#Michael just killed the only person who gave a fuck about his loyalty

[paganminiskirt]

I bet after Mike dies Trevor goes on a few extremely ill advised, more hardcore than usual, totally-not-suicidal-ideation drug binges because he keeps trying to slip back into the emotional state he was in after Ludendorff, when he thought Michael was dead the first time, but the reduced external pressure and increased proximity to the killing itself makes it so he can’t just think that way again without feeling like a fraud/pussy, and I bet after Trevor dies Mike ends up in some emotional spirals because whenever he starts to feel guilty for more than a minute his first impulse on how to deal with it is to go find Trevor to fight with/complain to him and he keeps having to suffer through that little oh moment whenever the urge arises and it makes him feel ten times worse. Every time.

[a-wild-rosette]

Hey saw your 'Ranboo Negative' post about how you don't think he's a good character? (i'm sure that's what you said) and i was wondering if you wanted to expand on that?

(no pressure i'm just not the biggest fan of him either and like hearing people who agree with me lmao)

Hi anon my beloved.

I don't usually write crit but I'm mad enough today so :D here we go :D

So I'll admit that his entire like, enderwalk mystery and such doesn't engage me as much because mystery isn't my most favorite genre and I just feel like there are too many questions and mysteries keep piling up on top of each other. But like, that's probably just a personal preference thing.

But like on a character development, especially emotional and the way the character interact with the world? Yeah not into that. Here's why.

1. People excuse his actions too much and there is literally no consequence on Ranboo for his actions whatsoever.

c!Ranboo is the type of person who is nice, but not kind. The kind of person that stands for nothing and therefore falls for nothing. Instead, other people suffer the consequence of his actions.

Like Ranboo gave Techno back his weapons and stood by and watched at people were tortured by Techno and Tommy. Twice, may I add, with Fundy - one of Ranboo's supposedly closest friends, and Connor - an innocent bystander. No one ever calls him out on it, and he can go on and deny what he did (or didn't do, more like) was not bad. Or like the whole ordeal with Doomsday. He basically talks a big game of being loyal and choosing people, but in Doomsday the only person he chose was himself and his own safety.

He betrayed L'Manberg. He left Tubbo and Tommy to fight for their death even though he said he was going to fight with them. He abandoned every other person who cared about him, only to go and team up with the people who destroyed the country of the FOUR PEOPLE who had always wanted to protect him (Tubbo, Tommy, Niki, Fundy). He refused to pick a side, and by that, he picked the side of the tyrant. In the face of injustice, inaction is an action in itself. But yeah, while everyone else lost everything, Ranboo has everything to gain. He has powerful allies, a home that he can fill to the brim with richness, and in the end, everyone who he has hurt? Tubbo goes out of his way to protect him against Quackity's (reasonable, albeit quite harsh) criticism. He's still friends with Tommy, you know, despite being friends with one of the dudes who blew up Tommy's country. Even Fundy and Niki still care about him in the aftermath. He didn't lose anything - everyone else in L'Manberg did.

Somehow, he never had to stop and reconsider his stance on everything and who he supports, he never had to stop and considered "hey, maybe i'm not as good of a person as I want to be". AND HE COULD DO IT because no one calls him out on his action (or inaction, more like). It's always "oh no he's a victim because he has memory issues". Cool motive, still murder :) He's still a person with autonomy, and "peer pressure" is still not a good enough excuse to hurting people. And you know for sure that, even if Ranboo hurt someone *again*, it's gonna still be "justified" by whoever he didn't hurt :) (Not naming names here but it starts with Ranboo and ends with apologists). Actually, just look at the outpost situation with Las Nevadas right now :D

You see, Ranboo can do things that are really just... frustrating at best and downright annoying at best, and the amount of people going hearteyes at him still is enough to overwhelm any meaningful criticism in character :)

2. In fact, the consequence of Ranboo's actions fall onto other people. Or like, people justify Ranboo’s actions by demonising other characters. C!Ranboo does this too. 

Not just other people blaming Ranboo's actions on him being "peer pressured", Not just like, people getting hurt because Ranboo didn’t support them. But Ranboo himself pushing the blame on other people to maintain the view that he was blameless. 

c!Ranboo wants to be a “good” person so bad that he went to a lot of length to justify himself, blaming any wrongdoings on other characters, putting himself in the victim role to explain away his actions. He wants to be a good person, a “reasonable person” who would bring “peace” to the server and resolve conflict, but he refuses to actually do the hard things, because being “good” means taking a stance, being “good” is hard and needs effort, efforts that Ranboo does not have the drive to put in. So instead, he chose the easier thing: explain his actions away. He wasn’t bad, he couldn’t control other people’s actions. He was just a victim. Oh no! 

Like when he called Fundy a coward for wanting to team up, for “choosing people, not sides” - the exact things Ranboo preached. Like when he yelled at Tommy for when his plan to kill Dream failed, even though he and Tubbo helped Tommy without ever trying to stop him or make him more well prepared. He denied any of his involvement in any plan that went wrong and pushed the blame onto the people around him. And even in the Las Nevadas dispute just now? He also subtly hinted that Tubbo was the one who made the decision, not him. He’s the reasonable one here. As if he didn’t help Tubbo. As if he didn’t antagonise Las Nevadas right along his partner. 

And I would be more lenient with this trait if it weren’t also supported by literally everyone around Ranboo. Like, take the time when Phil told Fundy he had “a lot of redeeming to do” and expressed that Tubbo also had things to make up for, and then compared Ranboo with them as the poor, manipulated victim. Deliberation or no, that comparison push a narrative between Ranboo and Tubbo and Fundy, between the “good” victim and the “evil” perpetrator. Or, like, take the times where everyone blames c!Dream for manipulating c!Ranboo, even though there is no hint about that actually happening. Ranboo’s “victim” narrative keeps being reinforced, which, again, gives him no space and no dissonance to actually reconsider his stance. 

3. There's no stake for c!Ranboo's character.

When L'Manberg was still around, Ranboo clearly showed his loyalty didn't lie with the country. He had no emotional connect to the place, and he failed to see how the country meant so much to the people who built it and fought for it and saw it rise and fall. Even his emotional connection to Tubbo and Tommy was chalked up, by himself, as "they were nice to me, so i'm nice back". Relationships, in season 2 at least, were just a tradeoff of favors and niceties to Ranboo, and whether it was the case or not, Ranboo convinced himself that was the case. This gave him a detachment from *everyone*, because at the end of the day, the emotional stake wasn't there, loyalty was not in ss2!Ranboo's vocabulary.

And right now? Ranboo is in full life, he has a whole chest of totems. The closest thing he has to a stake is Tubbo and Michael, but like, meta-wise? I don't think Tubbo is dying anytime soon, and Michael is also probably safe because no one would be cruel enough to use Michael as a plot, when cc!Ranboo and cc!Tubbo are clearly really attached. Ranboo is rich, powerful, with a powerful husband, and a whole fucking lot of plot armor. And while, yes, his attachment to Tubbo and Michael is a positive development (and the *only* positive development actually), it's also paled a bit when Ranboo is still allied with the people who destroyed Tubbo's home, not to mention he was there against Tubbo when the Syndicate threatened him. The emotional connection between him and Tubbo was still not strong enough for Ranboo to reconsider the people he supports.

I’m gonna be patient for now, but honestly the way the character is being excused over and over both in canon and by the fandom is really frustrating to watch. 

[deans-haunted-baby]

Okay I see there are those who are confused as to why most of us are pissed about 15x19 I will gladly explain in depth:

Let’s start off with our boys Adam Milligan & Michael. These characters have not been seen for 10 fucking years. During that time there were Adam stans like myself campaigning like mad to have him and the infamous archangel return for some much needed closure. We had to content ourselves with headcanons, fanfictions and metas based on what we briefly knew of Adam and Michael as people while they unfairly sat in Hell. You might have seen the “Adam’s Still in Hell” memes that circulated. WE WAITED OVER A DECADE FOR THIS. And finally SPN answers our prayers and returns these boys back into the story for the final season. None of us anticipated what their arc and dynamic would look like. Before we could only imagine who these two characters were/are after having been trapped in a cage so long; what their personalities would be like and if they’d be antagonistic to TFW. 15x08 was a surprise because not only were Adam and Michael likable right out of the gate but the writing for them and their dynamic was damn near flawless! And Jake fucking stole the show he killed it as these two. It’s a crime they were not featured in more episodes because the chemistry between these characters is amazing and they’re played by the same dude.

We were given so much background into both Adam and Michael’s psyches in just a short period of time. Their motivations, interests and how they viewed those that wronged them (like the Winchesters); how Hell affected/changed them both and how they viewed their families. We got to see them banter, cooperate with one another and most importantly their different personalities. With Jake Abel appearing in only a handful of SPN episodes, he still fleshed out Michael and Adam beautifully; giving them layers and complexities that most side-characters (who’ve appeared more times than they have) didn’t. The way Jake played Adam’s anger and resentment towards his brothers was brilliant because it’s more under the surface compared to his angsty teenage self in 5x18. He’d become somewhat restrained, laid-back, gentler and wiser which works because Adam displays traits similar to Sam and Dean. He’s kinder and has a sense of humor but none of that distracts from rational thought as he’s quick to analyze and dissect situations. Man, he would’ve made a great hunter/Men of Letters recruit. We know right off the bat Adam’s pissed at his brothers for abandoning him in a thousand-year-prison-sentence and didn’t lift a finger BUT that ironically doesn’t compromise his willingness to help them unlike his past self in 5x18. Jake gets the point across with this character without saying much and that’s what made him so compelling to watch in this episode.

Now Michael was even more of a mystery onion since he wasn’t onscreen as much as Adam had been in past episodes so Jake got to really build on top of this character. Going from the uptight, cold-blooded merciless celestial warrior/dutiful son of God we saw in 5x22 to someone whom despite his arrogance and regal princely demeanor was very human, intelligent, fair, mindful and compassionate. He trusted Adam and respected his opinions even if he didn’t agree 100%. Whereas most angels take over the vessel completely from their original occupant; Michael chooses to share his vessel with Adam as a mutual agreement which says a lot about who he is. He’s fascinated with humanity and wanted to explore it instead of returning to his throne in the clouds. We know that Michael was created specifically to be Humanity’s protector and guardian of Heaven and Earth so these quirks he’d demonstrated in 15x08 aren’t too far off. He holds a lot of pain inside from his abandonment issues with his father whom he loves to a fault and grief over the death of his brothers. On the surface there’s very much an abused child syndrome thing going on with him though he masks it with a domineering presence. And above all this we saw that he was capable of forgiveness. Whether or not Michael always had these traits inside to begin with, its very evident that his friendship with Adam influenced the person he became post-Hell. And that was someone who, like Castiel, chose to rebel for the sake of free will by aligning himself with the Winchesters after witnessing the evil his father had committed. He actually cared about saving the world. This is what we call character development.

What does 15x19 do? It shits all over that. We don’t get to see Adam and Michael’s dynamic at all; and this was perhaps one of (if not the first) most healthy portrayal of a relationship between an angel and its original vessel occupant in the history of Supernatural. Adam is just killed off-screen Thanos style without so much as one last word and Michael barely reacts like he gives a crap. It was just established to us in 15x08 that he’d developed an emotional bond with Adam through years of inhabiting the same body. He protected Adam while they were trapped together in Hell. They were each other’s only friend and source of comfort. They’d developed a certain co-dependency on each other while respecting one another’s space. They’d both made peace with their joint situation. All they had was each other and the writing in 15x19 basically tells us their relationship meant absolutely NOTHING to Michael based on his OOC actions in this episode. He shows up much darker and shadier now that Adam is gone and its like all those years of friendship, things like that independence, newfound strength and humility he’d gained from living with a human for so long are erased. Michael just reverts back to Chuck’s 5x22 bitchboy persona in the most ridiculous 180 shift I’ve ever seen in my whole damn life. And all because his little brother called him mean names. Pitiful. Just when he lectures Lucifer about standing up for what’s right; he betrays his own words, his allies and the rest of humanity in T-minus 2 minutes. That is total character assassination. Nothing about this motivation makes any sense.

There’s no build up to it, no foreshadowing in 15x08 or throughout 15x19 until they get to the lake. He’s completely deconstructed as a character in this episode and rendered weak. It’s like 15x08 never happened. Stripped of all his development for lousy shock value. Instead utilizing all of what he’d learned through Adam and sticking it to Lucifer by proving he could be more than what Chuck tried to mold him into; Michael becomes just another NPC in the story forfeiting the hero he was. And his reasons for siding with Chuck are never specified. Was it about about saving Adam? Was it about proving something to Lucifer (whom he’d already killed in anti-climatic fashion)? Was it all an act that he was in on with the Winchesters; cause there’s absolutely NO FUCKING WAY they could’ve predicted he’d flip on them like that for their magical plan to work. Not after everything Chuck’s done, killing Adam and Jack and leaving Michael to rot in Hell for eternity. And why would he suddenly go along with destroying the Earth when defeating Chuck would probably get Adam back (if that was his goal) which IT DID not to mention its his sworn duty to freaking protect humanity, hello? So his betrayal meant jack shit in the end as it got him killed by his fucking dad!! He’s brought back into the show only to be ruined forever and killed off in the stupidest fashion.

Moving on.

Jack Kline & Castiel. This iron-clad relationship has been in development for 4 in 1/2 years since before Jack was even born. And next to Adam & Michael its the other most healthy relationship on the show. Castiel, a million year old celestial being, spent the first 9 years of his arc on Supernatural following around the Winchesters, being torn between his loyalty to them and to Heaven. He rebelled when he was supposed to be a straight-by-the-book warrior of God. And he defied every rule in the process even when the odds were stacked against him. There was an endless rinse and repeat cycle of love, loss, betrayal and redemption when it came to his relationship with Sam and Dean. It made his character complex, interesting and layered but it still didn’t give him an arc that was his own. Castiel started out moreso being written as just the Winchester’s angel BFF/side-kick. Until Lucifer got Kelly Kline pregnant in 12x08 then things really took off. Before this, Castiel was a lost soul. His faith was broken, he was depressed, lonely, battered and rundown from years of being conflicted over the other angels and Sam & Dean. He felt he’d lost a sense of self and meaning in his life. And didn’t have a mission. Once he turned on Heaven’s orders, Castiel was a rebel angel without a cause so to speak. But like I said this changes the moment he meets Kelly.

Originally Castiel was suppose to kill Kelly in 12x19 because she was carrying the child of the devil and Nephilim are considered forbidden abominations. Told that if Lucifer’s kid was born he could unleash even more evil into the world. But instead of doing what he thought he should, Castiel decides to runaway with her. Choosing to protect her from all threats (Lucifer, demons, other angels, princes of Hell); this especially included the Winchesters. During this short time-frame the angel develops a strong, emotional bond with Kelly and her unborn son that stretches all the way to the S12 finale; to the point where it actually gave him a power-boost. From the womb, Jack appoints Castiel to be his father and protector and he’s given a glimpse into the child’s destiny that he’ll bring paradise to the world. A prophecy that the writers establish head on. This is an unusual circumstance because right here is where Castiel’s solo arc apart from the Sam & Dean takes shape. The journey of becoming a first time parent and guardian. Its a new kind of independence that for the first time has nothing to do with his friends or his family members/colleagues in the sky. Its his own personal mission that he willingly accepts, the second he connects with Jack from inside Kelly. Castiel immediately falls in love with him, before they even see each other; and adopts the boy devoting himself to keeping him safe. Making a promise to Kelly that would later become a vital plot-point in the seasons to come.  

Castiel literally risks everything (Heaven and Earth) to ensure Jack’s birth and ends up dead by 12x23′s startling conclusion. Leaving the newborn infant Nephilim alone in the care of the Winchesters going into season 13; scared, confused and aged into a seemingly 18 year old boy for his own protection. And Alexander Calvert who is a fantastic addition to the cast really brings something wonderful to this role; he’s like a breath of fresh air and a bright light in the middle of a dark room. Jack’s naïve, innocent and curious about his surroundings but also as Castiel once put it “remarkably intuitive”. Right when he’s introduced his arc is intentionally paralleled with Castiel’s. Their alien-fish-out-of-water beginning is practically identical as is their adorable stoic facial expressions. Like father like son. And this helps because while the angel is currently dead in the beginning of season 13, there’s an empty void he’s left behind. So Jack is kind of his temporary stand-in. Odd enough this type of switcharoo would’ve been considered very controversial but it’s handled quite well. Alex is so likable and charming I almost wish Supernatural had introduced him sooner. I mean I really thought I was looking at Castiel’s actual mini-me and not the son of Satan. But I digress Jack’s story in the first half of this season is pretty much about discovery and reuniting with Castiel. He’s a baby so everything is new to him but he’s also one of the most powerful beings in the universe destined for greatness which makes the Winchesters very nervous.

Jack remembers choosing Castiel as his dad which is why he already feels strongly connected to him. Its a bond so powerful that it actually resurrects Castiel out of the Empty the first time. Something Chuck himself was unable to do (that was until the mess that is 15x19). When they’re finally reunited the payoff comes so naturally. Misha and Alex have such a phenomenal onscreen chemistry starting with that first hug; they really play off one another so well that it doesn’t feel like two angels interacting but a genuine father and son duo. So much of what makes Jack and Castiel’s relationship so relatable, deep and endearing is because of what the actors bring to it. But they’re not just a fascinating relationship, they’re compelling on their own too. Both trying to find their way in the world and within the Winchesters’ lives. Death is no stranger to either of them (tragic being that Jack is only a toddler). They’ve each experienced their own personal pain, traumas, life lessons, mistakes and decisions. The biggest for Castiel would be his deal with the Empty to save Jack in 14x08. While for Jack it was the consequences of said deal that would lose his soul causing him to accidently kill Sam and Dean’s mom in 14x18 as a result (something that Jack struggles with immensely to the brink of depression from so much guilt and regret that he’d rather die). Repercussions that would follow into the shows final season. What’s interesting about this deal though is that Castiel made it on parental instinct alone not as a promise to Kelly. He chose to sacrifice himself for the sake of his son as a selfless act of love and kept it a secret from Sam & Dean until his death in 15x18. That’s the extent how much this child meant to him. The other great thing about their family dynamic is that it parallels nicely with the Winchesters. Castiel and Jack share this unconditional love that can never be broken. its even greater than their ties to the Winchesters themselves just as Sam & Dean’s love for each other is greater than any of their other relationships. They would do anything for each other. Castiel would go to the ends of the earth for the little nougat baby because that’s his son.  

Each time these characters were faced with danger or died, Castiel and Jack were overcome with extreme devastation and distress. That said its not just pain that binds these two its happiness. Jack is the best thing that ever happened to Castiel. Literally becoming a father to that child saved him. It brought him back to life, restored his faith and gave him a sense of self-worth and hope he’d long since abandoned. And for Jack, Castiel is the best dad he’ll ever have! He gave this baby comfort, wisdom, nurturing, strength. Was always there when he needed him whether it was to talk or to have his back. No other person in Jack’s life has ever made such an important impact nor made him feel more safe and loved than Castiel. Even when Jack had done such a horrible thing to Mary alienating himself from his family; it was Castiel’s unyielding devotion to Jack that ended up being his salvation. This was huge because once again he’d chosen over the Winchesters proving that no matter what (whether it be the world ending) his son comes first. So when Castiel’s pact with the Empty finally comes due in 15x18 you’d think it’d have an earth-shattering affect on Jack in 15x19. I mean for the first bit it does...until he becomes God. Then its like to hell with that relationship. Castiel is a complete afterthought to Jack and the rest of TFW in this episode. JACK DOESN’T EVEN GET TO GRIEVE HIM PROPERLY. And he just lost his dad because of a deal he’d made a year ago for him. A DEAL JACK HAS BEEN FUCKING DREADING WHILE HE WAS SOULLESS MIND YOU. And when he finally has the power to bring him back, he doesn’t? Jack just walks around with a conceited smirk on his face, bids Sam and Dean adieu and fucks off. I mean who gives a shit right, its only your dad that you love more than anything. This was extremely OOC given that time in 14x14 Jack nearly lost his shit when Castiel got infected with gorgon poison; the anti-venom wasn’t working so Jack resorts to using his powers putting his soul at risk.

I mean if he was so limited to helping Castiel in the Empty AT LEAST FREAKING CLARIFIY THIS TO THE AUDIENCE. This is not about shipping a certain pairing btw. Jack becoming God is not the issue its his characterization after the fact. His first instinct would’ve been to save his dad above getting in touch with the Earth. Yes we knew this transformation was coming it was foreshowed way back in Season 12. Does that justify bad writing or character assassination?? HELL NO.

This is what I’m talking about, episode 15x19 deliberately butchers these characters and their relationships. It shat all over them. No one is behaving like themselves. The pacing is wonky and inconstant. The script feels like it underwent several rewrites and I swear there were scenes cut out. The acting is off too and maybe the pandemic could be blamed for these things but it ultimately falls on the writer. Buckleming screwed up by showing us they don’t know who the hell these characters are, their motivations nor do they give a rat’s ass. And its noticeable on screen. I’ve known better fanfiction writers for SPN than these guys. It’s like they all came back to work but just didn’t care to put the effort into it. That’s why people like me are upset and we have every freaking right to be. Some of us have been with this series for the entire 15 year run. I at least expect these characters to be handled better and for things to make sense. 15x19 doesn’t and its not satisfying its just a cruel joke. The writers and Dabb should be embarrassed to have put this out there thinking we’d just swallow it and shut up. But far as I’m concerned the only thing this episode serves is to disrespect and ruin everybody while angering long-time fans.

MICHAEL. ADAM MILLIGAN. JACK KLINE AND CASTIEL DESERVED BETTER. And that’s the tea.

[theonewiththefanfics]

Would You Be My Little Quarantine (one-shot)

Synopsis: As the mandatory quarantine hits, the Reader is stuck in a cabin in Utah with the boys from 5 Seconds of Summer. Turns out another person is stuck in a hotel nearby. Hijinx ensue as does romance. 

Pairing: Harry Styles x f!Reader

Genre: fluff pretty much just pure, teeth-rotting fluff.

Warnings: it’s my first time writing for Harry as I was never really part of the fandom, but damn does Watermelon Sugar do things to a person, so please be kind. This is defo not my best work, but I’m slowly getting back into the groove of things, so bare with me :D

Word count: 6061

        TikTok had become Y/N’s new obsession. She’d stayed away from it as long as she could, being a true Vine generation child, she felt loyalty to the deceased app. But one night, after a long recording session, she caved. And then stayed giggling on it until the early morning when the birds started to chirp… or until Calum had taken her phone and threatened to throw it in the jacuzzi if she didn’t go to bed. 

        The girl and the four guys from 5 Seconds of Summer had been renting a cabin in the middle of the Utah woods to help them escape the distractions of the city as they recorded their respective albums, and given how they were good friends, they decided to collaborate on a few songs, and it made sense to just chill together as well.

        Which had started off Y/N’s own TikTok series, having ‘borrowed’ the idea from the Irishman living with two girls.

