmorgul yeah, but Joshua was the gardner God talked to. Joshua just listened, and tended the garden Chuck thinks of as his "greatest creation

elizabethrobertajones who has some sort of cruelty in his own creation making hellhounds and leviathan

mittensmorgul yep

elizabethrobertajones Joshua seems nice and all but God related to him as a gardener just as he related to Metatron as a writer

mittensmorgul after he locked up the darkness, he was trying to create that balance on his own, but he really lacked the finesse to do it properly

elizabethrobertajones which is ominous :P

mittensmorgul yeah

elizabethrobertajones Hm and the writing is controlling the narrative on a BIG scale

mittensmorgul yep

elizabethrobertajones gardening, if you were controlling the world, would be clipping it into shape like just tidying it up taking out some weeds like say eliminating all monsters

mittensmorgul but if we're about balance and finding better ways, and Chuck's still talking to Joshua... now that he's reunited with Amara maybe things CAN be better now?

elizabethrobertajones maybe?

mittensmorgul hopefully?

elizabethrobertajones I haven't watched to the end of this scene don't know if Joshua is still talking to God :P

mittensmorgul BUT CHUCK SAID THAT DEAN WAS THE ONE CARRYING THE STORY NOW

elizabethrobertajones yeah

mittensmorgul he put the earth in DEAN'S hands

elizabethrobertajones Dean gets to decide what happens and he doesn't approve >.>

mittensmorgul Dean's the gardener now

elizabethrobertajones :D And he tends to the garden in the traditional ways which WORK and keep a good sort of peace

mittensmorgul I think he likes the weeds

elizabethrobertajones eyah he relates to the weeds knows some dandelions can be pretty

mittensmorgul he thinks he's one of the weeds

elizabethrobertajones no need to rip them ALL up yeah >.> poor Dean

mittensmorgul heck, most of the "weeds" are food for the bees balance

elizabethrobertajones CAS SAW IT ALL back in 7x21 the whole plan it was perfect

-

Anyway Cas has some shit to think about while Dean gets his act together to just ask him to marry him and put an end to all this uncertainty

-

Awww this guy wants to be the king of the crossroads I'm rooting for him

-

ew the other demon wants to make hell great again. Kill the white guy. Leave the new king of the crossroads alive

-

Nooooo

-

I am disappointed.

-

Also annoyed Lucifer is free again

-

But blah I liked that guy :< This show sucks. Stop killing the great one off PoC

-

Thinking of which, I hope Gwen survives because she's brilliant and also incidentally hispanic which shouldn't be a thing at all except now I'm terrified she's going to be added to the show's stats because I just don't TRUST them

-

Dean in glasses! Crowley flirting with him... Dean being flattered (smiling to himself ew) but telling Crowley to shut up for appearances sake

-

Crowley saving Cas being the thing that finally makes Dean say thank you and feel like Crowley has gone a bit soft. (Also stop being genre savvy about saving the girl of the week, Dean :P)

-

Glasses give him +5 nerd points

-

"Maybe I've rubbed off all over you" *Dean comically shudders*

They're getting along. It's horrifying.

Berens definitely pulled Perez aside and gave him a talking to with diagrams and flowcharts about how this all happened

-

This is such a good scene I watched it like 3 times but the third time I went back too far and saw Lucifer kill the poor demon guy I liked again so my mood is yo-yoing around

-

I seriously appreciate the subtext for the whole bi!Dean project and the fact that they're exes who've now moved to this weird comfortable happy place where this all happens? The way Dean reacts? God, why did it have to be Crowley but now we're here, I am so appreciative for the sake of the bizarre way this show is running on and on and on past several points it could have ended and made Drowley less of a strange point of CONSISTENT data. But here we are. Dean is cheerfully wandering around with Crowley, deflecting flirting, smiling to himself, being nice about the whole saving Cas thing because of course this is a bizarre point in the love triangle too - I mean... So weird. God, this never should have got this far. So Crowley can make a joke about rubbing off all over Dean, and Dean just playfully shudders about it, and and... what the heck is this even any more? The show has been playing along with it for so long... I don't even know if they're DOING anything with it, except for their vague horror that they have to preserve this dynamic and are being faithful to the characters to move them through all this as realistically as they can.

-

Anyway in more current developments thoughts, Dean again being honest and emotionally genuine and friendly. Crowley might be lying about Lucifer but Dean, who is caught in the middle of everything but in a really good place of his own, responds really well to everything. Him being happy and sweet and OPEN is all the more crushing because you know terrible stuff may be about to happen with reveals of more deceit or manipulation, but Dean's being put in this "can do no wrong" place while he's unaware of everything, so reaching back out to Mary, not falling for Ketch's shit last week, thanking Crowley this week... Always being caught in the place of dramatic irony with lies Crowley and Sam are telling... yeah.

-

Sam in glaaaasses

can he even legally drive with the distortion of wearing glasses that aren't his prescription?

-

Gwen, don't puke in the car

-

Dean is so distractingly attractive

-

yeah that's it that's the entire scene

-

Gwen manages not to puke in the car, because Sam pulled over in time. I SWEAR it is the same place Dean pulled over to puke in in 11x10

-

She takes on all the guilt and responsibility for her boyfriend's death just for having invited him out to the woods, as their goodbye thing, when she never loved him as much as he loved her; she was going through the motions before breaking up with him and moving away.

"Why couldn't I just tell him the truth"

Liiiies

"I lied to make things easier!"

-

Ooh Mittens pointed out Gwen is a vet too - Sam and vets is a thing because AMELIA. (And a dog just hit them lol)

-

Poor Baby. And Dean was just worried Sam would fuck up her brakes! Dean's concerns again being based on small scale what he knows and not the big horrible truth, which is that Ramsey is gonna jump all over his car

Although not strictly Sam’s fault here

-

The car is almost sort of Hellhound proof? She's not breaking through the windows?

-

"We should leave!"

