#I really think Collins saw what happened in the last 10 years and thought 'maybe I need to write about tyrany again' lol

[cannotescape]

Thoughts on The ballad of songbirds and snakes

I was curious to read the latest installment in the hunger games saga and I wasn’t disapointed. I’ll try to stay spoiler free in the review. In any case, the spoilers will be after a read more.

Many successful YA authors has been revisiting their work these past years. I... wasn’t impressed by most of them. The only sequel I’ve read that was worth the original work was La belle sauvage imo (not the entire Book of Dust series, sadly).

After reading The ballad of songbirds and snakes, it seems that the key for writing a sequel is actually to make it a prequel lol, with 0 to 1 character from the original. Add to it foreshadowing and a few hints and you get a winner.

A Snow redemption arc?

Knowing the premise, my first fear was that Snow was going to be the protagonist. I was smelling the redemption / justification arc from miles away. But Collins isn’t Rowling and Snow isn’t Snape (there is a Snape-like character though. he’s pretty interesting). The book can be summarized in one sentence: explaining a behavior isn’t the same as excusing it.

The book put the reader through an interesting experience: should we root for Snow, knowing what he will do in the future, and how long can we excuse his behavior? My reading experience was basically me trying to guess what Collins wanted me to think. I was waiting for the end to make up my mind about the book. There were hints that made me pause and go “huh” but I truly wasn’t sure how all of this was going to end.

I understood really late that Collins just let her readers choose what they wanted to think. You want to excuse Snow? You can, there’s enough material for that, and there’s enough good people around him for you to root for him. Linking his fate to Lucy Gray’s was clever. Making us believe that they were in the same boat (the hunger theme and the attention given to food made sure of that), when they couldn’t be farther apart? Well done. I can’t believe I fell for it.

So yeah, in my mind, Snow definitely isn’t redeemed or even excused in the end. You end up hating him even more. Collins doesn’t do manicheism apparently, so you get to empathize with him. Life and people put him in a difficult situation. But his pride and the importance he has given to his family’s status is what allowed people to blackmail him into doing... things.

Hints that Snow wasn’t being redeemed:

- talking about Lucy Gray like she’s his property - his strategy of differentiating her from the districts and immediately making her a potential Capitol citizen - not visiting Clemmensia in the hospital (it was emphasized enough times to make me pause) - choosing ignorance when faced with a situation he doesn’t want to deal with (refusing to acknowledge what Tigris must have done to survive during the war) - being quick as fuck to justify killing people (self-defense, yeah, but for how long?) - being condescending against Sejanus and district born people.

2. Just another Hunger Games book?

I started reading the story thinking it was going to be a hunger games book. It’s not. First of all, the games are nothing like the future ones. For historical and plot-related reasons (they’re building the games after all). What is striking is the lack of excitement: from the audience in the Capitol, and from the readers. Collins knows how to build suspense, she proved it with the first trilogy. It made the catharsis worked 100%: we were as much the spectators of the games as the Capitol.

Removing the excitement from the games? Making them dull and exposing them as the sheer horror show they are? Bold move. I also noticed that, overall, the tributes showed more empathy than in Katniss’ games. The war ended 10 years before. They had yet to forget “who the real enemy is”.

Just like in the THG, Collins used metaphors of the games in different parts of the book. The mentors have their own games going on (with a “prize” that is often presented as a lifesaver) + what happens in the very end. It didn’t bother me. I like symbolism and the games pervading every aspects of life is a good one.

What doesn’t make this a hunger games book is also the fact that... Katniss isn’t Snow. We’re following his story but he isn’t the real protagonist. Lucy Gray is a much better candidate, but the book is an actual demonstration of what happens when the narrative is taken away from you. The third person narrator was a nice change too. I think it allowed the narrator to present his thoughts as the truth without being immediately seen as biased. Free indirect discourse also makes you forget that the thoughts being expressed are Snow’s. Until the very end, when it becomes impossible to separate him from the narrator.

3. Class analysis

The rise of the bourgeoisie / nouveaux riches vs the fall of an ancient aristocracy grasping at straws to stay in power. Classic.

I don’t remember who theorized it (Gramsci maybe? or Paretto?) but the best way for a system to stay in place is to welcome a few “exceptional” people (and the word is meaningful in the book) from the lower but rising class. The Capitol is actively implementing this policy. The war made them aware of the benefits of having allies in the districts, mainly the richest families. The end of the book emphasizes the link between bourgeoisie and aristocracy - between money and status. And the most succesful citizen will be at the intersection of them.

Bonus: mockingjays and jabberjays being metaphors of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. Mockingjays are a district evolution of the Capitol-made jabberjays, and they’re slowy but surely taking over.

Meaningful quote: “Give it up,” he muttered to the thing. “You’re no jabberjay.”

Oh, and what happens when the decaying aristocracy doesn’t want to bulge or evolve and the rising bourgeoisie is getting tired of being refused power and privilege?! Yep, a revolution. Not saying a revolution led by the working class can’t happen (it’s basically the hunger games’ plot), but the bourgeoise / aristocracy allyship certainly can slow the process down.

4. The hanging tree

Loved to read about how the song was created. And seeing its meanings change the more the story progresses. At first a remembrance of the Capitol’s cruelty, then a way to communicate a meeting place. Finally, a mourning song about treason. The line “they said who murdered three” only hit me with its full meaning two days after finishing the book lol. The murderer wasn’t hung after all.

Meaningful quote: “Music caused trouble”. I fucking love the simple irony in all those little sentences when you know how all this will end.

Tldr: All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It gives you insight into Panem’s world (and ours let’s be honest, the parallels are blatant) and makes Katniss’ story even more powerful imo.

Also, the only love story worth mentioning was one between two girls lmao so there’s that (it’s a blink and you miss it kind of thing, but it’s there).

Spoilers under the cut (not very spoilery tbh but better be safe).

5. Lucy Gray

Like I said, the real protagonist. Her legacy has literally been erased, which is fucking heartbreaking. There’s a reason why I couldn’t remember if she was even mentioned in the original trilogy.

And yet her legacy lived on. The song she wrote not only was passed down from one generation to the next depite being immediately forbidden, but it also became the symbol of the rebellion. Same symbolism can be seen in the mockingjays, who are deeply associated with her.

I just have a lot of feelings about her and I’m happy that Katniss made everything worth it in the end. And despite being two very different characters, Katniss became her reincarnation designed specifically to haunt Snow. And I just love that Katniss doesn’t know anything of Lucy Gray. But she’s unknowingly reenacting her life. Because her legacy was that powerful. Or because everything that Snow hated in District 12 are very present in these two strong girls. Funny what an environment can do

Meaningful quotes: “Well, I hope old you doesn’t haunt new you. We’ve already got enough ghosts between us.”

“Good-bye Lucy Gray, we hardly knew you.”

“She could fly around District 12 all she liked but she and her mockingjays would never harm him again.”

6. The philosophy behind the book

Freedom vs order and security, the social contract, what an individual can do against a corrupted society, is it possible to change things from the inside? (interesting to have Plutarch’s ancestor mentioned), the elite reproduction (hi Flickerman!), what do cricumstances do to human beings (the Mary Shelley’s quote at the beginning).

Meaningful quote : “People aren’t so bad, really,” she said. “It’s what the world does to them. Like us, in the arena. We did things in there we’d never have considered if they’d just left us alone.”

[somanyerikas]

Nostalgia sells - or does it? About BBC’s rehiring of a previous showrunner for Doctor Who as a marketing strategy

All, right, this is the one where I deal with my issues about RTD’s rehiring from the standpoint of BBC’s business strategy . Brace for passive agression, swearwords, brief history of british television and numbers. So, so many numbers.

Allright, so I already wrote a post about my problem with RTD’s (re)hire from the creative standpoint (it’s here in case you’re interested), but hey, I can bitch about it all I want, but we all know what caused the BBC to make this decision, right? You’ve heard about it for sure. The Dropping Ratings. You’ve read about it on so many posts, lots of them probably oh-so-gladly conflating this fact with their own opinion about the deteriorating quality of the show. (Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.) So Obviously the execs at the Big BBC Quarters needed to do something about it, and what better way to go than rehire a guy who’s run at Doctor Who is a warm childhood memory for so many in it’s fanbase? After all, it’s what we’re seeing nowadays: from Star Wars return to wave of 80′s nostalgia to every old blockbuster star doing a comeback, there is but a single conclusion - nostalgia sells.

Or does it?

Part One: Moving with the change; or very much refusing to.

Let’s start this off with some facts about the ratings for Doctor Who. (Well, I warned you there’s gonna be numbers, didn’t I. Stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this I promise.) In it’s beginnings, in the sixties and seventies , the series flown high, averaging a viewership from 8 up to 10 million viewers per season. Collin Baker’s series 17 brought in a record of 11.21 milion viewer asses in front of a good ol’ TV screen, real champagne opener here. But, as it happens, things were downhill from here. During the eighties, the rating started dropping steadily, reaching an all-time low of 4.15 milion couch-warming bottoms in 1989, the last season of the classic era. 

Years passed, 16 of those years to be exact, and here comes our saviour RTD. Under his wings, the revived series premiered, bringing in over 10 milion viewers to the premiere episode of season 1, Rose. A viewership this high did not last for long, but still, RTD’s seasons averaged between 7 and 8 milion viewers per season, which seemed pretty respectable. But then, as the story likes to repeat itself, not unlike the bbc execs just did, along came the decline again. Ever since 2010, the ratings began steadily dropping again, from 7.95 in 2010 to 5.46 in 2017. Then DW experienced an unexpected peak in 2018 with the premiere of Jodie Whittaker’s first season, which averaged 7.96 viewing asses, but then continued the dropping trend on the next season, averaging 5.40 viewing butts.

So what went wrong?

You see, part of the reason that Doctor Who was bringing in such great viewership numbers in the 60′s and 70′s, was that, to put it simply, BBC did not have much competition. Or, to be exact, only had one competitor. ITV was literally founded in order to break BBC’s monopoly over British television. But in the 80′s, with the launch of Channel 4 and Sky, the british viewers had more and more options to choose from. So logically speaking, they no longer had to watch BBC’s programming just because there was nothing else on. There was more and more new programes to boredom-watch. And here’s something y’all need to know about the tv industry: the boredom-watchers, the casuals? That’s the most important demographic. As hard as it might be to swallow, us hardcore fans, forum dwellers and Ao3 gremlins, we’re not as big of a group as we’d like to think. Loving fans are important to the tv execs as providers of word-of-mouth advertisment, but the real numbers come from the casual, everyday viewer who will just put on the next episode cause the other one was kinda fun I guess. Or more fun than the other options, anyway.

And this is why, by the way, when someone is conflating low viewership with the show Dissapointing The Fans, they’re full of shit. I’m sorry, but we’re really not that much of a force here, definitely not enough to make such a big impact on the numbers. Another factor, that some of you probably noticed already, is that the numbers I’m quoting are from british tv only, while the online fandom is very much international, so our opinions matter even less to the british execs, I’m sorry again, hard pill to swallow I know, but true nonetheless.

But I digress. So, to sum up the previous paragraph, Doctor Who’s viewership decline in the 80′s was the effect of the changing landscape of the TV industry, with which the BBC struggled to come to terms with.

Sound familiar?

Let’s move on to the 2010′s, shall we?

2010 was is actually a good marker of a year to choose, because it marks one important thing that begun a big change in the industry. This was the year in which Netflix expanded their services overseas, from being a DVD rental company to providing VOD services. Over the next decade streaming services grew in importance, from being an add-on to your cable TV that you didn’t really want but they were throwing it in for cheap, to very much self-sustainable media services you might very well buy instead of buying the cable. And if you look at the numbers for Doctor Who viewership declining over the last 10 years, that’s precisely what’s been happening. It’s not that people don’t want to watch Doctor Who on tv, they don’t want to watch tv in general. Do you know what was the most popular channel in Britain this year? Can you guess? Fucking Netflix that’s what. It’s just slowly-yet-steadily ceasing to be the way we use home entertainment anymore. Again, not much to do with the audience approval, because for that matter, let’s see about the specific episodes that saw the spikes in viewership. 

Rose, which i mentioned at the start of it, was for the longest time the unquestionable queen when it comes to viewership, at 10.81 milion. The next episode, The End of the World, pulled in 7.97 - almost 3 millions worth of lost viewer-butts in one week? Is it because it was so much worse than it’s predecessor? No, it simply did not have the smell of Newness, the Event You Must See, and as such brought forth less of the casual viewers who were simply curious about The New Thing. The next season followed the similar formula, peaking at the premiere, when the marketing was at it’s strongest, going down during the season, sometimes rising slightly for the finale, sometimes not. The most popular episodes are, of course, the specials - yet again, the vibe of The Event To Be Seen worked here, but one more thing working to their advantage is they often aired in spaces between seasons, serving as both a long-waited Crumbs of Content for the fans, and the basically stand-alones for the casuals. Do you know what the single most watched episode of revived DW is? No, it’s not Tennant’s goodbye with the role (yeah I know, I thought it had to be that as well). It was Voyage of the Damned, between seasons 3 and 4. The perfect standalone for the casual watcher. And last but not least, you know one more special feature that brought, maybe not as much, but definitely more than expected? The 1996 movie Doctor Who, with 9.08 million. Again, a perfect standalone.

But the standalones aren’t the only way to grab the viewership. The currently-highest viewing non-special episode of DW? The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Jodie Whittaker’s introduction. In 2018 no less, in the year when the streaming was the ruler supreme, this episode brought a whooping 10.96 million buts to the good ol’ TV again. Let me reiterate: this episode brought in more viewers than Rose did in 2005, while having WAY more competition and way less favorable circumstances of release that RTD’s debiut did. Not only that, it managed to bring on some numbers for the entire season as well, not as good of course as the premiere (because again, the Event vibes faded), but still brought a better average than the last six seasons did. (Again, let me reiterate: more than the last SIX seasons. More viewership than any series since 2010, since the Streaming Wars.) So clearly, this must be the way, right? Catering to this Weird New Trend, that saw directors notice there do in fact exist other actors than white men, that surely brought in some profit, even Marvel does it now, right? Out with the old, in with the new!

Part 2 The Deceitful Charm of Nostalgia

Well, it turns out the whole Doing New Things deal didn’t work out that well after all, now did it? The second season penned by Chibbnal averaged 5.40 milion, that’s 2.5 million drop from the previous one! It must mean it didn’t work, right? Well, yes and no. As much as the refreshment of the formula as simple as Let’s Put A Woman In It absolutely worked for one season, it very visibly did not hold up for longer. An Event-Episode is something that can still happen on TV, Event-Series? That’s pretty much reserved for streaming now, if you think about it, and it’s honestly kind of a miracle that Series 11 did as well as it had. Two consecutive Event-Series on network tv? Flat out impossible. 

So how to make those ratings great again? How to get those butts in seats of the Good Ol’? Well, the execs of the BBC have a plan for that. They brought in a devouring beast, and it’s name is: Nostalgia.

Without a doubt, there is a number of people who feel nostalgic about RTD’s era of Doctor Who. It’s a lot of people’s fond childhood memory, or the series they started with, and judging by the numbers, there should be quite a lot of them. So the new plan, as it appears, is to get to those who maybe lost interest in the show and lure them with the promise of the thing That Is Totally Like The Thing You Used To Love, Remember? (This is why I don’t actually think that RTD will be allowed to do anything new and interesting, that’s not what they hired him for. And that’s why I think this is bad from the creative standpoint.) So there are two questions here: One, will the people be lured? And two, for how long?

Nostalgia as a marketing strategy is something that you’re probably sick of seeing already (I know I am). But it has very much been effective on many levels, especially the eighties-baiting, Stranger Things style, can bring a new IP up to relevance. But what about old IP’s that want to have a comeback? 

It’s kind of dificult to find another TV show that I could compare to Doctor Who. Most series that have been running for that long are mostly soap operas, that operate on slightly different rules, and are also targeted to a different audience. So as much as the movie series is still not exactly the best comparison, when I think about a big IP, campy sci-fi, family-oriented (at least in theory) on its path back to relevance, I think about Star Wars, obviously. The Force Awakens gambled on that nostalgic feeling and won big, but the next two movies, while still financially successful, were nowhere near the astounding success of the first one. And that’s because - you guessed it - it created the Event You Must See again, The Great Comeback, but merely two years later, the comeback became old news. So what we can gain from that is that nostalgia can create an Event as well as a new trend, if not better. But the question remains: how long will that last?

That is, after all, the main difference between a movie franchise and a TV series in the traditional, network TV sense of the word: movie franchise must bring in the viewership every year or two, and TV series must bring in viewers every week for at least two months. Is RTD’s Nostalgia Vibes enough to provide for that?

I’ll say this: I’m absolutely certain that the 60th anniversary will be very popular. I still don’t think it will break any records because, as I’ve been trying to explain for this whole post, it is not 2007 anymore no matter how much the tv execs would like it to be. But ironically, the almost-certain success of the special is the very thing that could undermine the effect of bringing their precious Nostagia Boi back onboard. Remember, the first Event Episode is The Big Oof. That’s the one that gets asses to the Good Ol’, if anything ever does. After the first big event one, that’s the point when things start going down. They’re wasting their Special Event Boi for something that already would be an event, dear fucking gods, I hate your plan and I would still execute it better. Either have RTD be the Anniversary Guy and then hire someone new, use that hype and keep it going, OR have RTD come in after the anniversary, then at least you get the Event Effect for the premiere of his first return season. Fukin’ amateurs.