        “Alright, gentlemen.” She slid inside her bathroom pulling the focus of her camera on the reflection in the mirror. “I live with four guys, and I have some things to say. Why do you always, and I mean ALWAYS, leave your socks around the house? The dirty ones. You know you could just throw them in the wash… there’s an idea.”

        “We do!” Calum yelled

        Y/N turned her face to the door and hollered, “Only after I’ve asked you to!”

        “Do not!” he countered.

        “Do too!” she exited the bathroom and into the hallway only to be met with the man standing there with his hands on his hips. “Then how.” Y/N pointed the camera towards the living area you could see from where the hallways overlooked the room. “Do you explain that?” And when she zoomed in, there, in a small pile laid two brown socks, all crumpled up and almost pushed underneath one of the three couches, as if someone was trying to hide them from sight.

        Calum stammered for a bit. “Those are NOT mine.”

        Y/N flipped the camera and looked at it like they do in the Office. “Help me,” she mouthed and finished the TikTok, pointing with her hand at him. “Ya disgustin’!”

        Just as maturely as she had reacted, so did Calum by crossing his arms and sticking his tongue out, but their little bickering about whose socks they were and whose job was it to put them in the dirty wash (they were Ashton’s, and it was his job), Luke poked Y/N’s side as he came out from his room. 

        “I know might seem weird, but is there any chance another person could join our quarantine group?”

        Y/N’s eyebrows rose. Sure, the house was giant, mostly because whatever production she was a part of on Broadway, after a successful season, she invited all of them there to get away from the bustle of New York and just chill. It was in the middle of the forest, encased by gorgeous mountains and at the side of a lake where they’d go jet skiing and cliff diving.

        “I thought people can’t visit one another?”

        “They can’t,” Luke confirmed. “That’s the point. The unfortunate soul just got stuck at a hotel not too far from here, and all the flights are cancelled. Two weeks of quarantine without symptoms have been concluded, but, knowing how impossible it’d be to get to London, when you know, as I said, there are no flights, I offered a place to stay.”

        “So,” Y/N dramatically rolled her head. “You already offered to stay before asking me?”

        “Well, I knew you’d say ‘yes’ because you’re a kind, generous, amazing, smart, talented, compassionate person and wouldn’t leave someone on the streets when you know you could help.”

        “Mhm, keep talking.” Y/N squinted her eyes and put her hands on her hips.

        “Incredible, best musician I’ve ever met, how you haven’t won all of Tony’s I’ve got no idea. Your acting skills are impeccable and the movie industry is missing out on a once in a lifetime kind of a talent by not castin-“

        “Alright stop.” Y/N busted out laughing. “As long as you promise I won’t wake up with an axe in my head, ‘s fine.” 

        “Promise.”

        “Good. Also, could you please get me three bottles of that wine I like?” Y/N hollered before skipping downstairs and to the kitchen where Ashton was brewing the tenth cup of coffee. “I have a deadline in two weeks and have literally no idea where to go with the story.” She referred to the second book of her series she was writing, and now with the lockdown going on, her literary agent was breathing down her neck, and it didn’t help she hadn’t written anything in like a month and didn’t remember half of the already exiting story.

        Luke lifted a brow and hissed through his teeth. “That bad?”

        “You have no idea,” she sighed and left for the living-room where she could harass the boys for their fries and procrastinate some more. 

***

        The few hours, while Luke was away, were quite uneventful. All of them sat around on the couch pit, wrote some music, lil bit of lyrics and Y/N almost cried seeing as her characters had decided to live their own life and not obey to her story.

        “Why do you have to be such an idiot,” she mumbled under her breath and furrowed her brows as she wrote herself into a new plot hole.

        Right as Y/N was about to delete the whole chapter, the door slammed open and she heard grunting. “We’re here!” Luke hollered, and the thought of wine made her giddy, making her leap over the edge of the couch, and rush to the front door only to stop dead in her tracks. 

        Y/N’s mouth hung open, not because of who the person joining their quarantine group was, but because of what the person was. “A fifth GUY?! You didn’t tell me it’d be a guy!”

        “I didn’t think it’d matter!” Luke yelled back.

        “There’s already four of you!” She pointed back to the living room hearing loads of ‘hey!’ being shouted back.

        “Would you leave him on the streets if you’d known he was a dude?”

        “No, of course not!” 

        “Why are we yelling?”

        “I don’t know!”

        “I mean, I can leave.” Harry Styles said pointing at the door, not really knowing what to do. He certainly hadn’t expected that sort of greeting. “But I do come bearing gifts.” He lifted a black bag where a clinking of glass could be heard.    

        “No,” she sighed.  “It’s fine... I just… I just miss the company of vaginas.”

        He raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Vaginas?”

        “People I can rant to. Honestly, it doesn’t even matter if you have a vagina, as long as we can have a good rant. Especially about the gross things like having all of your dirty socks thrown around the house.” She threw Luke a look that screamed ‘I know you pushed all of them under your bed, and it’s stinking up the whole place.’

        Harry shook his head. “Ya not gonna find me leaving my clothes like that. Besides, ‘s disgusting.”

        “No,” Luke whined, “come on, man! You’re supposed to be on our side!”

        “It’s two against four,” Harry snickered, throwing his hand around Y/N’s shoulder, who gave Luke a smug grin, and it made her mimic the same expression.

        “It’s evening out. Maybe you should actually invite some other people to quarantine with us. Say, Harry, is maybe Niall in need of a place to stay?”

        Luke rolled his eyes, and shook his head, going into the kitchen and placing the food bags he’d been holding. “I hate you so much.”

        Y/N’s smile just widened.         

        ***

        “Yes, I’m still stealing your series Irishman.” Y/N zoomed in on her face. “Because now…” she looked up at the ceiling in a manner ‘someone please save me’, “I’m living with FIVE dudes. Yes, FIVE. We have an addition. And if someone doesn’t come and kill me, I will kill them.”

        “We’re not that bad!” Michael hollered form out of frame, to which Y/N yelled back, “Yes the fuck you are! Boys are gross. You do realize you’re allowed to have more than one towel. Like you DON’T have to wipe your face with a towel that’s soaked up your ball juice.”

        “It’s economy.”

        “It’s disgusting! Also.” Y/N turned the camera to Harry who was climbing up the stairs with a cup of coffee in hand. “Say ‘Hi’ to gremlin number five. He’s stolen all of my nail polish.”

        He gave a cute wave with an adorable smile, muttering an unintelligible ‘Hello’ as his mouth was stuffed with a piece of bread and a very muffled ‘You don’t even use them.’

        “Yes, but that’s not the point. Anyway,” Y/N pointed the camera at herself. “Tune in for an update whenever, as long as I haven’t strangled anyone, and pray to the heavens you don’t see my face in the papers cause the next time you do, it’ll be my mugshot for a quintuple homicide.”

        “Is that a threat Y/L/N?” Harry smirked, as Y/N walked past him and took away his cup of coffee.

        “No, it’s a promise.” She threw him a wink, leaving the Brit with his mouth open at the woman’s audacity, as she stopped the recording of the TikTok.

        “That was my coffee!”

        “Not anymore!”

        He shook his head, turning back around and going to the kitchen, seeing Y/N perched on one of the stools, neck stretching over to where Ashton was watching a video on his phone, the black liquid in his cup now a creamy beige. Harry smiled. Maybe quarantine wasn’t going to be so bad.

***

        Y/N’s head popped from the side of the door, bringing all of their attention to her. “You guys need to record anything right now?”

        Luke shook his head, signifying the band was alright before turning to Harry who mimicked him, the tapping of his pen stopping. “Why?”

        “Just got a call from Laurence, he said something’s wrong with the ‘Candy Store’ audio from yesterday. Need to rerecord it and send it over. Something about a faulty export or whatever.”

        “ ‘S all yours.” Ashton motioned to the recording booth. “Oh, but can I be Heather Duke?”

        “And can I be Heather McNamara then?” Luke piped in.

        Y/N chuckled. “Not to burst your bubbles, but you do know you won’t be in the final version?”

        “No, but we could be in THIS version. It’d be for our private files. And it’d help you.”

        “That sounds so wrong.” She grimaced. “How would that help me?” Y/N plopped next to Harry on the floor. “You’re the biggest distractions I’ve ever met.”

        Luke scoffed. “How dare you! We offer you our services of being backup singers, and you… you’re such a meanie. You’re such a Heather Chandler!”

        “It’s 2020! If Leslie Odom Jr. can play Aaron Burr, then I can play one of the Heathers! Don’t be sexist, Y/N!”

        “I never said a dude can’t play a Heather, don’t put words in my mouth. I just said last time we tried to record anything together we ended up playing SIMS for like seven hours, but… come on you two divas, get your asses inside then. But I swear if Laurence or Kevin call because one of you whispered something dirty in the background of MY parts, I will strangle you in your sleep.”

        “How little trust do you have in us?”

        “Very,” Y/N deadpanned, showing the two men inside, leaving Calum, Harry and Michael to man the production table. “If you mess with anything, your asses will be grass.” She pointed at the three and all of them put their hands up in surrender. “ ‘S bad enough you ruined my single.”

        “It’s called giving it flavour,” Calum said through the microphone.

        Y/N just responded by sticking her tongue out.

        Michael lifted his fingers, counting down from five to one, giving her the cue to start.

        “Are we gonna have a problem?” Y/N cocked her head to the side, already immersed in the character of Heather Chandler. “You’ve got a bone to pick? You’ve come so far, why now are you pulling on my dick?”

        Harry swallowed hard. 

        “I’d normally slap your face off, and everyone here could watch,” she slightly motioned with her head to the audience behind the screen, a mockingly sweet smile on her lips. “But I’m feeling nice, here’s some advice, listen up biatch.”

        When her hips started moving from side to side to the rhythm of the song, Harry swore he’d never found someone being mean (even though it was mock mean) so hot.

        “I like,” Y/N raised her voice before dropping it. “Looking hot, buying stuff they cannot.”

        There was no sight of the sweet and bubbly girl Harry had met. This was Queen-B of Westerberg High in flesh. He was transfixed. 

“I like drinking hard, maxing dad’s credit card.”

She didn’t need anyone’s credit card to pay for her things, given how she was one of the top paid Broadway singers of their generation, and something in Harry skipped a beat at how confident she looked.

        “I like skipping gym, scaring her, screwing him,” Y/N rolled the ‘r’ deeply in her throat, and he had to collect himself before his thoughts went to an unsavoury place.

        “I like, killer clothes, kicking nerds in the nose!” With a smile, Y/N pointed at Luke who only rolled his eyes. “If you lack the balls, you can go play dolls, let yer mammy fix you a snack,” she emphasised the ‘K’ after having mockingly sung the bit before. “Or you could come smoke, pound some rum and coke, in ma Porche with the quarterback.”

        As weird as it was to have the two boys be her fellow Heathers, Y/N hated to admit it did help her. It reminded her more of what it was like to be on stage before the pandemic had started and the production had to be shut down. And she missed them. All her fellow actors just as much as she missed the rush of getting on stage and losing herself in the role and atmosphere. 

        “You can join the team –“

        “Or you can bitch and moan,” Y/N’s ‘Heathers’ sang in a nasally voice

        “You can live the dream.”

        “Or you can die alone.” 

        Harry snuck inside the recording booth, picking up a pair of headphones by the drum set.

        “You can fly with eagles,”

“Or if you’d prefer,”

        “Keep on testing me,”

        “And end up like her!”

        And that’s when Harry joined in, reciting the lines of both Veronica and Martha, and when he saw Y/N keeping a palm over her mouth as she tried to keep a mean face while inevitably hiding a smile. The whole of the song, despite how Ashton, Luke and Harry had tried to make Y/N break character (she came close a couple of times), the woman stayed on the line, not missing a beat, and especially enjoying the moment where she looked at Luke, who was about to hit the high note and screaming ‘shut up, Heather!’

        Harry couldn’t help the smile splitting apart his face. When Luke had first picked up his call, having known he and the gang were somewhere in the Utah region, he had thought he’d be living with just the guys, and when he found out it was actually Y/N Y/L/N renting the cabin, the girl he’d admired for so long for how brave and utterly unapologetic she was of being herself, Harry had just thought he’d gain a new friend, not have romantic feelings spring up.

        And all of it had happened in the span of two days, not even that much. He’d arrived the evening before, had met the woman, and now it was three PM on day two and was already in love. 

        It was an exhilarating and terrifying feeling all at once. Some studies said it takes men eight seconds to fall in love, which Harry now could pretty much confirm, while it takes women generally fifteen days to fall in love. And he could only hope Y/N might have some feelings for him as well, otherwise, he’d have to scold his heart for falling quickly once again. 

***

        It was the middle of the night, wind slamming against the windows when Harry got awoken by people talking behind his door. At first, he was ready to fight, thinking immediately that intruders had come into the house, but when he heard a ‘fuck off Michael’ and a ‘you fuck off, you’re gonna ruin this’, he understood everything was fine. And he was just about to lay back down on the soft pillows, but as the saying went – curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, so he threw off the covers and lightly went to the door, where a bleary Harry appeared on the stairs making Y/N and Michael whip their heads towards him and freeze on the spot. 

        “What are you two do-“ but he didn’t get to finish the question as the two co-conspirators shushed him.

        “You’re either in,” Y/N whispered harshly, “or out. Choose Styles.”

        A beat. “What kind of trouble’re we getting’ into?”

        The smile which spread on her face was nothing short of wicked. “Revenge,” Y/N hissed.

        “Be quieter than a mouse,” she whispered to him, and now the trio moved downstairs.

        “Who are we getting revenge on?” Harry spoke as quietly as he could, as they rounded the corner and exited the cabin through the back door. It was colder than he thought, seeing how the wind wasn’t warm at all, and he was grateful he’d fallen asleep in his favourite rainbow cardigan. How Y/N and Michael didn’t even shiver in their barely-there pyjamas he didn’t understand. 

        “See, Luke here thought it was a good idea to not heed my warning about not messing with my recording.”

        Harry’s eyebrows scrunched up. “He didn’t.” He knew Luke hadn’t, he was there the whole time and listened back to what they’d sung with everyone together.

        “No, but he did rename a different file with the same name I had for the 'Heathers'' recording, on MY computer, mind you. And well, let’s just say, it was not what anyone wanted to hear.”

        Harry had to swallow, as his mind went to unsavoury places, and as Y/N shimmied open the lock of the window to the studio bathroom part of the house, she looked over her shoulder to see his expression. It would seem, despite him being in ‘Dunkirk’ and having been confirmed to play Eric in the live-action ‘The Little Mermaid’ he wasn’t as good of an actor as he thought.

        “Get your mind out of the gutter,” she snickered and pulled herself inside the house through the window, Michael handing her a black duffle bag Harry hadn’t first noticed. “It was a conversation I had with my friends while we were all drunk. Some tea, some very personal tea was spilt, and so.” She unzipped the bag slowly and took out a whipped cream can. “I’m going to spill something else.”

        Canned cheese was one of the most disgusting things ever created by a human in Y/N’s opinion. So, squeezing nine cans worth of the stuff inside all of Luke’s socks, jean pockets and everywhere else possible was good enough revenge for her.

        “Why are we in the studio though?” Harry asked as the trio crept towards the bathroom door and peeked through the open sliver. It was pitch black. 

        “Because Luke teds to forget his favourite things here,” Michael explained and motioned for them to follow as he checked that the hallway was clear. It was go-time. 

        Together they all snuck back inside the recording studio, and much like Michael had said – Luke’s favourite jean jacket, a woollen jumper, three pairs of boots and shoes were all scattered around the place. He hadn’t even noticed it while they’d hung out there, but now Harry understood what Y/N was talking about while whining about the boys being messy.

        She uncapped the can and squeezed, the artificial smell of cheese wafting through the air, making her almost gag. “That’s for being a bad friend,” she muttered while filling up one shoe. “That’s for making bad jokes.” She filled up another. “And that’s for saying ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ is an overrated song.’

        It was hard for Harry to contain the giggles, as he uncapped his own can and started filling up wherever Y/N pointed to. Did he feel bad? Sure. But was it fun to feel like a teenager in a university dorm during a prank war? Abso-fucking-lutely. And it didn’t help that he was desperately falling in love with Y/N with every second they spent together. Like she could’ve asked him to hide Luke’s corpse, and he’d say he’d take the blame for the murder if it came to it.

        “Why did we have to sneak around the place like that?” he suddenly asked, brows furrowing in concentration as he squeezed the smelly contents inside the inside pocket of the jacket. “Why couldn’t we have just walked through the house?”

        “Because Luke always and I mean always comes to the studio at 3 AM,” Y/N stated. 

        Harry looked at the clock. It was 2:45 AM already. 

        “But before that, he goes into the kitchen, makes himself a double espresso, a sandwich and eats it before going into the storage where we keep all of the instruments, which is where he is in right now. Had we snuck through the normal way, he would’ve seen us and stopped this. And that just wouldn’t fly.”

       However, it was like Luke had a sixth sense as right at that moment the light flipped on, and like deer in headlights, the trio’s heads shot up and eyes widened.

        “What the fuck!” he whispered hand extended in the direction of the already six empty cans on the floor.

        Y/N snapped out of the adrenaline induced frozen state and shrugged. “I told you not to mess with the recording.” She put her finger back on the squeezable part. “And you. Didn’t. Listen.”

        The cheese squirted out with a splutter, and all of them stood still as the final bits dropped into Luke’s black boot. “And that’s payback.”

        With a sway in her hips, Y/N exited the room, leaving the three men to gawk after her. 

God was she a hurricane, Harry thought to himself. And he’d never been as happy to be caught right in the eye of it all.

***

        The next few days all of them spent lounging around the house, recording a few songs, most of them by Harry seeing as a huge wave of inspiration had hit him, making him write more than one love song. He even asked Y/N somewhat shyly if she could do some of the backing vocals, and he swore the song went from a 3 to a 100 the second he heard her voice weave his lyrics into a symphony. 

        By that point, they’d been quarantining for a week and a half together, and a heatwave was coming up. The cabin had both an inside and outside pool which they’d all had to learn how to maintain, seeing as no one could come and do it for them, and a jacuzzi tub on the terrace. As much as the boys tried to prove they knew how to keep the places clean, ultimately it was Y/N who saved all of them from chlorine poisoning and algae overgrowth. 

        So, it was right when she pulled out the pH indicator and said it was good for use when with a scream, Luke rushed forward Y/N, rugby tackling her by the waist and plunged both of them down to the water below. 

        “You asshole!” She splashed at him, laughing and choking out a bit of water as they resurfaced. “What the fuck is wrong with you!”

        “That’s payback for the cheese.”

        She went silent for a second, but then shrugged. “Can’t say I didn’t deserve it. But you did deserve the cheese.”

        “So,” Luke extended his hand for a shake. “Do we call this even?”

        Harry exited the cabin right as both of them completely soaked to the bone jumped out onto the wood floor. He stopped mid-walk if only to control where his eyes went seeing as Y/N’s white shirt clung to her body and well… didn’t leave much for the imagination anymore.

        “Do I wanna know what happened here?” He raised a brow.

        “Retribution.”

        “Though I do gotta say, you have a funny way of getting revenge.” Y/N smirked at  Luke, making him squint down at the girl. 

        “What do you mean?”

        “I mean,” she drawled out, a mischievous smile on her lips, “that when I filled your clothes with the cheese, my stuff didn’t get stinky. And yet, from your end… I’m not the only one wet.”

        A beat passed.

        “God fucking damn it.”

        “Hey!” She pointed a finger at him. “We called a truce!”

        Luke waved her off. “Yeah yeah, whatever,” but Y/N grabbed Luke’s hand right before he went inside and squeezed it. 

“We good?”

        He sighed and smiled. “We good, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, gave Harry a quick ‘see ya later’ as well and disappeared through the glass doors. 

        Harry didn’t know what’d happened to him. He’d always been a helpless romantic, falling in love, and maybe a bit too hard at that, but this time, even without Y/N knowing about his feelings, his heart felt safe. 

        Sure, the side of her he’d seen was a complete headcase, and she had more energy than a bull with a red flag in front of it, but the utter love exuding from the woman, even while she complained about her four, well five counting him, housemates was palpable in the air. The way she hugged and made sure everyone had whatever they needed, the way she let them know if anyone needed to have a chat, she’d be there to listen, and the small little things of how she always knew what preferences they’d have for their pancakes or breakfast in general, made his heart melt. 

        “Luke’s a lucky guy.” Harry swallowed before saying that. As much as seeing Y/N be affectionate with everyone, him included, made him feel all fuzzy, a little jealousy monster did bubble up in his stomach when he saw her snuggled next to the lead vocalist of the band. He didn’t have any right to, but no matter how much he tried to repress the green beast, it still lurked somewhere deep in his heart.

        “Hm?” Y/N lifted her head where she’d been looking at the water as she squeezed it out of her shirt and up at Harry.

        He motioned with his chin to where Luke had disappeared. “He’s a lucky guy to have someone like you.”

        “Oh, we’re not together if that’s what you’re implying.”

        “I –“ he stammered. “I didn’t mean to offend y-“

        But Y/N waved him off. “You’re not the first nor probably the last person to say that. I get it. They asked me one time to surprise their fans at a concert in Connecticut, I think, and when their photographer sent over the pictures, I kinda saw what everyone kept saying, but I’ve never looked at any of them as more than a friend. Best friends, brothers maybe, but nothing more.”

        “How’d ya get so close?” Harry enquired, his chest feeling a bit lighter.

        Y/N huffed and plopped down to the ground, patting the place beside her which Harry took. “When I first went solo, right after being on ‘Beetlejuice’ I was fucking terrified. Didn’t really know anyone in the music industry like that. Being on Broadway’s different.” She shrugged. “And the award shows are different as well. Like with ‘Tony’s’ or ‘Oliver’ awards it’s you know – musical and theatre geeks. My people. But the first time I went to VMAs I almost shat myself.” She chuckled, and Harry did the same. “Didn’t know anyone at all, was petrified to even find my seat because someone told me I’d have to sit between Lady Gaga and Rihanna, and my heart was not ready for that. Ashton saw me at the edge of the carpet, creeping around the entrance and kinda…” Y/N bit her lip looking for the right words. “I dunno. They kinda took me under their wing, in a sense – if you need a friend in the industry, we’re here, that sort of thing. And ever since then, we’ve been best friends. Luke and I just got the closest because we got stuck in an elevator once for like eight hours once, and well, boredom and thinking you’re gonna die in a four by four-foot box brings people closer.”

        Harry almost choked. “Eight hours?”

        “Yep.” Y/N popped the ‘p’ and gave him a sarcastic smile. “It was like soooo much fun,” she said sarcastically.  “I totally didn’t think the elevator was about to drop from where we were up on like the sixtieth floor, and both of us were gonna get our bones smashed to pieces, and I only had two protein bars, and you know how I get without food,” she stated. He nodded.

        “Cranky.”

        “Exactly. But.” Y/N chuckled. “We didn’t die. Which’s great, not complaining, and I gained one of my all-time best friends.”

        “Well, I’m glad you didn’t die.” Harry gave her a warm smile and nudged her foot with his. “Wouldn’t have gotten the chance to meet you otherwise.”