Can you drive faster than a hellhound? I'd LOVE to watch Sam try. But he decides to fight instead of driving off to try and prioritise getting Gwen away from danger

-

I love that the view through Sam's glasses showing us Ramsey is all fucked up and distorted because they're the wrong prescription glasses... BUT it gives us a similar "eye" back to her like the distorted view when the camera pretends to be her.... She and Sam staring each other down :D

-

Oh fuck if Sam kills her could he start doing the trials again? Like, working with the BMoL, casually bring it up at staff meeting and suggest that he's ready to go for round two?

-

Bad idea Sammy

-

COOLER TO THE HEAD. ILY GWEN 

Yeah I was getting Baby (the episode) vibes from Dean's love of the car and the fact that was the last time she got smashed up but now the green cooler is back in play I'm yelling :P She protects her boys and everyone who rides in her.

-

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH LOOK AT THIS *gestures the entire scene wildly*

-

Aw crap no the blood splattered Sammy in the right place and everything

Sam no

Don't even THINK about it

-

*Sam huffs his shoulders*

He did also get the blood all over him unlike how Dean was the one splattered at the beginning of the episode, so I guess all that stuff that wigged me out has a flipside - that Sam still is a great hunter who will get his hands dirty and take the burden onto himself. It was unsettling, yeah, but Sam's still Sam? Maybe? I'm not sure what this is saying tbh because it was SO clear in the opening but I don't know enough has changed right now, and ALSO in the next scene Sam is clean again like he washed off and changed before he even reconnected with Dean which just makes me think he felt guilty standing around splattered in hellhound blood because they remember what THAT led to last time... Sparing Dean's feelings or hiding what he's up to?

-

"And this is why you don't drive!"

-

AHAAHAHAHHA someone hugged Crowley

-

Best moment.

-

He's been thanked by everyone now, and got to see the gratitude of the random girl of the week... If Lucifer weren't waiting for him back home he'd almost have had a good day, if he could nurture something like that in his twisted black heart :P

-

"He seems nice"

"Yeah" *Sam and Dean pull faces*

-

Crowley like "welp that happened" when he walks in to see Lucifer gone

-

Lucifer wings!

-

Oh :P Crowley's got him on a leash or something. Nice. Lucifer underestimates how many steps ahead Crowley is even after he TOLD him it was 10, he remembered 2...

-

Wow he's powerful over Lucifer

-

Now the part where Lucifer doesn't have any chains but he's still trapped

Hah okay that was masterful

-

Perez owns Buckleming. He's 10 steps ahead when they think they're 2 :'D

How do you EXPLOIT their bad writing like that for your own diabolical ends? That's just

wow

that exposition and set up for Lucifer and Crowley in 12x13 was some of the shittiest writing the show has ever produced about a major plot event and that's saying something. I felt my soul leave my body. And I was so upset Perez had that big spooky reveal at the end of 12x12 and Buckleming got handed the "here's how to explain it" brief and I don't care if they knew what was coming later, they wrote 12x13 as the shittiest episode ever, with no effort on their part. I was like, wow, this is stupid, and it FIT their style. It was part of their THING to make Crowley look like an idiot and make us question wtf he was doing and they presented it all so terribly, so boringly, so... unimaginatively...

we actually bought that was what had happened

so the actual reveal that Crowley is 100% in charge and always has been

actually

came

as

a

fucking

plot twist

-

I'm sending Davy a fruit basket

-

Yay Dean talking to Cas on speakerphone

Oh no is Cas at the playground?

-

Oh dear, he's actually going back to Heaven... That can't end well

-

Dean: "Does he sound weird to you" YEAH OKAY it definitely IS dodgy. We listen when Dean doesn't think Cas sounds all right, because DEAN KNOWS. HE ALWAYS KNOWS. DEAN IS THE MOST ACCURATE COMPASS FOR TELLING HOW CAS IS AND HE ALWAYS KNOWWWS

How can Davy ruin me with Destiel in an episode where they talk twice briefly on the phone and there is barely anything about them in the structure?

Pfft

Dean also has a better instinct for Cas working with Heaven the BMoL parallel/they a parallel for Heaven, than he does for Sam doing it apparently.

ANYWAY ET GOES HOME. We powered through season 8 just there I guess :P But it's not the end of season drama it's happening in episode 15.

The whole thing that this is the Question for Cas. The BIG question. The ENDGAME question... Of course we have to make him jump through a ton of loops and explore what he really wants, but if this is powering him towards an actual DECISION?

-

But he was doing well as hunter!Cas without their resources and he loves his human family and they love him, and unlike 8x23, since everything is being inverted, he is more emotionally aware now not to run off and leave in the same way he was planning to in 8x23

-

Anyway this did not go how I was expecting! I was expecting Sam to not tell Dean right away but instead we end another episode with Dean getting the SAME news in the same spot (hi table) and... taking it in about the same way over 1 conversation he did in 2 episodes. He already had to deal with Mary, and at this point it just seems like his family are going after the BMoL like lemmings.

Boy is he betrayed though.

Sam's compartmentalising things again. Because of HIM the alpha is dead. They were as helpless as the "girl of the week" if Sam hadn't been there. Sam saved all their butts from the alpha vamp while making it sound like THEY did it.

-

I suppose Mick made him the bullet

to his recipe

that he then magnificently got from Mick

and you know

actually shot the alpha vamp with

-

Also ARGH "How much you hate them" "No, WE hate them, us, together" - just, Sam. Sweetie. They tortured you. Even YOU felt upset to hear Mary was working with them and needed 3 days to box it all up enough to talk to her. 

Sam seems to be acting like Dean's just being over-protective now to hate them irrationally because they hurt Sam, while Dean can't even believe he has to make this into an issue which should be one of those unbreakable brother things they they do as a team. He's not even the literally injured party here, not in the same way.

-

Dean looks gorgeous while he's thinking it over. Flippin' heck. Stop.

-

Anyway he gives Sam the same basic talk he gave Mary, essentially, about not liking it. Admits Sam is right about working with people they don't like, and that clearly he's wrong. He TRUSTS Sam and wants to trust Mary. And she has given Ketch the burn it all down speech, where Dean now says they get out as soon as it stinks.