But even if they did that, here’s the thing: do you think that the people who departed from the show years ago actually want to watch another three to five seasons of The RTD Show? I mean, I’m sure the thought warmed some hearts, for sure. A number of people will definitely gladly watch the anniversary, probably the first few episodes of the first return to the basics, but after that? In the world when, due to streaming, they have an easy way to revisit the actual thing they’re nostalgic towards? I honestly don’t think so. And you’re not really gonna get many new people by going back, if that nostalgia factor isn’t there. And then there’s casual viewers, the backbone, as we established. And here’s the thing: lots of those people don’t even know who the current showrunner is, cause they’re not Terminally Online like we are, and the second thing? Lots of those people ARE JUST NOT WATCHING NETWORK TV, IM SORRY GARRY. They’re just. They’re just not. I don’t know how to spell it out better. Even my mum has netflix now. Your biggest base is in another castle mate, gotta get moving and gotta get moving quick, cause here’s another thing: all the nostalgia in the world will not do SHIT for you if your target, people who were kids/teens when the RTD era was airing, PROBABLY DON’T EVEN HAVE A FUCKING TV ANYMORE CAUSE THEY MOVED OUT OF THEIR PARENTS FLAT AND LOTS OF YOUNG PEOPLE JUST DON’T BOTHER. Just. I’m sorry but you’re trying to resuscitate a decade-deceased corpse there buddy. It just won’t work. The times have changed and you gotta swim or drown, and it’s just not gonna be 2005 again, no matter how hard you pretend it is. It’s not your content it’s your business model. Just push more marketing for your iplayer or whatever, focus on streaming as your primary not your secondary cause that’s just what it is now, and maybe don’t rely on the viewer-counting systems of the yesteryear to evaluate your business. Or else you’re gonna get stuck sacrificing the creative growth of your show for a marketing strategy that probably won’t even fucking WORK.

There, I got it of my chest. Feel free to reblog, and also: you somehow got to the end of this, congrats! I’ll make numbers nerds out of y’all yet.

[zandracourt]

I’ve been reflecting a lot on Cas’ recent confession of love and the responses I’ve been seeing across tumblr and Twitter. As a Destiel fic writer, I am thrilled to see this become canon and as a queer woman, also really touched to see how much Misha has embraced this as a really significant thing. I already ordered my Only Love merch. So I’m content with it all as much as it is. SPN has never made queer representation its issue. SPN *has* responded to its fanbase, who have both pushed the importance of representation and also brought the actors into a realm of growth over queer issues that they may never have come to without this show and this fandom. For that reason, I don’t think it’s helpful to be mad at Jensen or the Showrunners for Destiel not being perfect. You don’t have to celebrate them as allies, but the anger and vitriol just doesn’t help, in my opinion.

BUT...where my thoughts have been going is around what it means to be an actor in a ‘ship and what the impact of the story has on the actors, the fandom, and the constant dance of who controls the story because I think this has been something that even with straight characters has had serious impacts on how fans feel about an ending.

My first fandom, Starsky & Hutch, was mostly written by a gay man who wrote “straight” characters because that was what they had to be in 1974. The characters and show plots were such that the actors felt the love underneath the words and acted accordingly. Back then, it wasn’t so much queer baiting as queer coding. I find it amazing that my parents never thought for a minute Starsky and Hutch were gay, but even as a 7 year old, I knew they were in love and saw them that way. And anyone who watches the show now, it’s so clear that it’s almost laughable. When their show won the Peopel’s Choice award in 1977, David Soul said in his acceptance speech that the best part of being on this show was that people saw two men who “could be anything”. He knew that queer folk read their characters as gay and that straight folks saw them as straight and he was happy for both to be true. While the show never had an explicitly romantic declaration, the characters held hands, hugged, and in the final episode, their final scene is Hutch crawling into Starsky’s hospital bed with him, something done with amusement, but was completely coded to mean something else. It was never “canon”, but the ‘ship has lasted 46 years with new fic being written even now.

In the new SW films, actor Oscar Isaac was not at all quiet about his feelings that his character, Poe Dameron, was in love with Finn. He stated he played him that way (and was not directed otherwise) and he even explicitly asked for that ship to be made canon. He was told no and that is not how the story ended. The romance plot was instead focused on two other characters. Some fans liked that. Many didn’t. In general, though, the story is open-ended enough that shippers could have Stormpilot be their ship and there is nothing that really contradicts that. In that scenario, Oscar had his sense of who this character was and felt strongly about that, but in the end, it wasn’t his story, so the ending was what it was.

Hawai’i Five-0 ended its 10 year run last spring. Actor Scott Caan said in an interview during the show’s 5-year mark that he wanted to see his charcter have a romantic story line with his other lead, Steve McGarrett. And while Scott did not go so far as Oscar Isaac did to say he made his acting choices based on that, watching him and Alex play their characters, there was definitely some intention to show their characters as loving one another. Actor Alex O’Loughlin voiced a few times over the years that he felt his character would not get back together with Catherine, a woman his character was on-again, off-again with, because he felt Steve had reached his limit with what Catherine had done to him. The series made a decision to end with Steve leaving Hawai’i behind and flying away with Catherine. Neither actor has commented much about the show’s ending, but clearly it went against what both actors had publicly expressed in the past. Again, they don’t control the story, but they do understand their characters after playing them for so many years and they are invested in that. In that sense, the actor’s subsequent silence about how the show ended says quite a bit. And McDanno fans were very unsatisfied with the show’s ending, myself included.

So we come to Destiel. Over the years, this ship has been very controversial in part because one actor (Misha) has clearly been OK with his character being perceived as being in love with Dean, while the other actor (Jensen) has not. At times he has been very negative about it, and that has been taken by some fans to imply how Jensen feels about homosexuality in general. I’m not convinced it does, but I understand why people feel that way. Over the 12 years since Cas’ introduction on the show, there clearly has been a shift from the writers and showrunners avoiding the topic entirely, to talking about it, and now to having Cas confess his feelings of love to Dean in canon. In the days since, Misha has been unequivocal in saying Cas is romantically in love with Dean and that he has played him that way, at least for this season and likely longer. Misha is proud that he was able to advocate for Cas to be gay and he clearly understands why it is important for the show to have made this choice. For Jensen’s part, however, he has stated he has not played Dean that way and from video clips of him talking about the show’s ending, it appears that he needed some convincing to accept this as the story. To his credit though, once he was convinced that this was something show creator (Eric Kripke) could envision as part of Dean’s character arc, he was on-board with this ending and feels statisfied with it. And I think some of the frustration folks feel stems from both in how the actors portrayed their characters and in which takes were chosen to be in the final cuts of episodes. In that way, the show has fed this ship, whether the actors realized it or not, and that is why Destiel has felt particularly painful at times. The fanbase has been gaslighted for seeing it at all (from actors and showrunners) while the directors have seemed to go out of their way to choose shots where the actor’s choices were more tender and affectionate and write lines where characters make explicit statements about Dean and Cas as romantic. I can’t help but wonder if Jensen really didn’t see Dean as being in love with Cas, but that we saw Jensen’s own affinity for Misha bleed through in their incredible chemsitry together or if Jensen has just been in denial of this ‘ship having teeth for his own personal reasons. I don’t know and so far, he hasn’t been willing to talk about that. Maybe he will once it’s over. Maybe he won’t and I’m not going to be angry with him for it. He’s an incredible actor and he’s lived this character for 15 years, so he has a right to who he believed Dean is and isn’t.

The issues of representation continue to be pressing and what I see happening with Destiel and these other ‘ships is exciting because it shows growth on all sides. We have audiences able to voice not only how they perceive characters without shame but can express a desire for characters to be together. None of that is new for straight characters, but it is for queer characters. We have actors who not only can see these same things, but feel enough ownership of their characters to expresss what they believe their characters would do or feel. And we have showrunners who are going to make their story, sometimes in response to feedback from their fans and actors, and sometimes in spite of it.

What Destiel becoming canon gives me hope for is that as new shows come into being, characters that take off, actors who have unexpected chemistry, and ‘ships that gain a life of their own, will lead to shows that are less inclined to care if those ships are queer or not and just go with what fans respond to. That it will normalize that people can (and do) come out an all different times of life, even after being het-married, having kids, or presenting as straight to everyone else for 40 years. That it will reflect that sometimes, it’s not about having been queer or straight from the beginning, but be about that ONE relationship that just is different, special, or grows into a deep love regardless of the genders of the people. I hope we can get to a place where deep intimacy between same-gender characters doesn’t have to be a war over romance vs. platonic and the story can just develop without the pressure of representation because queer characters will be so prevalent that we don’t have to feel like we must cling so tightly to every one we get. I hope we can come to a place where sometimes relationships don’t go romantic because one person (regardless of gender) just doesn’t feel that way, because that is very fucking true in real life. I want to watch shows where the sexual identity of any character doesn’t have to be etched in stone from the word go, never to change ever because that’s boring and limiting, and honestly, not real life.

I am deeply grateful for actors like Isaac, Caan, and Collins who are willing to see characters outside the heteronormative lens and to advocate for queer romantic arcs. I’m thankful to showrunners who are making shows with greater queer representation than ever before. And I’m grateful to actors like Ackles, who while it wasn’t who he thought his character was, was able to expand his view enough to go where the story was going to go. The arc of the universe does bend towards justice, and we will get there. Until then, there’s fic. And thank God for that.

[bubbashawn]

Honey

author: Here’s my first completed request!! Also this is day 7 or 8 of me posting in a row so I’m patting myself on the back. Hope y’all like it and yes it mentions the “pr” stunt w/ Camila so don’t attack me

synopsis: You overhear something you should’ve known all along. But why does Shawn care? He’s the one who threw 5 years away. Throw in a New Year’s Eve Party and everything is bound to go haywire.

warning: requested by anon. Forgive me I swore lol but really it falls in my brand so 2k of angst to fluff :)

“Baby, I love you.”

“Yeah well maybe you should’ve thought about that before Miami!”

“It’s all a PR stunt, Y/N. I don’t get it! Why is this such a big deal to you? That all means shit to me! You know that!”

“Because you didn’t tell me, Shawn,” your eyes started watering but you ignored them, “because I had to explain to my family why your tongue was down some other girls throat and I didn’t know how to because you didn’t tell me!”

Shawn knew a fake relationship would go haywire, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to love you right if he was pretending to love some other girl. Shawn knew what would happen and yet here he was. Standing, begging, in front of you to stay with him because he didn’t think he could ever lose you.

“Honey, you know I love you.”

“Saying I love you isn’t going to fucking fix anything!”

It was true. He loved you so much that he didn’t consider that you’d end things, not when you were so in love with each other. His stupid ego was causing havoc while you cried in his kitchen with your key resting on his counter.

You loved him too much. This hurt too much.

You had that key since he first bought his condo, he remembered the two of you moving him out of his family home. You also used to have a key for there. The two of you had met back in Pickering before Handwritten, before Vine even and your relationship had guided the two of you through your rising fame. You were the one constant in his life, his love for you the only thing keeping him grounded through it all.

“I’m done. I won’t be made a fool and the paparazzi probably will be here soon, so I’m just going to leave.”

“Y/N…”

“Bye Shawn, have a nice life.”

You felt arms shift around your waist and your eyes snapped open. It was just a dream. Except it wasn’t because it wasn’t Shawn’s arms wrapped around you or his cologne covered pillow your head rested on. It was your boyfriend’s.

Not Shawn’s.

Collin must have noticed you shift in his bed because his crystal eyes were staring down at you. He had the sharpest blue eyes you had ever seen, a stark contrast to the familiar hazel.

Collin Bradford had been perfect.

He was what any girl like you could dream of. He wasn’t famous which was foremost the best because you didn’t have to deal with a rivalry about who’s better. He understood your strange hours and never complained about the red carpets or photographers. He was happy to let you take the spotlight. ENews was obsessed with him, not that you blamed them, Collin was by far the most attractive man you had been with since Shawn.

Collin Bradford had been perfect, until he wasn’t.

Once he got comfortable in the relationship he started letting all the new attention get to his head. He became flirty and arrogant. He was the golden boy of Hollywood and he always claimed to love you, so you let him stay in your life. When the cheating scandal happened you let him back in. And the 2 after that. Funny how you let him make you seem like a fool when you’d broken Shawn’s heart for the same reason.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. What time is it?”

“Almost 6. Do you need to get up?”

“Mmm,” you hummed in agreement, “I’ve got that interview with Spanish Vogue in three hours.”

Carol, your stylist, would kill you if you weren’t sitting in front of her within the next hour. You rose to your feet ignoring the ache that Shawn always massaged out of your back.

“Want an espresso?”

“No, don’t bother,” you smiled back at him, “let at least one of you enjoy a morning in bed.”

“Want to get me one?”

“Sure thing.”

“You’re the best Baby,” his face was hidden in his phone before you could say another word. That was his way of saying he’s done with this conversation.

You walked out of the bedroom and hurried to make your boyfriend his drink before scurrying back to place it by his head. He didn’t acknowledge you.

“We have Hailey Bieber’s New Year’s Eve Party tonight. You still want to come?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there.”

You were out the door by 6:10, accustomed to the tight schedule. It was two and a half hours when you noticed a 6’2” frame with curly hair towering over you. You didn’t dare look up until you saw his swallow tattoo emitting an unwanted gasp from your throat. Carol looked at you weirdly but your eyes were trained on pointed Chelsea boots that were hesitantly shuffling towards your seated figure.

“Y/N,” he sounded the same, honey smooth like the rest of him, “Y/N?”

Your gaze lifted from the ground where he stood, up his body and past the undone buttons of his shirt until you stopped on the hazel eyes from your distant memories.

“Hey.”

“Wow, Hi,” he was staring, “it’s been what, 2 years?”

“Just about. 2 years at the end of next month.”

Shawn didn’t pay attention to the nervous quake in your voice and if he did he didn’t make any moves to soothe your mind. He just remained mere feet away and looking down at you.

You hated that you could see the love behind his irises. He had put you through so much even after you left. Shawn hadn’t broken up with Camila for another 8 months after yours. That’s why you didn’t run back to him.

“Wha-what’re you doing here?”

“Oh, um I have an interview about my new work.”

“I heard about that. Congratulations by the way.”

“Thanks.”

He was still staring and watched you shift off the chair to stand before him. Shawn wasn’t paying mind to how close you two actually were until the air between you was mixing. You took his breath away, literally.

“Are you still with that asshole, Charles?”

“Charles? You mean Collin?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Then yes, yes I am.”

“Why? Didn’t he cheat on you?”

“Keeping tabs on me?”

He was growing frustrated with your stubbornness.

“Believe it or not, I still love you, Y/N. And I hate seeing you get hurt, especially by some guy who doesn’t deserve you!”

“And who deserves me? You? Shawn, the whole reason I was in this relationship to start was to get you out of my head,” your eyes were tearing up just like that night years ago, “because believe it or not, you hurt me first.”

Carol, bless her soul, gave an apologetic smile towards Shawn for interrupting your conversation and began walking you towards your interview.

“Honey, you okay?”

You nodded your head trying to piece your mind together before some poor interviewer talked to you.

“It was hard not to listen in,” she smiled softly, “but if you want my thoughts, I think he was telling the truth.”

You looked into her eyes searching for answers that you already knew.

“He loves you, Y/N, and I think you love him too.”

With one final look to make sure her observations got through to you, Carol opened the door and guided you towards your manager.

The interview went fine and before you know it, it was over. You spaced out one too many times, you were sure, but it was over and done with. A photo shoot followed so you would have a cover image on Spanish Vogue and before you knew it the sun was setting.

After a long day filled with too many people and the run-in with Shawn, the last thing on your mind was New Years. You had honestly forgotten about it until you got a slew of texts all talking about the plans for the evening. Everyone was going to show up around 10 and the night would progress from there.

You, however, wouldn’t leave the Vogue building until 11:20.

“Your dress is in the car so you’ll have to change in the back which is why I made sure the car would have a partition. And Collin can help you, okay?”

Collin would not be helping if you had a say in anything.

“Thank you, Carol, enjoy the holiday!”

“You too.”

You slipped into the Bentley waiting by the glass doors ignoring the flashes of cameras. And quickly pulled your dress from the door before turning to your boyfriend expectantly.

“Go up to the passenger seat.”

“It’s not like I haven’t seen you strip before,” he chuckled, eyeing the silky minidress in your hand, “is that even a full dress? Like I’m actually going to let you walk out of here in that.”

“Go to the fucking front and you haven’t had a worthy opinion about anything in the last 8 months because you cheated on me so get out.”

He glared at you but didn’t have any excuse. What could he say to you? Sorry? Collin hopped out ignoring the questions and the shouts about his scandals and sat in the front next to your driver. He glowered even more, if that’s possible, when the divider screen went up.

The party was in full blast by the time you had arrived. With only ten minutes until midnight everyone was bustling to reach their lover or any stranger with a decent pair of lips. Everyone was drunk, and if not absolutely hammered then tipsy. Not one person was standing without leaning on something for support.

“Collin, I’m ge-”

Your boyfriend who was minutes ago standing behind you was now leaning against the kitchen counter between some pretty girl’s thighs. His lips sipping from her solo cup before latching on her neck. Shocker.

Shawn was surely the only person aware of his surroundings and though no one else paid mind to you slipping into the party looking absolutely gorgeous except him. No one noticed the asshole behind you sneaking off to fuck some model. No one noticed your unsurprised yet hurt expression.

No one noticed except him.

He’d be lying to say he hadn’t been watching the front door since he arrived, looking for your familiar face. He was elated when you walked through the door because despite the fact that every time you two spoke it resulted in a fight, he still missed you. Had Shawn been a man with any common sense he would’ve shut down the whole pr relationship concept before it even became a possibility. But he hadn’t and then he lost the most important person in his life.

10

He made his way through the crowd offering friendly greetings to the drunk party goers before he was standing feet away from you again.

9

This time however your eyes didn’t shy away like they had earlier that day. No, they watched his gaze flicker across your entire being drinking you in.

8

“Hi,” your voice was breathless.

7

“Hey,” his hands found your waist.

6

“Are you drunk?”

5

“No,” he smiled before repeating your question back at you, already knowing the answer.

4

“Are you drunk?”

3

“No.”

2

“Good.”

1

Shawn’s lips were pressed against your own and he tasted the same as when he was 16. It was like his eyes, pure honey, just so undeniably sweet. You wondered how you didn’t wander back to him like an addict during your 2 years of deprivation.