        She nudged his foot back. “ ‘M glad I didn’t die either. And I gotta say – you’ve made this whole quarantine bearable. Sometimes it’s like fighting with four toddlers, and that’s always a futile battle. Happy to have another wrangler with me. Also an accessory to my crimes.”

        He inched his hand towards hers, and when Y/N didn’t pull away instead liked her pinkie with his, a warm feeling rushed through him.

        “Happy to be of help.”

***

It was two nights later or full two weeks since the six of them had been together when things took a turn. 

Y/N’d always been a light sleeper, especially when her life was mainly placed in New York, but now, living in the middle of nowhere, she’d been able to catch up on some sleep. That was when the sound of her door being opened made Y/N shot up in her bed, sheets clutched at her chest in a panic. “What? What’s wrong? What did Calum set on fire?”

        “Nothing.” Harry’s eyebrows scrunched up, but he decided not to ask. There was the morning for that. “This might seem weird, but could I uh could I possibly sleep in your room?”

        She blinked a couple of times, because her brain was still processing his words and if they were even English, but once they registered, Y/N nodded, pulling back her blanket and scooting over. “C’mere.”

        “Again, I’m sorr-“

        Y/N shushed him, as Harry climbed in the bed, placing the duvet underneath his arm and twisting to see her, as she mumbled, “less talk, more sleep.”

        He hummed in agreement. His eyes were heavy, in fact, they’d become heavy the instant his head had hit Y/N’s pillow, but it was like his heart, the same poor heart that’d had to deal with the newfound emotions for the whole time he’d been there, the same poor heart that didn’t know better and always gave itself away to the person it deemed to be worthy, no matter if in the end it ended up broken, took over the control of his eyes and mouth, and while slamming against Harry’s ribcage, he whispered his confession. 

        “I really like you… As more than a friend.”

        A second passed. He felt Y/N stir as she turned towards him, brow furrowed. “Sorry?”

        “I said…” He let out a shaky exhale. “I like you. I fell for you pretty much the second I entered the house and you threatened to throw me out because I was a guy. And then I fell for you when I saw you let loose in the studio. And then once more when I witnessed what your wrath entails.”

        Y/N chuckled. “Cheese.”

        “Yeah…” He let out a little laugh. “Cheese.”

        A gentle palm went to brush away the hair stuck to Y/N’s face and he swore he could just melt as she leaned into his touch. “And then I fell for you when you said yes to singing my song��� when you sang the lyrics, I dedicated to you… and every second I fall for you even more… I just… I thought you should know…”

        “Well, I can only hope that you’ll take this as a compliment then, when I say I kinda like you too, Styles,” she mumbled snuggling deeper into her pillow. “Though I didn’t think I was your type.”

        “What’s my type then?” he mumbled back, letting his arms wrap around Y/N’s waist when she shuffled closer. Not only was he now fully in heaven because he was covered by the softest duvet in the world, head resting against a literal cloud, but also because his nostrils were invaded by the gentlest of smells, and the body against his was the warmest of comforts. 

        “Well, not girls like me.”

        “You mean talented, beyond funny and absolutely breath-taking?”

        “Introverted, house hermits who don’t wash their hair unless they have to go somewhere with a perchance of self-destructive behaviour. Unintentional that is.”

        Harry’s eyebrows lifted. “Would’ve never taken you for an introvert.”

        “Mmmh,” Y/N sighed, feeling his fingers skim her skin. “That’s because I’ve known those guys for years, and they’re like my brothers. Couldn’t be uncomfortable even if I tried with them. We’ve seen too much of each other. But I’m definitely an introvert. Almost had a panic attack the first time I had to make my own doctor’s appointment.”

        “You didn’t seem shy with me.”

        “That’s because for some weird reason I… I didn’t feel awkward around you. And I mean, you did bring wine.”

        She could feel Harry’s chest rumble as he laughed. “Well, I hope it helped with inspiration.”

        “Ugh, don’t remind me,” she huffed, but opened her bleary eyes and were met by Harry’s green already staring back. She couldn’t contain the giggle, and it only grew in power as he chuckled himself, making her bury her head in his chest.

        “What?”

        “Nothing,” she shook her head. “Just never thought I’d date someone from 1D.”

        “Are we below you or something?” There was no trace of malice and hurt in his voice. He knew Y/N wasn’t like that.

        “No, ‘s just my boy band phase was ‘Good Charlotte’, ‘Panic at the D!sco,’ ‘My Chem’ and the sort.”

        “So, you weren’t fainting while listening to ‘You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful’?” Harry mumbled in Y/N’s hair, sleep slowly overtaking him.

        She shook her head. “Sorry, no. Panties definitely weren’t dropping then.”

        “Are they now?”

        “According to ‘Watermelon Sugar’ you’re the one pulling all of ‘em off.”

        “Damn. Guess it’ll have to be my new challenge.”

        Y/N’s eyebrows scrunched up as she looked at him before promptly falling asleep. “Making my panties drop?”

        “Yep. But this time because of me, not Gerard Way.”

        “Bold of you to assume it was just Gerard Way. I’m a slut for all of those wizard dads.”

        By the time she slurred out the last sentence both of them had drifted off into a peaceful slumber.

***

        “They were right!” Harry shouted jumping up in the bed, startling Y/N awake once more as if something was breaking down on their heads with how urgently he jolted. “It does take women two weeks to fall in love and men 8 seconds.”

        A pillow met his face. “Fall back asleep.” 

        He leaned over her still horizontal form, a smug smile on his face. “Are you gonna make a TikTok about it?”

        “Probably ‘bout how I murdered the boyfriend I was with for three hours if he doesn’t let me sleep.”

        He didn’t argue. With a smile on his face, Harry drifted off once more. Who knew that getting stuck in a hotel somewhere in Utah would lead him to the love of his life? 

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A/N: So... I know I’ve been gone for quite a while, but that’s because I have a job now (I’m trying to get a different one that actually would involve my degree, because this one is absolutely killing me), so please be understanding with the spare posting. I still love writing fics, and as evident, I’m kina branching out into other fandoms :D

There’s a lot of things going on in my life, so if you wanna follow me you can do that on Instagram @dinnusa or @read_with_dee or on my blog dinnusa.wordpress.com :) I also have a TikTok @dinmasters

P.S. feedback is always appreciated :)

P.S.S. If you wanna be tagged please drop a message :) or if you want to be removed/ changed to a different tag list please also message me :)

[ofdreamsanddoodles]

i feel like some people don’t recognize how much isolation plays into the fate’s of gertrude’s assistants, especially her manipulation of gerry & leitner. like, the obvious ones is just if sarah or fiona had someone else to watch their back, they might not’ve have fallen victim to the avatars that killed/trapped them, but if michael felt like he could depend on literally anyone other than gertrude and emma, he probably wouldn’t of had the kind of single-minded loyalty that led him to stopping the spiral’s ritual. it’s only because he’d spent decades placing gertrude and emma’s interpretations of events above his own that she was able to convince him to move forward when the distortion’s ritual was actively breaking his mind. if he had anyone encourage him to trust his own thoughts, he would have tried pushing back, or arguing when gertrude asked him to destroy himself for her. but because the archives had convinced him so thoroughly that all he should do was whatever gertrude thought was right, that’s what he did.

anyways. with that out of the way. let’s talk about the 5D chess gertrude was playing with gerry and leitner and how she used gerry’s hatred of leitner & leitners fear of repercussions to stop them from asking questions

it’s not that much of a reach to assume that they both probably felt they owed gertrude. leitner for letting him hide out in her archives, and gerry for killing his mom. at the end of the day, even if they wanted to go against her, it’d feel like a slap in the face to the “hospitality” she was showing them. even if gertrude had known about gerry for years and had only killed mary now that she was lacking assistants, even if she reminded him of his mom, she was still someone who promised him freedom and gave him purpose when he didn’t have one. (note: this is not a good thing. but gerry had mainly been destroying leitner’s to stop his mom from getting them, which means he has less of a reason to continue now that she’s dead) also, we have no idea how long leitner’s been in those tunnels (please correct me if he mentions it at some point) which means he could have gone over a decade with no one but her to talk to. if gertrude’s behavior is a red flag, it’s unlikely either of them would have really noticed what for, because they just... aren’t around a lot of people. i’m sure they both knew that she was using them, because this is gertrude, but that didn’t mean they felt her behavior was bad enough to warrant leaving.

and if either of them knew the other was working with gertrude, that would change in an instant. if leitner thinks gerry hurt him because gerry was a random person with a vendetta against him, he’s more likely to stay in the tunnels because it’s a safe place literally no one knows about, meaning he’ll be there to help when gertrude tries to burn down the institute, and be a source of information for the next archivist if they fail. it means she can continue to press him for details about the different leitner’s he’s used in order for her (and gerry) to see if anyone’s found them and then use that to their advantage. and, because some random 30 y/o just started beating him up out of the blue, leitner’s not going to be thinking about gertrudes actions because he’ll be too busy worrying if that goth he met is going to come back and kill him. which means that if he finds out gerry was only in the archives because gertrude invited him, leitner’s not going to stay. gerry hates him, and he knows where he lives. that means both gertrude & the tunnels are unsafe, so he needs to find somewhere else to live

and gerry’s the same way! in his statement, he admits to jon he was too distracted thinking about revenge on leitner to really question gertrude, which meant she could convince gerry to strengthen his relationship to the eye without him realizing that all this is just insurance to ensure he’s strong enough to stop the unknowing for her. (or, you know, she could trap him in the skinbook once again providing a resource for the future archivist where elias wouldn’t be watching.) gerry says he noticed that gertrude had a “weird look in her eye” when she talked about the two of them going back to london together, but doesn’t say much about it other than “gertrude doesn’t tell jokes.” yes, she’s doing things that are suspicious, but he has cancer, and there’s other things on his mind. it’s easy for him to brush off any weirdness as something to deal with for later, but it’s unlikely he would have gone to america in the first place if he knew gertrude was working with jurgen fucking leitner.

but if leitner and gerry did realize they were both working for gertrude and actually like, talked about it, they’d learn gertrude wanted to use them for completely different reasons. gerry was told that gertrude had a plan for the dark. as far as we know, leitner was that plan. elias assumes that gertrude had a back-up in case the ritual did work, but even if she didn’t, it gives gerry one very important question: why the hell should he be spending so much time saving the world from a ritual that might not even work? sure, he might still have gone with gertrude if he knew she was suspicious about the rituals being doomed to fail, but i’m guessing that after a point of dealing with his increasingly poor health, he’s going to say “fuck it, this doesn’t matter, i’m going to go to a doctor.” the tragedy of tma is that there’s a hundred ways i could think of to save gerry, and every character mentioned, but none of that could happen in canon because they all require other people

in his statement, eric accuses gertrude of keeping him in the dark to make sure he doesn’t stop being useful, and that’s a fate he mostly avoids thanks to his proximity to mary. even though he dies, eric gets out of the archives because he has someone to validate his experience of how fucking weird everything is, which is probably one of the things that convinces him to quit. i could write so much about why eric choses to stay with mary, but the reality is, he doesn’t have another option. no one who comes to the archives has anyone they can count on, which is why they’re constantly forced to make the choice between the lesser of two evils--like his choice between gertrude or mary. eric wants to choose gerry, and it a better world, he would have, but spending so long immersed in archive-typical entity drama, his only option is to choose the one he thinks can offer him (and gerry!) the best protection.

from what we’ve seen of the interactions between them, gertrude’s brushed aside leitner’s concerns with using one of his books despite the fact it was giving him like, actually harming him, yells at gerry for forgetting something (which, you know, is a symptom of both brain cancer and abuse) immediately following that up with the abuser tactic of “i’m doing this because i care,” then mocks him for asking about passageways in the institute when she knows the tunnels exist. and despite all that, they still stay with her because she’s the closest thing they have to safety. no matter how intentional it was, gertrude spent her time as archivist constantly surrounding herself with people who had no choice but to depend on her, something that almost always led to their doom

[red-hood-vigilante]

hbo spn storylines, drabbles, ideas, thoughts, wishlist, whatever you may call it. it’s messy, nothing makes sense and pretty sure a lot of these contradict each other

more of sam at stanford with jessica/flashbacks. jessica potentially lives but is revealed to be a demon (but she developed actual feelings for sam and really did come to care for him because a demon falling in love with a human would be SO interesting) OR she lives but her memory gets wiped like dean did to lisa OR she dies like she did but she is a ghost that haunts sam (he welcomes it but eventually he lets her go -> character arc). he still dreams about her though and he has her keepsakes with him wherever he goes, her rings, her favourite book, anything that was left of her from the fire

you have to be extremely careful when making deals with demons because they are cunning and evil creatures. they will follow the rules of the deal but will find loopholes to put some sadistic twist on the terms. you want money? of course, too bad you’ll be arrested for fraud before you can use any of it and spend the next ten years in jail before i drag you to hell. you want a perfect husband? sure he’ll love you. in fact, he’ll love you so much he’ll keep you locked up in the basement to keep you safe etc etc. saving a person often becomes the person that causes or leads to your death.

the creation of jack: after s5, when lucifer is trapped in the cage again lucifer fuses his own soul with a human soul to create jack, who escapes to earth to find sam and castiel. i have a longer post about this saved in my drafts

lucifer is trapped for good in the cage after s5 but if he was to return again, dean would kill him while sam would kill michael - this would be nice parallels and a sort of fulfillment of the “one brother must kill the other” prophecy because one brother DO kill another brother, just not their own

more azazel and how he came to the plan of how to free lucifer; opening a hell gate earlier, more experimentations with the demon blood etc

mary was infected with the blood when she was a baby, sam is the first and only second generation special child (longer post about that here)

personally, i want to see more and know more about john and mary’s relationship. when mary died, john and mary had fulfilled their destiny (having sam and dean) so does that mean that his love and dedication to mary post her death was falsely fabricated by the angels to ensure sam and dean would grow up in ideal conditions to become hunters? or maybe, after mary’s death, john wakes up from the spell with two kids he doesn’t recognize and a wife he thinks he loved, but the memories of the past years of his life are like a fever dream; he never wanted to live in a town like this nor was he interested in having kids? but here the house is, and here are his kids, but now he’s alone and empty and with no answers. (idk i just find john and mary and their relationship very fascinating) if the latter, if john and mary see each other again it’s like the spell activates again and they become blindly in love with each other, but once gone, they return to their confused and hazey state of mind, like just woken up from a coma

i do like mary coming back but i love how in s5 when she wasn’t found in heaven it was hinted that she was just discarded because she had fulfilled her “purpose” and i think this adds to the whole notion of how heaven and angels can be really cruel AND how mary is this mythical, religious figure to both sam and dean and we only get to know her through their lenses, like religion and faith

ruby is present for a longer amount of time to make the reveal even more shocking. at one point or another, dean does actually trust her and they all work together on cases for a while. ruby’s backstory as a witch is more explored. i like her death in s4 because she’s in this total state of euphoria and has achieved a goal only she was entrusted with, and she is so convinced sam will understand, until sam holds her down while dean carves her heart out. so we either keep that or she serves lucifer for a while (until he kills her which she is happy about because of her blind loyalty to him, could again mirror dean and john/castiel and heaven) or she serves lucifer and like crowley she realizes lucifer will kill demons after humans (redemption arc, but i don’t really like that, let her be evil!!)

dean and sam helps bela out of her deal and she becomes their go-to person when they need a magic item or book. she doesn’t like it but she owes them. regularly hooks up with jo.

angels are really hollow soldiers - they only follow orders and don’t understand the concept free will or choice or individuality at all. they are extremely righteous and strike without warning often on a whim, often very bloody (explosions a la castiel in swan song). if something fall into what they consider justice they will kill it. no concept of love, attraction or gender. real form can’t be perceived by humans unless they want them to, which leads to eyes melting (pamela) or breaking a person’s mind (in 5.16 zachariah actually says that sam and dean sees him in his vessel bc they’re ‘limited’. so.)

castiel, anna, maybe uriel and some others are exceptions to this, but only becomes so after longer exposure to human’s world. even then, they don’t change their violent whims, just the reasoning and where their loyalty lies

hbo spn is s1-5 stretched out for 8-10 seasons with the aesthetics of s1-2. i’m cutting out demon dean, purgatory, the mark of cain, the men of letters, the alphas, leviathatan, god being the real villain all along and the other worlds because it was just too much and far remived from the roadtrip aesthetic. keeping kevin, charlie (she is introduced via ash bc they’re hacker friends), the trials, rowena, uuuh the angels falling is such an interesting concept but idk if it would fit. maybe metatron? but his motivations are different. soullessness + the concept of souls might be kept if it’s explained better. i’m torn on whether or not to include the campbells

hell, heaven and purgatory are explained but only seen in glimpses, keep these ideas ambiguous and up to interpretation outside of what we hear. remember the line ‘hell is...well, it’s like hell. even for demons’? leave it at that. the exception is 5.16 bc that episode fucks so hard

if we end on swan song and let the show be the tragedy it is, i want to keep the ambiguous ending. is that sam or lucifer? if it’s sam, will he contact dean or walk away? we will never know! there is also no ‘the world is ending’ more than once, it really lost its impact after the second or third time.

idk how i feel about the men of letters - it is logical that there would be organized hunting and an established network and system on how to do things, but for the sake of keeping it hbo-style and grounded, there are no networks beyond the roadhouse and singer’s salvage yard.

i want sam and dean not have a permanent home except the impala, motels and impala ONLY. the bunker had potential but it was just for the sake of convenience it was there with all the lore and answers they needed when it was necessary. maybe eventually they do stop travelling so much when it becomes more about the Big Stuff instead of the episodic cases that requires driving all the time but it will be like an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. i want sam and dean to never have a physical house as a home but they scrape together whatever they have make something similar to a show

as the show progresses, sam and dean become pretty hated by other hunters because they’ve started apocalypse and have an increasingly shitty reputation. and john was an infamous good hunter but also a dick. everybody knows that people who work with the winchesters often end up dead, that one brother will sacrifice anything and anyone to save the other and that they frequently work alongside demons. even the ones they DO work with (jo, ellen, bobby, rufus, bela) are hesitant to be involved with them

sam’s powers are strong but after killing lilith and the truth revealed to him, he represses the powers in shock and fear of how blinded he was by them and the rush of power they gave him. a little more about how sam fears what the lust for power and strength did to him. he continues to repress his powers, often to a dangerous point where he will be on death’s door as a result of not using them. when meeting jack and mentoring him in using his powers, jack asks him about sam’s powers after sensing them. sam eventually decides to lead by example and embraces his powers again, but remains extremely careful about using them (this also fulfills dean’s arc of having to let go of the holy-innocent-pure-ideal-not a person but an idealized version of sam-little brother sam he has put on a pedestal for so long)

bobby is viewed as a father figure by sam and dean but bobby makes it clear he doesn’t want that burden or relationship in his life after his wife died. he makes this clear to them too, but sam and dean have fucked up perceptions of parental figures so they don’t think bobby means it (they just latch on to whatever parental figures they can find)

we see more of sam’s relationship with the side characters; sam and jo hunt together on occasion, he hangs out with ash and talks hacking when visiting the roadhouse. he and ellen loves playing poker together. if anything, dean is the one who’s isolated - he only ever really cared about mary, john, sam and cassie, and never really had any friends. sam is way more well adjusted and sociable after spending time at stanford where he’s had conversations that didn’t only revolve around dead bodies and lore. 

this could also feed into dean’s extreme abandonment issues and isolation he feels and how this would affect his psyche

sam and dean are both unknowingly prepared to become the perfect vessels; sam loses his humanity by becoming more and more like lucifer (defying his father and his will) while dean becomes prepared by doing what michael did; casting his brother away in his time of need (blindly following his father and his will). very much like in s4 but even more intense and brutal (i love angst :))

we see different hybrids; demon/human (antichrist), human/(arch)angel (nephilim) and demon/angel (???), but none of them are all powerful bc narratively that’s really boring. they’re strong but have very specific powers that affects them and/or their surroundings in catastrophic ways (but no other worlds bs, we stick to the road trip aesthetic, keep it grounded). i want the only all powerful character to be god but he doesn’t show up at all, he’s the ultimate absent father. is it chuck? we never find out!

powers would for example include giving people diseases, force anyone close to them to tell the truth (not consciously, it’s just the air around them), read minds, create storms, light things on fire when they’re angry, make people hallucinate etc. like fucked up shit but not things that are too grande because again - that’s really boring

abbadon, the princes of hell and the four horsemen are more fleshed out villains instead of the one season reign the each had. 

being a prince of hell is a title that is inherited - after azazel dies, sam gets the title because he is the one with azazel’s blood in him OR meg does, but idk if that would be as interesting (if she actually was his daughter)

it remains a horror show throughout, lots of gore and blood

the moral code and ethics of the brothers are the opposite of the beginning; dean thinks in black and white, sam sees shades of grey and individuals instead of what they are. however, as the show progresses, their train of thought becomes opposites; dean becomes more open to how people are true evil and how monsters are often victims of their circumstance while sam becomes harsher and less forgiving after ruby’s betrayal along with finding out the truth of his existence and how there’s been demons around his entire life. eventually they’re on the same page and they see the circumstances. 

on the other hand; i also really fuck with the idea of dean maintaining his black and white morals on that all monsters=inherently evil, humans=inherently pure and good, but he is the only human on team free will. sam is half demon, castiel is an angel, jack is a nephilim, rowena is a witch, garth is a werewolf, mary is a zombie etc

demons become demons in hell by agreeing to become the torturer and thus giving up their humanity to be free of pain, does that mean they could become humans again by regaining some humanity? by doing good deeds? (potentially this is confirmed with jessica and how she came to love sam; genuine love and care for a human could reverse the demon process?) this also means dean was a demon in hell but was purified/turned back again when castiel raised him. this also plays into dean becoming like michael; in trying to absolve himself from what he did in hell he becomes ruthless, unforgiving and righteous to evil, much like the angels, regardless of his personal connection to a person and what he would consider “evil”

dean and pacifisim: after dean is cured from being a demon/the mark of cain/is made aware of his blind righteousness that he used as an excuse to kill, he becomes firmly determined to reign in his anger and violent tendencies by becoming a pacifist (like sam in s11) as a way to redeem all the blood he’s spilled. of course in his profession and true dean fashion he won’t be able to do it 100% so he decides to only act in self defense, and he only goes batshit violent on the offense when it’s about protecting sam

OR. dean’s self righteousness becomes his own downfall; the belief that all evil must be eradicated, refusal to see the circumstances and the shades of grey is what pushes him to lose his humanity and become a demon and therefore, in a potential ending the ruler of hell, because i think it would such an interesting journey from a to b, that dean starts out human, revels in his holiness, executes and kills in the name of his own holiness in the belief that he’s becoming the ultimate angel, the ultimate hero when it’s doing the opposite. if this happened then sam would take the opposite route; starts as a human, becomes more and more demonic, stops himself and returns to his hopeful and optimistic self, has faith and humility and that is what makes him ascend from abomination to purified and holy (trials). 

this could be a perfect 10 season structure as well: s1-5 are when sam and dean start off humans; dean becomes holy and as close to an angel a human can be, while sam drinks the demon blood and almost becomes one to gain the freedom and power he wants, but begins to turn it around to send lucifer back to hell. s6-10 is when dean becomes the unholy and sam becomes the holy even though neither realize because now there’s no grand master plan - this is who they are, who they choose themselves. don’t know how this ould end though; either as normal humans again (but there wouldn’t really be a ”normal” after everything) or they really go off the rails with sam like ruling heaven (not as god though, just as a good and just man) and dean ruling hell. castiel is human and stays on earth with jack.

the gothic americana aesthetic is kept throughout the entire show and is only shot on film

after s5 castiel returns to heaven to help restore order, and he takes charge for a little while, but eventually returns to earth after trying to introduce democracy to angels who didn’t get it. in his place, anna takes over and she rules heaven well (after trying to kill mary when going back in time she isn’t killed by michael, but narrowly escapes and remains in hiding to heal until castiel reaches out and finds her)

when finding out they are The Vessels and will be brought back regardless of what they try, sam and dean explore what this means more. dean throws himself into dangers and to protect others. he is burned, blown up, stabbed, electrocuted, beheaded and eaten, but wakes up the next morning in his bed without a scratch, without any pain and memories of his deaths. he revels in this untouchability. sam kills himself over and over only to be resurrected again and again by lucifer. he remembers the pain and blood.

that being said, while dean is like angel royalty, sam is demon royalty. the demons don’t go after him, they don’t hurt him. some even offer up themselves to be drained of blood, even after lilith’s death. it makes it really difficult to stay clean but he pulls through with dean and castiel actually supporting him. to help sam get through his addiction, dean stops drinking alcohol and they go through their withdrawal together

the angels almost worship dean as the michael sword and have an open disgust towards sam for being lucifer’s vessel - they always answer dean’s prayers and calls for help, they follow his orders if need be and don’t hesitate to heal him if he needs it. sam could pray until his vocal chords bleed or call out for help while holding his guts in his hands; none of the angels would come to his aid. the only one who answers sam’s prayers is lucifer as a voice in sam’s head or a hallucination. sam could call demons to help him out but he refuses

sam isn’t the first hunter to drink demon blood, to try to enhance his own abilities using the supernatural as a means to get there - there are hunters who have altered themselves with parts from werewolves and vampires to become better hunters, like the styne family (the guys from s10), blurring the lines again of what’s good and human vs what is evil and inhumane

if angels can’t find a vessel to volunteer, they will force them to say yes - the how is not important, only that the ‘yes’ is said, whether its meant or not, any verbal yes will do. the angels never sleep and they never eat, which is disturbing to sam and dean who are exhausted all the time and eat scraps whenever they can

castiel, like all other angels, is taught to despise and not care about sam winchester at all, but the more castiel gets to know sam, he becomes fascinated with him, how lucifer’s ultimate vessel, starter of the apocalypse and destroyer of god’s creation can be so kind and gentle, so full of faith, acceptance, optimism and hope. in dean castiel sees a good man, yes, but also a man who’s bloodthirsty, rages, revels in war, resorts all problems with violence, loves conditionally and expects unquestioned loyalty. sam too, has a darkness and bloodthirst in him, but it only comes out in glimpses. castiel thinks it’s funny, how sam turns out to be the opposite of lucifer while dean is so alike michael

[dont-tempt-me-frodo]

Supernatural AU

So I’ve been playing with this concept for a while now and have finally started writing short snippets. Throwing this out into the void to see what sticks basically. Might actually write this properly some day. Who knows. 