-

I don't like that Dean thinks working with Crowley is comparable. Crowley is someone Dean has learned to trust in his own very specific way after being burned MANY times by him but also having a sort of attachment they've grown through all the years of being nemeses. They're used to each other and can generally rely on each other for exactly the things they rely on. Saying, well we just worked with Crowley, let's give these guys a shot because we don't like either of them, does not BEGIN to cover the range of issues with the BMoL... Even the ones they KNOW about

-

"The second something seems off, we bail" Okay I haven't seen a promo for 12x16 but I know the synopsis so I don't think it'll last long :P

-

Dean's FACE in that last moment though

Ow.

[nightspsyche]

   Based on the plot between myself and speedxandxnetflix, I've come to realize this creates a perfect opportunity for character building for Elana. This isn't just for her progression as a Meta who is controlled by her blood lust, to where she is in control of her powers and able to become Psyche once and for all. I think it can lead to the closing of a very large, and important chapter in her life. I'm going to tuck this under a read more because it's going to be wordy.

   Currently: Elana is facing a huge amount of guilt for what happened between herself and Barry. She realizes that she could have very well killed him. She's aware that people are likely to look at her with a measure of wariness, and she's super concerned about where things between Barry and herself will go now. She very much cares for him, more than she's really cared for anyone so that alone is scary for her. That she can't trust herself, and is scared of herself is putting so much strain on her. She feels the best option is to put some distance between herself and everyone until she can find some control.   Her plan: Elana has Oliver Queen on speed dial. She's helped him in Star City several times over the years, and knows she can trust him. Creating a time period where she can get out of range of anyone who can stop her (aka Barry, Cisco and Caitlin), she's going to call him. She trusts him to do what is necessary should she be unable to find control of herself.    There's a reason she was looking over the power dampening cuffs, because she plans to build herself a prototype of them to take with her. She's only going to remove them when she trains in the safety of the woods in Canada. She has a little spot where she goes when she needs to slip off the radar for a while, and she plans on taking him there (Oliver will likely be portrayed by me so there could be a drabble etc for this whole thing since she doesn't have an Oliver that she interacts with).    Felicity will NOT know where Oliver has gone, only that it's an emergency and Diggle and Thea are covering the city in his absence. She will however hear him name drop the Lazarus Pit.    My Plan: There may or may not be a Lazarus Pit near the place in Canada that Elana is going to. I will not confirm or deny it (mostly because I need to research the Pits again to see if there is a list of potential locations I can work off). Oliver will help Elana work on her training, mostly because to her? She is Ra's and whatever he orders her to do, she has to follow. She also knows that with all he's survived through, he's probably the most capable to stop her completely.    This is where things get tricky.. Because Masyn was in Central City and led the attack on Elana and Barry. So he knows where Elana is, and it's likely that he figures out where she's taking off to and with who. Masyn and Emile are furious that Oliver was named heir to the demon, that he became Ra's and then passed the ring to Malcolm Merlyn of all people. So they want vengeance on him as well as on Elana for her disobedience (and ultimately her aiding Oliver in all of it).    So Masyn and Emile (along with those who are loyal to Emile and view him as Ra's) are going to confront Oliver and Elana in Canada. I haven't decided how this is going to go for sure but I know that Masyn is going to die in this plot. Elana will be the one to fight him since he is Emile's heir now, and they view Elana as Oliver's heir. I know how that fight will end and how Masyn will die, but I'm not spoiling it :P.   With Masyn dead, it's down to Emile who attacks both Oliver and Elana leaving them to fight. Elana is going to get the piss knocked out of her and it's going to come down to Oliver to finish the fight. (Again not spoiling how that one ends lmao). All of this will help lead to Elana eventually coming back to Central City though..   Which is why I'm posting this: There is no conceivable way that Elana is going to slip away unnoticed now. She has too many ties to the city with work (which she's taking a leave of absence from) and her ties to Barry etc. So someone is bound to notice that she's vanished. Especially given the fact she's full on dangerous Meta. So it's very likely that someone is going to be searching for her. Which leaves this whole thing open to a third (or more depending on who all would like to jump into this) party involved in that whole fight etc. I don't necessarily have to do this as a thread if no one is interested, because I know this is a super crazy time of year for RPing. I might be able to do it with solo posts over a series of weeks or what have you, depending on how quickly I can come up with stuff.    Either way I know this has to happen. I think it's another huge change in her life that is essential to her change. And this will also lead up to me being horrible when it comes to her grandmother (because there was a plot there I was looking at but, given current RL events? That plot is likely to change dramatically from what I had planned originally).    But yeah if anyone is at all interested in this? Just let me know, we can iron out some final details before we get the thread going.

[shirtlesssammy]

7x23: Survival of the Fittest

The Road So Far:

I just want to give a GIANT shoutout to everyone in fandom that survived this and stuck around. I know in my heart my interest would plummet without Cas. Season 7 was brutal.

Now:

We find Crowley and Dick Roman sharing a business Scotch and negotiating how they’re going to divvy up Earth once the Leviathan master the human race. Demons get Canada. Leviathan need America though. (“They’re so fat.”)

In return for this generous offer? Crowley must give “Frick and Frack” imposter blood (as part of the cocktail that will kill Dick Roman.) They agree, and because Dick Roman doesn’t “kiss on the mouth” to seal his deals, Crowley unfurls a standard writer that stretches 10 feet. Lol.

Sam and Dean, meanwhile, are on the road trying to locate a righteous bone. Sam suggests contacting Cas again. For the record, I believe when Dean says “Dude, on my car” he’s making an oath that Cas made an appearance naked and covered in bees, not that he showed up naked, covered in bees, on Dean’s car. Either way, Dean was there and Cas was naked. But there were bees.

The boys arrive at a nunnery crypt and find the perfect bone, Sister Mary Constant. “Let’s bone this nun.” Oh Dean, always a way with words.

Crowley and Roman finish their negotiations.