“Happy New Years, Baby.”

His mouth latched to yours again not wanting to pull apart longer than he had to.

“We still,” you whimpered when your lips separated again as he looked down at you, “we still have to talk about this. About us.”

“As long as there is an us, I’ll talk to you forever. And you have to break things off with that asshole.”

“Mmhmm,” you hummed against his lips.

“You’re my honey. You’re my sweet, sweet honey.”

“You sure you aren’t drunk?”

“Not drunk,” he couldn’t help but smile against your lips, “just happy. Really fucking happy.”

permanent tag list: @wholesomemendes @fallinallincurls @ashwarren32 @mendesficsxbombay @haute-shawn @turtoix @prncsnee @http-isabela

[tomhardysteeth]

u wanna say anything for spn ending? Today's their last day of filming

Yeah sure! I love how you worded this ask, it makes me want to give a very serious answer. I’ve been rewatching random episodes the past few days and thinking about how much of my life was shaped by this random lil tv show, both positively and negatively, so here we go. 

I started watching Supernatural during my junior year of college, when I was grappling with being gay and religious, and had a pseudo-girlfriend who was emotionally abusive. I remember I started watching the show because I had been on tumblr for a while and thought, well this is a popular show on tumblr and looks like something I’d enjoy, so I might as well try it. I remember barely paying attention to the first season and thinking it was kind of silly, and I distinctly remember making fun of it right up until the season 1 finale when that truck slammed into the Impala and I said oh.

I remember sitting in the dining hall between classes, hiding in a corner with my pink headphones and my laptop, watching one episode after the other, completely consumed by it. My personal life was a mess at the time and I was angry and sad and frustrated, but I could forget about everything for a little while when I watched spn. I remember falling in love with Dean Winchester, season 3, when Sam gave him the amulet. 

Because I had already spent a lot of time on tumblr, I knew about Castiel. I couldn’t wait to get to season 4, the anticipation killed me. I didn’t really have a choice in shipping destiel, I literally shipped it before I even watched a single episode of the show lol. My first time watching seasons 4 and 5, I remember how mad I would feel every time the opening credits scrolled at the bottom of the screen and Misha Collins wasn’t listed. I cared about almost nothing but Dean and Cas interacting with each other. I was totally enamored by them, by their potential. At some point I got over that and watched the show because I liked the show, but boy did my heart and brain break for destiel. 

I broke up with my abusive girlfriend. I started coming out to more people, including people involved in the Christian campus ministry I was heavily involved in, and it was very very hard. It was 2013. The first episode of Supernatural I watched live was the episode where Dean turns into a fucking dog. 

I don’t remember when I started reading fanfic, and I had no idea how to read fanfic. A friend invited me to ao3, what is ao3? I didn’t know. I used my email address as my username. I read Twist and Shout and Pie Without Plot and other very popular fics that I knew about because everybody knew about them. I vividly remember the first fics I read because I was 21 years old and had never had an orgasm in my life and believed sex was sinful and so when the sex scenes in fics turned me on, I felt guilty about it. 

I quickly got over that and started writing explicit destiel fanfic. 

I still had no idea what I was doing. I know the very first fic I ever wrote was a mess, I’ve completely erased all traces of it, but other than that I began posting with abandon. Pretty much everything I’ve ever written for spn is still on tumblr and/or ao3. I was running a Hannibal blog at the time and started posting more Supernatural content than Hannibal content, so I created a sideblog, @deancasheadcanons​, and things very quickly got out of hand after that.

I was depressed, I was confused, I was spending my last couple years of college trying to figure out my sexuality, trying to hold onto a religion that was rejecting who I was becoming, trying to find my identity while picking a career path and being sad and being pulled in a hundred different directions. Sometimes I was working three jobs at once, on top of 17-credit-hour semesters. I was getting a degree in a field I did not care about, and I spent every class reading and writing fanfic, scrolling through tumblr, making internet friends, letting my life be consumed by Supernatural. I projected myself completely onto Dean Winchester and partially onto Castiel and did not even realize it. 

I started dressing like Dean, and my sister and brother-in-law noticed and assumed I was gay. They were extremely unsubtle in their attempts at getting me to come out by pointing out the flannel and army jackets, and I did not have it in me to admit to them that I was dressing like a fictional character, but I DID tell them I was bisexual. 

I went to therapy every week during my senior year of college, and I was embarrassed about how often I talked about my “internet life,” as I called it. I remember having the arbitrary goal of getting 1,000 kudos on a fanfic, and I remember the day it happened for the first time and I remember going to therapy that week and saying that I didn’t feel any different, that I thought getting attention for my writing would make me feel better, somehow, but I still felt the same, and my therapist asked me if I would still be writing if I was the only one who got anything out of it and I said yes. But I was still obsessed with writing things that were meaningful, and despite the fact that I would receive 10 negative/mean anons per day, I never turned anon off because I desperately wanted people to tell me that my writing meant something to them, that it mattered to them. I was fighting with myself every day over my sexuality and my identity and my purpose, and I put all of that on the shoulders of Dean and Cas. 

There was also chubby!dean. I had lived my entire life with this inexplicable thing, this shame that I knew I could not share, that I knew I would just have to suffer with for my whole life, and then I joined the spn fandom and found that there were others like me, others that had a fetish and had similar experiences as I did and were drawn to Dean Winchester because there’s no other character that could make eating and gaining weight be as enticing as he makes it (in fanfic). For the first time in my life I had a community of people that I could relate to about a thing that I never thought I would ever be able to talk about with anyone in my life. I don’t remember if I consciously chose to start posting publicly about it, but at some point I did, and I started writing kink fic, but I was still so uncomfortable with myself and so scared of the things I felt, and I tried so hard to temper myself and not offend anyone and not go “too far” and not be too weird and I was so sexually repressed and pent up and full of guilt and shame, and so now when I go back and reread some of the stuff I wrote it feels like reopening an old wound and letting myself bleed out. 

I was constantly comparing myself to others and wondering why I wasn’t getting as much attention as so-and-so, and I always made excuses about how maybe my writing was too weird and I was too much and maybe I just wasn’t good enough and I hated myself and wanted to delete everything I ever wrote, but also I’m awesome and receive a lot of attention and get a lot of good feedback but maybe that means I’m just a narcissist! I acted like an asshole online and justified it by saying it wasn’t really me, that I could be someone totally different on tumblr than the person I was in “real life,” but in hindsight, now when I think back on my early 20s, I cannot separate what I was doing in “real life” from what I was doing in the spn fandom. I shared so much of myself with the spn fandom without even recognizing that that’s what I was doing. 

And I made mistakes, god I made mistakes, and I tried to be so careful about everything I said but I was also presenting a certain version of myself to the spn fandom so that people would like me (for instance: running a destiel blog and trying my best to hide the fact that I also ship wincest) and still I got in trouble constantly, and I grew bitter and mean because you can only receive the “when are you posting the next chapter?” comment so many times before you want to bang your head into a wall. I became defensive and unkind, afraid to check my inbox because it was a nightmare, and yet unable to turn off anon because, like I said, I desperately needed that feedback, I needed people to tell me that they felt what I felt, that they understood what I was writing and why I was writing it.

I expected Supernatural to give me everything I needed. I fantasized about Dean Winchester being canonically bisexual because I thought it would confirm something in me, that it would somehow make my life a little bit easier. I didn’t want to watch other shows that could maybe help me, I wanted Supernatural to do things for me that it had never promised and would never deliver, and it’s because I was defined by it for so many years. Now that I’m back on tumblr, I’ve been going back through some of my old posts on deancasheadcanons and it’s like reading a stranger’s words. Even so, I find myself telling people “I was deancasheadcanons” instead of “I ran a sideblog called deancasheadcanons” because it really was such a huge part of my identity. What’s wild is that every time I’ve tried to explain it to someone in real life, they just look at me like I’m not making any sense. 

It was easy to stop watching Supernatural. I didn’t have cable, and I had been driving to my dad and stepmom’s house each week and watching it on their tv after they had gone to bed. I was in a new relationship with a woman I nearly married, I was back in school for a new career, I was working full time and absolutely did not have time to continue writing fanfic as prolifically as I had done for so many years. I finally reached a breaking point in 2017 and haven’t watched any new episodes since then (I don’t remember the last episode I saw). But now, as I rewatch some old episodes, it is easy to feel the way I felt the first time I watched the show. It’s easy to see why this campy little heartfelt show was a lifeline during my formative adult years.

So it turns out I have never reckoned with any of this, have never written it down, hence the 2k jumble of words you see here. And it’s like, I know that a lot of this may seem silly, trivial, especially for a show that in itself is not very serious, but as it comes to an end I have to reflect on it as a person who put so much of my heart, my creativity, my pain and my floundering identity into it. I am somewhat embarrassed and wish I could respond to this ask with a joke instead, but we’re in a pandemic and I live alone and have had way too much time to think and reflect and become a lot more self-aware, and part of that reflection has definitely been about my time in the spn fandom. I remember thinking the show was never going to end, yet here we are at the end and I felt compelled to type all this out with a desire to, I don’t know, get some closure? Convince myself that I was a whole person, that I wasn’t just a faceless URL posting destiel fics into the void, that my real life was not at all disparate from the time I spent online? In any case, I’ll always think fondly of the time I devoted to Supernatural, and I’ll take the good and the bad and everything in between. Thanks for the nice ask, anon, apparently I needed to get some things off my chest.  

[apocalypseornaw]

Always be Yours-15

Word Count: 5,048

Story Summary: follows Dean and the Reader through season 9 into season 10

Chapter Summary: In the midst of the battles happening in heaven and hell Jody calls for help when a case involving a teenage girl and a nest of vamps falls into her lap

Warnings: Cursing, violence, the usual

After discovering Metatron had in fact ordered the kill on Kevin along with dozens of angels that dared to oppose him and seeing Cas’ reaction to the mark on Dean, you were eager to work a normal case. One away from matters of heaven or hell that might have a chance of helping Dean to focus on something besides the pull that the mark was trying to dig its claws into his psyche with.

You were half asleep when you heard a phone ringing so you blindly reached out for the side table and wrapped your hand around the nuisance “Agent Collins?” you answered and heard a familiar laugh on the other end “Y/N, it’s me” “Jody?” you shook Dean gently as you sat up “What’s going on?” she explained that a case had quite literally fallen into her lap and that she needed some help. Dean nodded and leaned up to speak into the phone “Give us enough time to wake Sam and grab our gear and we’ll hit the road” “Thanks you two” she replied before hanging up. 

You looked over at Dean who gave you a sly smile “Well sweetheart when you say you want to find a case you just manifest that shit don’t ya?” you shrugged “I’m good like that” and couldn’t help but laugh when he grabbed you by the hips to pull you over on top of him “And yet you want an asshole like me” you popped his chest playfully and shook your head “Don’t make me kick your ass Dean. We don’t have the time considering we told Jody we’d wake Sam up then hit the road” He was staring at where the buttons on your nightshirt had come loose and licked his lips slowly “Can I at least get a raincheck on that ass kicking then?” you rolled your eyes and leaned down to leave a quick kiss on his lips “Of course” 

------

When Dean pulled into the Sioux Falls sheriffs departments parking lot you spotted Jody standing next to her patrol car. You smiled as soon as you climbed out the impala “You three are a sight” she greeted with a smile of her own.

“How’s the shoulder?” Sam asked, causing you and Dean to exchange a guilty look. She laughed “Only aches when it rains. How have all of you been?” “Peachy” “Touch and go” Dean and Sam replied so she cut her eyes at you. You shrugged “Good days and bad”

She nodded “I know the feeling” “So what you got for us?” Dean asked, steering the conversation towards the case at hand. She stepped over and unlocked her trunk so you peeked inside to see the decapitated body. “Can I?” you asked motioning towards it and she nodded “Feel free” you leaned in far enough to push the upper lip back and check the gum line. The moment you pushed down a fang slid into view “Yup. That’s a vamp all right”

You straightened up then looked back at Jody as she slammed the trunk. “I don’t know Sammy, Y/N..looks like Jody might not need our help anymore” Dean teased and Sam added “Oh they grow up too fast don’t they?” you let a small smile slip onto your face at seeing the two of them like that again. Jody shook her head “Joke all you want, there’s more where this came from” “More?” you questioned so she nodded “My men brought in a runaway last night. There’s no i.d. On her, nothing on her actually except for a bus ticket out of Nebraska. Total Jane Doe she won’t even give me her name. Girl’s basically feral. She’s got zero manners, didn’t even thank me for saving her...anyhow this thing went to plenty of trouble to get at her. And to hear him tell it the others will want her at least as bad as he did”

“Sounds like a nest” Sam offered and you nodded as Dean agreed. “Nest?” Jody echoed then added “guessing that’s not half as cute and cozy as it sounds?” “Afraid not” you replied with a shrug.

------

You leaned against the wall close enough to intervene if need be while Sam checked the girl to ensure she wasn’t a vamp under the pretense of getting a dna swab. She looked between the three of you before scoffing “Wilson, Fisher and Monroe? If you three are feds then I’m Taylor Swift” you cocked your head to the side as you waited for her to elaborate and she did just that “That wasn’t a dental i.d. That was a fang check. You’re hunters”

You looked towards Sam then towards Dean who shrugged “And you’re alive because hunters trained the sheriff. I think the first words out of your mouth should be a thank you” She looked down without saying a word so you asked “Well who were you to that vamp? Hmm what’s so special about you to make him go through the trouble?” “Is there a nest?” Dean asked and the girl turned her head just far enough that you saw what appeared to be scars from fang punctures. Sam followed your line of vision and when she noticed the two of you looking she immediately turned to cover that side of her neck the best she could.

Before you could point the scars out to Dean Jody opened the door. “Sorry to interrupt but we got a match on her DNA” you nodded then looked back at the girl before following Dean and Sam out.

------

Jody handed each of you a missing child flyer “Annie Jones. Reported missing outside of Kenosha in ‘06. Raised by an elderly grandparent, no living kin” she lowered her voice before asking “You think the vamps are the ones who took her?” Dean spoke up first “Eight years is a long time for a human to live with vampires without getting killed or turned” Jody sighed “You’re the experts but there was something familiar about the way this vamp talked to her” “Jody’s right Dean. She has scars on her neck, feeding scars” you said and Sam nodded in agreement “They’re layered scars, as if they’ve been built on for years”

“So she’s a blood slave” Dean reasoned and at Jody’s confused look explained “We’ve seen it before, vampires keeping people as pets. Human feedbags” “Sometimes the slaves stay loyal to the captors” Sam added. “So.. this girl’s not talking because she’s got a case of vampiric Stockholm syndrome?”  Jody questioned so you shrugged “She’s protecting the nest. We’ve got to get her to tell us where they are. If they’d try to kill their blood bag no telling how many others they’ve slaughtered” You followed Dean and Sam back into the room Annie was sitting in.

------

Dean pulled out a chair across from Annie and glanced at you, asking if you were gonna sit down. You shook your head so he sat down then Sam sat next to him. Jody was standing by the door so you stayed on your feet as well.

“We get it, you feel like you owe a debt. They took you and raised you” Dean started so you added “Loyalty is a very powerful thing Annie” she glared up at you “My name is Alex” “No it’s not sweetie. Your name is Annie Jones”

“Those vampires stole you. They’re monsters Annie” Dean tried but she snapped “Alex!” “They didn’t love you Annie. They loved your blood, they fed on you!” you spoke but she raised her chin defiantly “I fed them. My choice. My brothers brought me food when I was hungry so when they struck out on a hunt, I fed them. They’re my family” jesus christ this poor girl was really traumatized. 

You cut your eyes at Sam as he started to speak “Ok, you care about them but Alex there’s a reason you decided to run away” “It was time to move on and get out on my own” Dean nodded “How do you think that decision is gonna sit with the rest of the nest? One of them already pursued you, you think when the rest of them find out that you left that they’re just gonna shrug and cut their losses?” “Alex, you lived with them for years. They’ve tasted your blood. They have your scent down cold. How far can you run and for how long?” you asked softly and saw tears start to form in her eyes.

“You didn’t think this out, did you?” Dean asked and she finally met his eyes so he continued “What would happen, who might get hurt. Your uh brother for one” “His name’s Cody” Alex said then looked over at Jody “And she killed him” “Because of a choice you made” you reminded her getting her anger off Jody. Dean motioned around “These are the consequences”

“You got two options. Them or you” Sam offered so you added “We can help you. We can keep you safe but you have to help us” “Where’s the nest?” Dean pushed. Alex shook her head “I can’t. After what happened..mama finds me, she’ll kill me” You looked over at Jody who looked just as torn for this girl as you felt.

------

With no other option Sam decided to use Alex’s bus ticket as a means to try to track where she’d come from. You stood next to the desk he was sitting at looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. Dean walked back over with a cup of coffee and bumped your arm holding it out. You took it from his hand and took a few sips while he asked Jody “Mills, you ok?”

Jody had been in deep thought until then but she finally said “No wonder she didn’t thank me. That creep was her brother” you handed the coffee back to Dean after drinking enough of it then Jody nodded “I’m fine, just thinking about the name. Alex and Annie..they’re so close already why change it?” “Maybe a connection to mama?” you considered and she shrugged “Maybe”

Sam looked up from the screen “Well we know from her ticket that Alex hopped a bus out of O’Neill Nebraska right?” “Uh huh” Jody said so he motioned to the screen “Obviously it’d be better to go in with a firm location but the town ain’t that big. They’re no caves or other natural hiding places” Dean looked at the map “All right, so we go in canvass it cold” Sam held up a small list “I’ve got a list of possible nest locations. Uh there’s an empty fire station, four or five derelict homes. Nothing we couldn’t hit in a day” “Ok” you said grabbing your jacket off the back of Sam’s chair and slipping it back on.