Notes for this au - Castiel is about but not nearly as present in Dean’s life as in the show. Other than that, it runs fairly close to the shows arc. Except when it doesn't. 

Notes for this short - set late season 4 (On The Head Of A Pin). Alastair who?

Enough waffling. Have a Dean/Orias snippet. TW: torture (but nothing too graphic) 

This was his fault.

Dean knew he shouldn’t feel guilty. Orias was a demon. A very powerful, relishes in chaos, maliciously evil, demon. He’d seen the carnage Orias left in his wake. Had to contain the aftermath of some of his more vicious kills. But over the last two years, since making the deal with him to save Sam’s life, Dean had gotten to know Orias a little.

They’d drank together in a bar once. When Dean was too exhausted, too tired of being lonely, desperate for some sort of company. The demon had a fantastic sense of humour that Dean couldn’t help but get swept up in, as well as a keen eye and could spot a hustler a million miles away which had led to Dean witnessing the best hustlers-being-hustled-at-pool he had ever seen.

Orias was very different to a lot of the demons Dean had encountered. And… he was handsome. Short brown hair that looked almost auburn in certain lights, clear blue eyes, a soft jawline. He didn’t want to admit it, but he actually felt... something when he was around Orias and for Dean, that was huge. Especially with everything going on at the moment, especially since... coming back from hell.

Orias had even helped them out on occasion, more out of spite for his own kind than any sort of loyalty or friendship towards Dean but the Winchester couldn’t knock that the demon has been invaluable. But then, Dean had accidentally led the angels to him and now Orias was strapped by his wrists to a rack in the middle of a very complex demon trap with Uriel bearing down on him. One of the angel’s hands clamped to the demon’s throat, burning the flesh underneath, the other was buried deep inside his chest, prodding around in his very essence. The scream that ripped from Orias as he struggled curdled Dean’s blood, and he did, he felt guilty. This was his fault.

Dean had point blank refused to torture Orias for information, so Uriel, with a gleam in his eyes, had been more than happy to step up.

Dean was standing in the corridor outside the room, deliberately not looking through the meshed window as Orias’ scream reverberated off the walls. The Winchester was trying not to remember the pain of an angel’s touch, his own burn scar on his arm tingling unpleasantly.

When an angel touches a pure demon, it leaves a mark. He knew that Orias wasn’t possessing some poor sod. His body was his own. He was stronger and more powerful than most demons and Dean still didn’t fully understand it, but at the moment it didn’t matter because he was at the mercy of Uriel and his attempts of resisting the angel were failing.

“Come on. Let go. Let me in,” Uriel twisted his hand inside Orias’ chest and the demon’s scream climbed an octave, “that’s it. Come on demon. Tell me what you know. Tell me about the last seal.”

Dean wasn’t entirely sure how long Urial tortured Orias. It could have been hours, could have been days. But eventually the strain became too much, the angel too powerful, the demon too exhausted, and Orias broke.

“Lilith!” he screeched, “Lilith breaks the last seal!”

Uriel let him go, removing both his hands and Orias slumped forwards with a shudder. The only thing keeping him up were the braces around his wrists.

Dean felt sick to the stomach.

The angel strode out of the room with a smirk, quirking a brow at Dean and leering at him as he sauntered past. The Winchester ignored Uriel’s comment, eyes firmly fixed on the demon trembling in the other room.

Dean stood there.... for a long time. Guilt churning his gut. And another feeling. One he couldn’t place. Burning away in his chest.

He took a long breath and forced himself into the room.

Orias flinched as the door clicked shut, his head snapping up, his blue eyes barely focusing on Dean’s face. He looked scared. And that twisted painfully in Dean’s stomach.

“Fuck off Dean,” Orias muttered, hanging his head again, his entire body shaking.

“I... I’m sorry. It... it wasn’t meant to be you.” Dean hated how pathetic that apology sounded, and the demon’s lip curled.

“Brilliant. Now I feel loads better.” Orias’ voice was thin and pained.

“Orias...” Dean approached rigidly, pausing at the edge of the demon trap chalked onto the floor. He could see the sweat rolling off Orias’ brow, the skin of his wrists rubbed raw by his bonds, the livid handprint burn that covered the left side of his neck with the thumb just above his Adam’s apple, the fingers coming up over his jaw and onto his lower cheek. The demon’s breathing was laboured and the shudders that rolled through him rattled the metal rack he was strapped to.

“You can’t trust them,” Orias grit out, lifting his head and fixing now black eyes on the Winchester, “the angels. You can’t trust them, Dean. They’ve been lying to you.”

“What are you talking about?” A cold crept down Dean’s spine.

“Sam is Lucifer’s vessel. Who do you think is Michael’s? Huh? The Michael Sword. Think about it,” Orias sneered, “Lucifer, younger brother to Michael. Sam, younger brother to you.”

The realisation hit Dean like a ton of bricks and his knees went weak. He grabbed onto the pipes lining the wall to catch himself.

He had absolutely no reason not to believe Orias. It had occurred to him a little while ago that the demon was the only person in his life who had never once lied to him or betrayed him. He knew he shouldn’t, but he’d found comfort in that. Yes, Orias was a soldier of hell, but Dean knew he could trust his word.

“I’m Michael’s vessel.” He ran a hand over his face, “It all... it makes sense now. Why the angels are so-”

He was cut off by Orias tugging at his shackles and whimpering in pain, trying to curl in on himself with his eyes squeezed tight shut.

“Please,” the demon sounded so broken, and it hurt, physically ached in Dean’s heart, “just leave me alone. Please just go.”

Dean turned to hurry back towards the door, stomach in knots, heart thundering in his chest but he slammed to a halt as Orias choked back another whimper and he spun to face the demon.

“I’m going to get you out of here. Don’t know how yet, but I’ll figure it out,” he promised, blazing green eyes meeting watery blue.

After a moment Orias barked out a laugh.

“I’ll hold you to that Deanie bean,” he forced a grin through another wave of pain, “you owe me that much at least.”

Dean gave him a nod, determination burning through him. No matter the consequences, he would get Orias somewhere safe because something deep in his soul was telling him that he needed this demon, and right now, Orias needed him. He didn’t understand it. Couldn’t comprehend it. But it was what he knew. And who was he if he were to ignore his gut?

I’ll get you out, he promised again silently, and he was starting to form a plan. He just had to hope luck was on his side.

[vtmb2s]

Past 1, 3, 6, 8 for Jason my beloved and Present 5-8 for Jenny annnd Future 2, 5, 7 for Helena! 😏

─ JASON

1. Briefly describe the way their parents grew up, and how it affected the way they raised them.

Both his parents were two regular middle class new yorkers, Frank (his dad) grew up in New York's suburbs and had a very conventional upbringing, he was the middle child of three siblings and thus kind of ignored so he usually just minded his own business... that very much carried over into adulthood, he was very reclusive and didn't really bother spending much time with his family -_-

Jason's mom, Gina, was a 2nd generation italian-american who grew up in a huge family with a billion siblings and cousins who are all very different from her husband. She liked it in the beginning but she became more and more unhappy and kind of underwhelmed. She really projected all her dreams of ever becoming someone on her kids that failed with her because she was stuck in a boring marriage with the most unambitious and boring man ever 😑

3. Describe their family. Who raised them, and who had the most impact on them? Did they have any siblings? Who were they closest to? What were the family dynamics like?

This ties in with the previous question but Frank was a bit of a loser, not particularly attractive and more timid & shy.. he was a very unambitious guy who worked a boring office job all his life without any intention of climbing the ladder. He really spent most of his time off work with his boring little loser hobbies :/

Gina was a much more spirited and lively person than her husband, Jason takes a lot more after her than his dad. She wasn't a great mother by all means due to the fact that she was unhappy in her marriage and with her life and kind of took that out on her kids, in a way where she placed certain expectations on them which Jason never really met. They weren't particularly close due to Jason's more.. rebellious nature he had as a kid, which in turn made him cause more trouble because that was the only way his parents gave him any attention at all :/ He also has an older brother, Richard, who their mother very obviously favored. Frank didn't really give a fuck about either of his sons -_-

He had a very close relationship with his mother's family though, particularly with one of her brothers. Carlo (said uncle) was a lot like him and never had any kids on his own so he became somewhat of a father figure to Jason :-)

6. Did the location they grew up in affect them significantly? Do they still go there?

He grew up in some little house in New York's suburb, not the prettiest house there because they didn't make enough for one of the nicer looking ones. He's not that fond of the boring suburbs (even in Boston), he spent more time in the city with his relatives and preferred that over his actual home. Other than that it didn't affect him much 🤷‍♀️

8. What was their childhood/teenage bedroom like?

A small little room with an ugly sports wallpaper that his parents never bothered to replace as he got older. It always looked a little messy and had a few mismatching mid-century decorations and furniture in there. As he grew older he started to cover the walls with random posters he had, to hide the ugly baseball wallpaper.

─ JENNY

5. What kind of people do they usually interact with? Who are their friends, the people they look up to/trust, and who are their “associates”?

She interacts with all sorts of people in New Bordeaux' criminal underworld - if you do anything illegal chances are you'll know Jenny. As for her actual friends, she's friends with the 3 other criminal 20 year olds in town, Danny, Lincoln, Ellis, unfortunately Giorgi (frenemies would be more fitting) and Lena. Her closest and best friends would definitely be Gavin (of @dannyburke fame)and Juliet (of @jennystahl fame) though, they're also pretty much the only ones who would fall into the "people she trusts" category... they're the only ones she'll have long weed induced therapy sessions at 1 am while the monkees are on tv.

6. What is their current relationship with their family?

Complicated... the love is there and all that, it's more of a business relationship though rather than a parent-child thing, especially with her dad. It's nothing that she ever questions (until aforementioned therapy sessions with her friends), she grew up in an environment where affection isn't really something she sees often and almost all her friends have messed up relationships with their parents too so while there is some resentment she never really questions that the way they raised her might not be ideal :c

The relationship with her siblings is complicated as well, especially because they're both a LOT younger than her. She was an only-child until the age of 13 and moved out of her childhood home when they were eight and six years old so there's this weird disconnect but there's a relationship nonetheless, which is weird. Eldest daughter AND only child disease 😓Not to mention that her parents are looking to make her little brother head of the family because he's a boy or whatever.. drama!

7. Do they have a partner? How did they meet, and what’s their relationship like now?

Yes.. she and Ellis met on some random job in the Hollow in 1963 that her dad was taking her along with (he and Sammy did random deals together and were also good friends 😌) and Jenny was like wow how boring. What if I just talk to this this guy's sons instead.... she thought he was some annoying teenage guy and only really talked to him whenever necessary (when her dad's business trips to Sammy's got REALLY boring). She forced herself to hang out with him more after Lincoln went to Vietnam and realized he's not so bad so they became friends :)

In actual game canon nothing really happens because he dies, Jenny just becomes sad that her friends were killed (him, Danny, Sammy and maybe Michael too because of Juliet connection.. she doesn't give a fuck abt Giorgi anymore that little rat can die) and wonders if she liked that goofy little guy with the ugly shirts, but in any case it's too late now.

We're doing au's here though (also this is as of '68) so in the good timeline they get together in 1968.. sort of. It's not a friends with benefits thing, more that sort of relationship that you know will end sooner or later for various reasons, so you're kind of living in the moment and have fun while it lasts. It IS genuine and not just about hooking up from time to time of course, it's just not the kind of thing that was built to last because it's based off of a dumb 20 year olds friendship and one of them (Jenny) doesn't really plan on sticking around in New Bordeaux. But well, who knows what will happen 😏

8. What hobby or pastime of theirs do they consider most important to them and why?

Well, she's big on making music, she plays the guitar and sings (she has a pretty nice voice c: ), she grew up in a pretty fucked up environment so that was her sort of escape in her youth, to be a normal kid who's playing the guitar very very badly. She doesn't play it badly as a 23 year old anymore of course and it's a little thing she shares with her best friends so that means a lot to her 😳

─ HELENA

2. Are they content with their future situation? Is there anything they would change?

Well, she's certainly not happy with the whole vampire situation - her dreams of becoming famous for acting were pretty much ruined, now she's legally dead and nothing more than a photo on true crime blogs and conspiracy theory websites... Famous but for the wrong reasons, in a way she's more bitter about "dying" before she had the chance to become famous than about the whole vampirism thing herself. There would have been something incredibly poetic about a beautiful young actress dying at the height of her career, now she's just some random nobody :/

It could be worse though. She's known among L.A. vampires for her lack of loyalty to any of the factions (despite her working for the Camarilla earlier) and her just helping whoever she feels like which is fine to her, most of them will just leave her alone. In any case, she's not in Los Angeles anymore after the events of Bloodlines!!

5. Did they get married or have a family? Why? If otherwise, why not?

See she would like to get married eventually, making a promise to love someone and be with them for eternity (literally... because... vampires) is incredibly romantic and she would love that (THIS is her wedding... not really because she's not that cringe but also.. yeah), so who knows what might happen.

Family though, no!! Starting one isn't possible, at least not with biological children since she's a vampire. It doesn't bother her that much, she always did envision herself with one child in the future but she's not desperate to be a mother anyway so she doesn't beat herself up about it. She does wonder what it might be like to have children and laments it from time to time (she's a little overdramatic) but overall she doesn't mind that much.

7. Are their friends still a part of their life? Are there people they are no longer in touch with, or newly important people?

Yes, sort of! As I mentioned before she's not in L.A. anymore post-bloodlines and she never had many friends there to begin with so she keeps in touch with the few she has there. She miiight make a few new (or old) connections once shes out of Los Angeles too, who knows!

[normal-thoughts-official]

Actually, anti parabatai plot as a criticism of the oppressive regime would have been super interesting. Like they literally perform some magical ritual on minors. Moreover, it’s seen as prestigious and is highly encouraged. Moreover, if children have doubts they can’t even properly discuss them. Notice how in 2x03 Alec is left so alone he only has his baby sister to share his misgivings about the ritual. Moreover, he isn’t even happy about the upcoming ceremony. It really feels like he only ->

-> out of obligation (reminds me of ‘are you happy’, ‘yes, I’m following my duty’). Idk maybe it was indoctrinated that cancelling the ceremony once you gave your word is unthinkable, dishonourable, shameful or some other shit. Anyway, Alec didn’t look enthusiastic AT ALL. We don’t see what role Maryse and Robert played in this but they were probably their toxic selves. Besides, it’s strange to make a team out of two people so different both personality and career wise. And speaking of indoctrination, you can see children getting ingrained with this shit from the very young age. Like little Izzy may not have wanted a parabatai herself but you can see she was still affected. Jace legit said that they were gonna be REAL brothers as if something stopped him seeing Alec as such without a magical tattoo which is major yikes

EXACTLY!!! you get it!!!!!! not only that but the whole "the biggest pain a shadowhunter could ever know is losing a parabatai", "parabatai are the most important people to each other", "parabatai are in perfect tune" etc like so much shit that was straight up NOT SHOWN TO BE TRUE throughout the plot. valentine and luke were parabatai and he betrayed him, jace basically never gave a fuck about alec's wellbeing, he couldn't even tell when alec was literally dying lol also the bond isn't even that strong, like if ur away for a while or try to TRACK THEM it breaks??? and in the books robert and michael were parabatai as well and then they never talked again and robert legit straight up couldnt tell when michael DIED AND WAS REPLACED BY VALENTINE WITH A GLAMOUR like My God

my hc for this whole thing is that the parabatai thing was invented to increase sh loyalty to each other as well as their teamwork, and they made up this bunch of bullshit about it being like family and super important and their pain is your pain and blah blah blah to seem more desirable. kinda like how spartans encouraged relationships between soldiers to make them stronger? or how compulsory monogamy teaches you that the way to achieve happiness is through One Single Person who will be perfect for you always oops

actually o shit there are plenty of parallels between parabataiship and compulsory monogamy and i think i'm gonna go into that now. so mandatory disclaimer that compulsory monogamy =/= your monogamous relationship, just like heteronormativity =/= your heterosexual relationship. okay? okay. if yall come for me screaming that Monogamous People Aren't All Toxic i will ignore you because that's not what i'm saying and i just explicitly stated that. okay? okay

so i’m gonna skip the historical part because compulsory monogamy is very intimately related with the invention of capitalism, private property and etc., and that doesn’t work quite as well in the context of sh since it’s more of a military society than anything, and again, i do believe that it’s more of a “making them more likely to be loyal”/less likely to question missions and stuff thing. but the effects of parabataiship as it is constructed in sh lore are very similar to those of compulsory monogamy in real life:

the whole loyalty thing that can be very easily turned into toxicity/co-dependency/straight up abusive and unequal dynamics. again, i’m talking about monogamy as a system, not saying that all monogamous relationships are toxic, okay? if i sound insistent here, it’s because you wouldn’t believe the amount of times i put 4981749318 disclaimers like that and ppl still got offended on behalf of their monogamous relationships i wasn’t talking about

i’ll go further into that. monogamy ideology, like parabatai ideology, tells us that there’s a kind of relationship that is superior to all others and should be prioritized above all others (romantic relationships for monogamy ideology, parabataiship for parabatai ideology. compulsory monogamy and amatonormativity are more than just intimately related, they are a part of the other). this means that not putting the person you have this kind of relationship with above all others is seen as a crime and betrayal. and i’m not talking about cheating here, i’m talking about stuff such as “would you let your partner go to parties without you?”, seeing you at a place without your partner and asking where they are and why they didn’t come with you/assuming that you must have fought or broken up, considering that a relationship is doomed or not very close if its parts are not literally inseparable, turning the two parts of a relationship into some kind of almost symbiotic creature, where you stop being “A and B” and become “A-and-B” (this exact wording is even a trope in romantic fiction, esp fanfic), “would your missus let you come with us?”, having huge fights because one party wants to go somewhere and the other doesn’t and they can’t come to an agreement on that, etc., i think you get it by now

this mindset that the person you have this particular kind of relationship with should be prioritized above all others, that a part of your sense of self should be merged with theirs, that you essentially have to become a unit, and that it’s hard, but you have to fight to make it work (”love hurts”, “love is tough, it’s like that”, “if you love someone you have to make sacrifices for them”, etc) makes people feel guilty whenever they don’t put that person and their wishes above all else, or even when they want to do something without them, because that is seen as not loving them enough. not only that, but monogamy ideology promises you that once you find The One™ you will achieve a kind of happiness and perfection in your life that you couldn’t get any other way. this means that people are effectively scared of breaking up or of not having/wanting a relationship like that, because it means that they are broken and will never be truly happy (see what i meant when i said that amatonormativity and monogamy ideology are a part of each other?). that’s why you see people saying shit like “my greatest fear is to waste many years on a relationship and break up in the end”, “if you aren’t dating to get married you’re dating to get your heart broken”, etc. 