Sam and Dean perform a summoning spell for Crowley. (Ah, was it during Dean and Crowley’s summer of love that they finally got him on speed dial?) Crowley doesn’t show, but Meg does. And she has a friend along with her: Cas.

He’s currently jamming out to some serious emo soft rock in the car. 

(Sidenote: Cas and Jack wave the same way. My heart.)

Dean is showing very, very, very little patience for his dear, damaged friend, but I know he cares so I’ll let his posturing and toxic attitude slide for right now. Cas does have serious questions about monkeys and cosmetics. Indulge the angel, Dean.

Once inside, Cas continues to act and say strange things. In his own broken way, he lets the brothers know that the angel garrison protecting Kevin is gone. Dean, in his usual football coach aggression, scares Cas, who does not want to deal with conflict. (I do love Dean’s line “We’re worried.” His worry manifests itself through anger throughout the series.)

Meg notices the demon summoning spell materials and is about to ditch when Crowley finally makes his appearance.

Crowley is less than pleased to see the angel. Cas dives into a nice, rambling diatribe about insects and honey (and a THOUSAND Cas + bees fics were born.) There is meta out there about this but I just can’t find it right now. Sigh, it was really good. Crowley doesn’t want to torture Cas if he’s not all there, so he hands the boys his blood, or is it? He says it is, but also says not to trust anyone.

He then tells Meg that she can stay with Cas until they handle Dick Roman.

Meanwhile, Bobby in the body of a hotel maid, is well on his way to becoming a vengeful spirit.

Dick Roman makes plans in case Crowley double crosses him. It involves an arm.

We briefly check in with Kevin Tran at SucroCorp Headquarters. His allies aren’t the sharpest blades in the drawer.

The brothers soak the righteous bone in the blood.

Nothing happens so Sam and Dean have no idea if it worked. Cas flaps in (I miss his wings) to present the (I proofread that as “his”. Brb, weeping) brothers with sandwiches. (His monitoring of the ingredients and comforting the pig before slaughtering it? Don’t touch me.) 

And when Dick Roman asked for the arm, he meant a literal frozen arm, wristwatch still intact.

While Kevin awaits his fate, he’s presented with dinner, a Biggerson’s burger. “I’m a vegan.” Not for long, buddy. You’re going to be living off of hot dogs soon enough.  

Kevin escapes with the help of his purloined hairpins and overhears a board meeting fronted by Dick Roman. He's discussing business strategy, including how they're going to divide America up to perfect their plan of industrialized leviathan feeding. This is all delivered in a cheerfully upbeat business-speak manner as they enjoy sushi made from fresh orphan.

When Kevin's heard enough, he heads straight for the exit, but is confronted by Dick's assistant.

Dean and Sam sit in a car and tap into Sucrocorp's security cameras. (They thank Charlie for it and I smile just to hear her name mentioned.) To their dismay, they discover that Sucrocorp is now overrun with Dick Romans, or a bunch of dicks, as the show might phrase it.

In the boardroom, Dick has Polly take off her dress and draws attention to her slight build. (Gross) He injects her with a drug that will be targeted to all skinny Americans. As it takes effect in Polly, she begins to spasm and foam at the mouth. She collapses quickly to the floor.

Sam notices a truck pull up outside of Sucrocorp and recognizes the maid as she gets out of the truck. He sees ectoplasm dripping from her, puts two and two together, and bails on the stakeout so he can go retrieve Bobby. He confronts Bobby in a back alley as the security camera whirls around. Bobby brandishes the knife at Sam, telling him to leave. When Sam refuses, Bobby slams Sam against the side of the car and chokes him. It's only when Bobby sees his reflection in the side of the car that he withdraws, horrified.

Back at the cabin, we learn that the woman Bobby possessed is doing much better. Sam then switches over to talking about the leviathan hunt and reveals the multiple Dicks. Cas looks perturbed by the news. “Hey, Shifty, what's your problem?” Dean asks. DEAN

“Do we need a cat? Doesn't this place feel one species short?” Cas says, deflecting. (Me: But seriously, YES) He refuses to get involved since he destroyed everything.

“Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas. Clean up your mess,” Dean shouts. This causes Cas to flap off and Meg informs Dean that Cas is the only one who can recognize the real fake Dick. They need him.

Later, Sam and Dean spin their wheels trying to figure out how to tackle their Dick problem when Bobby appears. He tells them he's going vengeful now that he's in the Veil, and begs them to burn the flask. Cut to a little while later, standing around a bed of hot coals. It's all feelings and no hugs in this little funeral scene and Dean chucks Bobby's flask into the coals. As the flask burns, a light illuminates Sam's and Dean's face. And then...Bobby is gone.

Jump to later, where Cas is busily playing games when Dean approaches him for help. He's not asking for a soldier. Instead, he just needs a lift to get to his car. They flap into a little storage garage with a covered car. Cas muses on their approaching assault on Sucrocorp. If Sam and Dean die, they're heroes. But if Cas dies he's just doing what he can to fix his own stupidity. Although, he also entertains the possibility that he'll die and get brought back again. “It's a punishment,” he tells Dean about his last three resurrections. OUCH, man.  

Dean delivers his own brand of pep talk in reply. “I'd rather have you, cursed or not. Nut up, alright? We're all cursed. I seem like good luck to you?” He's angry and defensive, but Cas starts to smile anyway. He detects a note of forgiveness in Dean. Cas vows to go with Dean and help out.

It's gray, it's rainy, but that doesn't stop Baby from squealing tires and generally being amazing. The Impala tears into Sucrocorp headquarters to the strains of Born to Be Wild.

Meg emerges, armed with borax and a knife. Dean, Castiel, and Sam are already inside, having slipped in while Meg distracted security outside. They hastily go from room to room checking for Dick Romans.

Outside, demons accost Meg. Crowley is moving in.

Sam rescues Kevin, who convinces him to stick around and blow up Sucrocorp's lab. In the lab, Dick is delicately sampling lethal creamer when Dean and Cas show up and slice up the chief lab tech leviathan. 