Dean looked in the room Alex was sitting in then back at Jody “You sure you’re all right to babysit by yourself?” Jody shrugged “Oh well, girl’s a flight risk. Not exactly friendly but I think I can handle babysitting detail” Sam glanced around before saying “Station’s been made. It might be worth heading up wind for a while. I mean vamps are trackers” “Well I’ve got an old family cabin outside of town” she suggested so you replied “That’ll work”

Jody sighed “Shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. Me being gone for a day” “Maybe you uh sure you don’t want backup?” Dean asked and Jody shook her head “You want me to enlist my men in a protection detail against vampires? Frank’s still in the dark about what hit him last night, that guy still has nightmares about the barn episode of walking dead. They’re good cops, they’re just not ready for this”  “Jody in your late night reading did you come across anything about dead man’s blood?” Sam asked and when she shook her head he explained “It takes vamps down like a horse tranq” She crossed her arms with an appreciative look “I would not say no to some of that..I mean not that I’ll need it. You three are gonna get the jump on these vamps and be back here before they even realize their kin’s missing right?” Dean and Sam shot her a smile so you asked once more before following them out “Sure you don’t want help keeping an eye on her?” she winked “Go with your boys Y/N” you smiled and said “We’ll be back before you know it” before heading out after Sam and Dean.

------

Once you reached O’Neill the task at hand was to check each possible nest location. The first few places were a bust but when you went to check the last house on the list it seemed like you’d hit paydirt. Evidence of multiple people squatting there was left behind in the house. “This is a foreclosure isn’t it?” Dean asked as you pushed a mattress to the side with your foot “Yeah just like the rest” he nodded “Well, somebody’s been squatting here”

Sam shined his flashlight towards one of the windows “Blackout windows” you shined across to the other windows and they were all blacked out. A loud buzzing noise started so you glanced towards the guys who nodded. Dean took the lead with you in the middle and Sam close behind you. 

The three of you followed the noise around to the back of the house where a man well vamp was feeding a body into a woodchipper. Dean motioned at you and Sam to take other sides so if he ran then walked up behind him “HEY! YOU NEED A HAND WITH THAT?” you gripped your machete tighter when the vamp turned the woodchipper off and turned to face Dean. You saw Sam out the corner of your eye pick up a shovel and whistled to get the vamp’s attention and when he turned Sam connected solidly knocking him out. 

Sam looked back at you so you nodded towards the vamp “Sammy you’re like a solid foot taller than me, I ain’t picking him up” Dean cracked a smile “Well you heard the woman Sam!”  You followed the two of them back into the house and stood to the side while they tied the vamp up.

------

Only a few minutes passed before he started coming around so you sat on the table with Sam while Dean stepped in front of him “You go out with the family, bring home a nice dinner. How do you get stuck doing the dishes?” The vamp glared at Dean as he said “We all have our roles to play” “Yours being destroy the evidence yeah?” Sam offered so you held up the wallets Sam had found “Nice job on that asshat. Let’s see we got Ralph Hedges, Stacy Kepler. Any particular reason you targeted them?” he looked up at you “Yeah. Hunger” then chuckled.

Dean stepped up to partially block the vamp’s view of you then glanced around “And so the family’s what? Out taking a nice after dinner stroll?” The vamp shrugged “Oh, I’m sure they’ll be back real soon” you watched Dean with an infatuation you knew you shouldn’t have been feeling at the moment when he walked over to the vamp and grabbed him by the hair at the nape of his neck forcing him to meet his eyes “What I asked was where are they?”

The vamp started laughing in response. You raised an eyebrow at him “Please tell me we didn’t find the short straw in the family. Did they leave you behind because you’re a liability?” He looked up at you and winked despite his current predicament being trapped by three hunters “Come a little closer sweetheart and find out” you went to stand up to do just that but Sam’s hand on your arm stopped you. 

Dean punched the vamp hard in the stomach “You don’t wanna tell us what we want to know? No skin off my back. Cause you see, a blood sucking,body-chipping vamp that’s bad enough. But vamps that kidnap kids? Well I’m going to enjoy putting you down” the vamp spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor at Dean’s feet “Of course, I knew this was about Alexis..I warned mama that girl would screw up everything for us one day.” “Mama? As in one vamp turned all of you?” Sam asked. The vamp shrugged again “Well, all of us but little sis. She was uh..too good to turn” he chuckled humorlessly “Mama couldn’t bring herself to,no matter what we said. No matter how bad Alexis got”

“Bad?” you questioned standing up next to Dean. The vamp looked between the three of you “Let me guess none of you ever had a teenage sister?” at being met with silence he clarified “Dragging her heels, whining, near constant about everything but more and more about the blood. Like she’s somehow above it, Like she’s better than us cause she don’t feed on people”

“She is better than you dumbass” Dean challenged. The vamp scoffed “Her moping? That teenage crisis of conscience crap? It’s annoying as hell but it’s just an act. When the chips are down she’ll always choose us over humans” he laughed again before asking “How do you think we stayed off your radar all these years? Pretty, young lost looking thing like her? Irresistible, especially to the kind of man few would miss. I mean sure we’d hunt sometime for sport but it’s a lot easier and safer to get delivery”

“She’s your lure?” you asked and he smiled “Best a vamp could ask for and you better believe you don’t get that good at it unless you enjoy it. In her own sweet way that girl’s as bloodthirsty as any vampire” you felt your stomach drop when you realized where the rest of the nest was headed “Dean..Jody”

 ------

When Jody didn’t answer yours nor Dean’s calls Sam called the local p.d. to run the victim’s names. Turned out they both worked at the bus station Alex had left out of. “So they killed them for Alex’s location?” you asked Sam who nodded. Dean’s phone started ringing and you breathed a slight sigh of relief to see Jody’s name light up across the screen.

You only caught Dean’s end but when he hung up Sam asked “We moving?” Dean nodded “I’ll meet you two outside” you started to walk out behind Sam but glanced back at Dean “Be quick” he nodded so you headed out behind Sam.

------

With Dean behind the wheel the drive from O’Neill to Sioux Falls went by quickly but it still took too long. The sun was already up when you pulled up to the cabin and when you spotted Jody’s still form you were out of baby before Dean was able to put her in park.

You slid to your knees next to her “Jody! C’mon!” you quickly checked her over and cursed in relief to find no fang marks. You slowly helped her to her feet “C’mon I got ya” Sam and Dean moved to help as well. “Where’s Alex?” She asked so you replied “You tell us” She shook her head “They came and I tried to stop them” “And you got knocked out, happens to the best of us” Dean assured her once she was standing on her own.

“Just lucky you’re alive” Sam added. “Think they went back to the nest?” Dean suggested so you nodded “Of course they would. Why wouldn’t they?” “Question is what are they gonna do when they find their brother dead?” Sam said and you shrugged “Then we go back”

“Ok, I’m coming” Jody announced. You weren’t going to argue with her but Sam stopped her with a hand on her shoulder “You’re hurt” Dean reminded but she shook her head “I’m coming” “We can handle the nest on our own” Sam assured her so she looked towards you “I don’t give a fuck about the nest. That girl was under my protection.” You cut your eyes at Dean who argued “That girl can’t be trusted. She’s a lure. She’s a honey trap. She’s been feeding people to those vamps!”

Jody stood her ground “I don’t care. Whatever she did, she did because they made her” “Oh and that’s a reason?” Dean asked so you spoke up “She’s a kid Dean. If we can save her, we should try” Dean looked a bit put off at you arguing on Alex’s behalf “Baby, she’s a kid that’s been playing vampire murder since before she was in braces. You know better!”

“At best her loyalties are screwed” Sam argued and Dean quickly added “She’s been baiting the hook for an entire nest for eight years Y/N. You know yourself she’s got more blood on her hands than most monsters we kill” “Are you saying she’s on your list?” Jody asked so you quietly said “Not yet but Jody I want to side with you I really do but with hunting monsters comes harsh truths. If it comes down to Alex or Sam, Alex or Dean, Alex or You? I’m killing her. No second thought”

Sam held his hand up to stop any further talking so he could ask “What is this really about? You barely know the girl?” You met Jody’s eyes and begged “Give me one reason I should risk my neck for her Jody. Please I don’t want to go gunning for a kid but I need to know why you think she’s saveable” Jody met your gaze head on “She screamed for me Y/N. She was terrified” you held her gaze then slowly nodded “Ok. Get in the car and I promise you unless it comes down to one of us or her Alex will be safe” she patted your shoulder “Thank you”

Dean turned his eyes back towards you “Y/N do you know what you’re doing?” you nodded towards the impala “I trust Jody and I know you trust me. If it comes to our lives or hers we choose us but if we can save that kid, shouldn’t we?” he shook his head then said “Ok” “Ok” you agreed and leaned up to press a quick kiss to his lips before heading to climb into the backseat next to Jody.

------

Dean stopped a ways from the nest so all of you could gear up. You and Jody slipped through the woods to check that they were indeed there. When you walked back up to the impala Dean handed you a machete and Sam handed Jody one. “So, We’re walking right into it” Sam scoffed, handing out syringes of dead man’s blood. Dean shrugged “We’ve faced worse odds.”

Jody started to walk off but Dean called her “Jody! This is a raid. Tread lightly and stay close. Priority is clearing the nest. Alex comes second you got it?” Jody cut her eyes at you but when you glanced away she simply said “Got it” Dean nodded “Y/N sweetheart you go with Sam, Jody you’re with me” you bumped Sam’s shoulder “Let’s do this”

------ 

You moved close to Sam as the two of you cleared the first room then the next. Dean looked around the corner so Sam shrugged. When you found stairs Dean nodded up towards them so Sam nodded then glanced back at you. You nodded then slowly followed him up.

Dean went one direction at the top of the stairs and motioned for you and Sam to go the other direction. You walked into a room behind Sam and you both froze when you heard a shotgun. “Drop the blades” you glanced at Sam before throwing your machete down. “Now let’s find the other one” you glared at the vamp who was holding you and Sam at gunpoint “You’re really gonna regret this” he shoved the barrel hard into your side “Move”

You slowly walked into the hall and called Dean’s name. When he looked up you could see the anger in his eyes. “Drop it” the vamp warned so Dean let his machete fall to the floor, his eyes never leaving yours.

You spotted another vamp coming behind him and shouted “Dean!” but couldn’t get the rest out before you felt something hit you behind the head and the world went dark.

------

You woke up tied back to back with Sam in two chairs. You immediately jerked at your restraints but the vamp shoved a gun into your face “Uh uh little lady” you glared up at him then glanced over your shoulder at Sam “You good?” he nodded but the vamp smacked you across the face for talking “You know it’s a hell of a thing to come home to. Your brother lying dead on the floor” and slammed the butt of the gun into Sam’s stomach to emphasize his point “You son of a bitch” you bit off and Sam groaned “Don’t” 

The vamp looked at you “We had no idea it was a Winchester that had killed him. So which one of these fellas was it?” When you didn’t answer he pointed the gun at Sam’s head “WHICH ONE TOOK OFF MY BROTHER’S HEAD?”   “It was me asshole” you lied knowing you’d catch the fallout but not willing to take the chance of them killing Sam or Dean. The vamp smiled “Love a woman with some kick to her” then chunked the gun to his brother who was standing over Dean.

He then walked over and grabbed a couple buckets and some tubing off the counter “This was a pretty good home to us before the three of you ruined it. Now we have to hit the road, find a new one and when we hit the road we like to pack a lunch” he held up the needles and you glanced over your shoulder at Sam. They planned to bleed the two of you and what? Shoot Dean? Fucking great.

------

You could feel yourself getting dizzier with every beat of your heart. You glanced down to see the bucket sitting next to you quickly filling with your blood as the one next to Sam was filling with his. “Dean” you called weakly when the vamp at Sam’s face said “These two are tapped. Prep the other”

When the vamp leant down to turn Dean over he drove a vial of dead man’s blood into his heart. The one crouched in front of you stood to attack and managed to get a solid hit in on Dean knocking him backwards across the table. You and Sam weakly pulled at your restraints but it was no use. You’d lost too much blood.

You’d never felt more helpless than watching Dean fight with a vamp and not be able to do anything. You could only see portions of the fight considering you were facing the opposite direction. You could hear Dean’s grunts as he struggled against the vamp and found yourself flinching at every blow you heard being passed. When you heard Dean say “Look at me..LOOK AT ME BITCH” you let out a ragged breath when the sound of a head hitting the ground quickly followed.

You let your head droop back against Sam as Dean quickly worked to free him and stop the flow of blood then was at your side. “Are you ok Y/N?” you nodded as he tore your restraints then helped you and Sam both stand up. “We gotta get to Jody”

------

By the time the three of you made it down the stairs Jody was beheading the mama vamp. You slowly lowered yourself to sit down on the stairs next to Sam’s legs. “Alex? You ok sweetie?” you asked softly and she shook her head “No, but I think I will be”

------

After a trip to the hospital, giving Alex the cure for vampirism and squaring her and Jody away at the cabin, you and the boys headed home to Lebanon.

You ended up falling asleep across the backseat and woke up when Dean leaned in to gently shake you once you were back at the bunker.  “Wake up sleeping beauty, we’re home” you smiled at him as he helped you to stand out next to the car. He eyed the bandage on your neck where the needle had been “Sure you’re ok?” you glanced towards his right arm where the mark was hidden beneath his jacket “Are you?”

He sighed “This about what Sam said?” you shook your head “I don’t cast no blame in taking pleasure in doing our job, I just want to make sure it was Dean enjoying it and not the mark”  “They knocked me out and almost bled my little brother and the woman I love dry. Mark or no mark I would’ve enjoyed that kill” you smiled and let him pull you into his arms “Well in that case want to head to bed with the woman you love? cause she’s still a little drug out” “Gladly” he replied leaving a gentle kiss on your lips before the two of you headed inside.

Tags: @facadeformyrealblog @akshi8278 @brilovesdeanwinchester

[twdmusicboxmystery]

10x18 - TTD Clues

Okay, let’s talk TTD. Usually I just have like 4-5 talking points from TTD, but there was a LOT in this episode. And, let’s face it. Given that it’s the Leah episode, there’s lots to discuss anyway. But everything in TTD just backs up what I’ve already said. Namely, that Leah and Daryl are NOT soulmates. And that there’s a lot of Beth symbolism and foreshadow here.

So, let’s just dive right in.

1)    Despite Chris calling it a “powerful relationship” in the intro (thanks a lot, Chris), when Nicole Mirante-Matthews, the writer, starts talking about it, it’s much better. She says this Leah thing will be relevant to a lot of things moving forward, including Connie. Which I take to mean that this affected his mindset and will probably change how he approaches things we’ll see in his story. 

She says that these were two lost souls, who happen to meet at a specific place and time and sort of crash together. That specifically suggests that it’s not a long-term thing. It’s more of a rebound and they were both lonely, and that’s why it happened. Then she says that this will affect things “reverberating forward into his present day story, which we’re rolling out here.” Because we understand the Bethyl template, and that Beth will be returning soonish, that just screams Beth to me.

2)    Chris talks about the grave marker Daryl looks at and how it’s kind of a fake out, as many people (who hadn’t read spoilers) would assume it was Leah’s grave. I talked about this Monday, and how it reminded me of the Beth/Tyreese fake out. I got that from TTD. Because I’d already read spoilers, the idea of that being mistaken for Leah’s grave wouldn’t have occurred to me.

And of course if she’s a hallucination, the grave marker may even be Leah’s. 

3)    Chris also mentioned massive time gaps. Now, he’s talking about the six-year time gap in which Leah happened, but still. I felt like the way he said it is to remind us that there are time gaps that have to be explained at some point, *coughs missing 17 days*

4)    Fun fact: the puppy’s name is Carl. Now, I can’t REALLY point to that as a TD thing, because the puppy’s name really is Carl. But I couldn’t help but wonder if THEY named the dog that. And even if not, they still felt the need to mention it here. I’m side-eyeing a little. Only because there are such strong symbolic ties between Carl’s death and Beth’s return. But hey, take it or leave it. Just my TD brain working overtime.

5)    They mentioned the map in the “in memoriam.” So, you know how I said yesterday that Map = Beth. Yeah, they actually treat Map as a lost character here. I’m just saying.

6)    Denise Huth’s pre-taped interview talks about a “lightening” for Daryl. Uuummmm. I don’t want to go into this in too much detail here, but this is part of the eclipse symbolism. Okay, I’ll just run through it super fast, but I’ll probably do a post in more detail later. Beth = sun. In an eclipse, the sun is hidden by the moon. So it’s the “what is hidden” or “what is not seen” theme. Some of the sun’s light is still seen around the edges of the moon (think of that as the symbolism that seeps out) but the sun itself (Beth) is still hidden. Gimple described Coda using the word “penumbra” which is the darkest part of the shadow thrown during an eclipse, and Maggie told Glennin 5x10, “This is just the dark part.” If things are getting lighter, it’s because the eclipse is almost over. The darkest part of the shadow has passed and things are getting lighter. And that’s actually what we see in the eclipse scene with Daryl and Leah. The eclipse being almost over and the sun starting to peek through. So this is all just another way of saying Beth is about to appear.

7)    There’s a point where Lynn Collins suggests that maybe we would have seen a Daryl/Leah kiss if not for Covid restrictions, but the writer immediately corrects her and says it was a creative choice. She sights reasons such as the fans being protective of Daryl and not trying to piss them off too much, but that seems very significant to me. I think they didn’t want to show Leah and Daryl kissing (even though the sex implication is there) because they’re saving that for someone else.

8)    At one point, talking of Daryl and Carol’s fight, MMB mentioned the scene in S2 where they fought over Sophia. Just seemed significant to me that she brought that up, because that’s basically ground zero for the missing girl theme, and the first person we saw Daryl searching for. Now, this entire episode, he’s searching for Rick, and it’s full of Beth themes.

9)    Back to the map. I said Monday I would go back to the opening scene where Carol picked up the piece of the map and put it in Daryl’s bag. I never did. Lol. Sorry about that. I threw a LOT of info at you and totally forgot to go back to it. Just keep in mind that this was probably a foreshadowing, and Map = Beth. And they specifically brought that scene up on TTD and drew attention to it, though of course they talked about it in the context of Daryl and Carol.