so you see people trying their damn hardest to stay loyal to the relationship even when it obviously doesn’t make them happy, feeling guilty for not being happy, and accepting toxic mindsets and abuse because they feel like they owe it to them. especially the weakest link in the relationship - notably women in monogamy ideology, as monogamy is also inherently linked with the patriarchy and in monogamy ideology specifically a woman in a het relationship is seen as more than just a part of the man she is in a relationship with, she’s seen as his property, but that dynamic can also be inverted or ruled by other factors such as race, sexuality, gender identity, class, etc. - are way more likely to be seen as owing their partners loyalty. not just that, but in particular with people who are otherwise oppressed, being loved is seen as almost a favor, because again, being in a romantic relationship is supposed to be your exclusive golden ticket to heavenly happiness and whatnot, and oppressed people (esp queer ppl and poc) as seen as undeserving of that, and effectively denied that in many ways, so they are more likely to want to stay in a toxic relationship out of fear that they won’t ever find anything better (it’s not a coincidence that “no one will ever love you like i do” is such a common phrase to hear from abusers). also, let’s not forget that even the right to break up in itself is something that had to be fought for. the feminist movement spent years trying to make divorce legal (in the places where it is) and still fights to make it be seen as acceptable. if it weren’t for other pressures trying to change the rules of monogamy, a “breakup” would quite literally not even be allowed, and this always benefits the strongest link

so now that that’s been explained, back to parabataiship. i think the parallels here are very clear - i mean, for one, you can’t really break it up, unless you purposefully use soul tracking or stay away for a long time, so it’s like, old fashioned monogamy. but more than that, breaking your parabatai bond is seen as terrifying. there is a lot of purposeful rethoric that directly says that the pain of the parabatai bond being severed (whether by will or by one of the parts dying) is unmatchable, and that plants a horrible fear into people, to the point where villains use that against parabatai shadowhunters (for example, the owl possessing jace and telling him that it’ll kill alec so he knows what the pain of losing a parabatai is like). this means that loyalty is owed, because even if you just want to be away from your parabatai, this might break the bond and put you through unspeakable pain (in theory. as i’ve been saying, it’s basically been proved that that’s not true, because when jace died that was far from being the worst pain that alec’s ever felt) 

moreover: the whole thing about how this kind of relationship is sacred, above all else, and will bring you a kind of happiness that is impossible to achieve otherwise. this is said many times - like you said, parabataiship is seen as something desirable and that brings honor. the vows are very similar to marriage (the highest pillar of monogamy) vows (“your family will be my family, your people will be my people”, “entreat me not to leave thee”), clary is constantly told that she could never understand the relationship jace and alec have because they’re parabatai and being parabatai is special and basically uncomparable to anything else, even by izzy, who never wanted to have a parabatai (and in the end she ends up wanting to, which reminds me of the whole “oh, you’ll want it once you grow up” trope with heterosexual romantic relationships. like, basically, you’ll want it once you find the right person. that is something aro, gay, and non-monog ppl hear all the damn time). the whole thing about how obviously jace is supposed to be the one alec loves the most, they’re parabatai, the whole thing about how “alec would die for me, we’re parabatai” like that is unquestionable; the souls becoming one, the being able to feel each other’s feelings and blah blah blah. in short: sacred, above all else, and, unless you do something very wrong, able to bring you a kind of connection and happiness you wouldn’t be able to get otherwise no matter how strong your feelings or your compatibility is; and once you get it, you can’t get out

and then there’s the imbalance it brings. like i said, notably in monogamy as a pillar of heteronormativity the imbalance lays on women, altho other factors can change that balance or be more prominent. with parabataiship, there’s an obvious trope of queer people getting heterosexual parabatai and being very obviously the weakest link (alec with jace, michael with robert, there are others but i don’t remember. the exception to this is luke, who is written as equally heterosexual and, in the books, equally white, to valentine, but who’s still the weakest link anyway because valentine gains power and prestige luke doesn’t have). again, the whole “alec would die for me” thing tells a lot. he didn’t say “we would die for each other”. he said “alec would die for me”. despite the rethoric being that both parts should be endlessly devoted, the expectation that one should fulfill that obviously falls harder on one than on the other. with monogamy, there’s even a kind of rethoric that you have to work for the reciprocation to be there (for example, victims of domestic abuse being told that if they dedicate themselves to their partners enough, the abuse would stop, like they owe their partners dedication and love and comprehension, and then their partners will give it back only once they get enough of it) that we haven’t really seen with parabatai (at least i don’t remember it) but that i wouldn’t be surprised to see present there. after all, alec can feel it when jace gets a papercut and jace can’t tell when alec is literally dying, and none of that is ever questioned in canon

and then the imbalance is kept because, again, breaking up parabataiship is unthinkable and shameful, not to mention kind of impossible/not allowed to do officially. so the weakest link is basically stuck in this situation of imbalance and, in many cases, toxicity and abuse, but can’t break out of it and effectively feel guilty because according to everything they’ve ever been told, they should be elated that they’ve found their one and they should be happy. if they aren’t happy, then they’re broken, or not trying hard enough, and it’s taboo to even talk about that

again, i’m not saying that all monogamous relationships or all parabataiships are toxic, okay? i’m saying that, as a structurer of our society (and sh’s fictional society) they favor this kind of dynamic, allow it, and justify it through their ideologies. in the same way that heteronormativity allied with misoginy makes it more likely for women to be abuse or r-word victims than men. is every het relationship toxic? no. is heteronormativity toxic? yes. monogamy works the same way

in short, parabataiship is not a relationship model. or rather, it is, but way before and more than that, parabataiship is an ideology that is specifically structured to subjugate shadowhunters, notably queer shadowhunters, and keep their loyalty to each other and to the clave, and most of its rethoric (nothing can ever be stronger than the love for a parabatai, nothing can match the pain of losing a parabatai, parabatai are one and the same and they share a soul) is absolute bullshit built to make it more desirable and make sure that structure is left unquestioned. a plotline that questions the buildings of parabataiship and shows how the whole myth that’s around parabataiship is that, a myth, built to subjugate and control people, would have been amazing, but of course we couldn’t get that so crumbles of meta it is

me: i’m tired of discourse in my blog i’m going to chill for now. me the very same day: what if i went on my first more detailed anti-monogamy rant when that is 100% guaranteed to attract aggressive people who can’t read and also criticized sh fandom’s beloved parabataiship all in one post?

[kinnoth]

AVENGERS INFINITY WAR MEGATHREAD

-really doubt i'm gonna be able to finish this movie so we'll just see where i get to

- we already know how i feel about loki and thor, we don't need to revisit this

- ok but if i were going to revisit this, i mean come on, who wants to talk about "hela draws her power from asgard, same as you" cos i wanna talk about that

like what if that's the reason thor, god of thunder, king to a civilisation of warriors, was unable to fend off like, 4 dudes and a big purple dinosaur? the royal family of asgard draws its power from asgard, and without it, they are weak, they are mortal. maybe that's why heimdall is unable to just, you know, bifrost everybody off the fucking ship the minute it comes under attack. maybe that's why loki can't fucking conjure up a swarm of fucking microscopic knives to fillet the invaders from the inside out. MAYBE THAT'S WHY LOKI TRIES TO KILL THANOS WITH A FUCKING DAGGER. BECAUSE TAKE AWAY HIS POWER, TAKE AWAY HIS GODHOOD, WHAT DOES HE HAVE LEFT OTHER THAN HIS WILE, HIS TRICKS AND HIS BROTHER

WHAT IF IN SAVING THE UNIVERSE AND DESTROYING ASGARD, THEY'VE LOST EVERYTHING INCLUDING WHAT MAKES THEM GODS

somebody talk about this

- etc etc what if the reason loki is unable to attack the purple dinosaur with magic is because when he tackled thor earlier, he used whatever magic he had left to spare in order to heal him

checks out cos thor goes from flat on his face to swinging his fists in the space of like 30 seconds and the only thing to happen to him in between is said bit about loki tackling him

- why does heimdall save hulk? i mean, i could understand it if he were trying to aim the bifrost at thor and somebody somehow knocked off his aim and he accidentally saves hulk, but like, we've established that heimdall's loyalty is to the royal seat of asgard upon whom sits thor's mighty ass. thor who, in this scene, has just been incapacitated by a metal eggshell(?) and is at the mercy of their assailants. given heimdall's priorities, it is baffling to the point of inconceivability that he would preferentially save fucking HULK over his own king.

- if this next scene isn't the guardians of the galaxy coming across thor clutching loki's dead fucking body floating through space then i don't know why any of us are even here

- "he sent loki! the attack on new york was thanos!" makes no sense? like, if loki's scepter had the mind stone in it, which we established it did in the last movie when we broke it open to retrieve vision, then.....why didn't thanos just....take the mind stone in the first place? cos rock collecting is and has always been his goal?

what, do you think that just because you assert a thing makes us forget all the shit that happened before?

- i.....am actually with tony stark. why don't they just destroy the stones they have so that thanos can't get to them? oh, you made a promise? well promises change and circumstances change! you tell him tony! you tell that stupid fucker --

oh my god i'm gonna be ill

- i think the only person whose ego can match tony stark's is probably a neurosurgeon so 👍 i guess

-i love how we immediately went back to the "so dark can't see shit" aesthetic after ragnorak because ensuring that one's audience can SEE what is HAPPENING IN YOUR MOVIE is apparently for radical directors like taika waititi

- cannot believe that tony stark staring at captain america's phone number is being played with the same emotional intensity as thor losing his soulmate entire people

- honestly how many times is the mcu gonna invoke 9/11 imagery til someone calls them out for being terrorists

- lmao i know i said this before but peter's spidey senses tingling AFTER the giant alien anus has already started sucking up new york and it is right outside his window is fucking hilarious. that's just called using your eyeballs peter

- "friday notify first responders about the giant alien anus sucking up new york" lol like the first thing somebody did when the alien anus showed up wasn't to fucking call 911 GREAT IDEA TONY

- still can't believe that they let failed neurosurgeon dr strange do more magic than god of tricks and sorcery loki lol

- i know i rag on dr strange a lot about the fact that he's a neurosurgeon it's just that he sucks.

as a neurosurgeon eyy.

- i hate that peter parker has to be here!!!!! leave him alone!!!!!

- tony stark should not be allowed within 100 feet of children or minorities

- it is very weird to me that steve "brooklyn" rogers has an area code from georgia

- since when was hela a half-sister? ODIN'S DAUGHTER AND THOR'S BLOODED SIBLINGS OR BUST YOU FUCKING COWARDS

- i am very disappointed that thor is going to go get another weapon after we spent the whole last movie talking about how he is not the god of hammers

- i just need thor to have much more PTSD than he has right now. fucking hulk has ptsd. maybe they're saving the ptsd for later. one can only hope.

- i am glad that they are letting him be cleverer though

- THEY ARE LETTING VISION DATE A TEENAGER WHY

GOD. FUCKING GROSS.

- wait when did vision turn into a white man again? did i miss that movie?

- i am disappointed that vision the computer techno robot apparently has a penis. like what a stupid limitation to give your computer techno robot, gender. 🙄

- i think that the mass destruction of infrastructure and architecture in the MCU is because of the pg13 no blood limitation that disney has set? like there's no way to show destruction to the body, so one may only show the exponential destruction to one's surroundings. like imagine how much more dramatic intensity you could wring out of a regular fight scene would be if people were allowed to bleed?

- cannot believe that a computer techno robot and a witch are having a punch up with the bad guys. of all people to fight with something not their fists, it's these two

- wanda has no enhanced strength or durability? she's a regular teenager who's a bit witchy. the first time she got thrown through a glass door should have shattered her vertebrae. again i don't understand why we insist that everybody must have the same powers and capabilities when it's clear they don't. think about how much more interesting it would be if some avengers were more fragile than others and had to be given accommodations as such

- IT IS INCONCEIVABLE TO ME THAT FUCKING BLACK WIDOW (regular human), CAPTAIN AMERICA (enhanced human), AND FALCON (regular human with wings) CAN DEFEAT THE CHILDREN OF THANOS WHEN THOR COULDN'T UNLESS THOR (god of fucking thunder carved of steel and stone) WAS NERFED

- still don't understand how we'll lend aliens afro features but not afro hair, like, seriously? you're gonna dream up green aliens with gills who look like black people but imagining them with black hair is a step too far?

- the gap of commentary in this liveblog is simply because i do not care at all for the galaxy defenders

- "earth just lost her best defender" who? who does captain america consider earth's best defender? it's not thor; he doesn't know thor's presumed dead. it's not tony; he doesn't know tony's on an alien anus. who else has died so far?

- love how exhausted bucky looks. have always loved how exhausted bucky looks. love bucky.

- i forgot that tony was with peter parker. god i hate that.

- "i'm peter btw"

"dr strange"

"oh you're using the made up names then. i'm spider man"

ok that was cute, but peter's cute, we knew that already

- i want to fling both strange and stark into space and i'm having a hard time deciding which one to push first

- "you went to bed hungry, scraping for scraps" oohhhh thanos is just anti-poor people, he would literally rather poor people be dead than struggle, i get it nowww

this is on brand for mcu

- oh my god thanos gets 2/6 stones by torturing siblings in front of other siblings, seriously? you couldn't come up with 6 different ways to find his stupid rocks you had to reuse one twice?

- which one of thor's friends was stabbed through the heart....? fandral??

- "if i don't get my vengeance what more could i lose" more like what else is there eh? what else is there for a king of no people but their vengeance?

- CANNOT BELIEVE THEY GAVE HIM BACK AN EYEBALL JESUS CHRIST IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE THOR RAGNORAK JUST SAY SO YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO FUCKING

VEHICLE FOR AUTHORITARIANISM, NOTHING IS ALLOWED TO CHANGE, FUCK YOUR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT I GOT MINE

FUCK

- i do enjoy that thor is now science fiction rather than fantasy, i don't think anybody knew what to do with fantasy cos fantasy is again, ultimately about conservatism and the status quo. so i do like that we're embracing the new and boundless for whatever that's worth.

- marvel is a cesspool of toxic masculinity. at no point are characters allowed to actually feel anything because weakness is uncool i guess and therefore unmanful. like thor lost ALL OF HIS PEOPLE. fucking ALL of them. he watched his brother die in order to save him. he is not allowed a single fucking response of mourning. i don't care if he's pushing it back because revenge or whatever, this is the sort of grief that rules you, which will bring all your load bearing structures down to heel, and they let him do nothing; he does not even rage. perfect control. smooth witticisms. why. why aren't we allowed to see his sadness?

- yo i can't believe red skull is a scifi villain now lol space nazis for real

- OH MY GOD THEY WASHED BUCKY'S WIG AND IT LOOKS SO BAD

- michael b jordan was right btw wakanda is complicit in africa's exploitation

- i do LIKE black panther i guess in the way you technically like that cousin you met once when you were like 9 and never saw again?

i like how we have here in wakanda the sears tower (chicago), the batman building (nashville), and the gherkin (london)

- ok but like, presumably not a death cult super technologically advanced wakandans who are deffo made of human flesh and human blood still arm their people with spears

i mean unless wakanda is also a death cult

why is this chicks entire fucking face cgi'd she looks like a fucking cut scene video game character

- oh ok they have LASER spears, ok

so then why did they give bucky a fucking gun

- what is bucky supposed to be able to contribute here exactly, like fucking, again, he's spycraft isn't he? he's a one man, dead of night, operation go loud and then immediately silent kinda operation. why do they have him on the front lines of a fucking lock-step formation battle??

- "it will be the noblest ending in history" WHAT, FIRST COUNTRY TO EVER BE OVERUN BY ALIEN JACKALS??

- stormbreaker is just leviathan axe, somebody's said this already right

- omfg i'm so glad they're finally acknowledging that thor is OP as fuck and does not belong amongst the fucking squabbles of earth

-"titan was like most planets, too many mouths to feed not enough to go around, so i proposed a plan, dispassionate to rich and poor alike" JUST SAY YOU HATE POOR PEOPLE MCU. YOU CANNOT HAVE RICH AND POOR, YOU CANNOT HAVE DISPARITY, YOU CANNOT HAVE SOME WITH TOO MUCH AND OTHERS WITH NOT ENOUGH AND CALL IT EXTINCTION. THAT IS NOT A QUESTION OF OVERTAXED RESOURCES THAT IS A QUESTION OF RESOURCE FUCKING MANAGEMENT. IT IS AN ARTIFICIAL CRISIS IF THERE EXISTS ENOUGH TO GO AROUND BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST HOARDING IT THAT'S WHEN YOU KILL THOSE PEOPLE AND TAKE THEIR SHARE. KILLING HALF THE PEOPLE IS THE KIND OF FUCKING SOLUTION TO INEQUALITY THAT RICH PEOPLE COME UP WITH

GOD. ITS LIKE NONE OF YOU EVER READ

-you've got the big fucking boss in an ambush AND YOU ATTACK HIM WITH A MAGIC SWORD STEVEN STRANGE?????

THIS FRANCHISE HAS NO IDEA HOW TO UTILISE MAGIC USERS FUCKING HELL

- when will somebody please utilise ironman like the one man artillery he fucking is WHY IS HE FIGHTING WITH HIS STUPID FISTS HE IS LITERALLY ONE CONTINUOUS CARPET BOMB JUST USE HIM THAT WAY

cut of his arm CUT OFF HIS ARM YOU BLOODLESS SPINELESS USELESS FUCKING CUNTS . this is a manufactured crisis, KIND OF LIKE THE ONES THANOS LIKES I GUESS LOL

- dr strange could have very easily prevented or stopped quill from punching thanos but he didn't cos i guess even the movie forgets steven strange exists sometimes

- i like that the shield around wakanda has the same weakness as a poorly constructed chicken coop -- you always build into the ground a couple feet to stop the diggers man, come on, what is this, your first energy shield?

- oh disgusting, a girl boss moment. whatever you're all fascists.

- nobody adores martial might like fascists do fucking change my mind

- " avengers: not one person in this fucking cast is able to stomach ANY AMOUNT of personal sacrifice" more like

- "why did you give away the time stone?" "we are in the endgame" THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER THAT'S A FUCKING MOVIE TEASER FUCK YOU

- why didn't strange just trap thanos in a timeloop again? we've already established that is a perfectly acceptable way to deal with planetary annihilation. IS IT POSSIBLY BECAUSE NOBODY ON THIS WRITING STAFF KNOWS HOW TO DEAL WITH MAGIC

- THOR OP BLIZZARD PLS NERF

-CAPTAIN MARVEL SERIOUSLY THAT'S WHO YOU'RE GONNA SEND YOUR LAST PAGE TO JESUS FUCKING DISGUSTING

[ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes]

Promises Not Kept Part 14

Summary: Tommy Shelby made a promise to Jonah Ward while in the war. A promise he didn't keep. But it comes to haunt him when he tries to drown out his sorrows with a young woman.

Part 14: They lay a good man to rest. Polly gives Leah some good advice.

           Tommy remembered the morning after he returned to Small Heath from France. He was home but he merely felt like a ghost of himself. Everything he once knew felt strange and unlike he remembered it. He wasn’t the man he was when he left for the front lines. There was a brief memory of hearing Arthur and John downstairs, talking animatedly to Finn who was just a boy back then. Tommy stared out the window down to Watery Lane. The street he used to run up and down when he was Finn’s age. Now, he was back. A soldier bruised and damaged far deeper than just his skin. But he wasn’t done. The war hadn’t killed him so he wasn’t finished. The world would know the Shelby name whether it liked it or not.

           The morning of John’s funeral, Tommy stood at the same window looking down at the same street. People were starting to remember the Shelby name. But the cost had been more severe than Tommy initially anticipated. There was no turning back though. He was in too deep.

           With a sigh, Tommy stepped into the steaming bath in the middle of the bedroom. Charlie and Leah were still asleep. The little boy was completely unaware of what was happening around him.

           Leah began to stir as Tommy lit a cigarette. She sat up and carefully detached herself from Charlie who was clinging to her in his sleep. It had been a long night. Most of the family was in a shock, unlike anything they’d experienced before. It seemed unfathomable to think John would ever die. He was such a robust figure of the family. Now the previously shattered family was further broken.

           But at least they were all together for the first time in ages.

           “Tom.” Leah sat up and tried to read his face. His eyes were glazed over, mind obviously elsewhere.

           His head twitched slightly in her direction, the only acknowledgment that he’d actually heard her.

           Leah sighed softly and stood. She picked up her dressing gown and wrapped it around herself. “How are you feeling today?” She pulled up a small stool up to the bathtub.

           Tommy rested his hand on the edge of the tub, his cigarette hanging between his fingers. He stared at the wall in front of him. “I don’t know.” He finally admitted quietly.

           Leah’s forehead wrinkled. “I’m sorry.” She whispered and touched his arm, catching on some of the lingering water droplets from the bath water. “I’ve been awful to you for the past few weeks.”

           He shook his head subtly. “No. I haven’t been treating you the way you deserve.” Guilt pooled in his stomach, building up with all the rest of it he’d felt for everything he’d done. “I can’t promise it’ll all be easy from here on out.”  

           “I know.” She absent-mindedly rubbed her thumb over his arm.

           There was a knock on the door. “Tommy, they’ve gathered.”

           Leah grabbed the towel Tommy had set out for himself. She offered a hand to him as he stood up. “We should let Charlie sleep.” She suggested quietly.

           He nodded and stepped out of the bathtub, drying off with the towel. They both began to get dressed, staying quiet so Charlie didn’t wake.

           “My family’s downstairs.” He explained. “I want you to be there with me.”

           Leah took his outstretched hand. “Okay.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

           Tommy only let go of Leah’s hand so she could stand near Isaiah and Jeremiah. But he stopped her and pulled out a chair for her. Leah paused and looked at him questioningly. Sitting at the table was obviously a status she didn’t think she’d earned yet. Not even Finn was seated.

           He cleared his throat and nodded, assuring her without any words. So she sat between Polly and Linda. She caught the gaze of Lizzie who averted her eyes pointedly only a second later.

           The atmosphere of the room was somber. All of them mourning the brother and nephew. All of them worried for Michael still fighting for his life in the hospital.

           “John is dead,” Tommy spoke in a low but steady voice. His hand was tight around Leah’s, pulling every ounce of support he could from her touch. “Esme has gone on the road with the Lees and she’s taken the kids. Michael is badly wounded. They say it’s sixty-forty in his favor.”

           Polly glared at him. “There’s no number, there’s no percentage.” She informed him sternly. “My son’ll live.”

           Tommy didn’t argue with her. There was no point. He wanted his cousin to survive just as much as the rest of them did. “Michael and John were shot because we killed someone. Vincente Changretta. His son, Luca, has come to take revenge.” He reported the reasons for the chaos the day before. “Men from New York and Sicily are here in Birmingham. These men will not leave our city until our whole family is dead. That’s how it works.” He looked to each of his family members. All who were left. “It’s called vendetta. An eye for an eye.”

           Arthur reached into his pocket. “Yeah, well the bullet’s been written. Says Luca.” He twisted it between his fingers before carefully placing it on the table in front of him.

           Leah could see the crude letters scratched into the metal surface of the bullet.

           LUCA.

           “When the time comes. And it’ll come.” He spoke firmly. “I will put this bullet in his fucking head.”

           Tommy rested his hands on the table and looked exhausted. “There’s been some bad blood between us.”

           Polly laughed sarcastically and shook her head. The tension between the two was almost visible and the rest of the room remained silent.

           Still, he persisted. “Until this business is settled, we say together. And we stay here. Small Heath, Bordesley, Hay Mills, down to Greet.” He instructed.

           “Daddy?”

           Leah turned when she heard Charlie’s voice coming from the top of the stairs. She met eyes with Tommy. “I’ll get him.” She said quietly and stood.

           Charlie was standing on the stairs, a pout on his face. “Wanted daddy.” He repeated again, clearly disappointed that Tommy hadn’t come running to retrieve him.

           “He’s busy right now, poppet, I’m here though.” She said softly and held her arms out to him.