Dean pulls out the bone weapon, Dick lunges for Dean, and Cas tosses Dean out of the way and hurls himself at Dick. Dick easily chucks Cas across the room. This gives Dean the perfect opportunity to stab Dick right in the chest, but it seems to have no effect. Dick's still walking and talking and being smarmy. But then Dean opens his jacket and pulls another sharpened bone from a front, inner pocket vast enough to hold and conceal a giant bone (who MAKES these coats and where can I find one?) Cas pulls Dick's head back, baring his throat long enough to allow Dean to stab Dick right through the neck.

Dick Roman snarls angrily and begins to pulse with energy. He cackles before exploding into black goo.

Sam picks up his head to look around the lab moments after the explosion. It's empty of anyone but him and Kevin. While it's spattered with black goo, Dean and Cas are gone.

Enter Crowley, who happily tells Sam that without Dick Roman leading them, the leviathans are easy picking for his demon army. The bone weapon had a kick and dragged Dean and Cas off to Purgatory. Crowley nabs Kevin for his own, then leaves Sam alone in the lab as he silently freaks out.

Dean wakes up in a forest to Cas tersely ordering him to wake up. Cas tells Dean that they're in Purgatory and it's full of monsters and...even worse...leviathans. Dean turns to see red eyes glowing in the woods and tells Cas it's time to go...but Cas has already flapped away, leaving Dean alone. 

Random findings and food for thought:

7x23/13x10 parallels

Dean needs Cas to get Dick

Starry, Starry Quotes:

Here we are, negotiating like proper psychopaths.

Let's bone this nun

Go ask him, he was your boyfriend first.

How important is lipstick to you, Dean?

You have no sense of poetry.

Where's the fun in clobbering a ball of wet fur? Text me when Sparkles here retrieves his marbles

Please accept this sandwich as a gesture of solidarity.

We should play Twister.

I see now. It's a punishment resurrection. It's worse every time.

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[elizabethrobertajones]

12x11 watching notes

For once I think it's kind of obvious what my expectations are if you've been reading my blog... I also was spoiled last night after it aired that my favourite reoccurring guest star is in it, but on the other hand there's a ton of second hand embarrassment... I've just got back from yoga so let's try and be zen and enjoy it :P

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Also it's not a plot episode so I can be a bit more chill and enjoy the MotW nonsense without writing 100 miles of meta. I hope

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Witches! (we already knew that, I'm just putting another note into "the only actual monster we've seen so far has been the one werewolf and one vampire Mary killed and everyone else has been a human, angel or demon this season" jar

I need a better label for that jar

Anyway from the looks of things this episode is all about a very human fear that just happens to be tripped by witchcraft and it would be a fucking waste not to milk it for 99% of the episode)

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Holy shit they used the "poor little guy" from 3x09 that always breaks my heart. Are they really churning up old Edlund stuff so much that the recap was 90% 3x09 and they decided to give Dean a bunny BECAUSE of his broken heart at the sight of the dead bunny in 3x09?

I really hope Edlund is watching this season and laughing like crazy

Anyway before the promo is even over, we have an interesting point of thought for the episode, and a comparison back to Dean revealing a weird vulnerability for no reason in the middle of a case. And more Edlund parallels than you can shake a stick at.

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Oh good the cold open is the witch who curses Dean... Definitely going to milk this for all it's worth. This is like fan fics where the first like 3 paragraphs are "and then they met a witch and it cursed them and then ran off or got killed" and all the rest is just whatever they actually wanted to write.

More Dean running around in woods (Purgatory callbacks), and mirroring a few episodes which started with the traditional cold open victim actually being the monster pursued by hunters.

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Dean waking up lying in the forest on the ground... He's done that a few times, in more dire circumstances I've seen paralleled together - 11x01 and 5x04. Interestingly I guess knocked out both times by a dark mirror to himself but who would never actually harm him. There's something peaceful about the way he has the bunny hanging out with him.

It makes him seem harmless too.

...

You know I could stop watching this show right here... I've seen 12x10 and now I've seen Dean Winchester calmly pick up a rabbit and call it "buddy" I mean... is there even anywhere to go from here?

But I've heard Kuma is in the episode so I shall press on

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Like, emotionally though, I think the show might be over for me :P

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The town is called "Eureka Springs" which is kind of funny, because of the double water association and of course the association to revelation and learning. We gonna get a  big scientific discovery about Dean outside of the now doubly confirmed fact that rabbits are his favourite animal?

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KUMA

Oh dang he's got a big part here... Do I gif all of it?

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I should probably backtrack because I was just reading myself writing about 2x20 for some reason this morning (I think I was looking for something else completely unrelated) and I stumbled on a little discussion about subverting it or, well, its obvious relevance now Mary is around. The woman with the stroller assumes Dean is homeless and tells him not to buy a drink when she gives him some cash, which I guess was a thing in that episode that everyone assumed Dean was a drunk. It's a tiny detail (I mean, he IS an alcoholic, although functioning better than usual and his drinking has got a lot better since he lost the Mark) but if we're peeling back Dean, I think an interesting little one to start with.

I mean, we've started with Purgatory!Dean, and Actual Fluffy Bunny Lover Dean, so... it's a bit wild.

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Dean remembers Sam's number.

Not where he is though.

Waffles! I'm with Dean here.

I too drop everything in a crisis when waffles are an option and someone's just paid me to leave them alone.

(Okay that's never happened - I'm delightful)

"What psycho doesn't love waffles" I mean come on even METATRON loved waffles, although they did not love him. Which is perhaps a more important sign of how dreadful he was :P

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Ah jeeze I really want waffles.

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Promo scene!

We have NO idea what Dean did the night before, so the thing with the girl is even more out of context... I wonder what it will end up being about? He looked like he was pretty busy hunting that witch last night. Events do not add up.

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Sam has been convinced by Dean asking for painkillers that it's a hangover, and I think *Dean*, knowing himself, might think he just got blackout drunk somehow. The woman telling him not to buy a drink remains vaguely important, thematically...