The other thing that several people have brought up is that map seems to be destroyed, and then whole again. I suppose I just thought he got a new map when I first watched the episode. Now, I agree with other that the state of the map is one of many ways they were hinting that parts or all of this is a hallucination. And again, they drew attention to the map on TTD.

10) When Chris asked the writer what the inspiration was for Carol’s “strong right foot” story, she got REALLY flustered. Now, that’s definitely TD symbolism. Related to the “missing foot/shoe” symbolism, in my opinion. In fact, if they’re synonymous (we’re just not entire certain yet) then this would definitely be a reference to both Beth and Ezekiel being missing. But anyway. The writer finally came up with how and why she had Carol tell the story of her grandmother. And I’m not saying it was a lie. The grandmother story is much more incidental than the “strong right foot” bit. But I don’t think Nicole expected that question or was prepared for it.

11) They did talk extensively about parallels between Leah and Carol, and I had to chuckle at what was said. They were just doing a lot of back-pedaling. So, first they said they are two completely different characters. Then they said they share a lot of qualities that Daryl recognizes. Then they say his relationship to Leah in the flashbacks is absolutely nothing like his relationship to Carol, both in the present and as it has been for many years. Did you catch all that? It’s their way of pointing out the parallels between Leah and Carol, but also taking care to make sure people know that Daryl and Carol are NOT romantic the way Daryl and Leah are. Lol. This is why I say its kind of the death knell for that ship. But again, why put parallels between Leah and Carol if the romance angle isn’t there? For the answer, read my very long analysis from yesterday.

12) On the “Inside the Dead” portion, it says that the breed of dog they use for Dog is often used for Military and Police K-9 Unites. Yeah, that’s purposeful. I think they specifically chose that breed of Dog to use on the show as Daryl/Leah’s dog, because it both calls back to Grady (police) and foreshadows the CRM (military).

13) Norma’s interview! Yay! This might have been my favorite part of TTD. Because the way he describes Daryl’s arc here makes it clear that it was one chapter of Daryl’s life that is now over. And what he says about Daryl being unable to allow himself to be happy with Leah says to me that he’s still hung up on someone else.

This probably made me happier back when I thought Leah was real. But the other thing is that he specifically uses a Matrix metaphor (the red pill vs the blue pill.) Umm? The red pill vs the blue pill situation in the Matrix is what brought Neo out of the construct and into reality. This is Norman’s very obvious way of telling us that Leah isn’t real. Daryl is in the Leah Matrix in this episode.

14) When speaking of the arm that Leah throws at Daryl, they said something really interesting. My fellow theorists and are still batting around ideas for what the arm symbolism might mean. But MMB called it “dead weight” that Leah was basically getting rid of. And they all agreed that symbolically that was true. So the arm represented Leah getting rid of the dead weight of her past and working through it. Wow. Where to start with this?

If she were real, that just shows that this is all this relationship was. Once she’d worked through her own losses, she wanted Daryl to commit to her, but he couldn’t. Because he hadn’t worked through his. Plus, a relationship built on this sort of thing, as I’ve already described, is never going to last in the long term. But of course, assuming she’s a hallucination, this is really just Daryl trying to work through his issues and shed his past. It doesn’t really work. 

Dead Weight is literally the name of the episode in 4b where the Governor was a MASSIVE Beth proxy.

Shedding one’s tragic past while in a little cabin in the woods, with DARYL, is pretty much the synopsis of Still. So, it just backs up the symbolic retelling of Bethyl.

All right. That’s what I got for TTD. Anyone see anything I missed?

[wonderlandleighleigh]

Good morning!

I’ll never get over the end of Supernatural. 

I just won’t. 

And I’m gonna talk about it some more under the cut.

Buckle up. I’m back on my bullshit.

Here’s what’s jarring: The end of 15x18 felt so honest. I mean, we can make jokes about Jensen’s reaction shots and super mega hell or whatever, and we can be angry about Cas’s fate, too. That last one, at least, is a totally valid criticism. 

But Ackles, Collins and Speight have all gone on record on that moment in the show, talking about the heart and honesty behind it (Speight and Collins on a virtual convention chat, Ackles in the instagram comments of a woman who worked in wardrobe on the show, though he was talking about the how as a whole). A lot of thought and care and work - and probably fights with the network - went into that one scene to make it land, and if you’ve been actually watching the show, it really does, especially if you take into account that you now get to rewatch the show with the knowledge that Castiel was in love with Dean, and that’s going to give a canonical, romantic context to his actions.

But when we hit 15x19 and 15x20, it...it feels like a completely different show. 

Here’s what’s interesting about Supernatural: Since day one, the underlying heartbeat of the show has been this lowkey feeling of yearning. Of reaching out for something you know is just out of reach. And I don’t know if that was intentional, and I don’t know how they managed to keep that up for 15 years (I blame the cast), but for whatever reason, that feeling is entirely missing from the last two episodes.

That heartbeat just...isn’t there. And so when we watch the last two episodes, and very specifically, the last episode, it feels all wrong. It feels like we’re watching cardboard cutouts of these characters.

Dean’s million year death scene felt all wrong. Jensen acted the hell out of it, but it felt all wrong. The end montage felt all wrong. Even Heaven felt all wrong. It was all wrong, for a number of reasons.

1. The big one being that Supernatural is an action show. And the last episode had no action. The first 10 minutes of the episode is great as a set-up. Dean and Sam keep on keeping on. The dog, the laundry. All good.  

But then we come to the pie conversation, and we find out that Sam and Dean...

Are not actively looking for a way to bring Cas back. 

This is the one major plot thread left for the show to cover. Castiel has been taken by the Empty to fulfill his deal, and if there’s one thing we know for a fact about Supernatural, it’s that these dumb boys make deals and then do their damndest to save each others’ skins from the consequences of those deals.That’s been the through-line of the show sinse season 2/3. 

So why is it dropped here? 

Dean’s acceptance that his best friend - who just confessed that he was in love with Dean - is gone forever is deeply out of character. 

2. And I’ve talked about this a lot: killing a character with a history of mental illness and suicidal ideations and calling it a reward is a bad look. I can’t stop thinking about it, and it makes me feel downright ill. It goes against all of the work the cast has done to raise money for mental health awareness and it’s just a dark, unhappy end for a character who saw 15 years of growth and acceptance. I will never be over Dean Winchester’s death. Ever. 

3. Cas’s love confession is never mentioned again. This enormous, beautiful confession he gives Dean is just...forgotten. Dean never mentions it. He never tells Sam that it happen. We have no indication of how Dean feels about it at all, save for a little smirk he gives when Bobby mentions Cas helping Jack create Heaven. 

We can read the smirk a number of ways. It could be a “yay Cas is safe” smirk or a “Yay I finally get to talk to him about how mad I am that he made that deal and also tell him I love him back” or a “Sweet I’m super gonna get laid” smirk.

But we’re given no real answers. 

Which leads me to my final point: 

4. The finale commits to nothing, and ignores everything we previously knew about the show. It gives no real answers or finality to anything other than Dean’s death, and then, eventually Sam’s. “Was that blurry woman Eileen?” You figure it out. “Did Dean ever see Cas again?” The world may never know. Jared went on record as saying that the finale takes place 5 years from 15x19 but that’s not confirmed because 15x20 makes no mention of a time jump. So maybe it was, but maybe it wasn’t? Why did we get this tiny shitty funeral for Dean when Sam could have called Jody and Donna and Bobby and Charlie and Claire etc. Even with COVID restrictions there would have been a way around showing the characters being there and us being TOLD that they WERE there. A call from Jody, saying she and Donna were on their way? A condolence call from Bobby? Rowena is the queen of hell, and she cared about Sam a lot. She couldn’t call to check in? As it is, Donna has law enforcement calling one of Dean’s phones for help because Sam told none of the people who also loved Dean that Dean had died. Which is totally out of character for Sam not to lean on friends, and also fucked up. What happened to Dean’s dog? Did Sam ever talk to any of the people in his hunter life ever again? If Jack had saved Castiel from the Empty, and it is, in fact, five years in the future, it is out of character for Castiel not to be watching the Winchesters from heaven. He would have seen Dean get mortally wounded, and it’s very out of character for him not to come down and save Dean with his Angel mojo. 

So my big question is this: Why did we watch 15 years of this show only for one of them to die in a really ho-hum, out of character way, and the other to live an apple pie life he wasn’t even happy in? 

I think about that a lot: That Dean’s ending, his death, we’re told, is a good death, and that he gets to rest and be happy in heaven. Which feels wrong.

And Sam lives the apple pie life, which we’re told is a good life and something he’s at peace with, which also feels wrong, and we’re SHOWN it’s wrong, because Sam isn’t happy. 

In the end, we’re told that the only true happiness is in death. Which, for a show that spat in Death’s face - that literally KILLED multiple incarnations of death - makes absolutely no sense. 

And it’s driving me crazy  because I can’t justify anything that happens in this episode except for Dean hugging the dog, and Sam hitting Dean in the face with a piece of pie. 

what the fuck.

[jung-snoopy-woo]

How I met Your Grandfather

~ Introduction + Chapter 1 ~

(I know the name is super lame but omg I didn't know how to name it 😂😭)

Other Chapters: Masterlist | 2 |3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 (coming soon!!)

Pairing: Bang Chan × reader, twin brother! Felix.

Genre: fluff (maybe some angst?).

Word count: 802 (without the strike-throughed stuff at the end)

Warnings: none, except from the fact English is not my native language so I probably made some grammar mistakes (oh, and there's a mentioning of the things that inspired me, at the end).

Summary: Moving to a different country is not easy. Your twin brother, Felix, invites his 7 new friends home and one of them caught your eye. What if you also caught his?

About the story: My grandmother always tells me the story of how she met my grandfather (who unfortunately passed away a year before I was born), so I decided to write a Bang Chan fanfic based on their love story.

Gif credits: ~ Stay_Hyunjin ~ via Pinterest (Chan+Felix gif), stray kids_incorrect_quotes via Pinterest (Chan's gif at the end), @jeongsungs via tumblr (Felix's gif at the end).

A/N: This is my first ever fanfic (unless you count the Christian Collins one I wrote when I was like 14.. but yeah we don't talk about that), so I'd be so grateful if I could get some honest opinions!

Hope you enjoy it!! ❤️❤️❤️

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Introduction

"It all started with a good friendship. It wasn't even my friendship, though", you said, smiling as you turned to face your 10-year-old granddaughter. "But you know, all love stories must start from something..."

She looked at you with her big eyes, waiting to hear about him again. "Grandma, I know you told me this story last week but I think I forgot most of it. Please, can you tell me everything from the beginning?".

"Oh, my darling, it's okay... I'd love to tell you this story as many times as you want. It's so nice reminding myself how happy and simple things were at the time..."

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Chapter 1

"Uhmmm Felix, what are you doing??", You giggled as you saw your twin brother moving back and forth around the house, cleaning and putting stuff in place. "Never in my life have I thought I'd see you doing anything other than playing video games all day..."

Felix rolled his eyes at you as he placed a book (which was under the sofa for some reason) on the shelf. "Y/N, I have no time for your judgement! My friends are coming in like 4 hours, but our house is A MESS and I haven't even started making the chocolate-chips cookies yet. So if you're done laughing at me, I'd really appreciate some help"

As much as you wanted to tell him to go ask Rachael or Olivia, your other sisters, for help- you decided to help him eventually, as you saw how excited he was and how much he wanted to make a good impression on his new friends (and it had nothing to do with how your mother threatened to kick you out of the house if you wouldn't help lol)

After you two finished cleaning everything (and Felix's cookies turned out great, as always), you sat on the sofa and waited for his friends to come. You've never met them, but you heard from Lix a lot about them, like the fact that they're working together and that they're his first group of friends since you and your family moved from Australia to Korea. You were super happy for him that he got to meet such good friends despite the fact he didn't know more than a few phrases in Korean like 2 years ago.

The doorbell rang and Felix ran to the door and opened it. You smiled, thinking about how cute your brother was sometimes (when he didn't take your stuff or made a mess in the kitchen or--)

"Oi Felix!! Nice seeing you, bro!! Your house looks so nice, I hope you didn't clean it just for us!", you heard one of the boys say in English.. wait, was that an Australian accent?? Then this must be Chris.

As I said, you've heard so much about these guys, but with Chris it was a a bit more than that. Felix told you he was the one who helped him the most, and understood exactly what he was going through as he, too, moved from Australia to this place, which was so different and new for him.

You heard Felix chuckling nervously as he closed the door behind the tallest guy who had nice long blond hair (you were 99% sure his name was Hyunjin), and you held back a smile, thinking of how exhausted he looked just a few minutes ago.

"Is this your sister on the sofa? She's really pretty", You heard one of them whisper in Korean. You saw it was.. what was his name again? "Ji" something.. oh oh oh, Jisung, right.

"Yeah it's her, but don't even think about it", Felix whispered back jokingly. Then he raised his voice as if nothing happened, "guys, I want you to meet my sister, Y/N. My twin sister actually... You'll probably meet the rest of our family when dinner's ready".

"Oh, so you're Y/N!", Chris said (oh my god how you missed hearing people talk in this accent) as he smiled. He had broad shoulders, dark fluffy brown hair, chocolate eyes and the cutest dimple you've ever seen. "Lix told us so much about you!"

"Oh, did he?", You turned to Felix who mouthed 'I only said good things'. "Well, I heard so much about you guys too, so it's nice to finally meet you all!"

"Dinner's ready!!!", You heard Rachel call. They all seemed way too happy to hear these 2 words, and Jeongin (of course you knew our baby's name) said "I was so hungry, you guys should thank me for not eating all the cookies Felix baked.."

These guys were so fun to be around, you didn't even notice how bright your smile was and how shiny your pretty eyes got. And you especially didn't notice the brown-eyed, curly-haired, prettiest-dimple-in-the-world guy staring at you since the moment he entered the door...

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(The inspiration: both my grandma and my grandpa actually moved from Tunisia to Israel, but they met only after her brother became friends with my grandpa.

Before her brother's friends came to visit, he told her family one of the friends he made from work also came from Tunisia. Then, when his friends finally came- she actually recognized him by his accent and his last name, which is very Tunisian).

So that's the end of the first chapter!! 🥳🥳

It was more like the beginning so there isn't much romance yet but I hope you guys will stay with me for the next chapters! 🙃🙃

[hi-itis-mr-a]

My thoughts on ballad of songbirds and snakes.

After almost 10 years Suzanne Collins writes again about the Hunger Games universe.

The author chose to explore one important year in the life of the main series villain Coriolanus Snow, and in doing so added depth and character to an otherwise plain dictator.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

This book is written by the perspective of Snow himself and while he as the protagonist tries to justify his wrongdoings the reader can't help but dislike him, he had no reason for being evil he just wanted power and status. This book shows that even when he was young Snow was ready to sacrifice what he thought he loved in order to obtain power, friendship or love mattered little to him in the end.

Lucy Gray is an interesting character strong willed and manipulative. The book shows how easily she became the capitol's favourite tribute, with her songs and exuberant personality. Her cleverness is evident in the arena, in the way the uses poison and snakes to kill the other tributes and at the end, when the sees the rifles and understands that Snow is about to betray her. I think she really cared about him, she was young and he helped her survive against all odds but she also quickly understood what kind of person there was behind his mask, first with his talks about the capitol and mockinjays, finally the last straw was when she understood who betrayed Sejanus.

Sejanus, is the positive character of the story, he fights for what is good. He's privileged but still remembers where he came from, he could have been a tribute if not for his father's wealth. He doesn't go to the monkey cage in order to gain trust or sponsors but because he's emphatic and really wants to help the tributes. His end is bitter, this young man ready to finally escape and search for freedom betrayed by the one person he really trusted.

It was interesting learning how the Hunger Games came to be, this is why you don't let drunk college students make decisions, and how different the first games where from the ones we saw in the main saga. Overall is was extremely sad to see just how much unjustified cruelty had to endure the tributes, they already had to go in the area, which is inhumane and before that they where mistreated just to satisfy the sadistic tendencies of Dr. Gaul, not even of the capital, nobody wanted that. It's also interesting how Snow went on to make the changes in the games, not to make them humane, that can never happen, just to make them more interesting to make people watch.

My two main complaints are that the end is maybe a bit too rushed, I would have liked for part 3 to explore more the duality in Snow's thoughts. The other things are the songs, some are essential, and is great to see how many songs from district 12 came to be but others aren't really necessary and could have been cut, in my opinion it would have made it a more free-flowing read.

[julie1706]

Julie’s incredibly aesthetic incredibly autumny list of movies that she maybe recommends:

Alright! Hi there! 

My name is Julie, and I really love fall. I love hot tea, warm blankets, candles, ghost stories, fog and I really, really love rain. I never get tired of any of the aspects of fall, but I think the easiest way to really soak up the atmosphere (aside from amazing books, which I don’t really have the time for), is movies! Here, “autumny” movies. 

But that’s a really vague term, and I think many people have a very individual idea of what a fall movie is, that don’t really line up with mine. So the most obvious thing seems to me, to make one myself. 

I’m guessing one, maybe two or three people will see this, and I count myself as one of them. The others (hej Sif og Malin!!) might not even get to read this, but if they do, I hope they like it. I hope you like it, Malin and Sif! Also, I love you! And miss you!

Right. I’ve seen a lot of examples of the “list of movies to watch in the fall/autumn”, and they’re all fine and great, but I guess I’ve never been completely satisfied with them, as I mentioned. 

So after like 10 minutes of research, I’ve made up my own list, of movies I thought seemed interesting or just plain cozy and nice. I admit, they aren’t ranked, sorry, and I haven’t watched all of them, so a good deal of these will really just be mentioned because of optimism. Also, I don’t think there’s a lot of scary ones, so don't worry. 

And I promise I will mention if they’re very spooky. I’ll put a warning like: “Warning! Spooky!”, at the top or something. That should do it. 