           The little boy smiled and trotted down the steps into her arms, still dressed in his pajamas. “Breakfast?” He inquired.

           “Not right now. Everyone’s talking in the kitchen.” Leah rested him on her hip. “Hopefully they’ll be done soon.” She bit her lip and looked towards the door. Part of her didn’t want to know what else they were talking about.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

           One of the girls from the betting shop would watch Karl, Charlie, and Billy while the rest of them were at the funeral. Leah walked arm in arm with Tommy down Watery Lane, the rest of the family following close behind. There were heavily armed men standing by on each corner, some even up on the rooftops.

           Leah tugged Tommy closer to her, afraid that they would still be attacked even with the battalion of men ready to fight for them.

           Tommy kissed her temple. “S’alright.” He murmured. “Everything will be alright.”

           In the field right outside the city, the vardos were already camped out, ready to give John Shelby a fitting farewell.

           Leah quietly placed a bundle of flowers among the pyre. She softly spoke her words of goodbye and thanked him for keeping Jonah’s memory alive. She returned to the group, standing beside Ada.

           “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the ring.” Tommy’s sister said in a voice low enough that those around them wouldn’t hear.

           “I let it be Tommy’s responsibility to tell everyone. Now’s not the right time.” She replied.

           “None of this is scaring you away?” Ada wondered.

           Leah stared ahead. Of course, she was scared. Tommy spoke of a war. A war like the one she’d lost her husband to. They would be in the trenches, fighting a war of vengeance. There was no telling who else they’d lose. “I lost my soul a long time ago.” She spoke steadily. “Tommy’s the only person who ever managed to lead me back to who I used to be. If I must fight beside him then I will.”

           “You might die for him, Leah. What then?” Ada questioned. “You have no stake in this fight. What would you be dying for other than your loyalty?”

           “All this family has right now is loyalty. All we have is each other.”

           Tommy began to speak, disrupting any chance Ada had to try and convince Leah to get out while she could. His fiancee listened to him speak about France. His blue eyes met hers a few times as he spoke. His voice never wavering as he tried to remain strong and keep his family together.

           “You remembered that God spared you,” Polly spoke up after Tommy paused for a brief second. The older woman stared daggers at her nephew with tears in her eyes. “But what did you do with that extra time he gave you? Aye, Thomas?”

           “Poll.” Ada touched her aunt’s shoulder to both stop her from continuing and to comfort her.

           Arthur decided to step in before they argued and lit a match. The family stood silently and watched as the pyre lit and began to envelop the vardo in flames. Snaking its way up the woodwork and setting the canvas cover ablaze.

           Leah stepped toward Tommy and took his hand in hers. He kept his eyes straight ahead. Waiting.

           Suddenly, the funeral was interrupted by a gunshot only yards away. Leah’s heart seized in her chest and she froze. Ada was quicker on her feet and dragged her to the ground for cover.

           “At ease!” Tommy shouted. Along with Arthur, he was the only one still standing. The rest of the Blinders had dropped the instant they heard the gunshot. All of them thought it was their time and the funeral had made them into sitting ducks.

           Leah raised her head when she heard Tommy yelling. “Do not return fire! The men doing the firing are on our side.” He held out a hand to his fiancee to help her stand.

           She flinched when a second gunshot rang out across the field. “What’s going on?” Her eyes were wide with fear.

           “I took the trouble of giving an invitation to Aberama Gold.”

           The name was unfamiliar to Leah. But Johnny Dogs gave her some insight. “Oh fuck, now it’s begun.”

           Leah began to feel dizzy and she reached out for Tommy’s arm. “I feel sick.” She whispered.

           “You used John’s funeral fire as a fucking beacon,” Polly exclaimed in a ragged voice. The disbelief clear on her face.

           “We were never in any danger, Poll,” Arthur said.

           “You used us as fucking bait!”

           Leah’s breathing became shallower and soon Tommy wasn’t enough to hold her up. Her knees began to buckle. “Tommy…” She gripped his arm tight.

           “Finn!” He called out for his youngest brother. “Get a boat

           In the distance, a group of men and horses began approaching the vardos. Leah’s stomach turned again when she saw the limp arm of someone slumped over one of the horses. Visible blood was dripping from the fingertips “Who’s dead?” She asked.

           Tommy ignored her but Polly jumped on the question as well. “Who’s dead?” The woman demanded.

           Leah’s vision began to blur and every word spoken was starting to blur together. Ada looked concerned when she saw how pale the young woman’s face had gone. “Sit, come and sit.” She had to pry Leah off her brother to get her to sit down.

           “Anyone who wants no more part in this, ‘cause this is how it’s gonna be!” Tommy shouted, piercing Leah’s ears before she lost consciousness.

~~~~~~~~~

       Everything about John’s funeral was dramatic. It was something he might’ve actually enjoyed. He always reveled in a little bit of chaos. But things calmed down once Leah was brought to the hospital and the Italian’s bodies were shipped off.

           Tommy’s fiancee was placed in the same room as Michael so the men protecting him could also keep a close eye on her. She’d come to when they were still in the field beside the burning vardo. Polly knelt down next to her, propping her head up on the dew-covered grass while Ada and Tommy stood over her arguing.

           “The first person they’re going to go after is your fiancee, Tommy, they already killed Grace!” The Shelby woman shouted.

           With frayed nerves, Tommy was more than happy to oblige his sister and yelled back at her. “Don’t talk about things you don’t know anything about!”

           “Right because I’m just a stupid woman. Stupid Ada who knows nothing. I know that Grace was killed by Italians. What’s stopping them from killing Leah too?”

           “They’re trying to fucking kill all of us, Ada!”

           Leah’s head still spun, her hand reaching for Tommy, trying to calm him down. Instead, Polly gently took her lifted hand and pressed a cold cloth to her forehead.

           “Stop bickering and help me get her to the car.” Polly snapped at her niece and nephew.

           Tommy huffed and stooped to scoop Leah up in his arms. Bringing her to the car, he assured her nothing would happen and not to listen to Ada. She simply pressed her face into his shoulder and closed her eyes. She didn’t know who to listen to anymore.

~~~~~~~

           Michael was still out cold when Leah felt well enough to sit up. She was glad to see the young man was properly stitched up. She didn’t know much about medicine but he appeared to have a good chance of surviving.

           After she sat up, Polly came into the room. She scolded the men slacking off by the door and confiscated their flasks before sending them out to the hall.

           “How are you feeling?” The older woman asked as she slipped off her coat and draped it over Michael’s legs.

           “Better, thank you. I just think it was shock.” She admitted. “I wasn’t expecting all of that.”

           Polly frowned as she sat down. None of them were but maybe they should’ve gotten used to Tommy’s surprise tactics. It would make life a lot easier. “Have you been ill?” She wondered.

           Leah shook her head. “No, I’ve been fine. Maybe just a little…” She sighed and shrugged. “It’s been a difficult few months. I mean, nothing like what you went through, I’m sure.”

           She didn’t want to talk about her time in prison and how Tommy was the one to put her there. “You’re not pregnant, right?”

           Her eyes widened a little in shock. She wasn’t expecting the question. “No, I uh…I bled last week.” She explained shyly.

           “Good.” Polly nodded firmly. Now was not the time to have a baby. Not in the state they were in. A war.

           Leah nodded absent-mindedly and ran her fingers through her hair to fix it. She found a few pieces of grass that had tangled in her blonde curls after lying on the ground. “Tommy and I…I feel like we haven’t even slept in the same bed in ages.” She whispered. Shame settled deep in her bones. How pathetic it was to spend such little time with her fiancee, to be so cold towards each other.

           “My nephew is a complicated man.” Polly agreed and pulled the chair up closer to Leah. Her face had softened since the funeral. It appeared her aggression was only directed towards Tommy and didn’t include his fiancee. If anything she felt bad for the young woman. Anyone who fell for such a man was in for a surprise, and not necessarily anything good. She loved Tommy but he was a huge pain in the ass.

           “Am I making a mistake, Poll?” Leah asked quietly. “I mean am I just being thick?” Her eyes lowered to the ring on her finger.

           “Some people will tell you to be smart and look out for yourself and yourself only. Others will tell you to follow your heart blindly.” Polly rested a hand on hers. “But listen here, despite what people say, women are not meant to be put aside in the corner.”

           She sniffled and let out a little tearful laugh. “Could’ve convinced me otherwise.” Leah thought about all the years she spent being submissive. Forcing herself to be quiet and complacent in order to pay rent and groceries. For a long while, she adopted the personality into her everyday life. If a man cut her in line at the butchers, she never spoke up. She grew a staggering amount of patience for the world around her and its inhabitants. She thought it was a good quality to have but sometimes it led to her being walked over.

           A woman like Polly was something of an enigma to her. A strong person who ran the Shelby company while her nephews were off at war. Took shit from no one and announced her presence wherever she went to make sure people didn’t cross her.

           Still, both women were damaged. That was clear if you pulled back the curtain. They were surviving in a man’s world. Doing the best they could while embroiled in a war they didn’t start.

           “Speak your mind sometimes.” Polly encouraged in a soft voice. “If you keep it all inside then you’re the only one to suffer. A relationship, romantic or not, is a two-way street. The other person should have to listen as much as they talk. If they don’t want to listen then they should just get a fucking parrot. That way they’ll have someone to talk to and someone to agree with everything they say.”

           Leah smiled and felt a little relieved that she wasn’t alone. “I do love him.”

           “I know.” She nodded and squeezed Leah’s hand. “And he loves you. I know he’ll listen, he’s just stubborn sometimes.”

           “Now’s really not the time to talk his ear off ‘bout petty things though.”

           Polly frowned. “If he’s got time to fuck about with the Golds then he has time to listen to his wife-to-be.” She asserted. “Don’t make excuses.”

           Leah nodded. “Alright, I won’t.” She promised. Her eyes moved to Michael’s bed when she heard him stirring.

           Polly hurried over to speak to him for the first time since he awoke from his surgery. “Sh, sh, don’t move.” She soothed softly and touched his shoulder to keep him still.

