#and assuming any romantic intention he does see is himself projecting it

[jesterjaxx]

Djuncan where Duncan is so down bad for months before they actually get together like i think Duncan should have a crush thats so horrendous it pisses him off

Answers DJ's call with a "Hey!" thats a bit too genuinely upbeat and hangs up immediately

[iamgodsoopsie]

Astarion Headcanons (that you probably won't like) Pt. 3:

Part 1 link

Part 2 link

More Astarion headcanons that are mostly me projecting onto a fictional character to help me process my own trauma!

BG3 does an excellent job at depicting SA trauma and the beginning of the healing process/journey. Many of the headcanons I've seen floating around (intentionally or unintentionally) gloss over the uglier side of healing from (prolonged) trauma. I'm not judging anyone for magically healing him, he's fictional after all, but I'd like to make some more ...realistic... headcanons.

Disclaimer: Everyone's healing process looks different, but they tend share commonalities. These headcanons are based on my own experiences. Not everyone who is healing from their trauma will experience what I have or have experienced it like I have.

[Please don't message me with explicit details about your trauma. I am at the point in my healing journey where I can share my experiences, and commiserate with other's similar experiences, but I am unable to support others in a more personal manner at this time. I wish you the best of luck in your healing process/ journey.]

Spoiler warning

Mental illness, SA, & SH (suicidal ideation) Trigger Warnings: More descriptive and potentially triggering than part 1, but about equal to part 2.

These headcanons are based on an Astarion who is still a spawn and romantically involved with a Tav who honestly loves him and isn't abusive or manipulative. Also Cazador is dead and Astarion got to stab him. They also assume that he himself does not turn into Cazador 2.0 or wish.com Cazador.

Have things been going well for awhile? Is he reclaiming his sexuality at an exponential rate? Does he think he's practically conquered his trauma?

-> If you said 'Yes' to any of the questions above, then be ready for: A trigger he didn't know he had hitting him out of no where and setting his mental health on fire.

->-> If he's at a place in his healing journey that he is able to recognize what happening and use his healthy coping tools/ honest communication to process his unexpected emotional (maybe literal) flashback then it'll be a not fun time for him, but he'll get through it fairly quickly with minimal mental damage.

->->-> If this happens closer to the beginning of his healing journey then be ready for him to spiral and catastrophize. He'll insist that he'll never truly be free of Cazador, that he's broken, that he isn't allowed to be happy, etc. All you can really do during this time is be there for him. Reassure him that you love him and that you believe that he will get better.

->↑ This is a normal part of the healing process, it's shitty and God-awful- but it gets easier to manage and happens less frequently over time.

Even if he weren't an immortal vampire he's still a high-elf and will probably outlive you. And boy oh boy the pressure he's going to put himself under to hurry up and heal is going to be immense AND counterproductive!

-> Poor bby is terrified that he'll finally be happy only for it to be ripped away from him.

->-> Him rushing his healing will only make it harder for him to heal, and he knows this. But Gods damn it all he can't seem to shake the feeling that he's running out of time (okay Hamilton).

->->-> I gotta be honest, I have no fucking clue how to help him with this. I suppose that the only thing you can do is love him with the time ya'll have.

->->->-> TBH I can see him deciding that he'll KHS when you die. I know you have the best intentions, but asking him to live for you after your gone will (probably) be perceived as very manipulative.

->↑ I honestly don't think ya'll are going to come to an agreement on this if you're vehemently against the notion. It may be best to make your preference known and then leave the topic alone- as pressing it will only cause him to double down. (After 200 years of not being allowed to make any decisions for himself, he's not going to let anyone tell him how to 'live' or die).

Surviving "200 years of shit, PURE. SHIT!" had to have been exhausting. And healing from trauma is exhausting. All Astarion wants to do is rest but he feels that he can't truly rest until he heals from his trauma and he's so damn tired and has to keep dealing with this shit and he really wants to give up somedays but he'll be damned if he lets Cazador 'win'.

->↑ Healing is hard work. But it is so damn worth it.

I'll go back and edit any grammar and spelling mistakes later, but I'd really like to post this now.

[bigassmoth]

The balders gate squad would be especially interesting with an inexperienced/virgin Tav (thinking few or no romantic and or sexual partners)

Obviously their first order of business is to make fun of you, and then tease you, and also bully you, and finally to make it a permanent inside joke.

But having someone so untouched by the wounds of love and lust also makes them protective- especially Gale, Astarion who found that sex ruined lives and left unhealed wounds.

Lae'zel and Wyll are protective, wrongly assuming that your inexperience means innocence. They cannot help but want to preserve your singleness- as in actively stepping in when you are flirted with. Something about you being so untouched makes the knightly instincts in them rise. This isnt to keep your purity, its to keep you from being used for your body. Laezel is also considerate of your emotional affections as well, seeing it as predatory for people to receive (or gods forbid pursue) your affections when they have no intention of bedding you.

Wyll is practical, polite, safe, and just gently teasing. He encourages you to have casual sex if you are interested but then basically talks himself into being scared for you. "They must be clean. They had better be able to afford a room in a tavern at least. Of course they should open the door for you. Don't bed with anyone who talks ill of their sister. Oh and-"

Lae'zel pulls a lot of "lmao lameass virgin" rhetoric. You say ANYTHING and shes like "how would you know when you've always entered a cold bed?" because it is so amusing to her. That being said she is possessive of her band members and distrustful of everyone else. She doesn't want you to be looking for any hookups because she assumes you will somehow sleep with the shadiest dangeriest serial killer near the gate.

Shadowheart is the most neutral about this, a very "its just ok" stance towards the carnal acts. There are more important things in life and if the (idiot horndogs) other party members are anything to go by, you aren't missing out on much. But she will tell you to accept any flirtatious advances so long as Lae'zel is within earshot to get upset by her words

Gale believes you should get some ass! Its good stress relief! Just dont go too crazy with your feelings and try to choose someone of equal power and social standing so theres not weird imbalances ha ha...ha.

Astarion....yikes. half "oh well i can fix that for you ;))" and half "never let anyone into your bed it will never end well". He can't decide if he likes you too much to sleep with you or too much to not sleep with you.

Karlach is conflicted because on one hand she would totally be out there if she could but on the other, she can't exactly project her feelings onto you. If you express any interest in getting a hookup then she starts going "oh! what about her? ah no wait, look at his hips! sleep with him!" as if you could just waltz over there and sleep with whomever you wanted (Karlach believes you could do it). But if you mention anything about emotional intimacy she completely understands and becomes your number one defender- which isn't helpful. She does a lot of "Tav hasn't found the right one yet, you are all just jealous because you sleep around like whores >:I" and then both of you are being laughed at

Now if they begin to develop romantic or sexual feelings towards you, all of them of course want you out of the market. No more shopping, you have a delicious body at home to enjoy.

Some are more aggressive about warding off potential suiters (Lae'zel, Astarion, Karlach) while others take a subtle approach (Gale, Shadowheart) and Wyll is a nice mixture of firm and polite. Of course if you feel deeply compelled to sleep with someone they won't stop you- just present themselves as an annoying obstacle to step over. And of course they will cross their fingers that whatever bitch's bastard you are sleeping with fails to meet your expectations.

[makingstillwithyou]

Creative Critical Reflection

How do your products represent social groups or issues?

‘Still With You’ is a music video highlighting love and longing, and how they are both one and the same, more often than not. With such themes, it is at its core an effort to highlight the romantic lyrics of the song ‘Still With You’ and does not inherently represent any social groups, but there is a social issue that runs through the entire narrative of the song and music video and is specifically represented in it: the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Still With You’ is a song released by music group BTS’ member Jungkook on June 4th, 2020 at the height of the pandemic and consequent lockdown worldwide. The song’s lyrics (self-written by the singer himself) therefore express his feelings of distress and detachment from the world felt universally by everyone during the challenging time that was the lockdown. The lyrics also poeticize the singer’s desire to see his fans again and his resolution to ‘run towards’ them as soon as the situation allows him to.

These feelings of longing to see your loved ones again and desire to be out in the world were truly universally felt by everyone during the pandemic, and so when making the music video for this song, I decided to make sure that the core concept of the video was in line with this (since relatability is an important factor to be considered when making any sort of media that one wishes is desirable to the general public).

In my music video for ‘Still With You’, the narrative I’ve constructed is as such: the unnamed main character has been separated from his beloved due to Covid (and although it is never specified in the music video, there is a finality to the main character’s grief that makes it easy to assume that his beloved has passed away- gone somewhere he can never follow).

Due to this separation, the main character is seen grieving his lost love and visiting the places he went to with her as he reminisces about when they were together. Throughout this, an obvious visual indication of the pandemic is that the main character wears a face mask in the parts of the video shot in the ‘present’ and no masks are seen in the ‘flashback’ portions of the video.

I also made sure to shoot the ‘present’ scenes so that no other people could be seen in the shot except for the main character, both to highlight his loneliness, and the pandemic.

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

My music video ‘Still With You’ was originally constructed with the intention of having two very specific colour palettes that would be used throughout it and help contrast the two time periods shown in the music video. These colour palettes were initially supposed to be cool blues and greens for the present-day shots and warm yellows and oranges for the flashback scenes.

Ultimately, the way we shot the video, this strong contrast between both types of shots was hard to maintain, and so the VCR effect was instead used to easily differentiate between both, but even then, we ended up with three main colours from all the shots in the music video.

When I initially began working on the title card of the music video and then the instagram page and digipak, I wanted to make sure to pick colours directly from the video to make sure that all the different aspects related to this ‘Still With You’ project worked together well and created a sense of branding.

In order to do this, I went through the finalised music video and picked out my favourite shots by screenshotting them. Following are the key ones I decided to use:

It was from these, and my original title card (also inserted below) that I picked out my main colours and pictures to be used in the branding of the project.

Apart from the colour scheme, one element of my production that is very important in creating a sense of homogeneity and branding for the project is the loopy, cursive font used throughout. I used this particular font because being handwritten meant it had imperfections, and yet the care that seemed to be put into writing each letter reminded me of a carefully-written love letter, which felt perfect for this project.

Yet another element of the project that creates a sense of ‘branding’ is the stylised lowercase used across the board in the project. From the blog and instagram page titles to the title card and lyric translations embedded into the music video, lowercase letters are used throughout and really add to the overall vibe and branding of the project.

Furthermore, every aspect of the ‘Still With You’ project is marked with a sense of romance and sentimentality that comes together and really solidifies into a sense of ‘branding’ for it. Overall, whether it be the music video itself, the blog, the instagram page, or the digipak, the sense of branding across all aspects of the production is strong and uniform.

How do your products engage with the audience?

Each and every aspect of ‘Still With You’ as a project is built to engage with the audience, from the relatable and empathy-inducing storyline of the music video to the instagram page that directly engages with the audience.

The storyline of ‘Still With You’, as previously-stated, symbolises longing and love with the backdrop of the pandemic. All of these relatable themes combined with the point-of-view shots in the flashbacks which directly engage the audience by making them feel like they’re part of the narrative and the English translations of the Korean lyrics being shown on screen to help the audience understand, relate to, and engage with the song and music video better all help engage the audience of ‘Still With You’.

The ‘Making Still With You’ instagram page in particular was built so that it engages with the audience in a multitude of ways. From the posts being written in a friendly tone, full of rhetorical questions, emojis, and prompts (such as ‘let us know in the comments!’), to the posts themselves being logo reveals and countdown posts, each revealing a little bit more about the project as the d-day of its release draws near, the instagram page constantly allows the audience to become engaged with the project whether directly (by asking the audience to let us know their thoughts) or indirectly (by counting down and therefore creating a sense of excitement for what is to come).

Another way that the instagram page engages with the audience is by posting links to the music video and reminding the audience to give it a watch- something very important in today’s streaming-dominated industry where online metrics such as views, likes, and streams determine the success of a project (whether the project in question is a film, music video, or just a song).

This instagram marketing campaign of sorts for the ‘Still With You’ music video was made and executed after studying and observing various examples of how music is marketed these days in the industry. The way that I structured the campaign on instagram, making use of the site layout to post pictures that interact as a grid and part of a whole, is a very commonly-used marketing tactic in the industry nowadays since it both looks aesthetically pleasing and allows companies to build hype for the upcoming project by posting countdowns, logo reveals, actor reveals, and even lyric and music video teasers.

These are the various ways in which the products of the ‘Still With You’ project engage with their audience.

How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

As mentioned previously, a lot of research and observation of the industry has gone into structuring not only the marketing campaign, but every aspect of the ‘Still With You’ project. As mentioned in blog posts for the project, the digipak for ‘Still With You’ required some research so that I could figure out what exactly a digipak is meant to look like and the purpose it serves along with the conventions of digipak designs and then make my own accordingly.

For the music video itself as well, a lot of research informed my overall style of directing, filming, and editing the video. I drew inspiration from a  lot of my favourite existing music videos as well. There’s an editing quirk in the music video at 3:38, for example, where it’s a point-of-view shot (i.e. the main character filming his lover) in which the girl asks the main character to stop filming, covering the camera with her hands, and the video actually cuts out by going black for a second. This was inspired from the ‘G.C.F in Tokyo’ video shot and edited by Jungkook of BTS where I first saw this little editing quirk.

As for conventions, ‘Still With You’ adheres to a lot of music video conventions to create an introspective and romantic atmosphere. An example of this is the fact that there are lipsync shots in the music video, that flashbacks have been marked with point-of-view shots and an old VCR filter that includes a grain effect for an old film-like effect, and that a big chunk of the video has been shot using a projector to create an interesting visual effect. All of these are characteristics and conventions of music videos and examples of them can be found in many popular ones.

Rather than challenge conventions, I’ve deliberately chosen to adhere to them for this project since the natural contrast of the flashback and present-day shots in addition to the lipsync ones make for a video that is interesting and engaging enough that it need not challenge any conventions to stand out for the audience.

This is how my research has informed my products for ‘Still With You’ and how they all adhere to the specific conventions of their genre or product type. 

Overall, ‘Still With You’ has been an incredibly important project to me on a personal level and something I am so ultimately proud of. And of course, since I could not possibly have done it alone, I’m also very grateful to all my friends who helped me film it and Dania, my teammate, for helping me dream up the concept for it in the first place.

~ navigation ~

[yandere-toons]

Yandere Golden Guard | Hunter (Platonic & Romantic Headcanons)

Warnings: abuse of power, implied stalking, references to violence + death, psychological manipulation, toxic mindset.

Platonic:

While the friendship is the subject of many happy rants at first, Hunter comes to regard it as a secret after Belos makes an ominous comment about the person distracting Hunter from his work. Any mention of his friend made in his presence now causes him to become defensive, as he considers it a threat.

Hunter does not trust Kikimora, in particular, and suspects that she would snitch on him to Belos and have his friend either imprisoned or petrified by the next day.

He wants his role in the Emperor's Coven and his life with his friend to be independent of each other. While he does brag about his status as the Golden Guard on the off chance that it will be seen as impressive, the truth is that Hunter worries about his friend seeing him as nothing beyond a title.

A part of him knows that he should never introduce Belos or the Emperor's cronies to the relationship more than he has by accident, but his fear of not being there to help pushes him to order his most loyal guards to tell him before anyone else if his friend comes near Kikimora or the palace.

With his habit of projecting his own interests and beliefs onto his friend, it is difficult for Hunter to admit to any wrongdoing without first explaining why his attack on a Hexside student was justified after the student called his friend a rude nickname.

He views apologising as an admission of failure and hopes that all will be forgiven by the time of the next meeting. If it is not, Hunter assumes that abandonment is imminent and throws away his logic in a desperate scramble for reconciliation.

When Hunter is driven to desperation, he makes amends at the cost of his own health. He fights people to obtain items that he can use as a peace offering, interrogates civilians if his friend is avoiding him, and sends Flapjack to scout for Coven officials who may interfere. Hunter does not sleep or eat much during this time, and he treats this misguided mission as though his life will end if he fails to complete it.

Unrealistic expectations have been placed on Hunter for so long that he places them on himself and others too, oftentimes not thinking about it when he expects his friend to drop everything and come with him at a moment's notice. Luz notices the tension this causes and gives Hunter advice on how to better handle the situation, which he has no intention of following.

After telling Luz to stay out of his personal affairs, Hunter broods over his friend spending time with other people when he trusts no one else and expresses this by way of condescending remarks meant to inspire guilt.

Romantic:

Hunter has a conflicting self-image marred by both pride in his accomplishments and uncertainty in his right to exist. As a result, he has little confidence in the relationship and tells himself that he needs to fight for every second of it.

Each conversation with his partner may be the last if Hunter does not say the right answers, and anyone who talks or laughs while he is near his partner is talking and laughing about him. Those who make negative comments about the relationship are that much closer to feeling the business end of the Golden Guard's staff.

The Night Market is a known hub for scams and seedy behaviour, and should his partner wish to go, Hunter objects on the grounds of it being too dangerous and asks about the purpose of the visit. If his partner goes anyway and ignores his offers to use his royal authority to get something for free, he insists on donning his Golden Guard uniform and being an escort. Hunter reacts to cons and attempts at swindling by throwing life sentences in the Conformatorium or threats of violence at the offender.

If the one selling knock-off goods or dealing illegal services is his partner, he demands that the practice be quit at once but refuses to order an arrest. Hunter, instead, arrests anyone who threatens to report the business, and when the other guards and members of the Emperor's Coven question him, he assures them that he is only targeting Belos's enemies.

The lie edges closer to becoming true in his mind, cobbling together excuses to hide the fact that his most frequent nightmare is watching his partner rot in a cell or turn to stone because he made a mistake.