Lets get started! :-)

1. Practical Magic

This first one I actually saw some years ago, with my mom, when I was much younger. I liked it, but I have a feeling I will like it even more, if I watch it today. A really classic halloween, witchy movie, that was surprisingly touching in the family aspect!

Official synopsis: 

Two witch sisters, raised by their eccentric aunts in a small town, face closed-minded prejudice and a curse which threatens to prevent them ever finding lasting love.

//Not very spooky, as I remember it. But good! Lovely witchy aesthetics!

2. Silence of the Lamps

Ugh, I love this movie! That might be a not so good thing to say, it’s really twisted. But I like how creepy it always is, no matter how much i watch it, and how the twists and turns never fail to be interesting, even though I know the plot by heart now. I love Clarisse, I love the foggy, grim nature of the movie, and I don’t really love Hannibal, he’s creepy, but you can’t deny that Anthony Hopkins really carry this movie! Perfect serial killer acting. If that’s a thing.

Official Synopsis: 

A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.

//VERY spooky! Or just plain scary. Sif - do not watch!! Many people are killed in many, gross ways.

3. Witch

Haven’t seen this one! I really want to, and have since it came out, but there haven’t really been any (legal) places to see it. I love the tension that was present even in the trailer, and the whole aspect of an oppressed young girl evolving and breaking free in the scariest way possible is really interesting. Not all horror movies are my thing, but I really hope this one will be! And I love everything about witches, so.

Official synopsis:

A family in 1630s New England is torn apart by the forces of witchcraft, black magic, and possession.

//Warning! Just from the trailer, I can conclude that this one is very scary.

4. Julie and Julia

This one I haven’t actually seen either! I think I’ve spotted among my mom’s dvds, but nope, haven’t seen it. I don’t really know a lot about Julia Child either, but it seems like a super-heartwarming film, so I hurried to include it!

Official Synopsis:

Julia Child's story of her start in the cooking profession is intertwined with blogger Julie Powell's 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Child's first book.

//This one seems safe.

5. The Addams Family (Both of them are good!)

This one, the “first” one, I saw last year. It’s actually a remake of an older movie, which is apparently based on an even older comic -who knew? And there’s a second one, following this one, I might add later. But tt was so good! Gah! I loved it, and I’m definitely rewatching this year. Wow the whole vibe of this family is fantastic, and I wish more families in movies were as dedicated to an aesthetic as the Addams! Watch it! It’s so nice!

Official Synopsis:

Con artists plan to fleece an eccentric family using an accomplice who claims to be their long-lost uncle.

//I know it seems scary, but trust me, it’s fine! It’s really more funny than spooky. You’ll enjoy it, trust me!

6. Hocus Pocus

Alright, never seen this one! But when I joined tumblr, the americans were always bringing this one up, and it’s always included in those lists I was talking about earlier, and again, witches, so a no-brainer for me, to include on this list. Man I can’t wait to see it, I hope I’ll like it.

Official Synopsis:

A curious youngster moves to Salem, where he struggles to fit in before awakening a trio of diabolical witches that were executed in the 17th century.

//I have no idea what the spooky-level is in this, but it doesn’t seem that bad.

7. Halloween (the original)

I have wanted to see this in FOREVER! It’s such a classic, and a really iconic, classic, older horror movie. I don’t actually know why I haven’t seen it yet, it might only be because there was no place to watch it, the last time I checked. I hope it has changed, I really want to see it. It has all the classic tropes, and a scary serial killer, it really is a peak-halloween movie. Spot-on name, huh!

Official Synopsis:

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

//Might be a bit too scary for some. 

8. The Princess Bride

This is so good!! All the characters are straight of a fairy tale (literally), but they’re neither flat or boring. And the love story! Ah! I loooove it! I really enjoyed it last year, when I watched it, so I understand why it’s become such a classic. And there’s so many iconic lines in this movie. The whole mood of it is such good, and the plot isn’t the craziest thing, so watch it to relax!

Official Synopsis:

While home sick in bed, a young boy's grandfather reads him the story of a farmboy-turned-pirate who encounters numerous obstacles, enemies and allies in his quest to be reunited with his true love.

//Not scary, fret not!

9. The Craft

Have never seen or heard about this movie, until the morning, when I compiled this list. I kind of want to though, now that I’m promised 90′s teenage witches. Hell yeah! The more witches the merrier!

Official Synopsis:

A newcomer to a Catholic prep high school falls in with a trio of outcast teenage girls who practice witchcraft, and they all soon conjure up various spells and curses against those who anger them.

//No idea how spooky. Might be a little scary.

10. Sleepy Hollow (the one with Johnny Depp)

The legend of the Headless Horseman is famous, so that one I know. But this movie, which is based on that story, I haven’t seen. I can guess, though, the vibe from it’s original source material, and Johnny Depp and the male lead, and that makes me want to watch it! Also, how can you not, when you see all that fog?? So spooky and mysterious! I love fog!

Official Synopsis:

Ichabod Crane is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate the decapitations of three people, with the culprit being the legendary apparition, The Headless Horseman.

//Might be, like, ghost story-spooky. Or Tim Burton-spooky. Either of those. Hm. I don’t think it’s that bad? 

11. Scream

I LOVE SCREAM. SUCH AN ICONIC HORROR MOVIE. THANK YOU FOR USING ALL THOSE CLASSIC TROPES!! I love everything about this movie, and I might actually put it on when I’m done with this post, and watch it with a cup of tea and some popcorn if I can find some. The characters are delightfully flat and simple, what you see is what you get, and that actually makes this movie even better! It really feels like you’re watching THE halloween movie, it’s delightfully creepy and spooky, and I love it all. So. Much. Also - the lovely 90′s aesthetic is very much present in this one!

Official Synopsis:

A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a new killer, who targets the girl and her friends by using horror films as part of a deadly game.

//Spooky! If serial killers are not you thing, don’t watch it. Not that it’s my thing either, but, uh, if watching characters be chased and killed off by a masked individual really freaks you out, stay clear of this one :-)

12. Dark Shadows

Love this movie. Watched it in the cinema, have it on DVD, have watched it numerous times since, and I always enjoy it. Another Depp-movie, and he really pulls it off in this one, as a creepy but also weirdly funny vampire, who has lost his one true love, and wakes up in the 70′s (i think), to help his relatives, now living in his ancestral home, with getting back on their feet. A lot of wild stuff happens in this movie, and I adore it.

Official Synopsis:

An imprisoned vampire, Barnabas Collins, is set free and returns to his ancestral home, where his dysfunctional descendants are in need of his protection.

//Actually not that spooky! It’s not that bad, I think. Some places are a little scary, but there’s enough of humor present, that it should be fine!

13. Eve’s Bayou

I had never heard of this movie until this morning! But wow! It looks so dramatic and promising, doesn’t it? We will just have to see, I guess!

Official Synopsis:

What did little Eve see--and how will it haunt her? Husband, father and womanizer Louis Batiste is the head of an affluent family, but it's the women who rule this gothic world of secrets, lies and mystic forces.

//I have no idea. Really. I hope it’s a little bit spooky!

14. Clue

I have just played the game, sorry. And I enjoyed that, so I hope I will enjoy this too! No, I know I will, I love these stories, with really defined characters, like when someone is named “the soldier”, or “the socialite”. I’m sold, when stories like that are introduced to me. I really want to watch this movie! Also - young Tim Curry! Cool!

Official Synopsis:

Six guests are anonymously invited to a strange mansion for dinner, but after their host is killed, they must cooperate with the staff to identify the murderer as the bodies pile up.

//Nah. You’re good, with this one. Don’t worry.

15. Every Agatha Christie Movie

Yeah, sorry I want to watch every single film adaptation of her stories, and love them dearly. None of them can be bad, to me. But the only one I have watched, is the “Murder of the Orient Express”, and if I have to describe how much i love this one, this list will go on for much too long. I just really love this movie. I love the characters, I love the scenography, I love the choreography, just - Everything! It’s so pretty, and you will NEVER figure out the ending! I didn’t, at least. Watch it! It’s so good!

Official Synopsis:

When a murder occurs on the train on which he's travelling, celebrated detective Hercule Poirot is recruited to solve the case.

//Don’t worry about spookyness - there’s none! But watch it! 

16. Twilight

Perfect Autumn vibes! There is darkness, fog, rain, coldness, weird pale vampires, a nice love story - and most of it is out in a forest! Amazing! This whole movie seems to consist of only blue and green tones, in varying degrees of darkness, and I always sit with the feeling, that i can almost smell the rain and damp earth in these scenes. Great movie! Even greater use of atmosphere!

Official Synopsis:

Bella Swan moves to Forks and encounters Edward Cullen, a gorgeous boy with a secret.

//Not spooky!

17. Knives Out

Saw this in the cinema with my brother! I really love the main characters, and the plot is great too - I couldn't figure it out at all! I think it is a very creative, “new! approach to a murder mystery, and I applaud! Very autumny, very great sweaters from the female lead! Actually most of them have nice clothes, for this crisp, cold mystery movie!

Official Synopsis:

A detective investigates the death of a patriarch of an eccentric, combative family.

//Not very spooky! Don’t worry!

18. 10 Things I Hate About You

I watched this when i was like, 12, and definitely didn’t appreciate it. I think it based on Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”. It’s one the best Rom-Coms I’ve ever seen! The dialogue is funny, the acting is fine, and the love stories are very cute! Also, I just adore Kate, like, in general! She’s so sour and surly! Watch this one, when you want to unwind and relax! Maybe with your friends. Or alone, that’s cool too!

Official Synopsis:

A pretty, popular teenager can't go out on a date until her ill-tempered older sister does.

//Not spooky, lol.

19. Mona Lisa Smile

I haven’t seen this one, except for the very last few minutes, on evening when my mom and I was zapping channels. So I have very little, very confusing knowledge of this movie, based on an ending, with no context. But my friend told me about it once, and wow, it sounds heartwarming! And Julia Roberts is pretty great, normally!

Official Synopsis:

A free-thinking art professor teaches conservative 1950s Wellesley girls to question their traditional social roles.

//Not spooky!

Well then! That was all the movies I had the time to compile this morning! I might add more, I’m sure there’s a few classics, I have forgotten!

I hope you have a great fall, with many chances to be with your family and friends, and experience all the amazing things this read, yellow, brown and orange season has to offer! Have a great day - and thank you for reading!

- Julie :-)

[vaguely-problematic]

the whole 12 minutes is gold but especially this part:

for too long those of us with opportunity and privilege have failed and our responsibility to look at the truth squarely and name the system of racial oppression that artificially divides Americans and benefits those already in positions of relative power.

It’s perfectly understandable to not want to do this. It’s human. No one wants to lose privileges or position. Especially when fear of that loss is magnified and stoked by political leaders for their own supposed Advantage. I say supposed Advantage because if you deny the human rights and dignity of any people you will ultimately destroy the society and civilization that you claim to protect.

58 years ago John Kennedy said those who make peaceful Revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

Not only is addressing systemic racial and economic Injustice The right thing to do. It is the safest most conservative most self-protecting most self-serving thing to do.  contents Under Pressure will eventually explode and that’s not a threat that’s a law of nature. So it’s time to ask ourselves as it is always time to ask ourselves. What kind of nation do we want to live in?

that answer requires moral leadership.

Take it upon yourself to be a leader and set an example of the kind of country You want to live in.

that might mean going down to a protest or making a donation or having a tense conversation about race,

but you’re not going to get that from the White House. So we need to step up and provide it ourselves. America is now officially byop:  be your own president.

(Full speech-to-text transcription under cut)

i’m Stephen Colbert, well, we’re back after 10 days off and I never imagined that after 10 days a global pandemic would not be the lead story.

Remember when we were all afraid of our groceries. I miss those days.

No the story that has pushed 100,000 covid deaths below the fold is America’s pre-existing condition- racism.  protests against police targeting black people have broken out in dozens of cities.

So April was global pandemic May is massive Nationwide protests over systemic racism. I assume June is a plague of locusts then in July pleated pants are coming back.

That’s not just US citizens protesting racism in the United States. protesters gathered in London Toronto. Even Berlin, you know, it’s bad when Germany thinks your country is racist that’s like Jamaica telling you to put down the bong.

These protests were sparked last Monday by the extrajudicial execution of a man named George Floyd face down in a Street in Minneapolis Floyd died after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes now in civilized countries that’s called Murder.  Minneapolis police officer and cop who so dirty even his badge is crooked Derek Chauvin even adding to the outrage is that it took four days to arrest the officer even though there’s  video of him doing it.

It would be the shortest episode of Law & Order ever in the criminal justice system. The people are represented by two separate but equally important groups the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders who in this case are the police because come on we all saw the video. What are you waiting for? That’s it. I’m going to the protest. do the "dun dun”.

Even after Chauvin was arrested. He was charged with third-degree murder. That’s a pretty light charge. That’s like Prosecuting Jeffrey Dahmer for a bad case of the munchies. We find the defendant, hangry.

Plus the other three officers involved have not been charged with the crime. So if you’re wondering why people are so upset. It’s because this is so upsetting. Also, it’s not an isolated incident on the very same day that Floyd was killed. There was another viral video of a white woman named Amy Cooper who is confronted by a black bird watcher who asked her to put her dog on a leash in Central Park, and he responded by doing this and I’ve hidden please. Please call the cops. Please call the cops. African American man threatening my life. She knows exactly what she’s doing and why that man should be afraid of the police a brilliant performance. She should win the white lady Oscar.  also known as the Oscar.

now Floyd’s death comes on the heels of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arberyurry and also has Eerie similarities to Eric Garner in 2014. And in that same year, there was the case of Michael Brown in Ferguson Tamir rice and Cleveland all of those Echo Emmett Till and the Scottsboro boys, which happened in the context of Jim Crow, which itself was a soft relaunch of slavery. See really got to go back to the Triangle Trade which ultimately stems from man. Man’s inhumanity to man and are essential Fallen nature. So maybe start with the Garden of Eden actually, you know what in the beginning there was a single point of all matter and energy under tremendous pressure. But you know, there’s always a few bad atoms and the whole thing exploded

now in times like these we need empathetic and moral leadership. Unfortunately. We have Donald Trump. normally during National unrest president step up and address the nation’s pain.

Following the death of Michael Brown President Obama met with activists in the White House President Clinton comfort of the nation with a moving address after the Oklahoma City bombing. Even Richard Nixon in 1970 made a surprise trip, or he spoke to students protesting the Vietnam War who can forget his stirring words. We’ve got to come together and defeat are common. Enemy. The Jews I wrote down on this rushed

Trump can’t even match the compassion of a Nixon because as the Protests raged on Pfizer’s discuss the prospect of an oval office address in an attempt to ease tensions, but the idea was quickly scrapped for lack of policy proposals and the president’s own seeming disinterest in delivering a message of unity. Okay? Mr. President. We’re thinking a short powerful speech from the Resolute desk where you call for racial healing. I’m sorry. What’s that sir? You want to act it out with a box of Aunt Jemima. You know what? Let’s just scrap the whole thing. Today Trump had a call with the nation’s Governors to discuss the ongoing protests and he read straight from the authoritarian Playbook. Why isn’t comforting words. It reminds me of what? Mr. Rogers said about times of tragedy. Look for the dominators. Oh won’t you be? Oh you will be my neighbor you jerk.

That was mr. Rogers dominating someone.

Then Trump said something really scary, you know and you’ll never see this stuff again. So people are upset about systemic racism and a society that over polices and imprisons black people and Trump solution is to do more of that. You know, what they say those who refuse to learn from history are Donald Trump. So Donald Trump is the big tough guy going to dominate the opposition pew pew pew so naturally on Friday as

Range nearby Trump took shelter in the White House bunker. Well if history has taught us anything is that things always work out well for strong men who Retreat to underground bunkers. Mr. President. Come on. This is your moment. You’re always calling to beat up protesters at your rallies. You could shut this whole thing down just pop a couple of hydroxy xand come out of the White House swinging a 5-iron with a Confederate flag tape do it. But instead he tweeted great job last night at the White House by the US Secret Service. Service, they were not only totally professional but a very cool. I was inside watched every move and couldn’t have felt more safe adding a nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would dad dad. Dad. Dad dot-dot-dot have been greeted with the most officious dogs and most ominous weapons I’ve ever seen that’s when people would have been really badly hurt at least many Secret.

Agents just waiting for Action. We put the young ones on the front line sir. They love it. I don’t know why they’re not letting him give that reassuring speech from the Oval Office my fellow Americans. Let me send a clear message to the people protesting police brutality law enforcement is just a bunch of cool guys who cannot wait for things to get crazy. They see you as target practice now a truly enjoy watching you get eaten by vicious. Dogs now, let’s all come together in peace. Come buy guns my Lord come buy guns.

The protest of the White House were specifically in response to this tweet. These thugs are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor. Tim was and told him the military is with him all the way any difficulty and we will assume control, but when the Looting starts the shooting starts, thank you. Kind of an unnerving way to end a threat. It’s like that scene in Taken. I will look for you. I will find you and I will kill you. Thank you. Stay safe. Everyone top also had some more succinct thoughts tweeting. So terrible where the arrests and long-term jail sentences. We tried to sir, but Susan Collins voted to acquit you.

Now while Trump is in hiding it’s really good to see average citizen stepping up and filling in the void yesterday in Queens police knelt with protesters while in Flint Michigan the sheriff joined the march in Brooklyn protesters protected to Target from looters and Kentucky this group of white women formed a line to protect black protesters from police in Louisville protesters formed a human barrier to protect a cop who got separated from his unit and in Minneapolis.

Group of Mennonites showed up to support the protest Tonight’s Mennonites think America’s too racist! and they live in 1840.