           As she spoke gently to her son, Leah mindlessly ran her hands through her hair, thinking about all the things she wanted to say to Tommy. It wouldn’t be easy, but Polly was right. She was only suffering by keeping her silence.

~~~~~~~~~~

           A few days after the funeral, Leah went to find Tommy at the car factory offices. There was always a good deal of chaos there as it was a working factory, but when she entered, the air was filled with electricity. Something had clearly happened that had riled everyone up.

           It wasn’t long before she found her fiancee speaking with his brother on the first floor. They were standing next to what appeared to be a makeshift boxing ring set up with ropes.

           “Tommy,” She called out his name above the loud atmosphere.

           He turned from talking quietly to Arthur. “Come to surprise me?” He smiled. Things after the funeral had been stuck in a strange stage between the two. They weren’t as cold to each other because there simply wasn’t time to argue or fight. Tommy’s mind was elsewhere but he seemed conscious enough to realize he had to be pleasant towards Leah to keep her spirits up. Especially now that the rest of the family knew about the engagement. All he wanted was to get rid of the Americans and get back to the good relationship he had with Leah. It was a tall order but Tommy was never one to shy away from a challenge.

           She smiled back, hoping they could keep up the positivity, especially since she went to the factory to talk. There were things that needed to be said. Things that she’d been holding onto for some time, especially after her talk with Polly at the hospital.

           “Missed a good fight, Leah,” Arthur told her joyfully. “We’ll make sure you don’t miss the next one.”

           “As long as you tell me who to bet for.” She laughed softly and touched Tommy’s arm. “Can we talk upstairs? I’ve brought lunch, Ada and I made it, put a bit of Linda’s cake in there as well.”

           “I’ve got a meeting, actually.” Tommy wrapped an arm around her waist and began walking towards the stairs with her.

           “You didn’t eat breakfast, I’m sure your meeting can wait.” She insisted hopefully.

           “She’s not a patient person, and I’m already running behind schedule. But you can stay in my office, we’ll have lunch after, aye?”

           Leah nodded slowly. “Okay, I can wait.” She’d waited this long, what was another half an hour?

           When noon struck, Leah was still in Tommy’s office. She was smoking a cigarette when she heard a commotion downstairs. Shouts and movement lured her back outside to the promenade that overlooked the first floor.

           Tommy came out of the conference room with a stern expression. He stood at the railing watching the factory workers all walking out of the building.

           “Tom,” She attempted to reach out to him but he simply turned to walk into his office.

           He tugged viciously at his tie, pulling it off and tossing it to his desk. Leah could see every muscle in his back was taut when he shrugged off his coat as well. “Close the door.” His voice was firm and he turned to flip the blinds, blocking out the sun.

           She listened and shut the office door behind her. “What happened? Where’s everyone going?”

           Nothing. He simply began to unbutton his waistcoat and carelessly tearing off his cufflinks.

           “Tommy.” She walked over to him and touched his arm. “Talk to me.”

           He turned around abruptly and cradled her cheeks. Before she could react he kissed her fiercely. All of his anger and grief funneled into the kiss. He dropped his hand to her hip and guided her back against his desk.

           Leah’s thighs hit against the edge of the desk. She grimaced and she pressed her hands against his chest to push him back. “Tommy, please, I wanted to talk.” She whispered, reminding him of the reason she’d come to the office.

           His breathing was off-kilter and he touched his forehead to hers. “I can’t think right now.” He muttered.

           “Just a moment…”

           “Leah, please.” He stepped away from her and dragged a hand through his hair. “Now’s not the time.”

           Leah perched hesitantly on the edge of his desk. “Will there ever be a time?” Her eyes lifted and she tried to listen to Polly’s previous advice and not just give in. She wasn’t going to let him just bend her over the desk to release his frustrations. Not if he wasn’t going to listen to her.

           Tommy slipped off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “When I get home, yeah?” His words were hollow, his mind was clearly somewhere far from the room.

           Leah swallowed and stood. Holding her purse close, she went for the door. She paused before reaching for the handle. “Before I go, I just want you to know that I love you. Enough to weather any storm.”

           “Lee…”

           “But if you’re tired of me, then please tell me now. If I’m not worth anything to you anymore, then cut me loose. Because I don’t know how much more I can handle.” Something in her throat stuck but she did everything she could to keep from crying.    

           Tommy reached out to take her hand. “Things right now will get better. But that doesn’t change how I feel about you. I’m doing everything I can to keep this family together.” His eyes were firm on her. “I love you, we’ll talk when I come home.”

           There was a knock on the door and Leah decided to take her leave. Her hand slipped from his and she opened the door.

           “Oh, pardon me.” The man waiting for Tommy apologized. “Mr. Shelby, a delegate from the European Council for Trade is here. He’s here to talk about the import of car parts.” He explained.

           Leah passed through the doorway and went to leave. As she did, she noticed a dark-haired stranger lingering around the second floor. His eyes met hers and a smug smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He was well dressed and Leah noticed the cross tattoo peeking out from his crisp collar.

           She didn’t know who he was, but he gave her a bad feeling. If only she knew it was the man trying to kill them all.

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Masterpost

PB Masterlist 

[ourloveisforthelovely]

To the Ends of the Earth 10

Supernatural 

A/n: AU!Story. OOC Gabriel

Link to Chapter 9

Pairings: Gabriel x Reader

_________

The next morning you sat listening to Adam harass the ever loving shit out of you about breaking up with Gabriel. You had heard everything from “you are not an angel” to “he’s going to kill you” and then some. 

“Y/n! Are you even listening to me?”

You looked up from the bowl of cereal that you were pretending to eat. Adam sat across from you giving you the biggest bitch face imaginable. Putting down your spoon, you faced your brother fully.

“No, not really because I am not ending things with Gabriel. You made some good points. I’ll give you that. You would be better off going to talk to a rock...or the wall.”

Adam muttered fuck under his breath.

“I don’t get it, Y/n! Could you not fall in love with someone of your own species?”

You chuckled before standing up to walk into the kitchen

“If I only had a dollar for every time that I have been asked that.” 

Adam jumped up and chased after you. He was not about to let this go! So what if you were the archangel’s soulmate or whatever; you were Adam’s sister first!  

“I’m not playing, Y/n!” 

You put your bowl in the sink before spinning around. 

“I’m not playing either, Adam. You are not about to start telling me what to do. I am glad that you are back and all but I don’t do what my brothers tell me like some good little Suzy Q Sunshine! I love Gabriel and that is how it's going to be...GOT ME?”

You yelled the last two words a little more loudly than necessary but who the fuck cared? Before Adam could respond, Jack stepped into the kitchen. He gave you his usual cheerful smile. Internally, you sighed. Why did the kid have to remind you so much of Gabriel? 

What a fucking gene pool…

Your mind supplied before getting your head back into the game.

“Hey, Jack.” 

He smiled.

“Hi! So I was doing some thinking. I know that you have been working really hard at fixing Gabriel. I may be onto something...Why don’t we go track down Raphael or Michael and make them fix Gabriel.” 

Adam’s disgusted expression went to horror as you clearly considered the nephilim’s words. 

“That might just work.”

You said. Adam shook his head. 

“How the hell are you going to make an archangel do what you want them to? You are going to get yourself killed!”

You shook your head. Jack’s idea may be a little harebrained and out there but anything was worth a shot. 

“I have some great powers of persuasion.” 

You said, not bothering to look at your brother. 

“Get my archangel blade, Jack and be ready to go in five minutes.” 

Adam was ready to burn the world down! This had to be the stupidest most insane thing that you had ever...EVER...come up with! 

“I am not about to let you go track down some archangel and watch him kill you because you want some guy back.” 

You stopped in the doorway before slowly turning to face Adam with a clearly annoyed expression.

“He isn’t just some guy to me. He’s everything to me. You can come along if you want but you aren’t going to stop me. Dean? Sam?”

You turned away from Adam before walking into the “Dean Cave.” Both of your older brothers looked up at the mention of their names. 

“You called, sunshine?”

Dean asked. You smirked. This was not going to be a pretty conversation but it had to be done. 

“I’m going to find Raphael.”

Neither Sam nor Dean spoke for a moment. They looked at each other, clearly trying to take in what you just said. Dean stood holding a hand up. 

“Excuse me, did you just say that you were going to find Raphael?” 

You nodded and went to the closet to take out your revolver. 

“Yep, you heard me right. Jack has this brilliant idea if I go and threaten him real good I may just get my way.” 

Adam met Dean’s worried gaze.

“I had nothing to do with this. I told her that it was crazy but she only has her mind fixing that archangel on her mind.” 

Dean met Adam’s gaze for a few moments before turning to you. 

“Do you think it will work?”

You shrugged.

“I am going to do everything that I can do to help him. Don’t even waste your time trying to talk me out of it. I just told Adam the exact same thing.” 

Dean snorted. He knew that trying to talk you out of whatever you had planned was going to work as well as stabbing someone and telling them not to bleed.

“What do you want me to do?”

You turned back to your brother. This was the last thing that you had expected Dean to say.You had honestly expected him to say something like Adam did. Maybe he was finally getting the picture that him bossing you around wasn’t going to shit. 

“I want you and Sam to stay here and keep an eye on Gabriel. He won’t be much trouble.”

Dean snorted. 

“All he does is sit and stare at the wall. I honestly forget that he’s there most of the time.” 

You sighed. 

“Just keep an eye on him.” 

Dean pointed to the door. 

“Go tell him that you are leaving. The last thing that I want to deal with is him panicking because you got out of his line of sight.” 

You nodded and moved to go to the door. Adam’s eyes met yours. The two of you stared at each other for a moment. 

“Time to pick a side.”

You muttered before walking down the hall to your room. 

Stepping into your bedroom, you sighed looking at Gabriel. He sat, as he always did, looking off into the blissful realms of nowhere. He didn’t look up when you stepped in. You walked to the bed and sat down. 

“Gabriel?”

His eyes quickly snapped to you. He watched you carefully as you tried to scoot closer. 

“I am going away for a bit. I won’t be gone long. This time I’m fixing everything.”

You stood as Gabriel shook his head frantically. He reached out to grab your hand. You didn’t move to get away from him. Instead you reached out and stroked your hand over his cheek. 

“I promise you, everything will be just fine.” 

Gabriel slowly let go of your hand but didn’t look away from your face. You sat quietly for a moment before speaking. 

“All of this will be just a bad memory. Hopefully, you won’t hate me for what I’m about to do.”

You met Gabriel’s eyes before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his forehead. He slightly flinched before relaxed enough to enjoy the contact. You finally pulled away before turning and walking from the room

1 hour later, you stood inside of an old abandoned house. Jack stood behind you, clearly looking for any sign Raphael sneaking up on you. Adam, looking scared beyond all logical reason, was by your side. You glanced at your brother and fought the urge to roll your eyes. Something told you that if it came down to it Adam was going to wrap himself around your legs like a giant toddler. 

“Jack, is everything good to go?”

Jack nodded. 

“Oh yeah. I don’t mess around.” 

“Works for me.”

You muttered before turning back. 

“Raphael, you stupid son of a bitch. Did you think that you would never have to face me?”

You yelled. A few moments later, Raphael stepped out of the shadows. He looked at you with an annoyed expression. 

“Well well...if it isn’t Y/n Winchester. I was wondering when we would meet in person. I have a feeling what you are here for and my answer is no. My brother deserved what he got. He was foolish to think that he could love a human and not be punished. You are going to be punished too. An eternity in hell will be just fine for Michael and I.” 

You snorted. Oh the poor archangel was so wrong on that one. You weren't going anywhere you didn’t want to go. 

“I think you are wrong on that one. You are going to fix Gabriel then you are going to go suck an egg and die.” 

Raphael raised an eyebrow before giving an over dramatic sigh.

“Child, I find your...threats amusing. I, however, am not the least bit afraid of you.”

You met Jack’s gaze as he threw the lighter that he was holding down. The ring of fire erupted around Raphael. The archangel looked around slightly confused before turning his attention back to you. 

“What do you think is going to happen between Gabriel and yourself? Do you really see an outcome where the two of you will be happy? He’s an archangel and you are a lowly human. You are as close to scum as there is out there. Do you believe that my brother is going to stand by you for the rest of eternity? I know my brother, child. He will get bored with you just list he has everything else in his life.” 

You let Rapahel’s little dig roll off of your back. Had it not been the fact that you were telling yourself to keep it cool for Gabriel; you would have lost it. 

“That’s your opinion. I don’t know if you have ever heard this saying or not but opinions are like assholes.” 

Raphael scoffed. 

“You think that you're funny like your brother. I am not going to do a thing to help you.” 

You glanced at Jack as he handed you the archangel glade. Raphael’s cold expression quickly turned nervous. You raised an eyebrow. 

“Did I just detect a flicker of fear? I have made the great archangel Raphael scared of me...a lowly little human. Now here’s what we are going to do. You are going to fix Gabriel or I am going to sit on you and carve my initial into your forehead my little archangel blade. You will have to think of me every day for the rest of eternity.

Raphael looked at you momentarily. 

“Fine. I’ll fix my brother so I don’t have you to deal with for the rest of forever….but you're going to regret it. You know that Michael will see to that. I will also not forget this fun little festive greeting. When you get home, Gabriel will be good as new.” 

You nodded. 

“Too bad I don’t have an easy button to commemorate this moment”

Raphael scowled. You had to be one of the most annoying humans that he had ever met! It didn’t matter that you had clearly proven your loyalty to Gabriel. The relationship would never be accepted by Raphael or Michael. 

“Enjoy your freedom while you can. 

(meanwhile back at the bunker) 

Sam stood watching Dean attempt to make homemade cookies. When the poor darlings came out of the oven completely toasted, Sam sighed. 

“That’s it. You are banned from the kitchen, Dean. I am never going to get this cleaned up.” 

“Where is Y/n?”

Both Sam and Dean spun around to see Gabriel standing in the kitchen door. Dean sat down his ruined cookies before facing the archangel fully. 

“When did you start talking again?”

Gabriel frowned. He still looked rough as hell but was slowly beginning to look like the angel that he was.

“What are you talking about?”

Sam moved to join his brother. Neither he nor Dean said anything for a few moments. Gabriel stood looking between them before losing his patients. 

“Again, what are you two talking about and where is Y/n?!”

Sam decided that he was going to be the one to explain to Gabriel what had been happening.

“Raphael and Michael wiped your memory. You’ve been kind of out of it for the past few months.”

Dean snorted. 

“Kind of? That is a poor way to put it. You have been a drooling zombie like mess.” 

Gabriel’s confused expression darkened. He was silent for a few moments as he tried to remember what exactly happened between himself and his brothers but was drawing a blank. His last memory was telling you to stay in the bunker and that led to now.

“My brothers wiped my memory? That must be why I feel awful. So about Y/n….I would kind of like to see her.” 

Sam and Dean again exchanged looks. 

“She isn’t exactly here.”

Dean said calmly. Gabriel frowned. 

“What do you mean she isn’t here?”

The sense of panic quickly began to build inside of Gabriel. Were you okay? Had his idiot brothers gotten a hold of you? If they did, Gabriel would never forgive himself! He tried to calm himself. Gabriel knew that you were alive. He could still feel the bond between the two of you but that didn’t mean that you were...safe.

“She went with Jack and Adam to find Raphael and make him fix you.” 

Gabriel’s mouth dropped! You went after his brother! You went after one of the oldest beings in the universe! Gabriel had to repeat it in his mind a few times to make sure that he was hearing everything correctly. 

Why in the name of all things holy did you think that it was a good idea to go after an archangel? Gabriel put a hand over his face. This had to be the worst outcome ever! What were you going to do? Kick Raphael in the shins until he saw your way? That wasn’t going to happen!

Gabriel was close to losing whatever fragile grip on reality that he had. He had spent every day from the moment of your birth attempting to keep you safe. It couldn’t all be for nothing now! 

Dean stood watching Gabriel and decided to say something before the archangel destroyed the bunker. 

“Before you unravel a sweater, Jack is with her. He isn’t going to let anything happen to Y/n.” 

Gabriel scowled at Dean. 

“Well, that makes me feel so much better!”

Gabriel turned and walked to the couch and sat down in a huff. Dean gave Sam a shrug and went back into the kitchen. The last thing that he wanted to do was sit around and watch Gabriel brood. You would be back soon enough and would be able to calm Gabriel’s ass down a notch or two.

_______

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[agirlunderarock]

How I accidentally wrote 20 page paper on Boromir for one of my Final Ever University Papers PART 2

So this took me 5ever because I had to go through my actual paper again to find the sources and the citations I had, and then throw out the academic fluffer I had to speak with. But anyway just be prepared for a long ass read because we gotta touch on nearly every source I argued with in this post before getting to the good stuff. If you haven’t read Part 1 well here it is

Okay Okay where was I?

I said that academics were wrong with how they were judging Boromir right? Is that where I left off? Well thats where I’m starting

So before I go further I need to explain that the main premise for my paper is an argument to characterize Boromir with loyalty and fear, instead of power hungry and whatever the hell used, and then throw out this good vs. evil binary that’s often used to describe the lord of the rings- because lets be real, it looks like that on the surface but everyone has their ups and downs at least once or twice, and if not within the Lord of the Rings, it comes from books that are set in previous ages. 

ANYWAY

Keep the fear and loyalty things in mind alright?

Fear sounds like an odd choice for a character I’m supposed to be defending right? I know.

We’ll get to that just bear with me. 

So in order to say that academics were wrong, I first had to look at where they were coming from and try to see what textual evidence they had. Because if you’ve done academic research, you know how important textual evidence is. 

So while finding literally nothing that focused specifically on Boromir, I found  J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia : Scholarship and Critical Assessment by Michael D. C. Drout, which I still have questions about but hey it was a good starting point. You would think that a whole Encyclopedia dedicated to Tolkien would have more than a handful of entries dedicated to Boromir. I mean mentioning him in Gondorian politics or relations with Rohan or even Boromir I instead of just Boromir II but heres the thing, IN THE WHOLE IN ENCYCLOPEDIA HE WAS ONLY MENTIONED 8 TIMES.

THE NAME BOROMIR (which in this document only refers to Boromir II) ONLY APPEARS IN EIGHT ENTRIES.

You know what those entries are? 

‘double of,’ - okay what the fuck does that mean?

 I honestly don’t remember what it means I think it had to do with character foils, you know like how Neville is a foil for Harry in Harry Potter? If I remember correctly, it identified the common foils, Gandalf v. Saruman, Frodo v. Gollum and Aragorn v. Boromir. I could be totally wrong about this, its been exactly a year and I didn’t focus on this entry.

 ‘Faramir and,’- yes we know Boromir is Faramir’s older brother. What else ya got?

 ‘herosim of,’- Ah yes sounds promising

And you think it would shed some positive light on our boy right? RIGHT? Heres what the entry said per the quote in paper “It is in fact Boromir’s desire for the victory of Minas Tirith and his own glory there in that motivates his own grasp for the ring: the heroic motivations of fame, reward, and revenge (in this case on Sauron)” ( Drout 270 ).  

LIKE EXCUSE ME WHAT THE FUCK- sorry wait, let me show you how I rephrased that for academic purposes:  This description does not actually describe Boromir as being heroic, but later explains why these descriptions of heroism are actually evil compared to characters like Aragorn, Frodo, Gimli and the rest of the Fellowship.

 ‘penance of,’- Yet another character who achieves redemption through death. Great. I hate it. Shut up. Kill this trope.

 and finally,  ‘tyranny of.’- yes because Boromir was obviously a tyrant, but I say again SHOW ME TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

AND I’M TALKING ONLY ABOUT THE BOOKS HERE REMEMBER ALL OF THIS IS INFORMATION ON THE BOOKS. like there were entries on things from the movies, and even fanfiction, but THESE ENTRIES WERE BUILT ON RESOURCES THAT BUILT ARGUMENTS ABOUT THE BOOKS

I’m getting off track here

SO 

ANYWAYS

At the end of each of those entries were list of sources that the author used to create those entries. So guess what that meant- Ya girl was hand delivered sources to search for and hopefully they had some specific pages references for me to look up within the actual book series. At least you would think thats what I found, but NOOOOOOOOO, what I actually found is that EVERY SINGLE REFERENCED SOURCE CHARACTERIZED BOROMIR ONLY BY HIS ATTEMPT TO TAKE THE RING FROM FRODO.

Thats like living your whole life and having people who say they know you intimately (not in the romantic sense in the knows you to your core sense) BUT the only thing they really know about you is that one time in pre-school you tried to draw a rocket on the wall but actually it looked like a penis thats the only thing anyone will remember you for. I didn’t do this by the way, nor know anyone who did this but some kid somewhere probably did

But you know me at this point I had to check the sources and see what they were saying. So I took up Patrick Grant’s  “Tolkien: Archetype and Word,” where he talks mostly about Frodo. I know its a stretch BUT he talks about loyalty specifically Sam’s loyalty to Frodo, and remember we want to establish that Boromir is incredibly loyal, so we have to see what he’s actually up against according to the critics

“…Sam Gamgee, whose part is least publicly acclaimed of all, but who in the sense in which we are now using the word, is especially heroic. His unfailing devotion to Frodo is exemplary, and here again Sam is a key link in bring the meaning of the book to the reader, the everyman who admires great deeds but wonders what his own part might be in important events which seem well enough wrought without him” ( 180 ).  

Okay that seems fair from how Tolkien himself has talked about Sam right. And you’re probably like okay, but what the fuck does that have to do with Boromir? Literally just further down the page  he says:

“…. The fellowship breaks only when the bond of obedience is broken, as it is by Boromir, whose pride and lust for personal power are evidence of false heroism” (180).

LUST FOR PERSONAL POWER???? PRIDE?????

SHOW ME THE PAGES SIR

GIVE THEM TO ME

I know you’re probably thinking, ‘but wait he’s actually kinda right-”

WRONG

Its anxiety, I’m telling you

I counted 

its fear and anxiety

but again I’m getting a head of myself. Basically Grant just took a shat on Boromir to make Sam look good.

EXCUSE ME SIR SAM IS A GODDAMN MASTERPIECE ON HIS OWN THANKS. DON’T TRASH BOROMIR TO COMPLIMENT SAM. Also be wary of people who do this in general, if they put someone else down instead of just out right complimenting you take it as a warning

Oh and did I mention that because Grant says Boromir is technically being selfish, another critics analysis makes Boromir Evil, because acts done out of selfish pursuits are seen as evil and a “perversion of human will.” But you know, thats just how it be sometimes when you’re putting literature in conversation with one another.

Just know I pick on Grant a lot, mostly because he says shit like this:  “…the most blinding love derives directly from such obedience,” (180). when it comes to Sam, and then takes a shit on Boromir. Like we’re going to come back to the obedience thing in a little bit, but just know that Merry, Pippin, Faramir, Eowyn, Even Sam at one point, and I mean I guess by some extension movie!Arwen take a big ‘ol shit on the idea that the only way to be heroic is to be OBEDIENT.

I get it, its another Catholic thing. I’m Catholic, I know what its getting at. But consider- no

Basically I boil this shit down to one thing

Sam Only Owes Loyalty To Frodo.

Literally his main concern throughout the book is Frodo and then the Shire and what that encompasses. So yeah its easy to be loyal and obedient to someone who shares all the same ideas and values as you and has a pretty similar lived experience right??? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY And before anyone says Sam was loyal to the fellowship, Sam would literally cut a bitch for Frodo. He woulda fought Aragorn in the Prancing Pony if he thought he had to. He gave a second thought to Merry and Pippin when they left the Fellowship, but it wasn’t a “we should go back for them all or wait for them” It was “i’m gonna support mr. Frodo, even if Idon’t much like the gollum creature he decided to drag around but fair i guess cuz none of us know the fucking way into Mordor.” 

So I made a chart to demonstrate why comparing Boromir and Sam is a big no no, and what kinda things Boromir was working with the whole time he was part of the fellowship.

Did I forget to mention that this was supposed to be a visual research paper?

So Sam and Frodo had a lot of the same Fears and values.

Our Boy Boromir over here has to deal with being a political/military figure, meet the demands of his father, he’s gotta try to be a good brother, he’s gotta learn to get along with the fellowship, and then each of those new or old loyalties has different responsibility and expectations he’s supposed to meet. And because I had to include Aristotelian ideas as part of the class, to quote myself: Despite the Aristotelian concept that it is impossible to be a virtuous friend to many, Boromir’s actions throughout The Fellowship of the Ring show him attempting to do this ( Aristotle 9 ). Like thats literally why he ends up a member of the Fellowship, he’s a little unsure of this plan, but hey its the best one he’s heard and if everyone thinks its going to work then by golly he’ll see it done. But again Aristotle (just in your head pronounce it like chipotle for me please) wants to try to establish a structure that I think is stoopid, he’s got a thing that says  “it is a more terrible thing to defraud a comrade than a fellow-citizen, more terrible not to help a brother than a stranger, and more terrible to wound a father than any one else” (15). 

So remember those loyalties in the little blue squiggles up in the picture, we already know that Denethor, and Faramir bump heads a little, and then the soldiers serving with Boromir probably have their own ideas about how Gondor should be defended, and then he goes to the Council of Elrong and they’re saying something completely different from what he’s heard- theres a lot of threads pulling the Captain in different directions. He’s got a lot hats to wear and demands to fulfill and living under the shadow of Mordor with all of those responsibilities is bound to give anyone anxiety. 

But don’t just take my word for it

The movie actually reinforces this. I know the book says Boromir was “...pierced with many black feathered arrows” But the movie specifically makes it 3

Now I’m sure Mr. Peter Jackson didn’t intend for what I’m about to say, but I think its a pretty cool notion to think about. Because you can summarize Boromir’s conflicting loyalties into “family’ ‘country’ and “Fellowship’. Like his father would have him bring the ring to Gondor, his role as a military/political figure for Gondor means he should be doing whatever he has to in order to protect his country, and the Fellowship is like nah man we destroy this thing and everything else will fall into place, and Boromir is left having to decide whih of these things to act upon. Family, Country, and the Fellowship are the competing signs that make up is character arc, and his grapple with these three things is ultimately what leads to his death.

Now if your thinking family and country should be lumped together- theres a reason for it, just trust me, bare with me please

But basically what I’m trying to get at is given all these factors, you can’t compare a character like Boromir with all these responsibilities hanging off him to be comparable to Sam whose only responsibility is Frodo. 

But you know who does share all these same demands

Faramir

Like take a look at their character arcs- if you can the text on this next pic is super teeny

If thats too small for you don’t worry about it because we’re gonna get into why Faramir is a better foil for Boromir, and how this should affect the way we as the reader come to understand his character. So fun stuff in the next part! Sorry for dragging this out, but just like my original paper, this turned out to be WAY longer than I expected. 

[michael-langdon-appreciation]

Are we getting the twin fic anytime soon? please feed me ma'am I'm starving

Here is is! The next update in the twins story. It became a mix of many things we all talked about and this was the end result. I kinda feel it needs a Part 2 but we shall see heh heh.

There are some time-jumps which are broken up with ---

ALSO BE WARNED THERE IS SMUT IN THIS FIC INVOLVING OUR SWEET JEFFREY HARMON! 

😇😇😇

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeffrey had always been admired. His golden hair shimmering halo-like, complete with sinfully vibrant eyes that knows the deepest desires of your heart. People followed him almost without regard, brazenly. Unlike the narrow-minded dolts at Hawthorne who saw Michael’s power as being the epitome of success, once on the surface again away from that primitive hollow, Jeffrey’s true beauty could the bloom. 

It was only a matter of time before someone couldn’t resist his brother’s draw. Someone would want to pluck Jeffrey’s ripeness, to taste his plump lips and devour his innocence. Michael noticed firstly how Orion lingered too long during meetings. Jeffrey’s attendance at Kineros was so incredibly rare there was even a rumour going round the company that the Antichrist had no brother. The white-wearing male was a facade, a projection created by Michael himself to throw everyone off. To ensure their loyalty was firmly with Satan. Perhaps out of ignorance or determination, Orion didn’t ever notice Michael’s eyes burning into his back. 

It was all just so simple. 

Orion would hand Jeffrey his tea complete with no sugar but so much milk to almost completely dilute the golden colour. 

Just how Jeffrey liked it.

‘No sugar again?’ The Angel would smile, his eyes soft as the cup and saucer are placed before him. 

‘You’re sweet enough.’ Orion would remark, the back and forth completely cliched. 

Michael’s fists clench under the long, obsidian table. The latex squeaks and that is enough for Orion to pick up on the taste of danger Michael sends wafting over to him. The young designer straightens and drops himself in a seat next to Mutt.

‘Move.’ Michael’s voice commands, his displeasure still obvious. 

There’s a beat as the entire boardroom wonders who the Antichrist is referring to. Jeffrey’s laugh tinkles round the room, ‘Let’s not be petulant, brother.’ He cautions, ‘Everyone is here for you.’ 

‘Are they?’ Michael’s eyes sweep across every face, ‘Is everyone here for me, or my father?’ 

The mood is sickening. Jeffrey shrinks away, trying to make himself as small as possible. 

‘Dude, we totally respect you.’ It’s Jeff who speaks up, ‘You’re awesome, bro.’ 

‘Yeah. Fuck the planet.’ Mutt echoes, going as far as to stand up. ‘Blow it all to fucking pieces.’

The room joins in at once, everyone murmuring their dedication to the Antichrist and the plan. Orion however, remains quiet. He nods along enthusiastically, but his eyes dart helplessly to Jeffrey. 

Michael’s revulsion deepens. 

What the fuck does he know? 

                                                           ---