Hunter is used to an environment where every movement and each word has the potential to determine whether he leaves the room with a fresh scar or not. He is desperate to believe that his partner is not like that, but he cannot stop overthinking the tiniest bits of conflict and convincing himself that it is all deliberate.

As a result, Hunter apologises for seemingly no reason and engages in reckless behaviour to prove that he is worth the effort, such as claiming to be an expert in a field he knows nothing about and looking for fights so he can demonstrate his ability to protect.

Hunter craves genuine companionship but at the same time doubts it, having been stuck with the rampant backstabbing among Coven Heads for so long that he struggles to see kindness as anything more than transactional. Every step that he takes with his partner must be earned in his opinion, and to prove himself, Hunter relies on the one skill his training has honed: servitude.

Whether it means duelling someone who is not enough of a bother to warrant it or bullying a shopkeeper into giving something for free, Hunter believes that his worth starts and ends with how much he can do for his partner.

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

what are your opinions on the thought process that Shigure groomed Akito so he could have control over them?

i think this opinion is a massive oversimplification of akito and shigure's power dynamic that has roots in the latent sexist idea that men inherently have power over women, as well as the heteronormative idea that love between a man and a woman is inherently romantic.

first off, i think it's a pretty bizarre assumption that a child could have the wherewithal and foresight to enact a complex series of actions that relies on the aggressor having a working knowledge of children's needs and behavior and years of planning and execution. people like to cite shigure's childhood declaration that he "...want[s] to make that [love] last forever...to give it form and make it [his]" as a statement of intent to groom and control. not only is this an absurd thing to say about a child who can't be any older than 10, it disregards two vital facets of akito and shigure's relationship: the magic in combination with shigure's own trauma. in my opinion, these lines speak to the power of the bond and how shigure interprets it. hatori and ayame reject it, the former letting himself sink into despair over his lack of control and festers in resentment, the latter completely removing himself from family life in order to avoid it. shigure, however, copes with the curse by diving in head first; just like the rest of the zodiac, he knows that there is no way out, so he embraces the good things about it in order to cope. in addition to this, though we don't know much about shigure's upbringing, we can assume based on his short interaction with his parents that he came from an emotionally neglectful home (expanded on here), so the prospect of unconditional love from akito is something he craves. i think these are much more reasonable motivations for the beginning of shigure's obsession rather than positing that grooming a person he had never met before he even went through puberty was his goal.

with regards to gendered power dynamics, i think this take severely underestimates the amount of abuse shigure withstands from akito. the idea that shigure is somehow in control of the relationship is simply not true; their relationship is DEFINED by their power struggle, which is a game that akito was winning until the very end. it ignores that men can be abused (and we see him being abused by akito, both physically and emotionally), and it also ignores that, in many toxic and abusive relationships, there is not always someone who is purely a victim. shigure is undoubtedly horrible to akito back—he is vindictive, cruel, and cold towards them. he also knows full well that he is one of akito's most important emotional supports and uses this position to manipulate them. however, his gender and age does NOT give him power over akito. he must do as akito says, both because of the magic and akito's position as the family head. while their relationship is not necessarily a victim-and-perpetrator situation, the power dynamic clearly favors akito, who is literally all-powerful and a professional abuser.

with regards to the heteronormative idea that men and women who love each other is inherently romantic: the scene most often referenced for this opinion is the scene between teenage shigure and child akito in chapter 101 where he tells akito he loves them. i do not interpret this scene to be romantic whatsoever, and i actually think it's really weird and telling that so many people do. these are two people whose only comfort is one another and have known each other since early childhood; i don't think it's weird at all for shigure to tell akito he loves them in this situation. given fb's focus on familial and platonic love, how platonic love can transform into romance, and the fact that akigure is a parallel to kyoru, i interpret this scene as entirely familial/platonic.

i can understand why people have this opinion: shigure is a man, and he's older, and he is a manipulator. he gives people very visceral reactions because he's incredibly well written. his actions do also fit into some of the stages of grooming, but it falls apart upon closer look (source): he targets a child (ie, he becomes close with his cousin who he is supernaturally bonded to against his free will), he gains the child's trust (ie, they become friends), and he fills a need, in this case akito's lack of parental support, all of which he does as a child himself. he does not, and cannot, isolate the child because he doesn't have the power to—akito's status would prevent them from being completely isolated (a good example of akito's position inherently giving them more power). when it comes to sexualizing the relationship, we just don't know, there isn't enough textual evidence to argue either way. as for the last step, maintaining control, shigure does NOT try and make akito think he is the only person who can fulfill akito's emotional and physical needs. in fact, he's doing the opposite; he WANTS akito to meet and be changed by tohru, and he has no problem with akito's intimate relationship with hatori, who probably provides more emotional and physical support to them than anyone. you could argue that shigure is trying to isolate akito by driving the other zodiacs away, but i don't think shigure attempting to separate an abuser from their victims is what "isolate" is meant to reflect here. so, as we can see, shigure fulfills SOME of the stages of grooming, but i don't think they hold up to scrutiny if you're thinking about fb in a nuanced and world-appropriate way.

i can also see why people misinterpret shigure's bid for control as some sort of abuse, but he states that he wants to be equal with akito, not above. i do think there is an aspect of misogyny here; shigure's masculinity, and the role that masculinity grants him in society, is threatened by akito's control over him, but i don't think having fragile masculinity and making grabs for power because of it when you're in an abusive relationship is abuse in turn.

i'm not trying to absolve shigure of anything here. he is cruel, he is manipulative, and he does things to hurt akito on purpose whether it's in revenge or not. but i don't think shigure meets the standards of being a groomer, and i think this assumption, in addition to what i previously stated, is a symptom of fandom misusing buzzwords to gain points. it's not a nuanced view and i think a lot of it, in my experience, comes from projection; shigure, in all his awfulness, is extremely easy to project onto. however, i think that there are some things in fb that are just not analogous to real life, and that this aspect of akito and shigure's relationship is one of them.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I might be back on my bullshit thinking about Louis [as if I ever stopped] and episode 2 again. Like... there are a lot of things that could’ve been handled better when it comes to ep2, but can we just appreciate his apology to Clementine during the archery scene? 

[note: this turned into a bit of a rant, and for that, I apologize]

It still baffles me that he gets dismissed as a shitbird by portions of the fandom to this day for being upset with Clem and AJ when he just found out his best friend gave away the twins, murdered Brody and tried to pin it on Clementine to cover his tracks... only to then be murdered by AJ after he already gave up, shot him in the back of the head right in front of everyone and left Louis heartbroken and traumatized. 

Like I understand that some of y’all think Clementine and AJ should never be held accountable for anything they do and they’re always right, even when they’re in the wrong because you’re the player projecting yourself onto them and everyone who is mean to you is a stupid head unless they’re mean in the right way.

Or you’re one of those violentine stans who feels like the only way to validate your ship is to create this narrative that Louis is a traitor and Clementine would never love him after he voted for them to leave as if the only way you know how to make Violet look good is to make Louis bad by comparison instead of like... y’know, being one of the decent stans who explain and gush about the positives of the ship itself and why they love it rather obsessing over the other ship. 

Either way, you’re really gonna look at that situation of Louis reacting to his best friend’s death after what just went down and be like “calm down, Louis, you’re being a jerk :/” like.... I’m sorry? 

Aren’t you the same people who complained about Luke not giving a shit about Nick’s death back in s2? how he didn’t have a reaction? In fact, aren’t you also the same people who vigorously defended Kenny for his reaction to Sarita’s death after he lashed out at Clementine? Remember? When he yelled at her and called her a stupid fucking kid who thinks she can just get anyone killed and it’s okay because she said sorry? but it’s fine because Kenny’s reacting in a realistic way that makes sense for his character and he later apologizes for it? 

but now here you are, getting a realistic reaction out of Louis that makes sense with his character and all of a sudden, you don’t like it? You want him to just be like “Oh no, Marlon.... anyway.” Really?

Louis is hurt, he’s pissed and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s so shaken by what the hell just happened, Marlon’s dead body is bleeding out on the ground, Ruby’s talking about getting fucking medicine as if that’s gonna do anything, Violet waving her cleaver around at them even though literally none of them were looking at AJ they were all looking at Clementine, Violet you are not helping anyone in this situation, you’re only making it worse and adding to the aggression... but no, Louis shouldn’t be a fucking mess right now. He should just shrug his shoulders and be like “Welp, this is fine.” 

Then there’s the damn funeral. Look, Clementine and AJ shouldn’t have been there. I know they had to be for story purposes, but it’s such a bad idea that it makes Violet, the one who wanted them there, look like an ass who has no regard for anyone other than herself, Clementine and AJ, and those who agree with her... which is only Tenn and I guess everyone else sucks and their feelings are invalid because no one else wanted them there since it’s not a good idea to have Marlon’s murderer attend his funeral and if you believe that isn’t going to piss people off or make them uncomfortable, then either you don’t care or you don’t know how to read a room. 

And by the way, Louis wasn’t the one who suggested voting them out. He wasn’t even there when MITCH said they should take a vote and everyone agreed to it. So why is it that Louis gets all this blame for how the vote turned out? Oh, Louis is such a traitor because he’s the reason they got kicked out.... except no? 

First of all, if you’re so mad at Louis then how come you’re not mad at Ruby? She voted them out, too. So did Omar. They contributed to kicking them out. How come no one else talks about how much they hate them after they said having the vote was a fair idea and then voted them out? Oh, and Willy, too. Willy voted them out. The only other person who gets heat for the vote is Mitch, and he was the one who came up with the idea in the first place... but no one else, huh? 

Also, how come only Violet gets praise for wanting Clementine and AJ to stay? Never see anyone talk about how amazing Aasim is after he was the third vote for them. He has legit reasons for wanting them around, too, but he didn’t want them at the funeral either so what, does that cancel out his vote for you? Where is the Aasim love? 

Then we got the dorms where Louis and Violet come to escort them away, and once again, I have to mention that both of them are wrong in this situation. They’re on the extreme opposites where Violet thinks they should stay because they didn’t do anything wrong, and Louis thinks they should leave because AJ’s dangerous. Both of these view points make sense with their characters.

However, I guess some conveniently ignore how conflicted Louis is about the whole thing and how he’s feeling about it because it doesn’t fit with the narrative they’re trying to push about his character. 

Again, he’s dealing with a lot of shit right now only to be constantly invalidated by Violet, who keeps telling him what a shithead he is for hurting about this, how he’s just burying his head in the sand again and all this other shit, and he eventually snaps at her and says AJ’s dangerous, which hurts AJ and it’s all over Louis’ face that he realizes he snapped and he feels bad about it. 

But Louis never got aggressive with them, he never laid a hand on them, and he was there to escort them out in the woods. And that argument of “he sent them out there to die therefore Clementine and AJ should hate him, Clem shouldn’t want any friendly/romantic relationship with him because he put AJ at risk and got him shot” is.... I dunno, ugh? It’s ugh. You act like Louis did this to intentionally get them hurt when that’s not true. 

Clementine and AJ have survived on their own for years, so it makes sense that Louis would try to justify this to himself like “they’ll make it out there, they’ll survive because they’ve done this before... this is for the best for everyone” and no, him telling them that this is probably like going home for them isn’t okay, but it makes sense for his character because he doesn’t actually know how bad it is out there. 

None of them know, they’ve all lived in walls their whole lives. It’s naïve of him, yes, but it makes sense and he didn’t do this with shitty intentions of wanting them to get hurt. He didn’t know that Lilly and Abel would be out there, he didn’t know AJ would get shot, he didn’t know any of it. He didn’t think that if they voted them out, this would happen. He was struggling with his feelings about them and saying goodbye to someone he was starting to feel a connection with. 

And he let them back in. Hell, he carried AJ into the school himself when they showed up wounded and you still wanna call him an asshole and a traitor? He could’ve said nope, get the hell out. We kicked you out, you’re not welcome here. 

He didn’t do that, he ran to them to see if they’re okay, he brought AJ to Ruby and stayed with him the entire time Clem was in the office with Violet.... AND he apologized to AJ, quietly begging for him to be okay... and when he’s faced with Clementine after what happened, he doesn’t know what to say to her. He can’t even look at her because he feels so ashamed of himself and feels all the blame for this. 

This is a moment that ties back to backstory. Louis’ emotions overpowered him, he made a decision and now AJ is shot and bleeding on the couch.... when he came to the school, they [the staff, I assume] said these kids were bad people, they told Louis that he was bad after what he did to his parents and he internalized that, and this whole this just reaffirms that idea “I am bad, I hurt people, this is my fault.” He blames himself for everything even though there’s no way he could’ve known. You can feel Louis’ genuine concern for AJ and how he’s doing, but at the same time, he’s trying to distance himself from Clementine… and well, sorta failing since he brings her clothes and they have the conversation in the dorms. 

Then the archery scene.... y’know, the scene I was gonna make a simple little post about that somehow turned into this. 

Once again we have Louis and Violet arguing because that’s what they do now, and Violet continues to tell him to get over himself without listening to anything he says, and he goes to practice archery so that y’know... when the raiders come he can use a weapon to help defend them since he’s not very good with it and needs practice.

Clem goes to check on him, and Louis apologizes for voting them out, explains that when AJ shot Marlon, he blamed Clementine when that wasn’t the right thing to do. He had a lot going on emotionally on top of what was happening around him, but after having two weeks to work through things alone, even though he’ll never be happy Marlon died, he can understand why AJ thought it was the right thing to do... and if he could take everything back, he would. He knew that the moment they came back, and he still does. 

I just.... how often does Clementine ever get an actual apology from anyone who has hurt her? A real apology from someone who means it and then doesn’t just turn around and repeat the same hurtful actions? Like... it baffles me that people will look at this genuine apology and tell him to fuck off, but will accept and continue to adore someone like Kenny who will apologize for hurting Clem, only to never try to be better and ends up hurting her even more next time. 

Or they’ll accept and justify Violet’s last minute apology for punching Clementine in the face on the boat and putting everyone [including AJ, rememeber?] at risk of either dying or being made into brainwashed soldiers by the delta. 

They both have reasons for their behaviors and you’ll work your ass off to justify them, and I’m not saying your points are wrong or invalid, but you seriously won’t even try to extend that same thing to Louis? Why? 

Well, jokes on you because I too will work my ass of to talk about Louis and what he’s going through and that’s how posts like this get made. I know not everyone is going to feel that connection to him that I have, and you’re allowed to not like him as a character, but realize that I’m also allowed to give my perspective on his character and why I disagree with points posed by those who don’t like him. 

The archery scene is one of my favorites. It’s Louis and Clementine proving that they’re able to open up to one another and say they’re sorry, to forgive the other without being petty or holding it over the other to throw back at them the next time they argue. It proves that Louis wants to put in the effort to repair their relationship and atone for the mistakes he made, to step up and not be “bad” anymore. 

I mean, Louis says it best himself. Everyone heard the jokes and the piano, after that, they stop listening... a lot of people just boil him down to a funny man who never takes anything seriously and the only thing he could ever bring to Clementine’s life is a good laugh, but those who stuck with him and put an effort into building his and Clementine’s relationship know better than that. They know how much this apology in ep2 means even with the downer that the timeline of events rushes everything a bit. 

The fact that Louis doesn’t have this big ego that prevents him from apologizes, that he can forgive AJ for what he did and still build a strong relationship with both him and Clementine, that if you earn his trust he will follow you to hell and back, that he isn’t afraid to call Clementine out on her bullshit and doesn’t have a come apart when she does the same to him, that with her and AJ by his side he finally doesn’t feel alone anymore.... it’s all just so fucking good. 

I dunno, maybe you can understand why I get so ugh whenever I still see these same arguments about him being made with this double standard that doesn’t apply to other characters.

[castielcommunism]

idk how to ask this so feel free to ignore but I was wondering if you could talk about your dean characterization in plain language. bc I wanted to like it but I found dean unsympathetic and I feel like I must be missing something

Yeah for sure! This is gonna be a bit long so I hope you don't mind lol. I’m assuming you mean he’s unsympathetic during ch4/5 where he lashes out at Charlie and fucks up the hunt, or his fight with Cas in ch3. Which is intentional! He’s being a bastard during those chapters.

The premise of the fic is that he’s got this romantic relationship with Cas now, but he doesn’t know how solid it is and assumes it’s much more precarious than it actually is. Poor communication is an element of this, obviously, but it’s the jumping off point for some of Dean’s issues that I wanted to explore. He’s got big abandonment issues, which I don’t think I need to explain too much in depth, but I think Dean is also someone who, when presented with something good, will not question it or look at it too closely because he’s terrified it will be taken away or turn out to be disappointing if he looks at it for too long. So he and Cas fall into this weird space where Cas is being overly accommodating to Dean’s hang ups about sex and intimacy (hence why they aren’t having sex), and Dean assumes that means Cas does not actually want him but is terrified of asking him about it, because what if the answer is yes and he leaves? So he says nothing instead, Dean puts up with his own unhappiness because that’s his default response to his own circumstances, and he accepts the good (Cas, in this case) without actually asking if it could be better or figuring out where that disconnect happened.

Another element I enjoy a lot is having Dean immediately catastrophize and assume the worst is always going to happen, which is never actually the case. He talks to his mom and it works out okay. He talks to Charlie and she forgives him. He talks to Jody who gives him an earful but tells him it’s fine and to get his head on straight. All those smaller conflicts lead into him gathering the courage to finally talk to Cas in the end, which of course also works out.