Now I make a lot of jokes about Donald Trump because he is a dull and dark corrupting force that is undermining America’s moral leadership around the world and sewing hatred and fear among his own citizens. So that’s fun. and during this covid crisis the president is totally abdicated his responsibility of leading the people to understand the need to do the right thing for themselves and each other and yet the large majority of Americans have done the right thing anyway,

My Hope Is that the American people will do the same thing now Because ultimately they have to for too long those of us with opportunity and privilege have failed and our responsibility to look at the truth squarely and name the system of racial oppression that artificially divides Americans and benefits those already in positions of relative power. It’s perfectly understandable to not want to do this. It’s human. No one wants to lose privileges or position. Especially when fear of that loss is magnified and stoked by political leaders for their own supposed Advantage. I say supposed Advantage because if you deny the human rights and dignity of any people you will ultimately destroy the society and civilization that you claim to protect.

58 years ago John Kennedy said those who make peaceful Revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. Not only is addressing systemic racial and economic Injustice. The right thing to do. It is the safest most conservative most self-protecting most self-serving thing to do. contents under Pressure will eventually explode and that’s not a threat that’s a law of nature. So it’s time to ask ourselves as it is always time to ask ourselves. What kind of nation do we want to live in that answer requires moral leadership?

Take it upon yourself to be a leader and set an example of the kind of country you want to live in.  that might mean going down to a protest or making a donation or having a tense conversation about race,

but you’re not going to get that from the White House. So we need to step up and provide it ourselves. America is now officially byop:  be your own president.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #236

Mon May 04 2020 [08:31 PM] Wack'd: IT'S A MILESTONE!

[08:32 PM] maxwellelvis: A triple-sized issue, eh? [08:33 PM] Wack'd: All your favorite Fantastic Four characters are here! Wyatt! Norrin! Agatha! Franklin! Namor! Willie! Impy! T'Challa! And, uh. I guess some other folks? [08:33 PM] maxwellelvis: I'm going to guess that's a double-sized Byrne story and then a regular-sized one by Stan and Jack. [08:33 PM] Bocaj: Ah yes captain america and reed richards in one place at one time in a time and place that isn't the ill received special avengers 300 roster [08:33 PM] maxwellelvis: That's the rest of the Marvel Universe heroes here to party. [08:33 PM] Wack'd: Yes. [08:33 PM] Wack'd: Why isn't Alicia on this cover. [08:34 PM] Wack'd: Or, like, any number of Fantastic Four repository players. [08:34 PM] maxwellelvis: Had to make room for Stan Lee. [08:34 PM] Wack'd: Also who's that guy in the suit? Is that...Collins, maybe? [08:35 PM] maxwellelvis: I just told you. [08:35 PM] Wack'd: Oh [08:35 PM] Wack'd: ...where's Jack? [08:35 PM] maxwellelvis: Either he's on the back or John Byrne knows which side his bread is buttered on. [08:36 PM] Bocaj: maybe he's behind the special triple sized sticker [08:36 PM] Bocaj: Like he got Mike Wachowski'd [08:36 PM] Wack'd:

Clint: I can't believe it... Wanda: Oh, Clint, I'm so sorry... Clint: I'M ON THE COVER OF *FANTASTIC FOUR*!

[08:36 PM] maxwellelvis: 🤣 [08:37 PM] Wack'd: Can't believe Bocaj beat me to essentially this same joke [08:37 PM] Bocaj: My secret is that I didn't bother putting in extra effort [08:39 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, let's start our first story, shall we? [08:39 PM] maxwellelvis: Indeed. [08:40 PM] Wack'd: Oh good, we're doin this

[08:40 PM] Wack'd: I think this is our first real, proper origin retelling. We got one in the late 70s but it was less a retcon and more "this is a recap issue, please don't kill us if we fudged some details" [08:40 PM] Umbramatic: welp [08:42 PM] Wack'd: I guess instead of "first to the moon" it was "make it further into space than anyone else"

[08:42 PM] Bocaj: Time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future [08:42 PM] Umbramatic: what is time [08:42 PM] Bocaj: I know that the Slott FF has the idea instead that the rocket was FTL and they were trying to get to a specific planet, which turns out to be full of assholes [08:44 PM] Wack'd: So here's egg on my face [08:44 PM] Wack'd: The dialogue from this scene is taken note-for-not from #1 [08:44 PM] Wack'd: This isn't actually retconning anything at all, except for that one narrative caption [08:45 PM] Wack'd: Oh, and the addition of some jargon

[08:47 PM] Umbramatic: CAPTAIN SPACE ICEBERG AHEAD [08:47 PM] Wack'd:

[08:49 PM] Umbramatic: this is intense [08:49 PM] maxwellelvis: Both version are pretty intense. [08:49 PM] maxwellelvis: I'm noticing the dialogue's been slightly rewritten on the new version. [08:50 PM] Wack'd: Very slightly, mostly just to add technical terms you'd expect a rocket crew to be using [08:50 PM] Umbramatic: aha [08:50 PM] Wack'd: All of the original lines are still there, though [08:50 PM] maxwellelvis: And to keep Ben's manner of speech more consistent [08:51 PM] Wack'd: Punctuation is a bit different [08:52 PM] Wack'd: OH SHIT, WE'RE DOIN' THIS

[08:53 PM] Umbramatic: oh. OH [08:55 PM] Wack'd: In this reality, Reed's a college professor, Sue's a housewife, and Ben and Alicia are married and running a tavern. All in a little town creatively named Liddleville. [08:55 PM] Bocaj: Our Town Founders made a decision there [08:55 PM] Wack'd: Our Town Founder is Josiah Liddle [08:56 PM] Bocaj: Lets cut the head off his statue [08:56 PM] Bocaj: Like in the Jetsons [08:56 PM] Wack'd: Oh, also, Alicia can see in this reality. Alicia offhandedly mentioning she saw something makes Ben real happy and he has no idea why [08:57 PM] Bocaj: Hmm. [08:57 PM] Wack'd: But I do! It's this creepy fucker

[08:57 PM] Umbramatic: oh boy! oh BOY! [08:58 PM] maxwellelvis: We're actually doing the "Perchance to Dream" thing, aren't we? [08:58 PM] maxwellelvis: Is THIS where B:TAS got that idea from? [08:59 PM] Wack'd: Pretty sure they stole it from For the Man Who Has Everything [08:59 PM] Wack'd: Which incidentally won't exist for another three or four years [08:59 PM] maxwellelvis: Wild how time works [09:00 PM] Wack'd: Another dream sequence, this time for Sue! And with much more dramatic changes [09:01 PM] Wack'd: This time, Ben's complaints about safety concerns are much more substantial, and Sue's accusation that Ben is a coward is more to do with time and money running out to do this experiment and less to do with, uh [09:01 PM] Wack'd: Commies [09:03 PM] Umbramatic: "I'm going to the one place free from capitalism... SPACE" [09:03 PM] Wack'd: Also this happens

[09:03 PM] Umbramatic: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH [09:04 PM] maxwellelvis: It's a nice touch that in those first two panels, the Thing is more leathery, like he was in the early comics, and it's only when Reed starts stretching that he looks more rock-like [09:04 PM] Wack'd: Yeah, I liked that too [09:05 PM] Umbramatic: oooh [09:05 PM] Wack'd: So Reed, Johnny, and Ben meet up at Ben's tavern to discuss these dreams, and whaddayknow, they've all been having them [09:06 PM] Wack'd: Tragically, Ben's dreams give him super-strength, but no rock skin. Dream!Ben is scared to ask Alicia to marry him--but he doesn't know why. [09:08 PM] Wack'd: Reed then goes to work, where he's having problems with his dickhead boss.

[09:09 PM] Wack'd: Reed decides to try and work out what's up with these dreams, dozes off, bonks his head, and realizes when he wakes up that he is actually a superhero, and the Puppet Master is responsible for all this. [09:10 PM] Umbramatic: wha [09:11 PM] Wack'd: Reed, trying to figure out why he doesn't have stretching powers, makes the very smart and scientifically motivated decision to stab himself in a vein and bleed out in his office. [09:12 PM] Umbramatic: oh [09:12 PM] Umbramatic: i diagnose you with dead [09:13 PM] Wack'd: It's okay though! Turns out he's a robot and the blood is all fake. So are the bodies of Ben, Sue, Johnny, Alicia and Franklin. [09:13 PM] Umbramatic: ...IS DOOM IN ON THIS TOO?! [09:13 PM] Wack'd: It takes Reed no time at all to convince his friends and family of this and go confront Phillip. [09:14 PM] Wack'd: Wow, uh, you're ahead of me here, Umbra [09:14 PM] maxwellelvis: Lucky guess [09:14 PM] Umbramatic: damn this is the second thing i've predicted tonight [09:14 PM] Wack'd: Phillip apparently just wanted to give Alicia the life he thought she wanted, but Reed points out he doesn't have the tech to do this all on his own. [09:15 PM] Wack'd: Phillip, it turns out, has made the very smart and not-at-all-suicidal decision to mind control Doctor Doom [09:15 PM] Umbramatic: oh this is gonna be goooooooooooooooooooooood [09:15 PM] Bocaj: Oh geeeeeeeeeeeez [09:16 PM] maxwellelvis: This should be good. [09:17 PM] Wack'd: Of course this is Doom we're talking about. He doesn't make mistakes, he just lets people figure things out for stupid ego reasons.

[09:18 PM] Wack'd: God, the fact that this isn't an illusion, the Four, Franklin and Alicia are trapped in tiny robots, is a lovely extra layer of bonkers. [09:18 PM] Bocaj: Amazing [09:19 PM] Wack'd: ALSO "LIDDLEVILLE" ISN'T A SMALL TOWN JOKE, IT'S LITERALLY LITTLE [09:19 PM] Wack'd: INCREDIBLE [09:20 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, Reed asks Doom what his next move is, and Doom...doesn't have one [09:20 PM] Wack'd: He's just gonna leave them like this [09:20 PM] Wack'd: Forever [09:21 PM] Umbramatic: DOOM: "I don't know, I never thought I'd get this far.” [09:21 PM] maxwellelvis: The fact that he's resisted the urge to play Godzilla now that they know he's the one who orchestrated this shows he has way more willpower than I [09:22 PM] maxwellelvis: Assuming the shock of dying in robot bodies wouldn't wake them up. [09:23 PM] Wack'd: They do have one ace in the hole--Phillip! After all, Phillip's in this mess because he mind-controlled Doom, but he's not an idiot, surely he has an escape hatch. [09:23 PM] Wack'd: Well turns out he did. Doom turned it off. [09:23 PM] Umbramatic: oh [09:23 PM] maxwellelvis: Womp womp [09:23 PM] Wack'd: Reed examines it through and tries to see if he can get it to work anyway. [09:24 PM] Wack'd: Ben, meanwhile, is taking all this really hard. [09:25 PM] Umbramatic: aw... [09:26 PM] Wack'd: He's also decided to stay in Liddleville. The world has other superheroes now, and he's earned a normal, idyllic life. [09:26 PM] Wack'd: (The fact that Doom turned off all the fake villagers does not seem to be something he's noticed.) [09:27 PM] Umbramatic: Ben: The Last Man On Fake Earth [09:28 PM] Wack'd: So! Here's the plan. Turns out Doom built a real miniature particle accelerator at Reed's fake miniature college because Reed would spot a fake. [09:28 PM] Wack'd: So all they have to do is get it to spit out some cosmic rays. Easy. [09:28 PM] Umbramatic: excuse me what [09:29 PM] Wack'd: To which part? [09:29 PM] Umbramatic: the first bit mainly [09:29 PM] Wack'd: Yeah uh [09:30 PM] Wack'd: Doom wanted to taunt Reed with some cool science he couldn't play with to make Reed miserable [09:30 PM] Umbramatic: omg [09:30 PM] Wack'd: But he also knew Reed would know if it was a fake cool science [09:30 PM] Umbramatic: that's deliciously petty [09:30 PM] Wack'd: It issssssss [09:30 PM] Wack'd: So, as they're debating who gets a power up first, Ben has a change of heart and demands to go first. [09:31 PM] Umbramatic: Ben: This is insane. ...I’m in. [09:33 PM] Bocaj: Hahah [09:33 PM] Wack'd:

Alicia: ben you dingus i literally sculpt real people with pinpoint accuracy, you've seen my work, and also we've touched each other...a lot... Ben: Yeah I know but I got that danged body dysmorphia

[09:33 PM] Bocaj: Aww [09:34 PM] Umbramatic: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww [09:34 PM] Wack'd: I joke because I love [09:35 PM] Wack'd: Ben/Alicia 4ever [09:35 PM] Umbramatic: ye [09:35 PM] Umbramatic: (though i felt the body dysmorphia part) [09:37 PM] Wack'd: With their powers restored, all they have to do is fight a bunch of miniature robots, scale the walls of their fake city, climb up to Doom's workstation... [09:37 PM] Wack'd: Aaaaaaand he took the battery out. [09:37 PM] Wack'd: Now the workstation can only turn left 😛 [09:38 PM] Umbramatic: -gasp- [09:39 PM] Wack'd: So! New plan. Use the Liddleville river to flood Doom's office, stick some live electrical wires in there, and hope the alarm goes off. [09:39 PM] Wack'd: No dice. [09:39 PM] Wack'd: They're gonna have to find Doom and bring him to them. [09:40 PM] Wack'd: And since Reed and Ben have fairly limited top speeds, and Johnny's flame can run out without rest, this task falls to Sue. [09:41 PM] Wack'd:

Reed: No! I can't permit you to go against Doom alone! Sue: Please, Reed! Must we go through this every time a dangerous task falls to me? I've proven time and time again that I can handle myself in an emergency situation. I'm the only one who can go. And you know it.

[09:42 PM] Wack'd: Sue puts up a good fight against Doom, pelting him with force fields, but she's still as big as a fingernail, and all he really has to do is put a cup on her like she's a bug he's found. [09:43 PM] Wack'd: But the goal is accomplished. Doom is going to check and make sure the other three aren't making any trouble. [09:43 PM] Wack'd: Just like they wanted. [09:43 PM] Bocaj: Good job Sue [09:43 PM] maxwellelvis: Was this inspired by the 1967 Fantastic Four cartoon intro?  [09:45 PM] Wack'd: ...hahahaha it coulda been! [09:45 PM] Wack'd: Oh hey, that's where this meme comes from

[09:46 PM] Umbramatic: this was a meme? [09:49 PM] Wack'd: 106k notes on Tumblr [09:51 PM] Wack'd: AND SO! Doom does not blindly stride into this childish trap, and then electrocute himself. [09:51 PM] Wack'd: He angerly fires some energy beams at the childish trap because he feels insulted. [09:51 PM] Wack'd: And then Reed, Johnny, and Ben use their powers to trip him into the childish trap. Which electrocutes him. [09:52 PM] Bocaj: Wow [09:52 PM] Bocaj: bad show doom, good show reed, ben, johnny [09:52 PM] Wack'd: This somehow instantaneously shunts everyone back into their real bodies. [09:53 PM] Umbramatic: welp [09:54 PM] Wack'd: Also, Doom is now in a stasis coma in his suit. [09:54 PM] Wack'd: To ensure he stays that way, the Four decide, well... [09:55 PM] Wack'd:

[09:57 PM] maxwellelvis: I must admit I am curious to see how he gets out of this one eventually [09:59 PM] Bocaj: If you die in Liddletown you die in real life [09:59 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, the quote-unquote "brand new story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby" is a rejected script for the 1978 animated series, adapting Doctor Doom's first appearance. [09:59 PM] Wack'd: It is also not available here. So I am going to write it off as no big loss and move on. [10:02 PM] Wack'd: I did like this story, though! I think it coulda stood to spend a little less time on the mechanics and a little more time on how everyone felt about this situation, but overall it's really good.

[shanisdunn]

My Haunted Campus Episode 1: Pitt-Greensburg (featuring Michele Laity and Chloe Mager)

My Haunted Campus is a podcast where college students are welcomed to share stories about what they perceive to be hauntings they’ve witnessed on their campus.

Click on “Keep Reading” at the bottom to access the transcript for this episode.

[Picture via @PittGreensburg on twitter]

Free music for non-commercial use from Fesliyan Studios.

–begin transcript–

(Shannon: Every college campus has lore about haunts, frights, and strange occurrences. Whether these stem from fact or fear, there’s no denying that we sometimes don’t feel alone.

The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg was established in 1963 and while this might seem fairly new, there’s no denying that some students have had what they believe are run-ins with the paranormal.

For the very first episode of My Haunted Campus, I sat down with some friends and fellow Pitt-Greensburg residents as we talked about ghost stories stemming from their former apartment.)

Shannon: So I wanted to start talking about the weird things that went on in your apartment last year, just because there’s a lot of stories we collectively have from that. And like when I say collectively, even me, and I didn’t live there. But like what specific experiences do you guys have?

Meesh: Uh, my first run in with something spooky in Apollo was before Chloe lived with me, I lived in the same building. And I woke up to a man giggling. I very distinctly heard a man giggling in the hallway and I remember thinking that it was weird, because it was a weekend, and my roommates had all gone home. And there was no one else in the apartment. But I went back to bed and later on, I woke up again and texted all my roommates and said “were you guys in here? and did you bring your boyfriends?” and they said “we have not been there since Friday.” So, that was my first supernatural encounter in Apollo house that clued me in to the fact that I was not living there alone.

Shannon: Oh good! [laughs] If I heard a man giggling in the middle of the night, I would have left.

Meesh: [laughs]

Shannon: I would have gotten up and I would have moved out that night.

(Shannon: While we usually hope that events like this are mere tricks of the mind, this laughing man would continue to make his presence known.)

Shannon: So that was your first experience. 

Meesh: It was. It was my first of very many.

Shannon: You did confirm, though, at some point, that the man giggling was in fact Apollo, as we so affectionately call him.

Meesh: Yeah, I mean I kinda doubt that that was his actual name, but as we gained more just little experiences confirming that there was something in there, I ended up playing like a game that was supposed to allow you to talk to spirits. And I asked, at one point, “are you okay with us calling you Apollo?” and it said “yes,” so.

Chloe: [laughs]

Meesh: That’s what we still call him today. He answered a lot of questions that night, I just cant remember most of them. I remember that one in particular, because it was a very definitive like “yes you can call me Apollo.” I was like “oohhkayyy.”