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Sam also is getting concerned, and makes a general life advice warning to Dean to stop drinking so much.

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Okay the girl who slapped Dean comes in, looks at him and goes "oh my god" and is ushered away by her friend - did THAT happen in the promo?

No, no it did not. Her response is given way more attention here - that was definitely edited out for the promo. Crafting the scene to look like something different. Huh. (I mean I know they've used different takes in promos, like in 10x01 using one which completely changed how much of a jerk Demon!Dean looked from the finished product... They do really manipulate these things.)

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I really like how we're dumped on this case like Dean is - we only have one advantage, that we're already aware he's cursed while he isn't. Aside from that, we seem to be discovering it like Dean is, like how Sam springs the idea we're going to the morgue next on us.

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Also did Dean lick his knife more intently in the promo asking for a friend

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Huh I don't think her interaction with him has changed very much - I'm pretty sure she did just say hi then slap him in the promo too. The way she stopped when she saw him though is very suspicious because she sounded so horrified to see him.

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Oh no Sam and Dean are wearing nice coats with their suits. I guess there's gonna be a lot of gifs :P

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Really pretty morgue technician with no lines. Honestly if she doesn't get killed off that will mean finally after a lousy streak, we make it through an episode without a black woman being killed.

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Well the first thing to go is Dean's ability not to be squeamish and weird. There's definitely a text post out there making fun of Dean for spending a year in Purgatory covered in guts, but getting weird about using a public telephone. Well, whatever barrier Dean has up about guts is aaall gone.

Please don't puke, we've made it over a season without you puking on screen and we're doing so well.

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Oh no is this where Dean crashes the car. He's disappearing fast :< I thought that might be later in the episode.

I suppose Sam has to realise eventually that something is wrong with Dean.

I can't believe Sam lets Dean drive when he's "plastered"... I mean he must drive over the legal limit basically all the time and Sam's used to it, but can we just... make this a "wear seatbelts" road safety episode? Please take that car away from him, Sam.

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OH NO Sam takes this moment for honesty hour - "Makes me want to crawl into a bottle too" - when Sam is drinking we KNOW it because he so rarely does it as a coping mechanism. I am indescribably sad about him saying that he feels this way :(

I mean I just take it for granted that Dean feels like shit so it's easier to deal with that :P I've been worried about Sam all season and he gives so few clues it's basically a pictures on a board linked with red string scenario to deduce if he's happy or not >.>

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FINDING DORY REFERENCE

"Not going to apologise for loving that fish. Not to you, not to anyone." Dean has his barriers down and he does not care who knows he likes watching Disney movies. And the fact that it's probably Sam he's most prickly around when it comes to protecting that facade... Sam is, well, gonna learn a lot about Dean he feels like he probably didn't want to know :P

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Honestly, Dean is me trying to remember the names of common household appliances.

There's something really bitchy about the way Sam labels the light stick and then covers the rest of the room in post it notes, even though Dean hasn't forgotten what they all are yet.

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Rowena! :D Mostly because Dean doesn't want to bother Mom or Cas... I notice something there - Cas is someone who a few years ago they'd have absolutely bothered for some weird magical problem. Now Dean wants to keep EMOTIONALLY distant from them because they're his family and he doesn't want to worry them/them to see him like this/him to blurt anything he doesn't remember he isn't supposed to say... In this case the fact that Dean DOESN'T want to call Cas for help sure says a lot more about how much he likes him.

Anyway Rowena is a badass and I love how she gets into these weird scenarios. This one is much better than all the finding a rich husband and killing him malarky - fleecing rich dudes over rigged poker games is definitely more empowering :P

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Okay yeah one of those post it notes says "Wall" - there is definitely a montage we missed of Sam being a hilarious bitch about it to Dean, and they're only phoning for help once it got kind of really not funny any more.

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I wish we saw that

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Dean and his "ICE BUCKET" what a tragedy

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"All these dumps look the same" Dude, don't be rude to Wanek. I'll assume this is because you can't REMEMBER them.

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Also the whole, living in a billion motels and until recently never having a place to call home thing - I was joking ages ago about Dean keeping a scrapbook about all the weird motels they went to or stealing mementos from them to remember the truly tacky ones... But the idea that almost all of them completely blur in his mind and he just doesn't notice or appreciate the differences...

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I love using Dean's "the last thing I kinda sorta remember" to take us to the office. They mentioned Memento but honestly I'm still thinking "Dude where's my car" although I know Dabb hasn't watched that because he's deathly afraid of Emus, so it's possible Glynn had to sell the Memento angle despite having other things in mind.

Like Finding Dory

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Dean steals a cigar (or two) - more implications that he smokes. I suppose when an angel heals you regularly or you were immortal for like a year and a half you kind of don't think of the consequences. I know some people don't really *smoke* smoke, but would have a good cigar if it came their way like this... I think Dean kind of has smoked in phases through the show, especially when he was younger, never mind all the implications he smokes weed, so... him stealing a few cigars is just more sneaky referencing this.

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To the bar! Hey, waitress Dean got slapped by!

We have more stuff with the names and badges - Dean messing up getting his badge out in time because he forgets to do it, forgetting what their cover is... Basically, a little demonstration that he's forgetting their covers in general - HIS covers in general. The FBI identity is something I've written reams on so I won't go into it but yeah it's his Performing!Dean next layer up, and what he does with it can often tell us stuff about how he's acting with his more sturdy and thorough Performing!Dean layer underneath, before we get to fluffy bunny lover Dean who watches Finding Dory.

Anyway she calls him out for using ANOTHER name the night before, and he's like "sometimes we have to lie to protect our cover" which is the most Dean saying ever.

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Oh hey and then as usual with the badge thing, a moment later we're slammed with something RIDICULOUS like, for example:

"And then you hit the bull." "What??" < both Winchesters "Oh yeah, you had the hots for Larry as soon as you walked in." "He - you... rode Larry?" *Dean shrugs like whatever* "Was I good?"

yeah so that's not a coded conversation that sounds SUPER FUCKING GAY out of context and considering the "hots for Larry" comment, doesn't do so badly IN context, especially as it's such a, uh, suggestive thing :P There's a girl riding it in the background and yeah, the whole movement to keep on the bull? I know it seems like a manly sport, but it involves a lot of writhing and pelvic movement and that bull is like as masculine an icon as you can get.