So that’s the emotional setting for the story, which means Dean is on an emotional hair-trigger, and any perceived rejection will set him off, hence his fight with Cas when Cas leaves to go help Sam and Eileen on a case. And he’s very obviously being an asshole about this, because he’s projecting his own self-hatred onto Cas’s completely normal and reasonable behaviour. This then precipitates into the case where he’s preoccupied with Cas when he should be focused on helping Jody and Charlie, and because he can’t control everything that’s happening he, again, lashes out.

This also makes him a bit self-absorbed, especially because he’s hurting and uncertain of what will happen with Cas, one of the most important relationships in his life and someone he knows he can’t lose, which prevents him from seeing that Cas is also hurting and assumes Dean is simply putting up with him out of courtesy.

And looking back, one of the weaknesses of that story is that there wasn’t enough consequences to his shitty behaviour, they get kinda glossed over too quickly, so like I get thinking that story isn’t fully grappling with the fact that like, he lied and put people he cares about in danger because of his own insecurities. Had I written the story now it would be at least another chapter longer than it is to properly tie that conflict up.

So like, Dean is not “a bad person” in this story, but he has some issues he needs to sort through, and those issues cause a lot of conflict. He also has a bit of a self sabotage streak in him I think, where he wants to confirm his own worst fears about himself and lashes out because of that.

Where I personally enjoy Dean most is when his own issues with abandonment, intimacy, setting boundaries, and communicating his needs to other people sets the stage for personal conflict and drama. I think that makes for some really fun storytelling that allows you to tease out his issues and work on them in some capacity. Taking Dean as he exists in the show and turning the dial down to about 20-30% is where I usually enjoy him the most, rounding out the sharp edges but retaining a lot of his core personality and character traits. And some of those traits are ugly, as they are with all people, but the important thing is that like, by this point in his life, he finally has stable housing, a lot of friendships and interpersonal relationships, a fresh start with his mother, and this wonderful new relationship with Cas. If he’s going to learn to be kinder to himself and other people, then I think that’s the perfect time to do it.

And I also really enjoy this running theme with him and Cas - Cas Fell because Dean rejected his own destiny over and over again. The basis of their relationship is Dean being difficult to control or predict, and Cas fell in love with him because of it. So to act that out again once they’re intimately involved is really fun for me personally. Cas wants to love Dean, even when he’s being a bastard, because he is a good person who grew up with an abusive father and a lot of violence and trauma. You don’t walk out of that unscathed, and the personal work involved in unlearning toxic coping/survival strategies takes a lot of time and effort. And so Plain Language is about him working through some of that and submitting to the terror of being truly vulnerable with Cas, talking to him about what’s going on and how to solve their issues so they can be happy. He has no practice at doing any of that, so he fucks up and avoids it for a while, but it pays off in the end, because like of course it does!

[liquidheartbeat]

She Didn’t Choose This Life: Flashback

Barry’s fork and knife clink loudly against his plate, as he scoots his chair backward, hands perched on his inflated abdomen. “God, I am stuffed,” he says, already regretting finishing off four T-bone steaks and all the rich, decadent sides that rounded off the meal. 

From across the table, the eyes of the woman responsible for his predicament widen, as she cuts into her barely-touched steak. “Oh, really?” Iris asks, chuckling.

“What?” Barry asks, tilting his body forward. 

“Well, we’ve been dating for almost a year and this is the first time I’ve ever seen you full. Like actually satiated.”

Barry chuckles as he nods, slight unease shooting through him. It’s a simple explanation, really, but he can’t tell her that being The Flash has increased his caloric requirements, because he hasn’t figured out how to tell her that he is the Flash.

And it’s not because he doesn’t want to, it’s because, everytime he scrounges up the courage, he finds out another unsavory secret about her lifestyle. 

When they first met, she’d introduced herself as an art buyer, but conveniently left out the part about also international money laundering. That discovery had come months later, in the dead of night, when she’d slipped out of the bedroom for a phone call with one of her partners but wasn't nearly as quiet as she’d thought.

Of course, that led him down a rabbit hole where he also found out about the tax fraud and other financial crimes that would put her away for life if she was ever caught. Crimes that, if committed by anyone else, he’d gladly help prosecute as a member of the police department. But she’s not anyone else, she’s Iris, the first woman he’s ever fallen completely, wholeheartedly in love with. 

And yes, her misdeeds probably should make him love her less, but his heart doesn’t abide by common sense. Even from across the table, as she hides a lifetime of secrets under her smile, he knows the same lips that lie to him about her whereabouts and the source of her wealth tell sweet truths to him in the middle of the night. About how much she loves him and needs him. 

The same hands that gleefully count dirty money, help massage away aches she doesn’t know the truth origins of at night. The same hands that consort with criminals bring his body to romantic peaks, over and over again. 

And the same eyes that stare into him before he leaves her apartment each morning, connect with his soul, and let him know her love is real. 

As real as his is. 

“Barr,” she says sweetly, as she dabs butter from the corner of her mouth. “Did you hear me?”

“Hmm?” He asks, snapped back to the present. 

“I said...I’m glad you enjoyed dinner, because it’ll probably be a few more months before I sweat out my hair to cook again,” she says as she stands to gather her half-empty plate and glass. 

Barry laughs, gathering his hands on the table as she walks over to the counter. “It’s a shame a cook as good as you hates it so much.”

Iris returns to the table, walking over to where he’s sat. “I don’t hate it, it’s just time consuming, and my jobs…”She pauses, playing off her flub with a smile, “I mean job ...is very demanding. Doesn’t leave much time to cook.”

Barry frowns, nodding slowly. Another lie, and an unnecessary one at that. But she doesn’t notice his disappointment as she gathers his empty plate and saucers. “If I wasn’t with you,” she continues as she walks his dishes to the sink,” I probably wouldn’t cook at all.”

His smile returns slowly -- a truth, however small, makes him feel special. “Oh, really?” 

“Pretty sure. But my man likes to eat,” she says with a smile as she turns towards him, “So I have to oblige him from time to time.”

“So you cook...just for me?”

“Duh.” As she nears him, she pushes her slightly frizzy hair behind her ears,.

“Well, what else are you willing to do just for me?” He asks, eyes sparkling with mischievous intent as she stands over him.

Iris rolls her eyes fondly. He’s so stinking cute, extra cute when he’s confident, but she doesn’t have time. Not tonight. 

After their dinner, she has another engagement with a potential business partner that could potentially double her income for the year. Of course, she can’t tell Barry that. He’s a sweet, by the book CSI, who definitely won’t take kindly to her extracurricular activities.  

Shaking her head fondly, she steps backward, but he catches her by the skin of her flowy cotton top and pulls her into his lap. “Barry,” she protests, but only for a moment because his hand shoots to the base of her head and guides her open mouth down towards him. 

For a skinny guy, he’s way stronger than his physical makeup should allow for. He effortlessly twists her legs around his waist, and pushes their bodies together. But she doesn’t question it. She embraces it, moaning harshly as he kneads her ass in his hands. 

They haven’t had sex in a few days, and not just because of her schedule. He works long -- sometimes odd -- hours. But she assumes it’s par for the course, for a CSI. And she’s this close to putting on a show for her kitchen appliances, especially as he slinks his fingers towards the seat of her cotton shorts, dipping one near her slit. But that little touch of pleasure snaps her back to reality. Dinner and a little makeout sesh is the only thing she can offer him tonight. 

“Barr,” she breathes, as she catches his hand. But he’s defiant as he curls his finger against her.“I can’t,” she whimpers. “Not tonight.”

“Why not?”

“I gotta...prepare for work tomorrow.”

He lets out a loud sigh, face wrinkling in dissatisfaction. It’s a look she's becoming increasingly familiar with, appearing any time she mentions work. 

It should strike her as odd, but doesn’t. “Oh, babe,” she says with a pout, as she runs a hand through his hair. “Don’t be mad, please.”

He sighs again. “I’m not mad. I’m…” Disappointed. Wish you would tell me the truth , “ he thinks, but he actually says: “Upset. You've been ‘working’ so much lately. And Friday nights are supposed to be our uninterrupted time.”

Iris pouts, hating when she disappoints him. Hating that she has to keep such a huge part of herself from him. Of all the men she’s ever dated, no one has ever made her feel as loved, as safe, as desirable as Barry Allen. 

And yet, she feels she doesn’t fully deserve the love he gives so easily. Love -- true love -- isn’t shrouded in secrecy and shadow lives. But what will he think of her if he finds out who she really is? 

Just cancelling an overnight date has him looking like she punctured his lungs, and she can barely stand it. Biting her lip, to quell the trembling, she brings her other hand up, and rests them on his shoulders. 

He’s so tight and fraught with tension, and her touch seems to intensify it. God, he’s really mad at her. She tilts her head, managing a soft smile as her hands move in tandem across his shoulder blade, increasing the pressure as she moves. His eyes flutter closed, defiantly, her hands attempting to squeeze the displeasure from his body. And then she leans down, pressing a soft kiss just underneath his earlobe. “I promise, I will make this up to you,” she says, softly, “Okay?”

She lifts her head up to meet his face, still rife with displeasure.

“When?”

“Tomorrow-- promise.” In actuality, she has another client meeting tomorrow, but it doesn’t have as much riding on it. And she can’t possibly stand to see Barry look at her like this twice in one week. So she’ll have to reschedule.

“Fine,” he agrees.

Iris smiles, and thumbs his chin, happy for the compromise. “Thank you, baby, for being so understanding. I’ll make it worth your while.”

"Any time with you is worth my while,” he says earnestly, his words nearly drawing tears to the surface of her eyes. 

But she sniffs, hoping to keep them at bay. She can’t close this deal if she’s an emotional mess. And then she smiles, offering him one last kiss for the night. 

Though the need in his return drags one kiss into four, five, and six kisses. At least until she manages to snap her neck backward and pry herself from his lap. 

As she stands, she fixes her clothes, which almost ended up in a pile on the floor. Her eyes catch the time on the clock and she realizes she has less than 25 minutes to get ready before her business meeting. 

“So,” she says, casually, “Do you want me to walk you down to the lobby?”

“No, that’s alright,” Barry says as he stands. “Unless you want me to beg you to change your mind in front of your neighbors.”

Iris laughs softly. “No, definitely not.”

Barry stills, taking in the sight of her. She projects an effortless beauty, even with no makeup, slightly frizzed hair and pajama shorts. He takes a step forward and leans down to kiss her on the cheek, knowing that if he aims for her lips, he might not be able to stop himself. 

And while he’s not happy she’s working on a Friday night, at least she’s cleared Saturday for them. She leans up into his kiss, softly palming his shoulders with her hands. When they part, she holds his gaze. 

Two beautiful, chestnut brown eyes looking up at him sweetly. “I love you,” she says softly. 

His response is effortless. “I love you too -- now, tomorrow. Forever and ever. 

She squeezes her hands together excitedly, and does a little sidestep. It’s an obvious attempt to make fun of his saccharine tone, but he doesn’t mind -- in fact, he welcomes it, shaking his head from side to side. 

“Anyway,” he says through a growing smile, “I’m going to head out, and let you handle your business.”

She nods. “Okay.”

“Just please... be careful. I don’t know what I’ll do if  something happens to you.”

His words are weighted with hard truths she doesn’t yet know he knows, yet his tone still uneases her. “What could possibly happen?” She asks, feigning obliviousness. “I have like the safest job in the world.”

He sighs, loud and hard, but goes forward with her charade anyway. “By the time you return from the museum, it’ll probably be really late. Dangerous. You have to be careful.”

“Oh,” she says, eyes widening. Of course, he thinks she’s going to the museum. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

“You are going to the museum, right?”

She pauses, just long enough for him to prepare for the lie to come.

“Uhh...yeah.”

His brows furrow as he crosses his arms across his chest. “Are you sure?”

She forces out a laugh, hoping to quell his rising concern. Because if she doesn’t get him out of here now, her entire evening will fold. 

“Yeah. I’m sure.” She smiles fluttering her eyelashes “Come on, honey. I gotta get ready.”

He takes a moment to contemplate whether or not to call out her obvious lie, but ultimately decides against it. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

She smiles wider. “Bright and early,” she says, as she glances at the clock, growing wearier of his presence. 

“Yeah,” he deadpans, out of options. “Bright and early…”  

************************

  Five minutes later, Barry swivels absentmindedly in his office chair, chewing on the dead skin of his thumb. Caitlin, who’s been watching his skittish display, glances over to Cisco, who pretends he doesn't notice her pleading gaze. Eventually, he sighs and begrudgingly casts down the chain of sour straws he’s snacking on, and scoots forward. 

“Dude. Just go talk to your girlfriend," he replies, voice filled with disdain. 

Barry shoots him a warning glance, in no mood to deal with his best friend's judgement over his choice of partner.  “Don’t.”

“Fine.” Cisco throws his hands up. “Then do...that...all night. But I’m going home.”

Barry sighs. When it comes to his relationship, talking to Cisco is like talking to a brick wall. He turns to Caitlin, hoping his other best friend can offer some advice.” Caitlin stews in silence a moment, carefully gathering her words. The things Barry uncovered about Iris are damning, and a stark contrast to the straight-laced businesswoman persona she presents outwardly. But she’s also seen the way Iris looks at him, those rare moments they all hang out, like he hung the moon just for her with his bare hands. 

Yet, still, she has to ask:  “Do you think she could be seeing someone else?” Her words are careful, knowing how touchy of a subject this is.

Barry huffs. Almost offensively. “No.” At least he hopes. “But she’s definitely still lying about her plans for tonight. Probably another dirty deal she doesn’t want me finding out about.”

Unable to resist, Cisco presses a hand into his chest. “Iris West? A LIAR?” He gasps.  “You don’t say.”

Barry shoots up from his chair, a second away from lunging at Cisco but Caitlin blocks him with her body. “Cisco. Please,” she scolds him backwards, gently pushing Barry in the chest.

That seems to calm him, as he flops back into his seat with a sigh. But Cisco pushes forward.

“Cool it, Cait. Alright. I’m not the one who’s leading on our best friend -- she is.”

“She’s not leading me on!” Barry yells, scooting to the edge of the chair. “She’s just…”

“...Not just an art dealer,  apparently, not in good standing with the IRS -- or at least she won’t be--and in no danger of becoming a Girl Scout troop leader. Or a nun either,” Cisco retorts.

Barry shrugs, unphased by his recounting of events. “So she’s not perfect. But I have my own secrets. “

“Yeah. You’re the Flash, but, she's a criminal, who lies to you constantly. About what she does, where she goes. How many times, since you found out, have you had to save her from the trouble she’s gotten into?”

Barry sighs; he’s almost lost count of the number of times Flash has scooped Iris from the pits of danger, during a business deal gone bad. Shadowy figures, unrelated to her business dealings, looming in dark alleys after she’s left some abandoned building, scorned men whose pockets she’d bled dry, but who couldn't pursue legal action due to their own dirty dealings, who took things into their own hand. 

One by one, he’d laid out anyone who crossed her path and had the audacity to even breathe at her wrong, which all amounted to silent acknowledgement between her and Flash. Because she damn sure hadn’t told him -- Barry Allen -- about these chance meetings. 

Another reason he had to be cautious around her. She held her cards too close to her chest. 

Cisco takes in a sharp breath. “I just want better for you man. You deserve someone who doesn’t lie to you.”

Barry holds Cisco’s gaze. “She might be a liar, but when she tells me she loves me, it’s not a lie. And because of that, I can’t just throw away our relationship -- we can get past this. I know it.”

Cisco rolls his eyes and twirls his hair round and round his finger. “Whatever.”

Caitlin, who’s grown tired of Cisco’s negativity, faces him. “If you’re not going to offer Barry any understanding, you should probably excuse yourself.”

“Fine,” he says as he shoots up, “’I‘ll go.” But when Barry finds out something else about Iris that he can't handle, I can’t be the person he vents to anymore. ” He pauses and turns towards his friend, who’s struggling to bite his tongue. “It hurts to see you like this, man.”

With that, Cisco makes his exit, leaving just Barry and Caitlin in the room. Awkward silence fills the space he leaves, as those little stubborn nuggets of rationale, in between Cisco’s snark, tries to penetrate his brain. 

Slowly he looks up at Caitlin, a fervent lea in his eyes. “What do you think I should do?”

“I think you and Iris need to have a talk. A long talk, about what you know about her. How dangerous this game she’s playing is. But most importantly, what you need from her, going forward if you’re going to work, romantically. Which I imagine is total transparency.”

Barry nods slowly, taking in her advice. These are things he already knows he’ll eventually have to do, but he still still isn’t ready, He doesn’t know how Iris will take him knowing the truth about her, and he’s not ready to deal with any potential fallout.  “You're right,” he says, the only answer he can scrounge up. “I wish you weren't, but you are.”

Caitlin tilts her head sympathetically, unspoken words fighting to be free. 

“What?” “

  “You….also... need to tell her you’re the Flash. I know, you have reservations. But if you’re willing to stay with her, through all she’s doing, she deserves to know who you are as well.”

Barry sighs, letting his head fall into his hands. There’s a universe of lies between them, and he worries their relationship is too new to handle such added weight. But he can’t continue to live like this, and can’t let her continue to live like this. They’re either going to be together, without secrets, or...He pauses, unable to let the rest of the sentence form in his head, then shoots up. “Okay. I’m going,”  he says, finally. “I’m going to go talk to her.”

“Goo-,” Caitlin starts, but he’s gone in a flash of lightning, before she can finish her statement.

  ************************

Iris steps out of her bathroom, with barely a minute to spare before Randolf Helming, the owner of the Helming Hotel chain arrives. He’s looking to cut his tax bill in half, by funneling some of his cash into a few high end art pieces, and he thinks Iris can assist him. What he doesn’t know is that the pieces she’s going to sell him are forgeries that only 1/10 art experts can spot. So she’ll pocket his commission for her time and also the value of the real paintings she’ll sell again to an unsuspecting schulub, later in the year.