Michael held off on his concerns, more due to being far too busy to corner Jeffrey’s admirers. He didn’t think anything of it, till words flitted into his ears as he passed the break room. ‘He’s just so stunning isn’t he? There’s a real mystique and power there but it’s so subtle.’ He paused, Michael more than eager to have his ego stroked. 

‘Personally I’d like to see him get down and dirty.’ A woman whispers back, ‘See him in something other than white.’

His stomach curls. They’re talking about Jeffrey.

His Jeffrey.

‘Don’t get me started.’ Orion agrees, ‘I’d kill to see what’s underneath him. What really makes him tick.’

Michael can’t listen to anymore. He strides towards his office, the doors flinging open without his touch. Jeffrey jumps, closing Michael’s laptop lid, ‘You gave me a fright.’

‘Grow up.’ Michael snaps, ‘You should be used to me by now.’ 

Jeffrey’s eyes glint as he catches on to his brother’s mood, ‘I am.’ He agrees, ‘All too well after so many years, Michael.’ The Antichrist sweeps into one of his office chairs, sinking down and letting the chair swing round. Jeffrey watches from Michael’s desk, ‘I’m not the person to ask to deal with someone, if you’re struggling yourself.’ 

‘I’m not.’

‘Right.’

Michael stops swinging, ‘Why do people like you?’

A smile winds up Jeffrey’s face, making Michael want to slap it off at once. ‘Because I treat people with respect. With kindness.’

‘So did I!’ Michael is on his feet at once, bearing over his brother. ‘And what did it get me? My Mrs Mead dead. The Warlocks dead-’

Jeffrey looks away, his hands dropped into his lap. ‘This isn’t about me really, is it?’

Michael swallows, ‘You have…admirers here.’ 

‘Well that makes a change.’ 

‘What does that mean?

Jeffrey pushes away from the desk, his white shirt today is sheer revealing his toned body underneath. ‘Did I ever once complain at Hawthorne, when you had your band of merry followers hanging on your every word, tainting our room with the stench of sweat?’

‘You didn’t have to say anything.’ Michael retorts, ‘Your disdain was evident in your looks. Why do you think we ended up in the library so often?’

‘Oh how considerate of you.’ Jeffrey gushes, but the ice is plain in his voice. ‘May I remind you I don’t have to be here.’ 

That has Michael backing down, ‘No.’ He admits, ‘No you don’t.’

‘But I am. Because I love you.’ 

‘Love you too.’ Michael repeats it back automatically.

Jeffrey’s fingers ghost over Michael’s shoulder, ‘I like hearing you say it. It’s been a while since I heard that.’

‘Starving makes you see what’s important.’ Michael says, ‘Who is important.’ 

Jeffrey’s hands cup either side of Michael’s face, those eyes so similar to Michael’s own swim before him. The Angel is on his knees before him, ’You will always be the most important person in my life.’ 

‘Will I?’

‘You have to let me speak to people. You have everyone here. You have your Mrs Mead back now. Who do I have?’

Michael knows he has a point, ‘Be careful?’

‘I promise.’ 

                                                           ---

It brings Michael out of his slumber, a breathy sound that a normal human wouldn’t be able to hear. Michael’s senses sharpen as he zeroes in on what he can hear, shuffling of feet, the sound of something dropping onto the floor. 

Moans. 

He pads quietly on bare feet across his bedroom and opens the door. Michael makes sure not to make a sound as he leans over the railings and peers down into the living room below. The sight before him burns. Jeffrey’s shirt is on the floor, the column of his throat peppered with dark bruises and hickies. A tongue works a new one into his skin as Michael’s little brother squirms in delight.

‘Oh God.’ He moans sacrilegious sin into the air as Orion drags their lips back together. 

Jeffrey’s hands run all over the designer, through his hair and down his chest as Jeffrey works open the buttons. 

He’s divine like this, full of abandonment as Jeffrey embraces the taste and flavour of his first sexual encounter. Michael sinks down with his back to the railings, he can’t keep watching can he? That wouldn’t be right? But Jeffrey’s eagerness is more than prevalent as the sound of movement alerts Michael again.

When he peeks round, Michael’s eyes widen. 

Jeffrey is pressed over the kitchen countertops, his cheek against the cool marble. ‘Please.’ He begs, ‘I need it. I’ve craved you to touch me and make me sing.’

‘I will, sweetness.’ Orion vows, ‘You’re so beautiful. Thank you for giving me this.’ 

‘Michael can’t ever know.’ Jeffrey pleads, ‘I want to be with you, but if he knew….he wouldn’t forgive me.’ 

So now they keep secrets from each other? Michael knows he doesn’t have a good track record, but never in his life has he concealed a part of himself from his brother. Jeffrey knows everything, he’s been there through everything up until Michael’s sojourn into the forrest. Was that the moment that changed them irrevocably? Did Jeffrey’s decision to remain behind, to not chase after hhis brother for the first time in their lives create a chasm that Michael can never bridge? What else doesn’t he know about his brother? Jeffrey knows the most intimate details of Michael’s life. His twin and only his twin knows how Michael only hurt the cats because they lashed out and scratched him first. He must have been holding them too tight and now Jeffrey knows Michael won’t go near any innocent animal. Jeffrey knows Michael only tolerates French Toast because Mrs Mead thought it was his favourite and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her it isn’t. Even to this day. He doesn’t realise he’s crying till the tears are flooding down Michael’s cheeks. 

Jeffrey, how could you? 

‘He doesn’t own you.’ Orion says, tugging Jeffrey’s trousers down. The intruder mouths kisses over Jeffrey’s spine and across the inside of the Angel’s thighs. ‘You can do as you wish.’ Jeffrey’s thighs almost flutter at the affection. He begs for more, taking every sweet ripple of pleasure Orion gives him. Jeffrey allows himself to be selfish, to demand that he become submerged in sensation. ‘You know that, right?’ Orion presses him, his eyes lifting to look into Jeffrey’s. 

Michael too waits for the answer.

Jeffrey struggles, but one more kiss from Orion and his mouth is running. ‘He’s so innocent though.’ Jeffrey’s lost in this new world Orion is opening up for him. ‘He likes to make out he’s the big bad one but he’s so scared. Underneath it all…he needs someone to love him. He needs my love, if he knows my heart has turned to you…’

Orion murmurs against Jeffrey’s lips, ‘I don’t plan to get in his way.’ 

‘You already have done.’ Jeffrey whispers, but Michael still catches every word of betrayal. ‘Because you chose to love me.’

‘I do love you.’ Orion agrees, standing and unbuttoning his fly. ‘I’ve loved you since I first saw you float into that boardroom. I lost all train of thought, couldn’t finish presenting my idea.’ 

‘It was a good pitch.’ Jeffrey whines, spreading his legs to give Orion room to make himself at home. 

‘No more talking.’ The designer murmurs, ‘I’m gonna take you now. I’ll be slow, gentle.’ 

‘No!’ Jeffrey’s head turns like lightning to make eye contact with his lover. ‘I’m tired of gentle. I can take more than people think. I can do it.’ 

Michael doesn’t want to hear more. He picks himself up from the upstairs landing and throws himself on his bed. He clutches his pillow tight to his chest as the tears pour from his eyes and his chest shakes and everything around him is blurred and hot and stings. His chest howls with pressure and pain, just as it had those four days he’d spent alone. Losing his Mrs Mead when the world was just too cruel for him and all Michael had wanted to do was to gouge out his own heart and every muscle and organ responsible for giving him emotions. He prays to his father to abolish him of feeling. To take away the hurt and the lies people feed to him and leave him with an empty cavity. 

It has to be better than this.

He can’t keep being betrayed by a brother who despises him enough to give his heart to another so freely.

Who the FUCK did that designer think he was? To take away Jeffrey Harmon from him? From the Antichrist? 

The sounds of sex rise up from below, like demons chanting their verses in Michael’s ears. He can hear every grunt, every thrust and hitch as Jeffrey cries out when Orion clearly bottoms out. Michael flings his pillow over his head. He can’t leave without Jeffrey knowing and his twin believes he’s working late tonight. Jeffrey would never think Michael might want some time with his brother. No, he must work and work and work and work and work. Michael must bring about the apocalypse and Michael must continue to devote his entire life for a world he doesn’t fully believe in. Hatred fuels his actions, revenge and mutiny against those fucking witches. 

He’s not scared. 

He’s the Antichrist. 

Clarity covers Michael as he rolls onto his back. The lovemaking continues but Michael’s mind is working overtime. 

Was this Cordelia’s fault too? 

She took his Mrs Mead and the warlocks…but what did she say to Jeffrey? 

Did she poison his own twin against him? Is Cordelia fucking Goode the reason why Jeffrey is in the arms of a stranger, someone they don’t even know. Giving his sacred virginity away to some fake-glasses wearing fucker? Is that why Jeffrey no longer comes to visit Michael? He gets the notifications from security that his brother is at Kineros, but Jeffrey rarely visits him anymore. 

So….why is he there? 

What is he doing?

Is he using those times to see Orion? To hook-up with him and fuck in Michael Langdon’s dominion? 

When did his priorities change from Michael….to another? 

He dials Mrs Mead immediately and the robot picks up on the second ring, ‘We need to pay a visit to Dinah Stevens tomorrow.’ Michael’s eyes blaze, but his lips curl into a smirk of victory. Oh he’ll make that supreme bitch pay for taking his twin from him. He listens to Mrs Mead bluster on till he cuts over her, ‘Pick me up at 7am tomorrow. She’ll know how we can get into that coven and blow them all to fucking pieces.’ 

He ends the call only to hear silence. It’s over. They’ve finished for now. 

Michael removes the pillow from his head and finally lets his body relax back into the bed. He’s exhausted, drained and most definitely sacking off work tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a day for him.

Tomorrow he’ll end the witches and then, perhaps if he’s feeling particularly vengeful he’ll end the day by slitting Orion’s throat. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[napoleoninrags]

President Barabbas

The mob chose a mobster. Elections have consequences.

by Greg Olear

"Easter is a very special day for me ... Easter Sunday, and you'll have packed churches all over our country.” —Donald John Trump, 24 March 2020

I WAS RAISED Catholic, which meant that every Sunday, come hell or high water, we went to church. The Catholic Mass is extremely rote. There’s a lot of call-and-response, a lot of standing up and sitting down, a lot of the same material, repeated over and over and over again. The Apostles’ Creed, for example, has been recited at Mass, in much the same way, since it was codified at the Council of Nicaea during the reign of Constantine the Great, a mere 17 centuries ago.

The best day of the liturgical year, in my recollection, was Palm Sunday. The priest always shared the same story: Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect, appeared before his subjects in Jerusalem on the occasion of Passover, and agreed to free a single Jewish prisoner. The mob had to choose: should Pilate free Jesus, the alleged “King of the Jews,” or Barabbas, a notorious criminal? Whereupon we, role-playing in the pews, would cry, WE WANT BARABBAS! My brother and I shouted with gusto, to my mother’s extreme annoyance: WE WANT BARABBAS! And so the killer was set free, and Christ condemned to die.

I didn’t know at the time that this passage, perpetuating as it does the “Jews killed Jesus” myth, was used for centuries by anti-Semites to justify their despicable deeds. I never interpreted it that way. To me, the story is about how mobs, led as they are by riled-up morons, can easily be fooled and manipulated into voting against their best interests.

The 2016 election is a recent example of how the angry masses, presented with a clear choice of good guy versus bad guy, chose unwisely. It’s not fair to either party to compare Hillary Clinton with Jesus Christ, and Pontius Pilate did not use the Electoral College system in determining whom to pardon, but notorious criminal Donald John Trump is absolutely President Barabbas. The mob went with the mobster.

Three years into the Trump Administration, and a shocking number of the president’s associates are either in prison, about to head to prison, under indictment, or under investigation. There is Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chair, currently incarcerated. There is Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney, fixer, and bagman: ditto. There is the treacherous Michael Flynn, awaiting his sentence (or, perhaps, his pardon). There is Trump’s longtime buddy and shadow campaign advisor Roger Stone, soon to toddle off to the hoosegow. There’s also those who have not yet been indicted because of the nefarious machinations of the corrupt Attorney General, William Barr: Rudy Giuliani, Jared Kushner, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, Mick Mulvaney, Erik Prince, and Trump’s lousy kids Ivanka, Eric, and Don Junior.

What is remarkable here, aside from the obvious fact that Trump cavorts with an uncanny number of crooks, is that none of these people has flipped. Manafort pretended to, only to ratfuck the FBI. Flynn, too, lied to investigators. Only Cohen gave up some dirt—but how much did he really surrender? The thing is, the rest of these people aren’t nearly as hard. Trump wants to pardon Roger Stone because he knows him well enough to know that he will sing to stay out of the Big House. Jared Kushner, aka Boy Plunder, has done so many illicit things that he will keep FBI agents busy for years; is Mr. Ivanka really not going to flip to avoid prison? And I can’t imagine Don Junior exhibiting the same trollish swagger around Cellblock D.

Trump’s partners in crime are all selfish assholes. They have no real loyalty. Giuliani, for example, loathes Trump with every fiber of his noxious being. He’s only protecting him out of his own self-interest. At some point, to preserve themselves, these fuckers will all turn on each other, and it will be the end of Reservoir Dogs all up in here: a bunch of petty crooks threatening to take each other down.

So why haven’t they?

A big queen sits in the middle of the stalemated chessboard, preventing all movement. The queen’s name is William Barr. He is the titular Attorney General of the United States, but his actual function is to slow-roll the Department of Justice from its takedown of Trump and his co-conspirators. To that end, he holds up witnesses. He stymies evidence from being sent to prosecutors. He cock-blocks US Attorneys, sure as he cock-blocked Mueller. He kicks the can and kicks it again and again and again, hoping to run out the clock. Barr has been so successful that the GOP is not even remotely worried about the bad stuff coming out. He’s gummed up the works so badly that we couldn’t even get witnesses at the fucking impeachment trial.

With a big, fat cork in the bottle of evidence, Trump and his fellow criminals do not have to fear retribution from law enforcement for as long as he stays in office. The only danger now is if they turn on each other. If they respect omertà, they are golden. Thus it is in all of their interests—Trump’s, but also Pence’s, McConnell’s, Pompeo’s, Kushner’s, and so on—to stay the course. These people will do anything, including exacerbate a global health crisis, to not get caught. They don’t care if we die. Repeat: they don’t care if we die. As Mr. White says in Reservoir Dogs: “The choice between doing ten years and taking out some stupid motherfucker, ain’t no choice at all.”

What are they hiding?

In Trump’s case, generations of criminal involvement with the mob—first La Cosa Nostra, later the Russian mafiya. His grandfather was a minor pimp at the dawn of the organized crime era, but Donald’s father, Fred Trump, was, as Lincoln’s Bible tells us, “a businessman front for the Genovese crime family.”

To best understand Fred, just track his rise from single-family home construction to big residential developments. From Shore Haven (1947) to Beach Haven to Trump Village, all were done with known mafia partners, in Genovese-controlled territory, and eventually with a fully Genovese-owned construction company (HRH Construction).

When the Russian mafiya began rolling in, they landed in Fred’s properties and partnered with the Genovese on some big ticket scams. This was also during the time that Fred and his attorney Roy Cohn set up S&A concrete (via Nick Auletta)—a joint venture between Tony Salerno (Genovese boss) and Paul Castellano (Gambino boss), so that donald could build in Manhattan. Remember donald’s quote, “Even my father, he said, you don’t want to go to Manhattan. That’s not our territory?” That’s because Manhattan, for construction, was Gambino territory. They controlled the concrete and unions. And Fred was a very loyal, shrewd front for the Genovese. To get his idiot, greedy kid into Manhattan, Fred and Roy Cohn had to get those two mob bosses to agree on a joint venture.

When the Russian mafiya pushed out the Italian mob after the fall of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump began laundering money for unseemly Vor associates of Semion Mogilevich. The Russians extended him credit when no US bank would touch him, and he remains in their debt—a fact the Mazars and Deutsche Bank documents will reveal, which is why Trump has moved heaven and earth to keep said documents secret.

Because the Russian mafiya works hand in glove with the Russian government, Trump is also, as Hillary Clinton correctly told us four years ago, Putin’s puppet. His ties to Russian intelligence (Putin, remember, is ex-KGB) go back decades. Recruitment of Trump by the KGB began in the Reagan Administration; for all we know, his succession of ex-Soviet-bloc wives better reflect his allegiance to the Soviets than his taste in women. He is also connected to the Russian organized crime via his friend Jeffrey Epstein, a collector of kompromat and money launderer for arms dealers; Epstein’s longtime partner was Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Robert Maxwell, the spy and former business partner of, yes, Semion Mogilevich.

Trump’s underworld ties were all there in 2016, barely below the surface, for all the world to see. Wayne Barrett wrote about them for the Village Voice. Robert Friedman alluded to them in Red Mafiya. Craig Unger covers them closely in House of Trump, House of Putin. The mainstream media knew damned well what the guy really was, but chose to equate Trump’s years of actual mobbed-up crimes with HRC’s email server. The result? Every half-wit Fox News watcher proclaims, with a straight face, that Hillary, not Donald, is the crook!

Truth: Trump is a notorious criminal, a serial rapist and sexual assailant, wholly owned by the mob, controlled by the underworld and the Kremlin. He is a latter-day Barabbas—and because of the whims of a riled-up mob, he’s now, somehow, the President of the United States. Make no mistake: If he thinks it will help him avoid prosecution, he will order the churches open for Easter without qualm or hesitation. In his calculus, Jesus gave up His life for us, so we should give up our lives for Trump. He will happily pervert the holiest of Christian holy days to get what he wants. To this monster, nothing is sacred..

[yourdailykitsch]

Taylor Kitsch on '21 Bridges' and Taking Pride in 'John Carter'

The actor, who has experienced ups and downs, notes his high-profile Disney flop has had a "mini-resurgence" in recent years: "People stop me all the time for that."

[This story contains spoilers for 21 Bridges]

Taylor Kitsch takes everything in stride — including his career. The 21 Bridges star became an overnight sensation in 2006 via NBC’s critically lauded TV series Friday Night Lights, whose devout following refused to let the football drama die after each underviewed season. Because of his breakout role as fullback/running back Tim Riggins, Hollywood quickly created movie star expectations for Kitsch, but once his first two blockbusters, John Carter and Battleship, vastly underperformed at the box office, Hollywood quickly threw the baby out with the bathwater. Fortunately for Kitsch, he soon found his footing with a string of well-reviewed performances including HBO’s The Normal Heart, Lone Survivor and True Detective.

While Kitsch couldn’t control the expectations placed on him, he appreciates the ups and downs as well as the continued opportunities to jump back and forth between leading man and character actor. In his latest movie, 21 Bridges, Kitsch plays a supporting role as Ray Jackson, a war veteran and small-time criminal who’s being hunted by veteran police detective Andre Davis (Chadwick Boseman). Soon, Kitsch will return as the lead in Neill Blomkamp’s Inferno.

  “I could honestly give a fuck if I’m fifteenth on the call sheet or first,” Kitsch tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I see myself as a character actor first, and it really boils down to that. I love coming in and playing a flashy guy like Ray and supporting Chadwick… So, I have no problem doing one scene if it’s something worthy or something that makes me uncomfortable.”

Oddly enough, Kitsch has noticed a recent resurgence for Disney’s John Carter, one of the films that didn’t meet box office expectations.

“I think it got another life when it went on Netflix not long ago… People stop me all the time for that, especially in Europe,” Kitsch says. “Maybe, at the time, it was more of a knee-jerk reaction of ‘let’s see how we can bury this and everyone that has a part in it.’ Over time, I think you take a breath and understand that it is what it is... I guess people who watch it now for the first time can take a lot more away from it than people did at first… I learned a ton on that movie. I honestly don’t see it as a failure.”

 In a recent conversation with THR, Kitsch also discusses his upcoming lead role in Neill Blomkamp’s Inferno, his memories from the series finale of Friday Night Lights and his experience on True Detective season two.

 My favorite part of movie robberies is the mask choices, and in 21 Bridges, your character, Ray, wears a skull bandana of sorts. If you ever performed your own make-believe robbery, what would be your go-to mask?

 Ooh. It’s funny because I do it in Savages as well. There was a long debate — and no one knows this — but we were going to wear old man masks. We screen-tested it, and I was just hoping that [Oliver] Stone would go for it. But, they went away from that, obviously. I would probably do something more enveloping — more like a full head thing. The old man mask — I was dying laughing in it. It’s a little more self-deprecating, and maybe a fuck you to whomever is coming after you. I’d probably go in that kind of direction. Point Break had all those President masks, and that was a lot of fun because you’re along for the ride.

 It seems like there’s less and less crime drama these days — at least on the big screen. Do you also get that sense within the industry?

Without a doubt. I notice it with scripts to be honest. It’s the stuff that I grew up on. This is kind of an ode to those thrillers: the Heats, the Serpicos, the Dog Day Afternoons, the Mean Streets. Obviously, I’m not comparing it to those classics, but I think we all know the game has changed with the studios and their direction. I think I’m doctoring up the stat, but I think 21 of the last 22 number-one movies have been superhero, or sequel, or prequel, or something like that. Original content from major studios is getting rarer and rarer to hit theaters. Hopefully, this does well, and we can keep making these types of movies.

There's the cliche that villains or antagonists think they're the heroes of their own story. Actors are also taught to not judge their characters. With that in mind, did you find a way to humanize Ray Jackson even though he’s one of your most ruthless characters?

I think you have to. You have to erase your own judgements like you said. It’s imperative to go in with a clean slate as much as you can. That loyalty with Stephan James’ character, Michael, is a beautifully tragic thing for Ray, and that was my hook into it all. He is a stone-cold killer, but for me, personally, he’s willing to literally die out of loyalty to Michael and the guilt over losing Michael’s brother overseas. There is humanity, and it is gray. You’ve gotta tip the hat to Brian Kirk, our director, as he really gave me the reins and that responsibility to go there with him. We reworked it a bit to infuse that. If Kirk called me and said, “Your character just kill cops,” literally anybody could go do that role. You always want to make it as deep as you can. That’s why we do this.

Ray also reveals he’s in recovery at a certain point in the film. Besides loyalty and guilt, was that character detail another major draw for you since it gave you something else to play?

It was everything. It starts with this stone-cold guy that you don’t think is gonna crack, and to see that, to understand that and to relapse because of the circumstance, that is everything. The scene at the vault was a pivotal scene — to see him start to unravel. He also mentions the loss of Michael’s brother in this moment. This guy is human, and you have to show that.

My screening was so loud that I couldn’t hear Ray’s final line, but it seems like he died trying to take all the blame off of Michael. Before giving your thoughts on his death scene, do you remember the final line?

Of course. It’s “Michael, he’s not like me.” That was two takes. It was one of the last scenes and my only scene with Chadwick (Boseman). That’s literally his last breath. Thankfully, we shot that later in the shooting schedule. Kirk and I really worked on that in the script: what would he say, how do we want to end him and make this an earned beat in the film, especially for Ray. We really didn’t rehearse, but we talked about that moment when I signed on and then we reworked it to that. There was a little bit of luck with Chadwick’s character in that moment, which really grounds it. I think he was gonna lose that gunfight if that innocent guy doesn’t come around the corner. Ray was just trained on those steps. And, just as important, the moment where he lets go of the woman. He’s dying, and he knows it. Ray dragged his hand across a handrail and wall so that Chadwick would follow his blood, giving Michael more time. That’s why Ray told Michael they had to split up; Ray didn’t want to tell him he was gonna die.

You've handled weapons in plenty of past projects. Did you have to do weapons training again, or have you maintained those skills over the years?

You always want to press the refresh button. A lot of these weapons are different as well. It’s repetition, repetition, repetition. I feel I have a good base for it. I feel very comfortable with it, but I don’t really handle weapons unless I’m working or the job calls for it. I don’t do a whole lot of that when I’m at home. I just practice those reloads, learn how to unjam and all those kind of things. You want to be comfortable, and you want it to be a part of you so you don’t even think about it while you’re working and in character. It’s a great tool to have.

Do you ever try to avoid using the same style or moves as Lone Survivor’s Michael Murphy or True Detective’s Paul Woodrugh?

To be honest, I’m not that conscious of it. The characters are just so different. I had the same Navy SEAL teach me the handgun stuff and the M4 stuff — from Lone to True. They just say, “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Take your time. You’re in no rush. Make sure you have the target before you shoot.” I think it’s more what’s behind the eyes in that sense. The movements are usually pretty similar if you really train with a gun. Certain people may have their own movement, but SEALS or police officers know the second you pick up a gun if you know what you’re doing or not.

  Is 21 Bridges the most night shoots you’ve ever done?

I did a series [Shadowplay] in Europe right after this, and we did a crazy amount of night shoots on that. I don’t wish it on anybody. You literally kind of lose your mind. When you’re a month in, your off-days are messed up because you don’t want to screw up that pattern. You’re doing these scenes at 4 or 5 in the morning. You go to bed at 9 a.m. and you’re up at 2 p.m. or 2:30 p.m., hopefully you can work out first. Then, you’re on set rehearsing the scene during the daylight, and the second it gets dark, you’re shooting it. It’s tough on the crew; it’s tough on everybody. It’s obviously a huge part of this movie since it takes place in five allotted hours. So, you know what you’re signing up for.

When it comes to shooting on location, do you prefer shooting all over a major city, or are you most partial to remote locations around the world?

Whatever suits the script. I will take locations any day of the week over a fucking studio. I’m not a huge fan of studios, but I understand you have to use them. 21 Bridges was all on location, and I love that. It just puts you in the moment, and you’ve got all these factors that you probably wouldn’t have to deal with in a controlled environment.

You're an actor who can be a leading man and a character actor as needed. When making choices at this point, are you less concerned with the type of role as long as the writing, cast and filmmaker are compelling?

Obviously, I’ve had great lows, great highs and this and that. I’ve worked with some amazing people. That’s always been the target — just be scared, be uncomfortable and take risks. My next one with is with (Neill) Blomkamp, and it is the lead. My character is basically in every scene of this movie, but the character and the tone of this is what draws me. I could honestly give a fuck if I’m fifteenth on the call sheet or first. I see myself as a character actor first, and it really boils down to that. While kind of impossible, if David Koresh was seventh on the call sheet, I still would’ve done Waco. I love coming in and playing a flashy guy like Ray and supporting Chadwick, a guy who’s been doing great work and is an even better guy. So, I have no problem doing one scene if it’s something worthy or something that makes me uncomfortable.

Jumping back a bit, I’ve heard a surprising number of people celebrate John Carter in recent years and how it deserved a much better fate. Have you noticed how well Carter has aged?

 I think it got another life when it went on Netflix not long ago, maybe a year ago or something, but, yes, to be blunt. People stop me all the time for that, especially in Europe. It’s had a little mini-resurgence. Maybe, at the time, it was more of a knee-jerk reaction of “let’s see how we can bury this and everyone that has a part in it.” Over time, I think you take a breath and understand that it is what it is... I guess people who watch it now for the first time can take a lot more away from it than people did at first. It’s always flattering, and I learned a ton on that movie. I honestly don’t see it as a failure. I have great memories from it, and I still talk to a bunch of the cast. It is what it is, right?

True Detective has helped fill the big screen’s crime drama void, and I actually enjoyed your season from an actor and character standpoint. Was that a great experience regardless of how it was received?

Yeah, it was. I still check in with Nic once in a while to see how he’s doing. Selfishly, probably, because I’d love for him to write me something. (Laughs.) Going back to that first beat, these noir movies or shows aren’t really getting made much, and Pizzolatto is a beast. I’d work with him again in a heartbeat. I loved his process. I watched True Detective Season One, and I remember saying, “This is the kind of stuff I want to be a part of.” Obviously, it worked out, and I’d do it again. But, yeah, I’m a huge fan of Pizzo, and we got along incredibly well. I’m still grateful for that opportunity.

I’m not gonna ask you about a Friday Night Lights reunion or revival since you’ve been pretty consistent about not being interested.

Right. Thank you.

Since the finale is where you’d prefer to leave things, what do you remember most about those final couple scenes of yours with Adrianne (Palicki) and Derek (Phillips)?

 It was sombering — metaphorically, literally. Doing that sunset scene on this house they were trying to build is such a metaphor. I like that they left it open, and that’s very FNL. We made the audience work for everything, and I love that process. I try to keep that with me in everything I do. It was just a beautiful moment, and you’ve gotta tip your hat to [showrunner] Jason Katims. He was really receptive to our ideas and applied a few of them. I’m still best friends with Derek Phillips, who was obviously Billy Riggins for five years. He actually came to Prague and visited on my last gig. I’m a big supporter of his, too. We laughed a lot, but it was just sombering, not just with that scene, but because it was over. It was a 5-year run against all odds. I don’t remember a day where we weren’t being told it was going to be canceled. I think we ended up on 25 networks, on 16 different days and at 12 different times. (Laughs.) That allowed me to just enjoy the process because it can be taken away from you in a minute.  

Is there a Friday Night Lights cast group text?

No, we’ve moved forward. I'm still in touch with (Kyle) Chandler, Connie (Britton), Derek (Phillips) and (Jesse) Plemons. I wish everyone all the best, and it all ended on great terms.

You touched on it already, but how did Shadowplay go?

Well, I think. I’ve seen a baby teaser of it, and it’s beautiful. I love that period piece. Nina Hoss is one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with. The cast is great including Mike C. Hall. It was a long shoot; we were all just exhausted, but I can’t wait to see how it turned out.

What else can you say about Neill Blomkamp’s Inferno?

It’s about a guy who loses everything and will do anything to get it back. There’s some beautiful undertones with addiction and immigration. It’s something that I can’t wait to dive into. It’ll be very challenging; it’s emotionally raw.