And Dean had the hots for it

oh god :P

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Worked to win the waitress over anyway :P

And she apologises for taking advantage of him. Wow. I don't think Sam and Dean even know what all those words mean put together in that order. :P

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"First action in I don't know how long, and it's like it never even happened. Figures." "See now that's comedy"

When WAS the last time Dean hooked up? Back in season 11 some time... 11x13 it was suggested. (I have a lot of Snymelo vibes from this episode)

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Honestly Cas is living right at the Bunker just man up and go talk to him and I guarantee that I could get you some action in about 2 lines of dialogue if you let me...

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(Sadly last episode actually convinced me that there's really good reasons Cas hasn't made a move and Dean is pining unsuccessfully after him so I can't even be mad :P)

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"It's like watching myself on netflix" Aw

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"I know how to shoot a gun!??"

:D Oh sweetie

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Sam giving Dean the Talk.

No that sort of talk. the "monsters are real" talk.

You know who does that? CRAZY PEOPLE.

Nope, "Awesome. That's awesome."

He's feeling a bit better about the job I guess than back in Yellow Fever where he had the equivalent moment.

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Aw he found a torch! He's so happy! "I'll man the flashlight" Yeah this is Yellow Fever again :P

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Oh god we're only 18 minutes what can possibly-

Jesus Christ Siren Episode reference You've not talked about that for EIGHT YEARS.

See, last night I compared these 2 episodes before this one ever aired with the assumption that the Yellow Fever parallels might be obvious but the Siren Episode would only be a sort of leech onto that because of its own parallels to Yellow Fever so we would have to walk through YF as an intro to the Siren Episode and how it could be applied to this one

(Sue me I was already planning the meta and this episode is following the exact same pattern as Yellow Fever and the Siren Episode so I'm feeling really vindicated, right about now :P)

The point I made LAST night was that Sam had been reading Dean wrong all this time and messing up his chance to understand him in the previous episodes. This time, Sam doesn't really have any reason why he'd get Dean wrong? The enemy of the season is miscommunication and not understanding Dean is Sam's biggest miscommunication.

Whether he's taking advantage of Dean's cheerful no-memory state, and the suspicion Dean won't remember him bringing it up again or what, Sam feels secure telling Dean about the Siren, at least I assume not telling Dean HE was attracted to it, but that this is a thing that happens. Dean can't lash out, Dean doesn't feel defensive... He just takes this information as Sam tells it to him without being weird about it.

The fact Sam remembered and wanted to tell Dean though... Well, like I said, Yellow Fever and the Siren Episode are basically the same thing ESPECIALLY from Sam's perspective. Here he is for the 3rd time and Dean's all fucked up again, and no wonder Sam remembers.

He also mentioned Djinn "not granting wishes" which means my reference to 2x20 earlier was super legit. *more smugness*

(sorry :P This episode is fun. I like that the new writers have watched the show)

Anyway, I'll be thriving off that reminder for a while :D Better carry on watching before I get sucked into a vortex of comparing episodes before I even know how this one goes.

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Aw Sam calls it "the Talk"

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"Best job ever!"

Dean thinks they sound like heroes, Sam, who has the lived experience, voices some actual goddamn complaints about the job. GO SAM. I guess he's thinking Dean won't remember this conversation and so he can voice some things.

So HE does the "you know who does that? CRAZY PEOPLE" speech that Dean didn't make.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAH Bloody handprint. "Our best friend's an angel! WHaaaaaat!!!" I worry :P

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Cas will be fine, I don't think Jared's even had his 3rd kid yet. Misha needs to give them all paternity leave by having more Cas-centric episodes.

What a beautiful set up. Smol babies and more Cas.

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But yeah something horrid might happen to Cas briefly.

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Also Sam told Dean that he was "our best friend" and so Dean is totally failing to grasp exactly what Cas means to him.

He probably only remembers Sam as well as he does because he's right in front of him - if Dean had been with Mary or Cas he'd have forgotten the other 2

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"Is that a dead guy?"

Dean looks grossed out but also "Cool!" because dead monster.

-

Witches! These guys seem like fun people.

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"I want my family back" she says while having Mary's hair and looking at the dead guy.

Oh dear.

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"Is that a dead guy?"

Sam needs to get a post it note for the dead guy.

-

ROWENA

"your hair is so bouncy" I think Dean is full of cute observations like this he's just never allowed to say and I think that's so sweet I might barf.

(You should hear how he talks about Cas ANYWAY)

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Dean remembers porn but not quality TV oh dear >.> Sam puts Scooby Doo on for him, which I guess is sort of Dean's role in this episode :P More dogs on TV - reminder of the second "dog that thinks it's people" line with the person who said it the first time in the room...

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"Dean Winchester is going to die." "Sucks for that guy!" Well at least he's happy :P

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Sam drags him away for a toilet conversation

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Dean briefly regains a sense of self and is miserable

Sam why did you do that

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"You know, I've seen my brother die, but watching him become... not him. This might actually be worse" Please, you watched him descend into the Mark of Cain and then babysat demon!Dean for an episode, this isn't new :P

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OH SHIT here's the "my name is Dean Winchester" speech and it's delivered directly into a mirror I am not going to make it

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That was terrible also can I have a new heart something happened to this one *shows a box of shards to the cashier*

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Sam don't be bitchy to Rowena when she's the only one who can help.

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And Dean is struggling to remember anything

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Oh nooooo

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Poor Dean :( :( :(

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or whoever he is

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Sam is putting Dean's life on the line to be weird about Rowena helping them.

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OH NO Dean's still struggling with it

"I don't know"

*wails*

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"Stop touching everything!"

I kind of love poor Dean when he's like this :( He's so sweet and... I don't know. Living in the moment because that's all he's got.