Probably to some secluded older gentlemen, who buys art for social prestige, thousands of miles away in Prague or Berlin.

A hefty journey to travel, but a necessary trip if she’s going to do better at covering her tracks. Over the past few months, some of her old dealings have started to catch up to her, and she’s had more than her fair share of brush ups. 

Oddly, though also fortunately, enough, she was saved each time by Central City’s guardian angel: The Flash. Though, at this point, it almost felt like he was her own personal angel, always seeming to be in the right place when she was in the wrong place.

She’d think it strange if not for the multitudes of people he saves everyday. 

As she makes her way into the living room, she takes one last look at her appearance in the big mirror hanging over her fireplace. Her previously frizzed hair has been tamed into a low pony-tail, and her face has been painted with a light dusting of makeup. But it’s her attire, a chic red, high-waisted skirt and black fitted blazer blazer that's sure to wow any potential business partner. 

A knock at the door pulls Iris away from her thoughts. She pulls at her skirt, not wanting to give Randolf the wrong idea -- she might be dressed to the nines, but this is not a romantic engagement; she has to work to do-- then waltzes over to the door. 

“Mr. Helming “ Iris says warmly, as she opens the door. “I’m glad you could make it.” 

The silver haired man, who hovers around around 5’10 and is dressed in a light gray suit, lets his eyes travel unabashedly down Iris’s body before he greets her. “It is my pleasure, Ms. West.”

He takes a huge step into the apartment, nearly brushing his body against hers. Uncomfortable with the closeness, Iris steps backward, letting out a nervous chuckle. She doesn’t usually entertain her clients -- legitimate or otherwise -- in her home, but she figures that someone as high profile as Mr. Helming has too much to lose to act out of turn.

Still, the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention as her attempt to create distance does nothing to soften his gaze. “Well,” she says, running her hand over her hair, “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

“Oh, yes,” he mimics, seemingly remembering the reason for his visit. “Business. Lets.”

Iris smiles politely and steps aside to give him ample room to enter further. He strides past her, and heads for the couch, taking in the sight of her place as he walks. “Wow. The art world has treated you quite, well, huh?”

Returning from closing the door, Iris walks over, proudly. “Yeah, I guess you can say that."

At the couch, Randolph takes a seat in the middle of her cream colored sofa, and spreads both arms across the back. Iris, who was gearing up to take a seat next to him, pivots and takes a seat in the black recliner sitting adjacent to the couch. 

He frowns and scoots his body towards the end nearest to the chair, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort.  

“So. I hear you’re trying to lessen your tax burden,” Iris says, diving straight into business."

“Yeah.” He crosses one leg over the other. “My hotels are doing well. But as it goes, I owe the government 10s of millions this year in taxes and so I need a tax write off. And a big one.”

Iris smiles. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. I just so happen to have a direct connection to the Murdock Estate, who handles affairs for the late oil painter, M.N. Murdoch. They’re looking to unload a couple of pieces for the right buyer.”

“And when you say right…”

“Well, aside from the assets to afford the seven figure price tag, they’re deadset on selling it to an astute businessman -- someone who understands the value of fine art.” But who can’t tell a forgery from a real pieces.

He nods, pleased with her response. “Well, let’s see these paintings.”

Iris pulls her phone from her pocket, and opens up the PGN files of the paintings, still on display at the Central City Art Museum and hands it over to Mr. Helming. He takes the phone, finger sliding haphazardly across the screen, sending him back to her home screen. 

“Oops,” he chuckles.  I clicked off of the screen. Can you fix it?”

“Of course.” Iris reaches for the phone. As he releases it, his fingers graze over hers, sending a wicked chill through her. 

His skin is somehow cool, yet sweaty at the same time. Iris draws her fingers in awkwardly as she retrieves the phone and reset the screen. From the corner of her eyes, she sees him wipe his palms on his pants leg. Her return is smoother; managing to hand over the phone without making skin to skin contact. 

Randolf takes a moment to look over the pieces, genuine contemplation painting his face. His concentration on the task at hand eases her growing anxiety a tad, though the silence that settles over the room still tickles her nerves.

She glances over to the table, where the unfinished bottle of wine she and Barry had for dinner sits, and her mouth nearly waters for a glass. But she doesn’t drink while doing business -- at least not this kind.

When she looks back over to Randolf, he’s done with her phone and also eyeing the wine. “I could go for a glass, myself,” he says over a prickly laugh. 

Iris opens her mouth to respond, then realizing no words are coming out, pushes out a choked response. “Right.  Of course. Is Merlot okay?”

He nods. “That’s just fine. Though, if you have something a little stronger, I wouldn't object.”

"No,” she says quickly. “Just the Merlot -- I’m not much of a drinker.” She stands and smoothes down her skirt, and walks across her living room, towards the kitchen. 

Iris had already cleaned up from dinner, so she goes to the cabinet to retrieve two wine glasses. Even though she doesn't drink on the job, she has to at least pretend to indulge him if she wants to close the deal. 

Glasses in hand, she turns for the island and lets out a loud shriek when she notices Randolf is standing just feet away, at the other side. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you walk over,” she quickly offers towards his slightly offended expression. 

“Oh.” He relaxes some. “I am quite light on my feet -- blame my wife.”

Iris quirks a curious brow. “Your wife?”

“Ballroom dancing,” he says, settling his weight over the island. “She makes us go once a week. On my one off day too.” 

She smiles politely. “That is very sweet. I’m sure you two have a lot of fun.” Feeling more comfortable at the mention of his wife, Iris walks past him towards the table where the wine is sitting. 

His shoes scuff her floor as he turns, a sound that easily penetrates her eardrums. Iris turns just in time to see his outstretched arm, reaching for her. She  pulls away right before he lands and steps backward. He presses forward, trapping her between him and the table. 

“What are you doing?” She asks, now on high alert. 

He sighs harshly, his body drooping from the aggravation as his face contorts into a frown. “Oh come on; surely, you know how this works, Iris.”

“How what works?”

“I could get art from any buyers in the city. Men much more accomplished than you. If I came to you, it’s because of an added incentive.”

“Which is?” 

“ You.” He tries to press his body into hers, but Iris pushes him in the chest. He stumbles, but only barely, as Iris rushes to the other side of the table, grabbing the half-empty bottle of wine as a weapon.  “Get out. NOW,” she commands voice loud and firm. 

Much firmer than her nerves on the inside. There’s no way she can overpower him, physically. And this high up, no one will hear her screams from her penthouse. 

“Or what?” He asks, casually rounding the table, completely unphased. 

“Or I will bash your fucking skull in.”

She raises the bottle higher, hoping to appear more threatening. He chuckles, nearly spits at her attempt. “Oh, you’re not going to hit me. Not if you want to keep doing business in this town. Remember, I have a lot of rich friends. One word from me, and you’re toast.”

“Excuse me?” She asks, overcome with offense at his audacity. 

 “You heard me!” Randolf yells as thrusts himself towards her, and tackles her to the ground.  

The bottle of wine falls from her hand, shattering into a million pieces on the floor around them. He tries to kiss her and Iris squirms underneath him, fighting to free from his grip, shards of glass digging into her exposed flesh. She yells, the stinging pain piercing all her nerves.

 “Shut up!” He yells, wedging his leg between hers as he plants a firm hand round her neck. 

Iris freezes, pinned in place, chest heaving up and down as his tar-black eyes singe a hole through her.

“There.” His smile is dark and haunting. “This isn’t so bad is it?” 

Unwilling to let the last sight of her be a disheveled, powerless woman, Iris spits clean on his face. His hand shoots to the spot in disbelief, face as red as the blood trickling from the wounds on her leg, “Oh, you’ve done it now!” He yells, drawing his hand backward.  Iris presses her eyes shut, preparing for the blow. But where she should feel stinging pain, possibly a broken nose, she only feels a gust of wind and the relief of Randolf’s body no longer being on top of hers. 

The crash that follows is deafening as the force propels Randolf into her walls. And that’s when she sees a red blur, wrapped up in blazing lightning, delivering the final blow that knocks Randolf clean out. 

His limp body falls to the floor, his skull cracking against the luxury vinyl tile that covers her kitchen floors. The masked hero, who she now registers as The Flash, comes into focus. She watches him watch look over Randolf's unmoving body, making no effort to check on him.

Iris uses her depleted strength to stumble upward, grunting as fresh shards of glass pierce her hands. She lets out a guttural cry, nearly tumbling over from the pain. 

From the shock. From the devastation. 

He runs over and catches her, letting her body crash into his soft, open arms. She can’t even scrounge up the energy to wonder how or why The Flash has yet again saved her from herself. She’s completely overwhelmed at the fact that this night couldn't have ended so much worse.

And then come the tears, a ravenous stream down her face. Iris presses her hand into face, to block the sight of her 

“Oh, God. Are you bleeding?” Asks the masked man in panicked frenzy, though his voice unmasks him immediately.

Slowly, Iris raises her head, every odd encounter with the Flash she’s had over the past few months settling into place like a finally-finished puzzle. All the she time she almost met her demise, but didn't. 

He looks at her, fear coursing, over the lingering anger in his eyes, but that voice is unmistakable. It’s the same voice that awkwardly asked her out nearly a year ago, and grew giddy when she agreed. The same voice that’s crooned sweet “I love you’s” in her ear since that first night he nervously admitted it, over frozen yogurt.

“B-” Her throat is dry and ragged. “Barry?” She pushes out. 

With a sigh, he tears his cowl off, revealing fully the face of the man she loves more than she knew was possible. His cheeks are bloodshot red, his eyes puffy, and glossy, a clear sign his own tears will soon spill forth. 

“Oh, Iris,” he groans, sweeping her up into his arms. 

Now knowing this masked hero is the man she loves, has been the man she loves, she melts further into his chest, every bit of hesitation to maintain an air of control falling away. She cries, shamelessly, unabashedly, into his chest as he rocks her. 

She has a thousand questions, and knows he does too, but she can’t scrounge up a single one, only caring that he’s here now. That he’s saved her. Again. 

As Iris goes silent, Barry’s mind races a thousand miles a minute. He’d taken Caitlin’s advice and headed here to talk to her about her lies, never imagining the scene he’d walk in on. He can’t think straight, can’t even worry about his former objective, he’s only grateful that he got here in time before…

“Fuck!” Yells. Iris jumps against his chest, but he’s unperturbed. “You could’ve. He could’ve…” He continues, trying to push past the ugliness these sentences conjures in his brain, but the defeated shame on her face stops him. 

He kisses her cheek, and stands, lifting her in his arms, bridal style, though the apartment is devoid of the the joy of a burgeoning marriage. The air is heavy, as heavy as both their hearts, as her body in his arms. Yet he soldiers on, through the resistance. When he arrives at her bedroom, he kicks the door open with one foot and carries her over to the bed, covered in the black, floral comforter he’d bought her as a gift early in their relationship. 

Before he knew of the lies and deceit.

As her raw skin makes contact with the bed, she hisses in discomfort. “I’m sorry!” he’s quick to say, swiping a comforting hand over her head. 

“It’s okay, Barr,” she croaks Her voice is thin, barely meeting the air. She's afraid to bring up the obvious, knowing now that the sweet, gentle man she’s been getting to know over the last year is The Flash. A masked hero, a force of nature, keeping the city from descending into anarchy. But she has to express her gratitude somehow. “Thank you.”

He swipes a gentle hand down the side of her face, lingering on her beauty, then leans down, planting a soft kiss on the side of her face. “You don’t have to thank me,” he says, as her straightens his posture. “Now, I’ll be back.” He turns away from her and heads to the bedroom door. 

Iris sits up on the bed. “Where are you going?” 

“To see if that asshole is still breathing. Hopefully, he’s not. But if he is, I have to drop him off at Iron Heights.”

His response is dry, matter-of-fact, and it sends a tingle down her spine. “But. You can’t. He’ll talk.”

“It’s okay.” Barry continues to walk away from her. “He didn’t see my face.”

“But. Still. I don’t think jail is the right path for him.”

She isn’t saying what she wants, and he knows it. But he’s too amped up to care. “So I’m supposed to let the man who almost raped my girlfriend go free?! Is that what you want?”

“No. I…”she sighs, long and hard. “I just…”

He turns, the painful implication settling inside of him. Even after all of this, she’s worried about her dirty business deals. “What? You’re worried that the police will find out what you’ve really been doing all this time? How can you afford to live like this?” He motions around the apartment. 

Iris gulps, the judgement in his tone hurting more than the gashes on her legs. 

“Well, newsflash: the police -- me, I -- know, and have known for months. And what you’re doing, honestly? You deserve to be in jail.”

“Well why didn’t you say anything?” She croaks. “Why haven’t you turned me in?”

He chuckles, offensively. “Because...I love you more than your mistakes. And I was trying to give you time to either stop this or be honest with me.” He shrugs, painfully. “Guess it’s too late for that.”

“Barr, I’m sorry. I--.” She sighs, letting her head fall forward in shame. “ I’m sorry.”

Barry sighs. “Yeah. Me too.” He casts one final look of disappointment over her, one that softens ever so slightly when she raises her head and he meets her sad, concerned eyes. “Look, we can talk about all of this later. All that matters right now is that you're safe."

Iris nods meekly.

"I’ll be back in a sec to help clean you up,” he says, before flashing away, leaving her alone in the room....

[2-bdamned]

in regards to the aoex pride post i made last month, here are my personal headcanons as to why i think those are their sexuality’s! ( also thank you to @johnannepeterric for asking about this as i’ve been waiting to share these for a hot minute!!)

rin:

sexuality + gender identity:gay and trans(ftm)

reason: i don’t think he exactly cares for the concept of gender and sexuality but just thinks people should be allowed to like and be whoever they want. he knew he was in the wrong body since he was a little kid but never knew how to phrase it till later on in life. as for on screen reasons, he tends to cover up quite a bit before and after becoming a demon as well as tending to wear baggy clothes to hid his form. not to mention he has very poor posture which most transmasc people (myself included) tend to do when we can’t bind or don’t feel masculine enough. and i think he’s gay mostly due to the fact that he’s never really shown to have any friendships outside of the exwires and tends to get his platonic and romantic affections mixed up quite a bit (as to explain why i still headcanon this after the manga and his confirmed feelings towards shiemi)

yukio:

sexuality: bisexual

reasoning: he seems to show and equal amount of emotions to his colleagues and to the exwires and im like 90% sure he doesn’t really talk about romantic through the manga/anime at all. i think he’s always known he’s liked both genders since he was young. shiro seems like he was very accepting and i honestly think he would’ve helped both the boys with their sexuality’s and gender since he didn’t get the freedom to express that stuff when he was younger due to you know ‼️‼️(SPOILERS) ‼️‼️ literally being a clone made in a lab. yukio seems the type to not really care about gender when it comes to romance and instead look for traits like personality and motivations. his friendships are most based on him genuinely liking the person rather than keeping up with his appearance as someone who’s quite popular. this could possibly lead to the same being transferred over to his romantic bonds.

shiemi:

sexuality: lesbian

reason: like rin, she tends to get romantic and platonic affection mixed up from not having friends till high school. there’s a bit in the manga where izumo brings over some romance novels to try and help shiemi out with figuring out her feelings. we all know most romance novels don’t exactly have the best explanation for feeling so i think that’s where shiemi got mixed up. she gets her admiration for rin mixed up with romantic feelings when in reality, she’s not into him. we can also use the garden scene from kyoto arc as some reasoning to this headcanon. izumo called shiemi a weed and she surprisingly takes this “insult” very well and even thanks izumo for the interaction. even later in kyoto saga, we see shiemi use even more of her power to save izumo from the miasma. she clearly cared a lot about izumo and basically wore herself down to the the brink of exhaustion trying to dave izumo herself when she could have easily run and got help from another exorcist. sheimi seems to care deeply about her friends but shows more concern to izumo than any other exwire (minus rin and yukio).

shima: ‼️‼️ HIS WHOLE HEADCANON REVOLVES AROUND MANGA SPOILERS SO THATS A HEADS UP‼️‼️

sexuality: gay

since he found out about izumo from the illuminati, he never really had a “crush” on her per say, but showed an unromantic interest in her due to her past and just wanted to know more about her. since he had kinzou around him as a kid, i think that played a huge part in him hiding that he was gay (just bc kinzou is a huge perv and probably pushed some of that onto him). that could also lead to the reasoning as to why he’s so pushy with izumo. he’s trying to convince himself he liked women by trying his hardest to like izumo. the kinzou thing is the only thing really leading to me believing this but an alternative reason could also be a fear of changing his personality this late on when both suguro and koneko have known him to be a certain way since he was young. he’s shown to have this perverted personality since he was quite young and it’s even mentioned in an extra concerning why suguro and koneko use his last name and not his first. these two factors lead me to believe his attraction to izumo and subsequently, his attraction to women, is just a lie he’s putting on.

koneko:

sexuality + gender identity: pansexual and genderfluid

reason: koneko is shown to have a deep love and care for the people around him and i think that not only applies to him with friendship, but with romance as well. like yukio, he tends not to focus on the gender of the person perusing him, but rather their intention, personally, and motivations. he wants to know if his partner is a good person rather than their gender. gender wise, i just don’t think he cares. it’s not explicitly shown but it can be heavily implied when he talks to rin about why he has a hard time trusting him after the “son of satan “ reveil happens. for gender identity, i think i as a kid, he was commonly referred to by most pronouns since he wasn’t exactly the most “boy looking” when he was young. later on he learned he didn’t exactly mind what gender people perceived him as but rather how they perceived him as a person. there’s no canon information for the genderfluid headcanon but again, these are my personal headcanon, they don’t exactly have to make sense.