Chloe: It’s– you know, it works cause it’s the Apollo house. It’s easy.

(Shannon: While the entity continued to wreak mischief, the apartment’s residents did not feel threatened by him.)

Meesh: I never really got malevolent vibes from Apollo. I think he was mischievous, but I don’t think that he downright had bad intentions for anyone.

Chloe: No.

Shannon: 10/10 was mischievous though.

Meesh: Yes, definitely like a trickster, prankster, but not like “I’m going to kill you in this house.”

Shannon: Yea, just more mild “poke you in the face when you’re trying to sleep.”

Meesh: [laughs]

(Shannon: At this moment, I begin to reminisce on the time I myself had a run-in, while taking a nap in Chloe’s bed.)

Shannon: One of the times I was over trying to nap in your bed, and you had poked me like a little bit earlier.

Chloe: Right.

Shannon: But then, I kept feeling you like hovering a hand near my face, and I kept snapping my eyes open and you hadn’t moved. And then I felt someone like actually poke me in the head, and so I snapped my eyes open and looked over at you real quick and there was no way you had reached all the way over. ‘Cause I was at the foot of your bed and you were at the head of your bed.

Chloe: Yeah.

Shannon: And there was no way you had reached over and poked me and gotten back without me seeing you move at all. And I looked at you and I was like “did you just poke me?” [laughs]

Chloe: [laughs]

Shannon: And you were like “no??”

Meesh and Chloe: [laughs]

Shannon: And I went “well someone just did!” [laughs]

Chloe: And then like, it might’ve been the same day–

Shannon: I think it was the same day.

Chloe: Like I said, we had passed Lily while she was walking to class, and we were walking to the apartment, and Meesh and Alex had just left the apartment when we were getting there. And after the whole like poking incident, we heard the door open to the apartment and then close. And it has a very distinct noise, you can tell what door it is. ‘Cause they’re spring-locked, you know, they just close on their own. And I was like “okay, maybe somebody forgot something,” and we heard footsteps coming down the hall. And then I like got up to check, to see who it was, and nobody was there. At all. Like, nobody. So...

Shannon: And we texted everyone to make sure.

Chloe: Yeah.

Shannon: And they sure were not present at the time.

(Shannon: During these few months, all of the activity in the apartment was attributed to Apollo messing around with us, but something darker began lurking.)

Meesh: At one point, the vibe of what was happening kind of shifted, so we thought that maybe there was an additional ghost in there.

Chloe: Right, right, right.

Meesh: ‘Cause Apollo, we knew wasn’t malevolent, but then at one point, it was stuff with Lily that– at one point I started filming Lily, and it had something to do with the ghost in the house, and as I panned over for her to do something that she wanted to do, it cut off. Despite the fact that I had filmed the whole thing, the video that actually had Lily in it was completely gone. And I think Lily also started having nightmares regarding some kind of demon man or something. Not my story to tell, but it was weird.

Chloe: I had that experience when we were dyeing my hair in the bathroom.

Meesh: Yes.

Chloe: It was you, me, Alex, and Lily. I was getting my hair dyed from Alex. I’m sitting facing the mirror, and I like see, out of the corner of my eye, a shadow figure run across the door. And it’s like kinda dog-shaped, like low to the ground, like just real fast across the door. And I didn’t say anything for a few minutes, ‘cause I didn’t wanna alarm anybody, and I was like “hey guys, um, I definitely just saw something run across the door,” and Alex freaked out and Meesh freaked out and everybody was scared afterwards. [laughs]

(Shannon: Within this same week, I also saw a dog shaped figure during one of my bouts of sleep paralysis, though I hadn’t known about Chloe’s experience.

It’s unsure where the line between entities is drawn, however, based on what we know about Apollo, the next experience was probably something or somebody else.)

Meesh: Honestly, probably the weirdest experience I’ve ever ever had, in Greensburg, was with Cameron Collins, who was our downstairs neighbor when we lived in Apollo. And I went down to do laundry one day, and found his room door open– it was wide open, he was standing in the door, but facing the side and he was staring directly at an empty wall. There was no TV there, or he wasn’t watching out the window, he was staring directly at an empty wall. And his side was to me, but the door was wide open. And so I stood there for a few minutes, blatantly staring at him, like trying to get his attention to tease him or ask him what he was doing. Uh, and he never ever acknowledged that I was there. [laughs] He just kept staring straight ahead. So I just thought “that’s kinda weird,” and went to do laundry, ‘cause obviously he didn’t want to give me his attention. And as I was leaving the laundry room, the door slammed shut and he was no longer there. He didn’t come out, he just– the door was shut.

Meesh: So, I asked him about it the next day, and I said “what the heck was that? Like what was going on? What were you doing?” He goes ‘I was doing what?” and I explained to him what happened and I jokingly asked “were you possessed?” and he said “I must have been, ‘cause I remember none of that.” and he was dead serious. [laughs, sighs] Our neighbor might’ve been possessed, it’s fine.

Shannon: So guys, what do you think? Greensburg campus, haunted?

Meesh: Absolutely.

Chloe: Yeah, well, parts of it.

(Shannon: These stories only surrounded one area of the campus, but the number of people who noticed strange ongoings can’t be coincidence. I believe that Pitt-Greensburg does have a spiritual presence and hope to investigate it more thoroughly one day.

Have you ever experienced something paranormal on your college campus? I’d love to hear your story.)

–end transcript–

[afictionaladventure16]

Safe and Sound (Robert Downey Jr. x Daughter!Reader)

Chapter 10

Masterlist

Previously on Safe and Sound...

Warnings: mentions of kidnapping, fluff. 

Word Count: 2,035

You followed Robert down some hallways, your mind was everywhere, you couldn’t believe that he actually wanted to talk to you. Everything felt so real, this shit was actually happening. Robert opened the door to a room, he gestured for you to go in. You walked into the room, it had a couch and what looked like a small make-up station. It must be one of the greenrooms.

“What’s your name, kid?” Robert asked as he closed the door, you quickly turned around to face him.

“Um, it’s (Y/N),” you answered, you looked around the room, “where are we?”

Robert couldn’t believe it. If you were actually his daughter, your kidnappers must have kept your name, he didn’t understand why they would do that. It was a dumb move on their part but he was grateful for that dumb move. “This is my green room,” he said softly. “What makes you think that you are my daughter?” Robert didn’t want this to be another hoax, I mean he’s dealt with parents before saying they had his missing daughter. It all just brought his hopes up, he hoped this just wasn’t another scheme to meet the actor. 

You quickly took off your drawstring bag, “because,” you began to say as you dug through your bag, you took out the adoption papers, handing them to Robert, “I found those last week.” Robert looked over the papers, he couldn’t believe what he was reading. Right there in black ink was his name along with his ex-wife’s name. His daughter, you, were put into the black market adoption. “I’ve done my research. And if it helps any, my parents don’t have any pictures from when I was under three years old. They both have different stories as to why, but” You dug through your bag again, taking out a small photo, “I have this one photo from when I was four from when we first moved to Mexico.” You handed it to Robert, his breath hitched in his throat at the sight of the photo. You were next to a couple, they were smiling in the photo. “I look nothing like them, they’re both tanned and I’m light complected.”

He pulled out his wallet, taking out a small wallet-sized photo, he had always kept this photo of you in his wallet, it was taken on your 3rd birthdays. Days before you were taken. Days before his world came crashing down. He took the photo, placed it side by side with the photo you handed him.

The girls in both photos looked exactly alike, there was no doubt that you were indeed his missing daughter. He continued to stare at the photo, his daughter with two strangers. Two strangers that took her from him. From her family. He looked up at you, standing in front of him after all these years, “it is you,” He said in almost a whisper. He looked at you in amazement.

You realized what he was saying, you were his missing daughter. You had been taken, you didn’t know what to feel, most of the life you had lived was a lie. The people who raised you took you from your family, you felt a wave of anger towards them. Robert quickly wrapped his arms around you in a tight hug, you felt at peace in his arms.

“I knew you weren’t dead,” Robert said as he let out a sob, “they said that it’s best to think you were dead instead of out there suffering, but I knew you weren’t dead!” He let go of the embrace, holding your face in his hands, “look at you!” He said with a smile, “you’re so beautiful!” You felt tears brim your eyes.

You wrapped your arms around Robert, his embrace felt familiar, safe, it all felt so right “I remember this,” you whispered. “I remember you singing to me,” You said as you let go of the hug, “That song, it’s um-”

“Smile,” Robert said, “I used to always sing you ‘Smile,’ you would beg me to sing it to you, it was the only song that got you to sleep when you were a baby.” Robert couldn’t stop staring at you, “oh my gosh, (Y/N), losing you was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Your mother, she-”

“I know,” you whispered, “I read about it when doing my research.”

“I blamed myself for that night,” he said softly, “I almost ruined my career, my family, because of it,” he felt a fit of anger towards the kidnappers, “we need to call the cops.”

“Wait!” You exclaimed, “can we just.. Can we just savor this moment? I want to hear about when I was little, tell me about my mom. What’s she like?” You sat down on the couch, Robert then sat next to you.

He gently brushed your hair behind your ear, “you look like her,” he began to say, “she’s an amazing singer, you would always ask her to sing smile too, but she had her own song she would sing to you. You were our princess, (Y/N), losing you broke the family apart. It broke Indio. He thought so highly of you, he was such a proud big brother. Yeah, you guys fought but he was always there to protect you. They’re gonna be so overjoyed to hear the news.” Robert couldn’t help but smile as he looked at you, his little girl, alive and in front of him.

He placed his hand on your cheek, “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t protect you.” You gently grabbed his hand that was on your cheek, “did they… did they treat you okay?”

You gave him a nod, “don’t worry, they made everything seem like we were a normal family,” you reassured.

Robert gave her a nod, “how are you doing in school? Grades?”

“I’m actually in top of my class.”

“I knew you were going to be a smart kid,” Robert said as he placed a kiss on top of your head.

You sighed, looking down at the floor, “what now?”

“We call the cops, maybe I should call the lead detective on your case, I’ve been in contact with him over the years,” he took his phone out, “they will go to your house and arrest the um- people who took you.”

The kidnappers, the people who you thought were your parents almost all your life. You placed your hand on Roberts phone, stopping him from making the call, “Only one of them is home, if you make that call, you most likely won’t catch the other. It’s best if we just wait until tomorrow.” You could tell by the look on Roberts face that he didn’t like this idea, he just wanted to take you home and make sure you were safe. “Trust me, they will both be home all day tomorrow and you give the detective these papers,” you said as you gestured to the adoption papers, “this is the address to where the house is,” you grabbed a pen from your backpack and began scribbling on an old receipt from your wallet, “you tell them to go there.”

Robert was amazed at how much you’ve grown, you weren’t the three year old he used to know. He felt heartbroken by that fact, that he had lost so many years and all he wanted to do right now was to regain those years by talking with you for hours on end.

Your phone began to ring, you panicked as you realized how late it has gotten, “Oh shit!” You expressed as you looked at the Caller I.D. “it’s him, my um-” you looked at Robert, hesitating to call the man on the other end of the phone your father, the man you thought was your father, “it’s Mark.” You finished saying. “I have to answer,” Robert gave you an understanding nod.

“Hello?” You asked as you answered the phone.

“Sabes que hora es!?” Do you know what time it is?

“Lo siento pero perdi mis llaves, y yo Los Estaba Buscando.” I’m sorry but I lost my keys and I was looking for them. You looked over Robert who gave you a confused expression, “I’m waiting for the bus right now,” you lied.

You could hear Mark sigh on the other end, “I told you, eleven the latest. It’s already eleven fifteen, (Y/N)... just hurry up home, your mother is going to have a field day when she gets home tomorrow morning.” With that, he hung up the phone.

“Well?” Robert asked, eager to know what the conversation was about.

“Well, he’s not too happy,” you said softly as you placed your phone in your pocket, “I should probably get going.”

“Let my driver take you home,” Robert insisted as you got up from the couch, “so that way you won’t have to take the bus.” You didn’t hesitate at the offer, knowing very well that you would have to wait extra time for a bus and this way you would get home a bit quicker. “Come on,” Robert gestured for you to follow him. You followed him out to a different room, “Hey, mind giving someone a ride for me?” Robert asked a man.

The man quickly stood up and looked at you and smile, “Sure! What’s the address?”

You told him the address and he placed it into his phone GPS, “I’ll bring the car out to the front entrance,” The man said to Robert as he walked out of the room.

You then followed Robert through the hallways once again and into the front entrance, by now the only people at the center were just crew members. “What brought you to the convention anyway? Other than, you know, the obvious.”

“Oh, my best friend, (Y/B/F/N), and I had plans for years now to come to the Supernatural panel,” you admitted as you guys waited for the car, “we even got to meet Misha Collins, which was pretty freaking awesome.”

“You came with your best friend? Where is she?” 

“Oh I kind of ditched her at a cafe, I was a bit upset from our first encounter.” 

Robert sighed, “sorry about that, I-” 

“It’s okay,” You gave him a reassuring smile.

“So, you’re a big Supernatural fan?” You gave him a nod, “What about Marvel?”

“Never really got into it,” You whispered, “but I think I’m going to be getting into it very soon,” you said with a smirk. Robert chuckled at your comment. He sighed as he saw his driver bring the car over to you guys.

Robert wrapped his arms around you, he placed his hands on your cheeks once more as he let go of the embrace, “I still can’t believe it.”

You gave him a gentle smile, “tomorrow, trust me.”

“Will you be okay?” 

You gave him a nod, you just had to pretend for one more day, pretend that your fake life was normal that you didn’t know the secrets they’ve been hiding from you. “I’ll be fine, even better once this is all over.” Robert hesitated to let you go, he wanted to just keep you with him, call the cops, it didn’t matter if they only caught one. Well, it did, but Robert felt selfish, he wanted to just embrace you. Take in what he has missed, what was taken from him all these years. He watched as you got into the black Suburban, you gave him a small wave goodbye as the car slowly drove off.

Robert took his phone out, he knew it was late and that she was probably asleep but this was important, he listened to the phone ring a couple of times, “Hello?” her voice was groggy.

“Deb?”

“Robert? Do you know what time it is?” A slight irritation in her voice, she was confused as to why her ex-husband would be calling so late. Part of her wondered if it had anything to do with Indio but Indio was asleep in the other room. 

“I found her, Deb,” Robert choked out, “She’s alive. Our baby girl is alive, Deb.”

A/N: Feeling super insecure about this chapter. Don’t really like how it turned out. Anyway, let me know what you guys think. 

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[rosereview]

Most Anticipated 2020 Releases

So there are so many new books coming out this year that I am super excited for. Most of them are a continuation of a series I love or by an author I really enjoy, so not many of these books will come as a surprise. 

10. My Calamity Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, & Jodi Meadows

First we have the final book in the Jane Series by these three amazing authors, which isn’t really a series and more like companion books which started with My Lady Jane followed by My Plain Jane. Both of those books were so funny to read and had an interesting supernatural plot that I was really into, set in a historical time period. So I’m really excited for My Calamity Jane to come out.

9. The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi Lee

This is also the last book to Mackenzi Lee’s Montague Siblings series, which is a historical fiction series that follows each Montague sibling in each book. I thought there were only going to be the first two, so when I saw she was coming out with this third book I was really excited. This historical fiction is also very humorous and tackles a lot of topics that you normally don’t see in historical fictions, so I highly recommend. 

8. Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi

I’m really excited for this third book in the Aru Shah series which is part of the Rick Riordan Presents imprint. While the first book was just okay for me, the second book that came out in 2019 has gotten me really excited for the next books in the series. It’s all about Hindu mythology which I found I’m now really interested in, and a really fun adventure with cute and adorable characters that learn a lot of valuable lessons. 

7. Redemption Prep by Samuel Miller

I read Samuel Miller’s debut, A Lite Too Bright this year and it became one of my favourites of the year and of all time. When I saw that he was coming out with another book, I was intrigued, especially when I found out that it was about a boarding school and mystery about a missing girl, I’m now really excited. I found that I really liked mysteries set at a boarding school.

6. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

When I was in Elementary school, I became obsessed with reading when I picked up two certain series. One was Percy Jackson and the other was The Hunger Games. Ever since, I’ve just read more and more books and fallen more and more in love with reading and stories, and that wouldn’t have happened without Suzanne Collins. So now that she’s coming out with a prequel novel for The Hunger Games, I can’t not be happy and excited. Honestly I have nothing more to say than that.

5. The Betrothed by Kiera Cass

I’ve been waiting for Kiera Cass’s next book since The Crown came out four years ago. Now I did not love The Heir or The Crown but I did love the Selection trilogy and I want more of that good writing that she did there. I almost lost hope that Kiera Cass would ever finish her mystery project, but now here it comes! I could use some of her royal romances right now.

4. Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth

Veronica Roth is one of my favourite authors and even though she’s had some talking going on around her books, I’ve loved them all and think the things people are saying are false and that they didn’t actually read Carve the Mark because I never read what Miss Roth was accused of, Anyways, despite all that I will gladly continue reading everything she writes because I’ve been impressed every time before.

3. The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson

I need to know what happens in this final book of the Truly Devious series. This series was absolutely amazing and made me love mysteries in boarding schools, and mysteries in general. Now I need to know the end of this epic mysteries and how everything ties together. I really hope I’m not disappointed.

2. Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas

I will read anything that Sarah J Mass writes since she’s my second favourite author of all time. Her writing is so well done and she creates the coolest worlds. I don’t even remember what this is about, but I’ll read it no matter what and probably love it, which is why this my second most anticipated release of 2020.

1. Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare

Finally we’re at the end, and who would have guessed it would be anything other than a Cassandra Clare book. I’ve been waiting for this book forever! It was supposed to come out in 2019, but due to some health issues with Cassandra Clare we have to wait for March of 2020, which is okay now because we’re getting closer. I already know that this will be very high up on my favourite books of 2020 list. 

And that’s it! Thanks for reading till the end and maybe you found out about some new releases you didn’t know about on this list. 

Until next time!

~Rose Reviews