-

Also who is that voodoo doll of because they're having a terrible day too.

-

Aww Rowena already hates the British Men of Letters, so I guess she'll be helping later.

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"These witches sound like dicks. I think you have plenty of snuff."

Dean interpreted that she was talking about herself despite not knowing anything. Dean is good at subtext.

Also that has real echoes of "Doug's a dick, you deserve better" which made me squeee over Dean x Donna although obviously as the waitress said, it would be completely taking advantage of Dean so Rowena better not butter him up too much while his barriers are down. Especially as Dean has a "ugh witches!" gag reflex while himself.

It's also interesting that this is a barriers down thing for him to say. He was still getting over ACTUALLY being roofied when they talked to Donna that time, and I didn't think Dean was totally out of it there because he was engaged quite well in the conversation, but heh, it's an interesting comparison.

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"What a gift not to remember the things you've done!"

Oh no don't TELL him, Rowena.

"You're a killer" "scores of people" *gagging* "the greater good" (hey we had a "the greater good" earlier this season, right? I was laughing about the parallels to Hot Fuzz... Was it something the BMoL said? I see to recall paralleling their control of England to the baddies' control of the village)

I like that Dean and Rowena both have a gag reflex about each other's professions. But really loving this dynamic.

-

He might forget in a minute that Rowena told him he was a killer, at least.

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Rowena having honesty hour because like Sam she's assuming Dean won't remember this (as you might have guessed I am fascinated about what Dean DOES remember about this)

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"Power's what matters" Oh my god she's had actual character growth about this because of having to watch God and Amara suck at being the most powerful beings in the universe. Haaa.

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Rowena does love nose-booping Dean

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Sam is being pretty dangerous and scary in that way he gets when Dean is dying. Why do I get the feeling he's about to get a lesson in  being reckless.

-

I wonder what the butterflies symbolise. We've seen them on the show before, but in very different contexts. Hope someone else is on that because I have no immediate ideas. Like that they re-animate to cause harm. Not sure how much symbolism here for what though :P

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Aw Rowena does care :D in her own way. No respect for the car. Pfft.

(I feel like someone's gonna be all "Dean remembered Sam when he was in danger!"  but the phone is right there with his name on so I'm not sure)

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Having Gideon laid out like that is pretty ominous...

"We can bring him back!"

Yeah, okay, that was fairly obvious since he was still in the room the whole time :P

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Wow guess they're swapping Sam for him or something.

- Aw Rowena wearing a long black coat and being badass.

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Eeeeee more Rowena backstory.

I love her so much.

I mean everything we learn about her is so sad but it makes her motivations to be badass and not take any shit and obtain wealth and have nice hair really sympathetic :P

-

I am really loving how they're making Rowena more sympathetic.

-

Grenade launcher: DENIED

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I swear to god this had better be building to Dean shooting it in 12x23 as the crowning moment of awesome for the season or what is even the point

-

Are these all Rowena's notes or did Sam leave the ones in the trunk

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Whoever did it (I shall have to look at your handwriting again) you did good.

BUT

It was using Dean as a weapon. He had no idea who he was, no purpose, just these orders/suggestions and he went on instinct, couldn't even talk, COULD fire a gun, and had enough instinct to load the gun, walk into the house, and fight the witches.

I'm reminded of 9x21 (which I will be watching up next! Aaaah the dang rewatch! And GAVIN coming back...... Although maybe the new and improved Rowena might make that more interesting)... Whoops I... forgot... What I was saying. Uh. 9x21. Dean in the middle of the dark decent. Goes to kill Abaddon (mirrored in the fight with Lily and Ishim last episode), and for the entire scene from the moment he comes in the door, I think until they leave the building, Dean does not speak a word. He just goes in there on instinct, charges Abaddon, and pushes through he wall-shoving to get her, all on this brutal killer instinct that Rowena has reminded Dean he had.

Dean with no sense of self was very cute and goofy, but he retained his moral code (killing monsters bad, person who kills monsters hero) and he retained his killer instinct, so stripping him right down like that, I think this was the message of what has been programmed deepest into Dean, the things that would go last when everything else about him was disappearing. And considering I've been working through the last few episodes of season 9 lately, I'm chilled. :S Especially that the back up plan was to throw Dean at them as a weapon (I wonder if Rowena did it then, because Sam didn't have the thought Dean would do it, unless he labelled it all when they knew it was witches, but earlier in the episode when he was going on  his labelling spree)

-

Dean takes Sam on total trust as well about who is the witch and who is his brother. We don't know if that was his instinct or being obedient to what he was told... I'm guessing this is going to be something with 2 readings.

I'm assuming the cheap answer is the love of his brother runs that deep and instinctively he would know.

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Why was Sam NOT at the restoration... Aside from for setting up "who's this hippy"

I mean they even used the sad family music! What jerks :P

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Probably best to piss Sam off immediately so to avoid soppy hugs.

-

"Can't believe you called Rowena" "Can't believe you rode Larry" "Hey, I was awesome on that bull."

THAT'S your take away from this, Sam? I mean I'm thrilled but that's just... hilarious.

Especially as they don't mention the waitress again so the reminder is all about Larry and not about Dean's other conquest of the night :P I’m laughing.

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Does this episode end with Sam leaving the super powerful book of spells on top of the impala and Dean drives off and it falls in the street

-

I say this because I'm feeling emotional about Rowena implying Dean should talk to her if he remembers their conversation, and Sam is now talking about how he's jealous of Dean's no-memories buzz

Dean is like “our life sucks but if I was happy I wouldn’t have a shot at hooking up with an angel”

-

Okay no Sam took the book of witchcraft.

That doesn't bode well at all.

*she says vibrating with pent up frustration about how witch!Sam is being teased roughly twice a week with no pay off since like... ever*

-

Yay I knew we'd get to see Dean riding Larry at the end.

because this is Yellow Fever.

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I like Yellow Fever.

-

This is sort of embarassing having all of the other Dean stuff in there... You should have just stuck with him and Larry

Let them have a moment.

This is their song.