suguro:

sexuality + gender identity: gay and trans (ftm)

reason: this one is mostly me projecting onto this man so if it doesn’t exactly make sense, y’all know why! but he’s shown to be quite affectionate to rin in both the manga and the anime. he doesn’t really tend to do that too much to other people, especially the women that are around him. he probably has some sort of crush on rin or at least some form of admiration to him. as for his gender identity, this is literally just me projecting. that’s it. but i think he does show some signs that i tend to show as a trans person ( the one example i can name off the top of my head is that he seems pretty insecure when shima and koneko brought up his body before he started working out and hates mentions of his body in general ). like rin, he tends to have very poor posture and also doesn’t wear form fitting clothes and this is especially prominent in official art.

izumo:

sexuality: lesbian

reason: she has a very deep relationship with paku and shiemi after the events of the manga take place. she never shows this same connection with any one else throughout the series. she gets severely worried once paku leave cram school and is shown to be quite empty after this happens. ‼️‼️SPOILERS‼️‼️ the same thing happens once shiemi leaves cram school as well and is taken by her family to go train. she seems to be deeply affected by these two events and even goes as far as to show the others her concerns after the thing with shiemi happens. after she ‼️SPOILERS‼️ gets kidnapped by the illuminati and winds up the the hospital, shimei is the first person she lets see her true emotions and feelings and doesn’t once make a comment on her being some kind of hindrance. we also see her show quite a bit of empathy towards shiemi when in kyoto. there’s a scene where they two are gardening and she calls shiemi a weed. she’s very much plays into a tsudere type roll in the beginning but this seems more like a backhanded compliment rather than trying to be a jerk to her. both of the girls receive this interaction in a positive way. we also can use the scene where shiemi saves izumo as a reason for this as well. izumo shows a genuine concern for shiemi both during and after her being stuck in the miasma. even when they go to the hot springs, she seems to have this perpetual blush while looking at shiemi. these all lead me to think she has some sort of feelings toward both paku and shiemi, leading me to headcanon her as a lesbian.

shura:

sexuality: lesbian

she was basically born just so she could produce a child to fuel some demons deep desires. her unhealthy attachment to shiro can be explained by this. i think this is the case for all the “attraction” she showed towards him as a young girl. all her life she’s been told she has to have kids with a man and that’s was her purpose for a long time. thus why i think she’s a lesbian. she never shows any real attraction to a man throughout the entire series besides the man who saved her as a child. she never talks about men till after her character arc in the manga and even then, it seems she just wants to live the rest of her life differently than before and doesn’t exactly seem too enthusiastic about finding a husband as it’s never mentioned again after that point. she really only seems to show an “attraction” to men when it’s useful to her. she uses her looks and charm to get what she wants when it comes to men. she has this facade she puts on where she acts innocent and cute and uses her looks to her advantage. she never truly shows an actual attraction to a man.

mephisto:

sexuality + gender identity: gay and genderfluid

reason: i don’t think any of the demon kings are cis. like not even remotely. they all have to take on different forms and have taken on many in the past. as long as it’s a body, they’re basically fine with whatever. mephs past forms are never shown but we can assume he’s taken on many different body’s in the past as well. after all this body hopping and the fact that gender is literally a thing made up by humans, i don’t think meph really cares about the forms he takes and how his gender is perceived. he knows he’s a powerful demon and could easily destroy the knights of the true cross if he wanted too so gender is the last thing he really cares about. as for sexuality, nothing on screen really points to anything but he tends to show more affection to the men on screen than the women. in fact, the only women we see him really interact with (that i can remember) is shura and we all know how they feel about each other. even though those two both “flirt” with one another, these seem to be more so parts of their personality’s rather than them both having an interest in each other. his “flirting” with shura seems to be more taunting her and displaying his absolute discard for human problems.

amaimon:

gender identity: agender

reason: just like meph, amimon had possessed(?) many different forms over the course of their existence. we even see him take on a rather feminine presenting form when they were destroying the earth. but unlike meph, he is less fluid in terms of gender and instead, prefers to not identify with one. she does use all pronouns and doesn’t exactly care on that front but i think there’s certain terms and compliments they don’t exactly like. meph does use gendered terms with amimon, but these two seem to be very close and have probably communicated this before as well. like koneko being genderfluid, there’s no definitive evidence to support this claim other than these are my own headcanons and i can do what i want.

[mysterykidscasefiles]

Mystery Kids and the Case of the Whispering Rock

Summary: Norman, Neil, Coraline, Wybie, Raz and Lili arrive at Grunkle Stan’s Summer Camp with the hope of having a summer of fun, or in the case of the two Psychonauts, with the intent of investigating a psychic disturbance. When they meet two twins that seem to be experts on the secrets of Gravity Falls, they find themselves reluctantly teaming up. But how much can they actually trust each other? There are secrets in this town, but more surprising are the secrets being kept from each other.

Table of Contents

Act 2

Chapter 24: The Right Tools

Thud!

“Oops.”

Tiny particles invade Wybie’s throat. He started coughing and found he couldn’t stop.

“I think you went overboard on the glitter…” Wybie managed to choke out.

“Nonsense! There’s no-” Mabel began to cough. “Such thing... as too much…” But she couldn’t finish her sentence, and instead, she doubled over with wheezing, hacking breaths.

“You were saying?” Wybie asked. It was becoming easier to breathe as the glitter began to settle on the floor of the attic bedroom around them. “Also… why did we need glitter again?”

“Neil, tell him,” Mabel said with a nod to the red-headed kid beside her.

"Glitter enhances everything," Neil informed him matter-of-factly. "It's called aesthetic."

"And more of a good thing is always a good thing!" Mabel added cheerily.

Wybie raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm not sure that's true." However, he didn't say anything more than that. Wybie had known the girl for only a few days, and he had already learned that arguing sense into her was pointless.

Wybie looked down at the square device on the ground which used to be black, but was now pink, had a collection of cupcake stickers, a cat made out of puff paint with big eyes, and rhinestones clustered in any additional left over space. With Mabel’s newest addition, the whole device was also now covered in glitter. As mismatched and horrible as the whole thing looked, he had to admit the cat was painted really well. After the mummy project, Wybie had no doubt that the girl was talented artistically, even if she did have… unusual tastes.

When Neil and Mabel said that they wanted to help Wybie fix the EMF meter, he expected that they would just help him find supplies. He didn’t expect… this kind of help.

“What’s wrong with how it looked before?” Wybie asked.

Mabel shook her head, as if he had just asked the silliest question she had ever heard. “If you were a ghost, what would you be drawn towards? A boring black square box? Or this work of art?”

“Definitely this,” Neil agreed. “It's a lot more fun and everyone likes cupcakes!”

“But the problem wasn’t about getting the ghost’s attention,” Wybie explained. “The problem was getting the device to work properly.”

After they got home from getting lost in the woods and finding the mysterious cabin, Wybie had started working on building the EMF meter while the rest of the kids finished the fake mummy for the shack. It wasn’t a very complicated device, and by the next day, Wybie had the device built. EMF readers detect electromagnetic fields that are given off by electronics, especially old electronics that don’t have their wires properly shielded. EMF fluctuations are also said to indicate ghostly activity. The idea was, even if they couldn’t see Luis themselves, the EMF meter should be able to pick up his ghostly energy… provided they were far enough away from any electronics that could set off the EMF meter. Wybye was still a little skeptical of the science, but he didn’t have a better idea.

Coraline and Norman had been eager to get back to the Cardinal’s old mansion to see if they could find Luis again as soon as possible. They wouldn’t be able to communicate with him if they couldn’t see or hear him, but at least the EMF reader would indicate if he was still around or not. Once they knew if Luis was still around, they could work on other ways of communicating with him.

When they arrived back at the old mansion, Wybie turned on the EMF meter and it immediately calibrated to the surrounding area. The device had an indicator needle that could swing between green, yellow and red; green indicating low electromagnetic energy, yellow indicating medium, and red indicating high levels.

At first, the device was reading green, but as they stepped further into the house, the needle swung to yellow, and the device started letting out a slow beeping noise. Excited, Wybie tried to find the source of the electromagnetic field disturbance by moving the EMF meter around. Coraline eagerly called Luis’s name, but she got no response.

As Wybie swung the device to his left, he noticed that the device started beeping louder as the needle detected more activity. He moved to the left and the beeping increased, the needle moving to red. Slowly, he seemed to be narrowing in on the location of the disturbance. He stopped in front of Norman, and Norman moved out of his way- only for the beeping to decrease again as the needle moved back down to yellow. Wybie adjusted his position, and he was able to pick up the trail again… only to find himself standing in front of Norman for a second time.

Norman’s eyes widened in surprise and the color seemed to drain from his already pale face.

“Wh-what does that mean?” Norman asked nervously as he eyed the EMF meter. “Why is it focusing on me?”

“I’m not sure,” Wybie said as he fiddled with some of the buttons on the meter. “Do you have your phone on you? You should give it to someone else. Maybe that’s what’s setting off the device.”

Norman did so, handing over his phone to Neil.

Norman stepped away from the EMF meter, but again, it focused in on Norman, beeping incessently.

Norman shifted uncomfortably as everyone stared in confusion at the device.

“Wait, I think I’ve seen this movie,” Raz exclaimed with a fake gasp. “Norman’s been dead the entire time!”.

A few lighthearted chuckles from the group eased the atmosphere, and Norman let out an awkward laugh himself.

“It’s probably because Norman was possessed by Luis,” Dipper suggested. Some of his ghostly energy must still be on him, which is messing with the EMF meter.

“Can you do something about that Wybie?” Coraline asked. “We aren’t going to be able to find Luis if the EMF reader keeps lighting up everytime Norman gets close, and I really don’t want to have to wait to find out how long ghost energy can last on a person.”

“I can probably make the device less sensitive,” Wybie said. “That should make it harder to detect Norman and more likely that it will detect a bigger electromagnetic disturbance, like a ghost… theoretically. That's assuming this is even a valid method of finding a ghost.”

“I can leave,” Norman suggested hesitantly. “Maybe that would make it easier for the EMF meter to work if I wasn’t here?”

Dipper shook his head. “No, you should stay. We want to make sure the instrument is actually reading a ghostly entity, not just left over energy. We can actually use you to make sure the calibration is correct.”

“The new calibration might take a while, but I think it will be ready by tomorrow,” Wybie said.

Coraline frowned impatiently, but nodded. “I guess we have no choice but to wait until then.”

“Oh! I can help you, Wybie!” Mabel said eagerly

“Me too!” Neil chimed in.

“Sure,” Wybie said with a shrug.

After all, how could more help be a bad thing?

Past Wybie had been so naive.

Well, Mabel and Neil hadn’t messed with the inside of the device, and as long as it was still functional, that was the most important part.

”You fixed the inside and we fixed the outside! We make a great team!” Mabel said, patting him on the back.

“The outside wasn’t broken-”

“Agree to disagree,” Mabel said flippantly.

“But I haven’t completely fixed it yet,” Wybie said. “I still need to screw this back panel on, but the screws I had to use for the back panel are a lot smaller.” It was a common occurrence when Wybie built things out of spare parts. No big deal. He just needed to use different tools. “I need to use something else. Neil, can you hand me that smaller screwdriver by your leg?”

“Sure!” Neil said and offered the screw driver to Wybie, who thanked him.

“I guess it’s time to find out if it works,” Wybie said as he finished tightening the last screw. “Coraline wanted to try the mansion again today as soon as this was done.”

“Didn’t Mr. Pines want us to work in the shack all day? Won’t he be mad if we all just left?” Neil asked.

“Raz and Lili left a few times yesterday and I think they were gone this morning and I don’t think Mr. Pines noticed. He was too busy with all the tourists,” Wybie said.

“Oh yeah… Why do you think Raz and Lili keep leaving without telling anyone?” Neil asked.

Mabel’s smile widened. "I bet Coraline’s right and they're sneaking away to make out!"

"But whenever they leave they are always really serious and determined. That’s not how people look on TV when they’re about to go kiss someone, or my brother with his boyfriend,” Neil said.

“Also if they are just sneaking off to kiss, why would they be gone for hours?” Wybie added.

“Because they are going on romantic dates, obviously!” Mabel insisted.

“Two to three times a day?” Wybie countered.

Mabel shrugged. “They’re in love!”

“Maybe.” Wybie said, but he suspected there was more to it. Perhaps they were trying to get out of doing work around the shack? Or maybe they had found something more interesting to do in Gravity Falls?

“Do you think your Grunkle would be okay if we left the shack early today to go to the mansion?” Neil asked.

“It depends,” Mabel said thoughtfully. “Grunkle Stan cares if it eats into the profits. With all the new customers we’ve been getting because of the mummy exhibit, he’s probably too happy to care. It’s also past the mid-day rush anyway. We probably won’t get another big batch of tourists until tomorrow.”

Wybie was glad he had been lucky enough to avoid the crowd of tourists that had come to the shop to see the grand reveal of the mummy. The reason Wybie had time to finish the EMF meter was because Coraline, Dipper and Norman were handling the gift shop so they weren’t needed downstairs.

Wybie looked over his EMF meter and turned it on. It hummed, but didn’t start beeping right away, which was a good sign unless the twins bedroom was hunted. In which case it should be beeping very incessantly…

Wybie sighed and turned off the device.

“What’s wrong?” Mabel asked.

“Machines I understand. I could tell you a hundred facts about the different spiders and slugs living in the Pacific Northwest. When I don’t know something, I can research it until I figure it out. But this… ghost stuff. I don’t understand it at all

Mabel cocked her head to the side. “And that’s… bad?”

“Yes!” Wybie said, throwing his hands into the air. “We spoke to a ghost, we found a cabin in the woods powered by magic! I’ve seen all this crazy stuff in the past two days and I don’t know how to make sense of it! How am I supposed to learn or study about something that just breaks the laws of physics? I know ghosts are real. I saw Louis with my own eyes and I’ve known monsters are real ever since… Well, that thing that Coraline doesn’t want to talk about. I can see it, and believe in it to a certain extent, but how am I supposed to understand it? What units of measurement do I even use for ectoplasmic energy or the amount of magic powering the cabin? How am I supposed to understand it, let alone build a device to detect it?” He held up the EMF reader in frustration.

To Wybie’s surprise, Mabel giggled. “You sound like my brother.”

“I do?”

“Dipper will go on and on and say that he loves mysteries, but that’s not true. It’s not the mystery he likes, it’s solving them. The truth is my brother hates mysteries. He can’t stand the uncertainty… he hates not knowing, it eats at him. What he really enjoys is putting the pieces together. You’re similar, you like taking things apart and then putting them back together, but better than before. But with this ghost and magic stuff you’re stuck.” She held up his discarded screwdriver. “Your usual tools aren’t going to help you understand.”

“So what I’m I supposed to do?”

Mabel shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know how that stuff works either. What do you usually do when you’re stuck and what you’re trying to do isn’t working?”

Wybie frowned. It wasn’t uncommon for him to get stuck with an engineering problem, but what did he do when he was completely out of his depth?

“You get better tools.” Neil said eagerly and Wybie looked up. “Just like you had me get a different screwdriver for the different sized screws.”

Wybie nodded slowly. “I improvise. But how am I supposed to get better tools to understand magic and ghost stuff?”

Mabel shrugged again. “I guess that’s just another mystery?”

Wybie groaned. “I hate when there are too many mysteries and not enough solutions.”

Mabel grinned. “Welcome to Gravity Falls.”

I'm finally back with the beginning of Act 2! I hope you liked it!

I've also been busy going back and editing this story. I haven't made any major changes so there is no need to reread the story since everything is mostly the same!

Table of Contents <Previous

[cheeriecherry]

Reactions to our boi finding out that not only were you a fan before meeting but you were fan who wrote smut about them? A secret you've kept hidden but now... Aizawa, Mic, Nighteye

I’m still sick but i need to do something before i go nuts lol, but I’m sorry if it’s a little questionable, I’m like, half awake oof

Warnings: some mentions of smut but nothing super explicit

AIZAWA SHOUTA

-So he’s not necessarily a well known hero, or at least he isn’t usually in the running with the media. So he probably doesn’t have that much merch, or it’s really hard to find.

-So he notices the first time you let him into your room that you have an adorable tsumtsum of him. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even let on that he saw it, but he knows that it was probably hard for you to get. He figures out right then that you’re some kind of fan.

-But he thinks it’s pretty casual, and he’s actually (secretly) a little bit pleased that you admire him so much, especially if you don’t have any other hero merch.

-He doesn’t catch on until much later that you write smut about him.

-Like, he knows that such things exist. It’s just how people are, we all love our fanfic. 

-He doesn’t think much of your writing habits at first, always assumes you’re working on papers or other things for your job. He only starts to get suspicious when he walks in on you one night and you get flustered and slap your laptop closed.

-He’s not gonna pry into your business, but he’s definitely curious. 

-After that incident, you start writing less around him, and he starts to to worry. Like, all he did was walk into the room, but he didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. He’s also a little perturbed that you feel like you have to hide things from him.

-He’ll probably ask you about it within a couple weeks, or rather he’ll tell you that you don’t have to be ashamed of the things you’re working on, no matter what it is.

-And you appreciate the sentiment, but you seriously don’t know what you’d do if your boyfriend realized you write porn about him. Most of it’s fantasies you’ve had about him, but written to cater to all his fans.

-You’re not super possessive of him, so like, you don’t mind that people thirst over him. You know that at the end of the day, you’re the only one who’s got his attention.

-But then you fall asleep on the couch one night. You had intended to just shut your eyes for a moment to give them a break, so you’d left your laptop open and leaned back on the sofa. Shouta wasn’t supposed to be home for another couple hours, so you figured you’d be safe.

-But you end up falling asleep, and he ends up coming home early.

-He thinks you’re cute when he sees you cozied up on the cushions, but he sees that your laptop is about to die. He has no idea where you usually keep the cord, so he...well, his intention is to save whatever documents you were so hard on, so you didn’t lose your progress. But his eyes scan a few lines without thinking, and before long he’s reading through the whole thing.

-Ngl he’s flustered as hell. He’ll never admit it, but the things you’ve written are absolutely filthy. It’s nothing like anything you’ve ever done in the bedroom, which he’s actually grateful for (he doesn’t want his sex life being broadcasted on the internet, even if you do work under an alias), but reading your work is giving him ideas.

-Do you actually want to do things like this with him? Or is it really just a fantasy, a story written to appease other people.

-Of course, he’s also a teacher so he finds himself critiquing your writing style and use of language. It’s actually pretty good writing, however sinful the subject matter.

-He quickly goes to save the document, but right as he does, you stir awake.

-He looks at you, you look at him. You’re sleepy as hell, and he’s pink in the cheeks, and you just know right off the bat that he’s figured you out.

-You immediately hide your face in your hands and mumble out an ‘oh god im sorry you were never supposed to find out’ and he’s like ‘how the hell do i approach this’ because it’s such an embarrassing situation when it’s happening.

-He tells you that it’s okay, he really doesn’t mind that you write stuff like that. And truthfully he doesn’t. Lots of people write works directed at adults, and there’s nothing wrong with it. He’s just....it’s the fact that you’re writing about him. Of all the heroes you could have chosen from, you chose him. To write about, to appreciate, to pursue romantically.

-It’s turns into a mushy moment, because of course you chose him?? He’s kind and smart and loving and he cares a lot about you and other people. Plus he’s handsome as heck.

-You’re both still a little shy about it when you head to bed a few minutes later, but you still cuddle up to him in the dark and rest your head on his chest.

-But right when you think all is said and done, he asks ‘Is any of that stuff something you’d ever want to try?’ and a whole new wave of embarrassment washes over you. Like jesus christ have some tact Shouta.

-Whether or not you guys end up experimenting a little more is up to you, but it definitely feels nice to not have to hide it so much. You’re still a little iffy about actually showing him what you write, but that’s mostly because you’re worried your skills won’t be up to his standards.

YAMADA HIZASHI

-Definitely didn’t know you were a fan of his the first few times you met. You acted so normal around him, like he was just another guy, so he figured he wasn’t on your radar. Which is fine by him, he tries not to pursue fans simply because that attraction might not be genuine, y’know?

-Like, ‘is this person with me because they like the idea of me, or because they actually like me’ sort of thing.

-And you’re not an overzealous fan by any means, but the first time he visits your house he realizes he was mistaken. You have a couple of his collectibles; the nice ones that are tasteful, not the corny ones that are a quick cash grab for companies.

-He’s like ??? you didn’t tell me???

-And you’re like ???no???

-Honest to god you didn’t recognize him at first. You’d been in a dimly lit, high-end club, he’d had his hair down, you’d both had a couple of drinks. He just happened to be a guy that you had some things in common with, who was nice to talk to and who made you laugh.

-It relaxes him a little, knowing that you would have been into him even if he wasn’t a hero and a super popular DJ with a radio show. And by the time he’s coming over to your house, you guys probably know each other pretty well anyways. He’s let you into his life, but you’ve also let him into yours.

-He teasingly asks you if you’ve got any more little secrets (even though this was hardly a secret), and he doesn’t expect when you get flustered af and squeak out a ‘nope, not a single one, no secrets’. But he doesn’t think more of it until much later.

-Like, several months later. After you guys move in together.

-He knows that smut about heroes exists, he knows that there is smut about him, and if I’m being honest he probably reads it for shits and giggles. Never to make fun of anyone, but he’s honestly just curious about what people are writing.

-He notices that you write a lot, too. You never show him anything, and whenever he asks about it you tell him it’s ‘just work’. He wonders what kinds of projects you’re taking on that involve so much typing and concentration, and ngl he’s a little sad that you don’t tell him about it.

-Like, sure maybe it’s just work and you’re not particularly invested in it, but he always talks about his students, and his shows, and the ongoings at his job, he just wants to know more about what you do.

-He is a smart man, but sometimes he has stupid ideas.

-He concocts the wise plan to sneak onto your laptop while you’re in the shower and read your most recent document. Not being wholly nosey, just enough so he can do a little research on the subject and learn more about it. He just wants to know.

-Throws him for one bigass loop when he sees what you are actually working on. He’s no stranger to kinky shit, but his entire face goes beet red, redder than any fanfiction has ever made him.

-Something about that fact that it’s you who wrote this, and you who’re thinking those things about him, entertaining ideas like that. Like yeah, y’all have slept together but he had absolutely no clue you’d even be into stuff like that.

-And sure, you could just be writing things for your fans, but you also seem pretty knowledgeable on the subject so like. You had to have some interest in it, right?

-And now he’s thinking about trying those things out with you, and his pants are just a tad bit tighter than could be considered comfortable.

-He’s so distracted he doesn’t notice the shower turn off, nor does he hear you walk into the room. He does, however, catch your hideously embarrassed squawk.

-Which then makes him flustered, because he got caught, and you’d better pat yourself on the back for that one because you’re one of the only people that can make him embarrassed like that.

-But then he’s trying to explain himself, and you’re trying to explain yourself, and it’s a whole mess of words and burning cheeks and somehow you end up both admitting that the things you write about would be real fun to try.

-Lol you guys probably just end up in bed together after that,

-But despite the initial awkwardness, he’s pretty cool with it. He likes your writing, and how involved you are with the community. It’s also handy for him because it lets him keep an ear to his fans without digging too deep, you always let him know what kind of stuff everyone is up to.

-best use it to your advantage, tell him all kinds of filthy things that you’ve come across, especially if it something you know he’ll like. It’s a sure way to get him in the mood >u>

SASAKI MIRAI|SIR NIGHTEYE

-He’s nonplussed about whether or not you’re a fan at first. He doesn’t pay you much mind until he scopes out your sense of humour, or until you say something offhandedly and it makes him laugh.

-Fan or not, if you’re funny and you vibe with each other, then he’ll show some kind of interest in you. It’ll take a little while to progress to something romantic, but in the meantime you’ve got a nice friend.

-He’s kinda busy, so you probably don’t invite him over to your place until a couple months in. Your schedules are conflicting, and you’ve both got important jobs to do, so it’s probably been pushed back a couple times. But he finally makes it over one evening for a night of relaxing socialization.

-You know him well enough to know that it wouldn’t bug him that you were a fan of him before you met him. He’s not the kind of person to make a big deal about it, not really. He sees a couple pieces of merch around your apartment, just small things -some of which he’s surprised to managed to get a hold of- and he’s like ‘okay’

-Like, he really doesn���t care. As long as you treat him like a person and you’re not using him for anything, then hes just.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-It’s only afteryou start dating and getting close that he teases you a little bit for it. Not in a rude way, just in an ‘aw you sleep with a plushie of me’ way. He does it so he can fluster you and ruffle your feathers in a loving manner.

-After you move in with him, he notes that you’re on your computer a lot. He figures it’s just an overbearing workload that requires a lot of time, so he reminds you whenever he can to take a break and stretch and give your eyes a rest.

-He’d leave it alone mostly, so in order for him to find out that you’re actually writing smut, he’d have to catch you in the act. He comes home early one evening to get a little extra time with you, and he follows the tapping of the keyboard into your office. You haven’t noticed that he’s even there, that’s how focused you are.

-So he sneaks up behind you with the intent to startle you and wrap you up in a hug, but looking over your shoulder he gets a good view of your screen...and the words on the screen...and his name on the screen...

-It takes you a couple seconds to figure out he’s there, which is dumb because he’s literally just frozen over your shoulder going over the sentences you’ve written as his face gets redder and redder.

-Anyways, he still manages to scare you, and you leap out of your seat and fall onto the floor, but instead of hugging you and saying hello like he originally intended, he’s just kind of frozen on the spot with the pinkest cheeks you’ve seen him have.

-He’s a pretty stoic guy most of the time, at least on the outside. It’s really hard to fluster him, because most of your attempts either make him laugh because you’re cute, or result in some really nice romantic time. He’s just. Not really shy about stuff?

-But this is a whole different thing.

-You’re on the floor dying of embarrassment and telling him not to read, but he is Looking and Not Listening. You just seem so innocent and chill about things, he never would have expect something like this from you. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just really surprising.

-Secretly he’s a little bit pleased that you’re writing this kind of stuff about him, and not some other heroes, but he probably won’t say it out loud. Not to mention your writing is actually really good? Like, it flows perfectly and the descriptions are easy to imagine but not super complicated or convoluted.

-He’s a smart guy, and he knows that fans of heroes are into all kind of things, fanfiction included. He’s not offended by it, by any means. He just never supposed that he’d be popular enough to warrant fanfic about him, let alone written by his own partner.

-He tries to be chill about it, asking you if you’re into that kind of stuff and if you should switch it up in the bedroom a bit. It’s pretty obvious he’s flustered tho. 

-It would probably lead to a good long talk about what sort of stuff you’re both into, after the initial embarrassment dies down. And honestly, he’s home early to spend time with you, so why not just try some stuff out right now?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-He would definitely read your fics if you want him to, hell, even if you don’t outright ask him he might seek them out out of curiosity. He’s usually busy in the day, but he’ll find time to read through things and give you honest feedback.

-Lol tho if you’re still shy about it, he might make an account with an alias just so he can give you nice comments. It doesn’t take very long for you to figure him out though. He’s got a very specific typing style and his personality shines through, but only people who know him would recognize it.

-I headcanon this guy as a kinky mf ngl, but also as someone who can go without hardcore stuff, y’know? So whether or not you actually want to try out some of your fantasies is up to you, but he’s 100% down for it.

[waffles-for-brunch]

This project began as an indirect response to a few negative tweets in the days following the Valentine's Day Destiel wedding. During such time that “certain sources” chose to speak against the impromptu "wedding" and state that the direction of the show never included sexuality or romance. Since this argument has sparked a bit of discourse as to the validity of Dean Winchester and Castiel's relationship and sexualities, I began this edit as an exploration of observations throughout the entire 15 season run of the series. (That's not to say that Sam does not also have his own impactful romances throughout the show -he does have several notable ones- but in his case they are never debated upon or erased.)

There are three complete edits linked below. The differences are explained in their descriptions. (I also recommend downloading for best quality rather than simply watching in the browser, but it’s your choice)

BiDeanEdit: (Click here to download)

Runtime: 18:04:44

File Size: 10.0 GB (10,741,415,805 bytes)

Series long compilation edit (in sequence) of Dean Winchester and Castiel’s relationships and intended expressions of their sexualities (ie interest in both genders). This edit focuses on their relationship as it develops with one another, their other notable relationships (DeanxBenny, CasxMeg, DeanxLisa, etc), and the framework around their sexualities with small scenes of expression (ie Dean in ‘Playthings’ or ‘Everybody Hates Hitler’, or early seasons Dean & his transgressions with women, or Cas in ‘Caged Heat’)

BiDeanMLMEdit: (Click here to download)

Runtime: 14:40:57

File Size: 8.05 GB (8,649,798,685 bytes)

Series long compilation edit (in sequence) of Dean Winchester and Castiel’s relationships and intended expressions of their sexualities. This one is the same as the last but with only MLM content (Otherwise referred to as ‘only the gay parts’). We focus on this more repressed side of their sexuality and see these clues laid out altogether in one fluid edit (these examples are also available in the previous edit, however are just not aligned beside any heterosexual content). DeanxCrowley, DeanxBenny, DeanxLee, DeanxCas, etc. 

DestielOnlyEdit: (Click here to download)

Runtime: 13:08:49

File Size: 7.17 GB (7,709,560,696 bytes)

Series long compilation edit (in sequence) of only Destiel related content. The same as the above edit, just simplified even more to only focus on Dean and Cas’ relationship over the years. 

Keep reading below to find my full analysis of the complete edit regarding these guys sexualities, relationships, and the parallels we can draw. 

To understand why it is that so many queer fans of Supernatural and other similar shows read queerness in characters and their relationships, we should look at the hays code established in 1930. At this time this certain code was established to monitor what was allowed to be depicted outright on film. Within the margins of what was to be stifled, was homosexuality. As such, filmmakers had to plant “queer-coded” seeds into the writing and subtext so that queer audiences watching could interpret these characters and relationships in this manner without the words and actions stating so outright. (At this time homosexuality could be depicted on film as long as said gay character was either a villain, caricature, or met an untimely end- feeding into the blossoming of the kill-your-gays trope. But that’s another topic for a later time.) 

As film changed over the years and times became more accepting of lgbt characters portrayals on screen outside of simple coding, this did not make the code obsolete. Queer-coding and queer-baiting are often used in media in present day as a way to pull in viewership. Networks are able to garner the best of both worlds, in a sense. They can draw in heterosexual audiences that may not want to watch queer media, whilst also drawing in queer audiences by coding some characters and relationships just enough to pull those viewers in. This works simply because there is such a lack of queer representation in most media that we’ll take what we can get. 

This is where Supernatural comes in. There is a reason that Supernatural and thus “Destiel” is known by some as “The Great American Queerbait.” This twelve years long gay slow-burn between one overly masculine character and his awkward angel best friend did not begin with the intention of romance or baiting, as many of these things generally don’t. However, once fans realized the chemistry between these two particular actors and characters, it became something blatantly written into the show. Sometimes jokingly, other times as legitimate moments of emotional intimacy between two characters. So to say that the show’s direction never included sexuality or romance is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. Just because something is not written in clear and concise wording right in your face, does not mean that it is nonexistent and that the writers did not know what they were writing into the show. (Not even to mention the actual love confession in 15x18, but I digress). 

We know very well that queer content has been written subtextually into media for the better part of seventy years. It is a language in media just as much as lighting is a language, just as much as certain camera angles, color design in costumes or set decor, and music design are languages. All of these, outside of the simple words said on screen, make up our media and these characters and our shows. Tv is a world of color, not black and white.

[[ further readings on the above topics: X X X X X ]] 

I decided upon this full edit encompassing both the female and male aspects of Dean Winchester and Castiel’s relationships & sexualities because oftentimes when we’re looking into potentially queer characters we tend to focus on the same sex attraction and neglect the opposite sex attraction. Both are very important to acknowledge and compare, if at the very least to view where they may overcompensate, where toxic masculinity may come into play, compulsory heterosexuality, trauma responses, etc. Sometimes what a character doesn’t do is just as important to interpret as what they do do. 

For instance, Dean Winchester. If we are to operate under the assumption that he is bisexual, any repression we witness throughout the series as to his male attraction is likely to be a result of his difficult upbringing, similar to most queer identifying people with childhood trauma. His father is a marine, the picture of manliness in which Dean himself blatantly embodies in an effort to impress and make his father proud in any way he can. Dean is already unlikely to seek out activities in any aspect of life of which might make John look at him in a different light (ie, in an every day setting, even simply watching Finding Dory- this is not something S1 Dean would have admitted to liking, but we see Dean in later seasons standing up for himself and his appreciation for it). 

Is it perhaps for this reason that we see Dean as an overly blatant and flirty ladies man in season 1 when John is still alive, while this side of him steadily declines as the series continues? It even becomes established in season 3- in light of Dean’s fears surrounding going to Hell, he enters an attitude for coping that Sam recognizes- hypermasculinity, promiscuity, deflection. Heightening the idea that this caricature of himself that he embodies is a mask that he wears in order to cope with something else. He is donning the image he assumes others think he should fit into. Sam calls him out on this through the years, and eventually this becomes something we see in him less and less as he feels more comfortable simply being himself. 

If we take into account the time of which this first season is filmed, this is 2005, a time where gay jokes were still funny and an overcompensating character was a joke attached to it. We see Dean built up in these first couple of seasons through this lens of jokes about a hyper-masculine character being mistaken for gay, however instead of this building up the masculinity to encourage a raging heterosexual characterization, this overcompensation is exactly what inadvertently sows the seeds of queer-coding. To queer watchers this reads as a deeply repressed character with childhood trauma who overcompensates when faced with observations of gayness and uses hypermasculinity to counteract these accusations. 

It is through circumstances such as “Bugs” in S1 or “Playthings” in S2 that we first see these ‘jokes.’ The brothers are mistaken as a gay couple. Dean being the more “masculine’ of the two characters has a blatant reaction to these situations (Overcompensating), and Sam’s lack of a reaction is what solidifies his own straightness all the more. Neither brother is homophobic (this becomes established as time goes on) so why would either have a problem with this mistake? Sam wouldn’t care because he’s clearly not gay- in fact, he usually just laughs it off. Dean would care because he wonders what about him looks gay? Do other people see it too? Do they know? What’s wrong with him? 

We also see another blatant example of this type of freakout in season 8. “Everybody Hates Hitler.”

(Images: “Playthings” S2xE11)

(Image below: S8 “Everybody Hates Hilter”)

We frame these situations in early seasons around girl of the week scenarios and brief bar flirtations. Have to make it clear that our manly straight character looks as manly and straight as possible. Dean is also in his 20s, he’s more carefree/not as traumatized yet, and he is a sexual man so he does sleep around quite a bit. What is notable, however, is how much this drops off in later seasons. As time goes on Dean seeks out less and less the fleeting encounters of one night stands, in favor of genuine connections- even if he himself frequently doubts his own ability to ever have a settle-down type of relationship or life. Lisa is the only long-term female romantic relationship Dean ever has throughout the series run, and this tentatively begins in season 5 and ends in season 6. 

Dean and Lisa’s relationship is founded more in a dream of something that Dean wants to be rather than who he actually is. Although he loves her, their bond is made through trauma and their relationship overall is reminiscent of a soldier who returned home from war with heavy PTSD and begins to burden the family that he will come to realize he doesn’t quite fit within anymore. 

Outside of this, his closest relationships from thereon out are between Benny, and Castiel. 

Let’s start with Benny. Throughout season 8 Benny is framed as an ex and his relationship with Dean directly parallels Sam and Amelia’s. Both brothers must confront their relationships with their ‘significant others’ and decide whether to cut them off or proceed. Both brothers found these people under circumstances in which they did not get along with them at first but were pushed together. Another person comes in the middle of their relationship (Amelia’s husband for Sam, or Cas/Sam for Benny). The brothers each resent the other’s significant other or the circumstances surrounding the relationship. Sam hates Benny because he is a vampire and Sam does not understand why Dean continually trusts him (which is a circumstance inherently queer-coded in itself for comparability to an unaccepting family). Dean does not care for Amelia simply for the fact that Sam chose her over looking for him in purgatory.

Other instances we see parallels between Sam’s romances and Dean’s:

“Sex and Violence” S4 siren: Nick(Siren)/Dean parallel to Sam/Dr Lady

Season 4: Ruby/Sam and Cas/Dean teamup parallels

S1 Dean pulling Sam from the fire away from Jess vs S12 Sam pulling Dean away from Cas who may die approaching Lucifer to fight

Season 8: Dean/Benny vs Sam/Amelia. Dean and Benny, since they’re essentially going through a breakup, are directly paralleled to Sam and Amelia and their breakup. See “Larp and the Real Girl” for Charlie and Dean’s conversation about Sam’s recent breakup and Charlie picking up on the fact that Dean might also be going through one. 

1x05 vs 8x07: Sam seeing Jessica on the sidewalk as they drive down the street vs Dean seeing Cas on the side of the road as he drives down the street

S11: Perhaps this one can be interpreted loosely and not necessarily romantic (esp on Sam’s end), but “O’ Brother Where Art Thou” both brothers are drawn to forces they actively fight against being drawn to. SamxLucifer and DeanxAmara. 

S11: “Beyond the Mat” not a relationship but with crushes/infatuations. Dean with Gunner Lawless and Sam with Rio. 

S15: Cas telling Dean that “We Are” real. vs Eileen being unsure what’s real and Sam kissing her and saying “I know that was real.”

S15: “The Trap” Dean loses all hope following the death of their friends and primarily Cas. Sam loses hope after Eileen’s death. Directly paralleled in the episode. (We also see Sam lose Eileen in 15x18, where Dean also loses Cas)

Additional parallels between Dean/Cas with anyone else:

Season 9/10: Cain/Colette vs Dean/Cas. “She only asked for one thing. To stop.” vs Cas asking Dean to “Stop”. Both circumstances referring to the Mark of Cain.

S12 “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” Lily (human)/Isham (angel) vs Dean (human)/ Cas (angel)

Led Zeppelin: This music means something within John/Mary’s relationship, which Dean directly acknowledges in 12x01 with Mary. We find out Dean has gifted Cas a mixtape of his “Top 13 Zepp Traxx” in 12x19. (the implications of Dean having made a mixtape for Cas, being its own point in a different discussion)

When Lucifer contacts a person to try and get them to open up to him, he uses their dead lover as a ploy. SamxJess, NickxSarah, VincexJen, DeanxCas - 15x19 when Lucifer calls Dean using Cas’ voice. 

The parallels of unreciprocated love/infatuation. DeanxCrowley and CasxHannah. Dean likes Crowley but clearly not the way that Crowley likes Dean. Cas likes Hannah like a friend or sister, but she keeps putting the moves on him for awhile and he appears deeply uncomfortable and has to shoot her down more than once. 

Parallels between Dean’s own relationships:

Dean in “Let it Bleed” torturing demons to find the location of Lisa and Ben vs Dean in Purgatory torturing monsters to find the location of Cas “The angel”

“The Rapture” opens in Dean’s dream which Cas visits and says he’s in trouble and gives Dean an address to go to immediately. “The Song Remains The Same” opens in Dean’s dream which Anna visits and says she’s in trouble and gives Dean an address to go to immediately. 

S6 Dean dodging calls from Lisa vs S12 Dean dodging Cas at the beginning of “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” (notable also how Sam treats both circumstances the same)

S11: “Into the Mystic” 11x11 Mildred tells Dean the key to living a long and happy life is to follow your heart. Later in the season “All in the Family” 11x21 When Casifer is still captured by Amara, she puts her hand to Cas’ heart and is able to connect with Dean to contact him. Hinting at the link between Cas and Dean’s “hearts.” 

Not necessarily a parallel but an observation. 7x01 when Cas is loaded up on God juice, and Dean has given up but Sam hasn’t and wants to talk to ‘the guy’, Dean says, “He’s not a guy, he’s God.” But in 11x18 Dean refuses to give up on Cas and let him continue to be possessed. Sam keeps speaking about Cas like he’s just a vessel and Dean says, “It? It’s not an it, Sam. It’s Cas.” Mostly this shows the development of their relationship and Dean’s willingness to continue to fight for him. 

Dean’s dream world with Pamela in S14, she says to Dean “How come you only want what you can’t have?” and in S15 during Cas’ confession scene he says to Dean, “The one thing I want, is something I know I can’t have.”

Before we delve into Dean and Castiel specifically, let’s explore a few more things regarding Dean. 

Let’s start with Cassie. This is Dean’s first romantic relationship we see on the show, and is arguably his first love. What is notable about her is her characterization and Dean in relation to her. We haven’t seen him in a relationship before, and thus this is the baseline to which we can draw how he is in this type of vulnerable state.

We see here that he is drawn to strong individuals. Cassie is a very strong willed character and can hold her own. She has a boldness about her. Dean appreciates that. We see similar in his next framed love interest: Jo Harvelle. Jo is another strong character, and though Dean sees her more as someone he needs to protect because she doesn’t have as much experience under her belt, he respects her intellect and strong will all the same. They connect through a love for hunting and mutual daddy issues. Personally, this is a relationship I view more as a little sister dynamic in a similar vein to Dean and Charlie, however this pairing is still worth noting because as it was written it was intended to potentially flourish into a romantic relationship. This did not pan out, though the seeds are still there. 

Next up is Anna. Again daddy issues are a solid connection these two hold, and while this relationship is more of a one-night-stand than anything else, there are still important points to be taken from this encounter. The first is just how much Dean cares. We don’t see very many sex scenes with Dean throughout the series, but of the ones we do see, it is apparent that he is a gentle and tender man. He cares. About even a single night with a woman. (Cassie, Anna, Lydia ’The Slice Girls”) This is a contrast to Dean’s general persona of the masculine straight promiscuous lady’s man. He has all the bravado of a man who ‘loves em and leaves em’, but in reality that is not who he is. This is another example of the faces Dean wears in front of certain people (and what he thinks they expect of him), and the person he is once he lets that mask fall. 

It may be important to note as well that Anna, (it is rumored) was originally meant to be more to Dean than this simple one night stand and connection. She was intended to become a romantic interest but, as it turned out, Dean and Cas had more chemistry so the arc that Anna was meant to follow was instead given to Castiel. 

It is another year until the apocalypse comes along, Sam dies, and Dean falls back into Lisa’s lap. While Lisa is another strong-willed woman who rolls with the punches, her lifestyle deviates from Dean’s usual romantic interests simply because of her offering of a normal life outside of everything he’s usually known. A life with her is dipping his toe into a life he could have had if he didn’t hold the weight of the world on his shoulders and hunt the things that go bump in the night.

This is Dean’s last “official” relationship of the series. After putting Lisa and Ben in danger by being someone that he cares about, Dean accepts that he’s simply not a guy that can have a normal life or a normal family. He cares about people and they get hurt. This is a weight he holds on his shoulders for the remainder of the show. He loves someone, or more accurately, they love him, and they’ll get hurt. End of story. It doesn’t help that immediately following this, Castiel “dies” too. 

Maybe it’s Lisa, maybe it’s Cas. Maybe it’s a combination of the two at this point in time, but Dean is never again the same when it comes to relationships after these events at the end of season 6. He becomes more cautious, tries to keep people an arm’s length away, and we even begin to see less and less promiscuity and flirting with miscellaneous women from this point on. 

Let’s talk about Castiel.

Although Dean has had various queer-coded moments throughout the beginning of the series and up to Castiel’s entrance in season 4, his minimal relationships up to this point have all been with women. Simply exploring the evolution of this relationship from Dean’s side of the picture, Dean doesn’t start to truly warm up to Castiel until perhaps the end of season 4. He begins the season unsure of the angel, perhaps even a bit afraid of him, before the two garner a sort of mutual respect as Dean begins to see that there’s more to him than simply an agent of heaven.

They’re friends in season 5. The quirky, strange angel that doesn’t understand social cues, stands too close, stares too much, and says things like “we’re making it up as we go” and “tonight you’re my little bitch.” He’s a far cry from the ethereal entity that showed up in Bobby’s kitchen just a year ago and threatened to toss Dean back into Hell. What really turns the curve, however, is “The End.” 

5 years in the future in the midst of an apocalyptic war, Cas is still around. He’s human and he’s stuck by Dean’s side through it all, even though this Dean is just a shadow of his former self. Then again, so is this Cas. But still, they stuck together. Dean isn’t used to that. He has very few people that have stuck by him for this many years. Could probably count them all on one hand at this point. Bobby and Sam at the top of the list. Everyone else either dies or leaves. And in this future, Bobby and Sam are dead, but Cas is still there.  

Dean has abandonment issues. His mother died when he was four, his dad was in and out emotionally and physically his entire upbringing, Sam left for Stanford the first chance he got. He’s got strings of dead friends and lost relationships surely in tow for years at this point, and half the time Dean has become accustomed to pushing people away before they have a chance to push him away first. (Ie Cassie, Lisa, often even Sam too at times). Cas won’t make these issues any better during their run together, but up to this point Cas hasn’t let him down. The simple fact that in this one future universe Cas had stuck by him, I’m sure that makes a big difference to Dean and actually may be imperative for their relationship going forward and the trust that forms between them. 

Something that becomes a large part of their relationship is Cas and Dean’s ability to have conversations with just their eyes. This is a shorthand that Dean is known to have with Sam on occasion, especially during times of combat. It takes a certain amount of intimacy and knowledge of the other person to be able to have a shorthand like this. The first instance we see this between them is quite possibly “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester,” when Dean convinces Cas that they can save the town. We see it again in the ‘beautiful room’ when Cas slams Dean up against the wall and Dean seems to understand what’s happening. Another instance, “The Song Remains the Same.” In a way, it’s a locking of eyes that just seems to say “trust me,” and they do. 

Sam wonders if Anna may be right. If killing him and scattering the pieces will stop this whole Lucifer vessel business. Sam asks Cas, Cas looks to Dean, they share a look, and Cas shuts Sam down. In all likelihood that plan could have worked, but Cas wouldn’t do that Dean. He wouldn’t do it to Sam either but at this point he’ll do anything at all for Dean. 

If we take a moment to consider Dean and Cas’ relationship here, it is unlike any of Dean’s previous ones. Dean never has this same kind of shorthand with any of his other relationships, save for possibly Benny to a certain extent. Cas is an odd guy, and Dean frequently describes him as such, but he finds it endearing (if “Free to be You and Me” is any indication this early in their relationship). The previous women in his life all had the same thing in common, that they’re strong willed, brave, and don’t put up with Dean’s shit when he’s being a shit. Cas does fit all this criteria, but he’s also someone that Dean has a hard time reading. Cas is so literal sometimes that Dean can’t tell what’s literal, what’s deadpan, and what’s just Cas’ personality as an angel. But at the end of the day, simply put, he likes him and he trusts him. Getting Dean Winchester’s full trust as quickly as Cas gets it is an anomaly all on its own. 

Dean’s female relationships are fairly surface level. They’re easy and fairly uncomplicated. Boy likes girl, girl likes boy. Girl gets mad at boy, relationship ends. Easy. Expected. His relationship with Cas isn’t easy. But the big endgame relationships seldom are. There’s blood, loss of trust, rebuilding, and there’s a pull that at the end of the day always brings them back to one another no matter how incredibly messy things get.  

And boy do things get messy. If we touch back into the end of season 6 where things end with Lisa and blow up with Cas, Dean is at an all time low in the relationship department. 

Dean takes Cas’ betrayal hard. Breakups are one thing. Leaving Lisa was expected. It was bound to happen eventually. Dean always knew that somewhere inside. He mourns leaving them, but knows it’s for the best. But with Cas’ betrayal at working with Crowley, he’s devastated all over again. 

Dean never expects his relationships to last forever, but again there’s a choice few people in his life he lets take up space on the list of those who might stick around. Bobby, Sam, Cas. I don’t think Lisa was ever on this list, as much as Dean wishes he could tell himself she and Ben were. But they weren’t. That relationship was a ticking time bomb. And when they nearly die because of his life and the creatures surrounding him every day, that’s the end of it.

Fast forward, season 7 is a time of mourning. He’s lost Lisa and Ben, he gets Cas back for all of 30 minutes before losing him all over again and never being able to repair that relationship. But he keeps the trenchcoat. Fishes it out of the lake, bundles it up, and keeps it in the back of every single car that he and Sam drive that year. 

Dean doesn’t keep mementos. Not of Cassie, not of Jo, Not of Anna, or even Lisa and Ben. No pictures, no items, just memories. You know what he does keep? He keeps his dad’s leather jacket, Bobby’s flask, pictures of he and Sam and his mom. Is keeping the trenchcoat in the back of the car for a year similar to those familial keepsakes? Maybe. But it’s also more than that. It’s covered in blood and lake water, and I’m sure Dean would explain it away that Cas was family and that’s why he kept the coat. Probably even believes that too. 

Then we have purgatory. 

Dean prays to Cas every night. He could get out of that place just on his own, but he stays there for months in full combat just to look for the angel and get him out with him.

“First we find the angel”

“Cas, we’re gettin’ out of here. We’re going home.”

“Cas, buddy, I need you.”

“Let me bottom line it for you. I’m not leaving here without you. Understand?”

“Cas, we’re gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

“It’s gonna work. Nobody gets left behind.”

When we meet Benny, Dean’s only other primary male pairing of consequence, he is not trusted. This team-up is one of strategy and a mutual goal only- at least at first. Dean and Benny fight well side by side, but the trust only runs so far. That is, until during one particular fight with leviathans in which Cas nearly bites it, Benny saves the angel’s life. This is the main turning point for Dean’s entire trust in Benny from here on out. 

“Benny has never let me down.” Dean says later to Sam. And he never did. He saved Cas, got Dean out of purgatory, and then later on he gets himself sent back to purgatory just so he can help Dean’s brother get out of there. 

Dean and Benny’s relationship was “pure” in purgatory. They didn’t have to worry as much about the fact that Benny was a vampire and Dean was a hunter, they were just brothers in arms who earned one another’s trust, respect and love. There’s no way you let a man kill you and send you to purgatory to save his brother if you don’t love him. 

 Their relationship once they broke out of purgatory is where things began to sour, not because of anything either of them did to the other, but more the space they let grow. Regular Earth was different from purgatory and these men had to go back to their roles and say sayonara. “What happened in purgatory stayed in purgatory” and all that. Benny was a vampire and Dean was a hunter. That kind of thing mattered here despite the fact that they did care for one another. 

Dean and Benny’s tumultuous relationship in relation to the people in Dean’s life could be reminiscent of a queer experience in itself. A lack of acceptance from Sam, Bobby, Martin- Dean’s family. Not because of who Benny was, but what he was. Pair this with the already established fact that Amelia and Sam were a direct parallel to Dean and Benny, Season 8 has been one of the most blatantly queer-coded seasons as of yet. 

Which brings us to “Goodbye Stranger.” It is established early on this season that Dean feels that there’s something wrong with Cas, something off about him. The fact that they don’t know how he popped out of purgatory is just one part of it. It’s in the way he acts, how spacey he is, the fact that he doesn’t answer Dean’s prayers. “I always come when you call.” Cas once said. And he did. Until now.

This is another aspect of their relationship which is simply there and not spoken about much- similar to their staring and eye communication thing they do. Dean started their relationship unable to read all of Cas’ quirks very well and unsure of the guy. Now, he’s fluent in the language of Cas. He knows by tone of voice, by shiftiness, by his expressions- when something is up. Maybe he started paying more attention after the whole Rafael situation until he could read Cas like the back of his hand, or maybe he just started paying attention just to pay attention. 

He’s known something is wrong for months while Cas has been under Naomi’s control. Just the same as years later, he knows something is up when Lucifer is taking a ride in Cas’ body. And he knows in 12x15 just by the way Cas speaks on the phone that something is off with him. 

They come upon the angel tablet in the crypt, and Dean does fight back when Cas starts in on him, but he spends even more energy trying to get Cas to come back to him and fight whatever force has him under control. He never once stopped to think that this was just Cas. “This isn’t you! Fight this!” Dean would repeat over and over as Cas beats him nearly to death. 

There was a moment he certainly thought that Cas would kill him, and it seemed like he was more bothered by the fact that it was Cas that would do it more so than the thought of dying. 

Cas breaks through the mind control, heals Dean. Then he leaves. So, again, Cas leaves. He keeps doing that to Dean. I stated before that Dean’s abandonment issues come into play in this relationship, but unlike at the beginning where Dean saw a future that Cas stays in, this Cas keeps coming and going. This makes it difficult for Dean to trust him fully, to rely on him. But the fact of the matter is that he does still trust him completely, and that’s what bothers Dean. 

When Cas does come back again, collapsed and bloody in the middle of the street, Dean puts up a wall. He’s hurt and he’s tired. He doesn’t want to trust him as much as he does and he definitely doesn’t want him to keep coming and going without a thought. (What’s interesting to note here, though, is Dean’s change in character as this occurs through the years. Because while here he may simply give Cas the cold shoulder and not talk much about his hurt in this situation, we see later on in 12x19 after Dean has been fretting for days about where Cas has gone off to, and Cas finally does return, he voices his side of things. “With everything that’s going on, you can’t just go dark like that. We didn’t know what happened to you. We were worried, that’s not okay.”)

Naomi hits the nail on the head when she visits Dean after Castiel disappears and she notices Dean still hasn’t warded the boat against angels. It is moments like these that we realize just how much everyone else around these two also notice their chemistry and their deep devotion to one another, always seeming to fall back to one another. 

“I think you have me confused with the other angel. You know, the one in the dirty trenchcoat who’s in love with you.” - Balthazar S6

“The stench of that impala is all over your overcoat, angel.” - Crowley S6

“Castiel? Oh, he’s not here. See, he has this weakness. He likes you.” -Uriel S4

(to Dean) “Go ask him, he was your boyfriend first.” - Meg S7

“I have tiptoed through all your little tulips. Your memories, your little feelings, yes. I know what you hate. I know who you love, what you fear.” - The Empty S13

“And then after a rousing speech, his true weakness is revealed. He’s in love... with humanity.” - Metatron S9

“I’m sorry, did you just say that you lost a Winchester? Because, one, that’s... interesting. And, two, how is it that you lost Dean? I thought the two of you were joined at the... you know, everything.” - Kipling S14

“And for what again? Oh, that’s right, to save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you drape yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was about saving one human, right? Well, guess what? He’s dead, too.” - Metatron S9

“Don’t lose it all over one man.” - Hannah S9

“The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell he was lost!” - Hester S7

“Oh, sweet. Almost anything. Castiel? He’s dead. All the way dead. Because of you.” - Miriam S13

“And then you’d kill the angel, Castiel. Now that one, that I suspect would hurt something awful.” - Cain S10

“He should know this- Lucifer, his favorite, isn’t doing so well. Say nothing of the vessel, your friend Castiel.” - Amara S11

“I’m gonna cure you of your human weakness, the same way I cured my own. By cutting it out.” - Isham S12

Bonus: Dean to Sam about Garth’s baby Castiel- Dean: “This Cas keeps looking at me weird.” Sam: “So kinda like the real Cas.”

It is time and again that opposing forces recognize the relationship between Dean and Castiel, and it’s commented on and used against them frequently.

As we move forward to the angels falling and human Castiel, this season opens up with dean in the hospital with a very ill Sam. The first thing he does before contacting anyone else is pray to Castiel. There’s a moment in 9x03 where Castiel walks into a church and speaks with a woman there. He expresses his lack of faith and she says, “I guess that’s why we pray. You need something stronger than yourself.” Dean never prayed until he started praying to Cas. He prayed to Cas during the apocalypse, in purgatory, when Sam was sick during the trials, now in this hospital. Dean might not have faith in God, but he does in Cas. 

Castiel is human, and while Dean tears apart the grid trying to find him while angels are on Cas’ ass, he still watches him die, then has to kick him from the safety of the bunker the very same day. Up until this point, Cas has been a genuine part of their family regardless of their squabbles over the past months, but kicking him from the bunker damages that. Once the reasoning comes to light, however, Cas is forgiving immediately. He’d forgiven Dean even before that. That’s one thing about Cas that Dean never seems to get over either. Dean can get angry and take things out on him, kick him from the bunker, make stupid decisions and nearly kill himself, holler at him, blame him, but Cas comes back every time. He forgives him every time. It’s already overwhelming when Sam does this, but the ease at which Castiel consistently forgives Dean is a lot. 

Dean gets the Mark of Cain. It’s a means to an end, he says. When he becomes a demon as a result, this is when his relationship with Crowley is deepened. This relationship is an interesting one because it’s essentially an unrequited example. Dean likes Crowley, and when he’s a demon he has a good time, but Crowley’s feelings appear to go much deeper- even if he tries not to show it. 

 It is very possible that Dean and Crowley’s relationship is a formation more as a result of a joke than anything else- where the writers are concerned. But whether that was the intention or not, this is a relationship that continues to affect Crowley’s actions towards Dean for the rest of the series. He doesn’t let Dean kill innocents as he’s a demon, he saves Castiel from certain death as his grace drains, he gives Sam the information to find Dean so he can be cured, and he aids in getting the mark removed from Dean even as Sam attempts to kill him in the process. In return, Dean gives Crowley the benefit of the doubt more often, and they share a sort of mutual respect. What differs here, however, from Dean’s relationships with Benny or Castiel, is Dean’s actions. It is clear that Dean doesn’t feel as deeply as Crowley does, so this is an interesting relationship to compare side by side with the others. 

Not only this, but DeanxCrowley in these first few episodes can be seen as a parallel with CasxHannah. Two unreciprocated relationships which do not last long in this particular phase, but do result in a friendship within these pairings as time goes on. 

Still with the Mark of Cain, Dean and Cain have a few things in common. Cain had said that his wife, Colette, before she died had asked him to stop. Stop the killing. It’s several months after that that Dean is going off the rails and Cas, behind Dean as he’s walking away, asks Dean to stop. He nearly kills Cas then, almost fulfilling Cain’s words just weeks earlier: “And then you’ll kill the angel, Castiel. And that, I suspect, would hurt something awful.” This is a direct romantic parallel written into the show. 

When the darkness is released, Amara and Dean are immediately drawn to one another through some sort of connection as a remnant of the mark. This relationship is another interesting one, because it ties in to true desire and consent. Dean is drawn to her, yes, and she is sold as a sort of potential love interest this season, but Dean himself doesn’t want anything to do with her. He’s hypnotized when he’s around her, but as soon as he’s away this energy dissipates. 

So in light of this storyline let’s talk about consent and the sexualization of Dean Winchester for a second, shall we?

Dean is an often highly sexualized individual. He plays along more in his younger days, but the older he gets the more frustrated he becomes with the whole situation. I’m sure there are more but here are some tentative examples (This is also something that happens to Sam a decent amount as well.): 

Wendy at the psych ward in “Sam, Interrupted” kisses Dean

Pamela touching Dean’s inner thigh in “Lazarus Rising” 

Ezra in “Time After Time” kisses Dean without consent

Gets turned into a vampire because he’s “pretty”

Pamela in “Dark Side of the Moon” kisses Dean

Almost becomes a vessel for Sandy’s mate in “The Thing” because she “enjoys looking at his face”

Amara kisses Dean in “O’ Brother Where Art Thou”

Mildred gropes Dean’s leg in “Into the Mystic” and continually makes advances even tho he’s uncomfortable. 

Random girl slaps Dean’s ass in “The Last Call”

Ellie in S8 wants to sleep with Dean and even kisses him randomly

Meg kisses Dean as he’s being held against his will in “Sympathy for the Devil”

Granted, there aren’t a plethora of examples, but it’s still a lot and it is interesting to see how often Dean has been sexualized for someone else’s pleasure. It is bound to work into his characterization as well, and his sense of self-worth. He’s often described as the pretty one of the brothers, and seeing as he is the more promiscuous of the two, it is assumed that he welcomes all of or most of the attention that comes his way.

It is for this reason in particular that the situation with Amara is bothersome to me. Not only is Dean taken advantage of physically, but his mind is essentially hypnotized whenever she is near, not giving him total control over his actions or desires. Amara is in part meant to be sold as a romantic interest, but throughout the season Dean continually expresses his discontent. He’s even ashamed to admit these feelings to Sam and Cas, even though he knows it isn’t his fault he still feels responsible. (Which, if we think about it, this is could be a queer allegory too. The lack of choice, feeling shame, etc.)

What is notable, however, is the day that they attempt to capture Lucifer and speak to Cas to get him to expel Lucifer from his body. Amara makes a surprise appearance and captures Lucifer/Cas herself. Dean yells to Cas. This catches Amara’s attention and appears to confuse her, and even Lucifer, seeing as when Dean is around her he’s meant to have eyes for just her because of their “bond”. His link to Castiel appears to be stronger, however.  

Amara uses this connection between Cas and Dean when she wishes to contact Dean, simply by placing her hand over Castiel’s heart. She says to Dean, “If you should cross paths, if (god) should reach out to you, he should know this - Lucifer, his favorite, isn’t doing so well. Say nothing of the vessel, your friend Castiel.”

If we backtrack a moment, Dean finding out that Castiel is possessed in the first place is a very emotional time for Dean. He doesn’t want to accept that Cas would make such a decision, put himself in that kind of danger, and choose to leave once again. Sam, the arguably more rational thinker at this current time, tries to rationalize that Cas may not come back willingly since he chose to let Lucifer in. “Not possible.” Dean says. It’s simply not possible that Cas doesn’t want to come back to them. It’s not something he can accept. 

The next several episodes are begun with Dean either losing sleep trying to figure out what to do about Cas, or simply moping about. Sam has to comfort him each time. This is notable behavior as well, because Dean isn’t often one to wear his heart on his sleeve this frequently. Certainly he has his moments, but much of the time when he’s distressed he simply buries it all down and puts up a front. He doesn’t do that here. In fact, once they do begin to put together a plan with Crowley, Sam thinks they should still utilize Lucifer in the fight against Amara but thinks it’s foolish to move him into a new vessel. 

((I actually counted up the mopey Dean scenes- between finding out Cas is possessed, to getting Cas back.))

There are four convos with Sam (multiple episodes) where Sam has to comfort Dean and say something along the lines of “we’ll get him back.” (Just as an aside, I don’t think there has ever been a scene in the series where Dean comforted Sam about Cas, it’s always Sam having to comfort a freaking out Dean)

Then, of course, there’s the scene where Dean comforts a victim and she says “I watched the man I love die. There’s no normal after that.” 

There’s the “It’s not an ‘it,’ Sam. It’s Cas.” scene. 

There’s Dean trying to get through to Cas when they capture Lucifer. 

There’s the Dean yelling “Cas?” to Casifer when Amara is in the room. 

There’s two more scenes where Sam comforts Dean again. 

There’s “The Chitters” episode with the gay hunter couple. (This isn’t a direct relation, but more of an honorable mention because it seems abstractly relevant)

Amara connecting to Dean through Cas’ heart.

Dean freaking out about making it to Cas in time and again talking to Sam about it.

Dean asking “what about Cas?” as they’re planning the attack with God against Amara.

Someone has said once that you can tell that Dean is in love with Cas because Sam isn’t. It’s in moments like this that this becomes readily apparent. Yes, Sam cares about Cas, of course. But it’s just different than the way that Dean cares about Cas. When Dean cares about certain people, this love weaves into the very fabric of his being and he just feels it so completely and overwhelmingly, he can’t simply not fight for it. 

“Dean, it’s a strong vessel, it’s held Cas for years, and we know what he’s been through.” Sam says.

“It? It’s not an ‘it,’ Sam. It’s Cas.”

Dean appears almost shocked that these words would pass through Sam’s mouth. He’s confused that Sam wouldn’t fight for Cas just as much as Dean would. The type of love they each have for the angel is just different. Visually, action-wise, reaction-wise. This conversation in “Hell’s Angel” highlights that. 

You know what else highlights it? The fact that when they do trap Lucifer, it’s only Dean who gets through to Cas and talks to him to get him to come back and expel Lucifer. It’s Cas only seeking Dean’s forgiveness in S7 when putting the souls back in Purgatory. It’s Dean in S6 being the only one to defend Cas in “The Man Who Would Be King.” It’s Dean later in that same episode being the one to get through to Cas in the circle of holy fire. It’s “I did it, all of it, for you.” It’s Dean carrying around that trenchcoat for a year and mourning when Sam doesn’t. It’s Bobby checking in on Dean mourning Cas, but doesn’t check in with Sam about it. It’s Sam pulling Dean out of the apocalypse world in season 12 as Dean screams for Cas and physically fights against Sam to get to Cas. It’s Sam seeing Cas dead on the ground minutes later, but still able to walk away while Dean is frozen in place, frozen in shock. It’s Dean being the only one to wrap up Cas’ dead body. It’s Sam always having to reassure Dean that Cas is probably fine, whenever he goes missing for a little while. It’s Dean hardly able to function in S13 with this encompassing grief over Cas’ death and yelling “It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t.” It’s S15 when Rowena tells Dean and Cas to fix their quarrel before it’s too late, and later Dean in purgatory not sure of it is too late as he’s praying for Cas to be okay and crying against a tree. 

Sam’s reactions are important to take into account. Sam cares, yes, but Cas isn’t as wholly encompassing in his life as he is in Dean’s. If anything else is to prove that, it’s the way that Dean grieves (I mean, if you were to put Sam in Dean’s place in 15x09 in Purgatory and their fight, there’s no way that Sam would react this extremely). 

There are three different points to highlight Dean’s grief. The first is season 7 with the trenchcoat, which we’ve already talked about. The second is when Cas is possessed by Lucifer, which we have covered as well. The most damning, however, is Dean’s season 13 grief arc following Cas’ death. Dean also loses his mother during this time and a few other friends, but considering how he reacts when Cas comes back, a great amount of this grief has to do with Cas. Dean completely loses hope and faith in anything at all during this time. He hates Jack for giving Cas false hope and getting him killed. He doesn’t believe in their mission anymore. He doesn’t believe anything matters at all. “Right now, I don’t believe in a damn thing.” Dean admits to Sam. When Cas comes back from the dead, however, he pulls a complete 180. He has hope again. He has faith. And all of it begins with Cas.

Lastly, Dean never hooks up with anyone again after Castiel’s final resurrection. We can go through an outline of the steady decline of Dean’s hookups and relations outside of Cas as the decade goes, but during this three year window specifically, Dean’s only pairing is Cas. Sure, he might flirt with someone every now and again, but this never goes anywhere. (Arguably the person he flirts with the most in any episode in these final three seasons is Daphne, but idk if that even counts much considering she is a cartoon.)  And as Pamela says once in Rocky’s bar: “Besides, you don’t want me. You just like to flirt. I’m psychic so I kinda know.” And that was just in Dean’s head anyways so it’s probably even more true than had Pamela actually said it herself. 

When Jack comes in the picture in season 13, and Castiel comes back from the dead, this makeshift little family is formed. All three men act as father figures to this half-angel kid at different capacities, and amongst this dynamic another is formed a bit further between Dean and Cas. They’ve already been acting a bit as an old married couple in recent years (Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, anyone?) but this co-parenting scenario they’ve found themselves in has solidified this dynamic all the more as they collaborate on the issues that arise with Jack. In “Lebanon” when John Winchester comes back for a brief period, John even says to Dean that he’d hoped he would get a family someday and get out of hunting and such. Dean replies, “I have a family.” Sam, Cas, and Jack are his family. Cas has been family for a long time, but here and now Dean just isn’t looking for anything else or anything normal. He’s happy with himself and the people he’s surrounded by. He’s not looking for anything else or anyone else. 

For a change of perspective, let’s check out Castiel’s relationships over the years.

Unlike Dean, Castiel’s queerness and interest in Dean has been officially canonized. We can speculate all we want on the legitimacy of Dean’s love for Cas, but we can speak in certainties about Castiel. Castiel is in love with Dean Winchester. Speculation can come in when we consider, just how long has this love existed for him? Let’s start from the beginning.

Right off the bat when we meet Castiel, he’s a semi-emotionless soldier of heaven who works under strict orders and doesn’t have much free-will. Dean begins to change this. We can see even in their first couple encounters that Castiel is interested in Dean- in what he has to say, intrigue in the fact that Dean talks back to the angels (despite that these angels are unkillable beings and could smite him on the spot), the fact that he’s snarky and brave and questions everything. Where Uriel finds Dean annoying and blasphemous, Castiel finds the back-talk fascinating. Dean’s words impact Cas, and it’s not long before he starts to have doubts about Heaven. Following these orders blindly and unquestioningly starts to seem foolish when Dean puts things in a different perspective. 

Even after Cas undergoes what some have funnily dubbed “conversion therapy” in “The Rapture” (when Cas had finally decided on going against Heaven and to help Dean stop the apocalypse) it’s still not enough to stop him completely. A bit more time with Dean and he’s convinced yet again to help this one human man stop the apocalypse with his brother. He even dies for him and this new mission of his. 

Castiel throughout this first season is interesting because we see firsthand his struggle to understand beginning to feel emotions and accept thinking for himself. “For the first time, I feel...” He says to Anna. He wants her to tell him what to do. He wants orders because that’s all he knows, and he doesn’t understand why suddenly he cares. It hurts him to send Dean in to torture Alastair. It hurts him even later when in the beautiful room Dean dismisses him with a “What do you care, you’re already dead. We’re done.” 

It’s possible that in these first several months, or even these first couple seasons, that Castiel follows Dean around and does as he asks because he’s allotted Dean as the new being he serves. Because serving is what he knows. But it’s also through this that he begins caring more and more. He learns more how to express certain emotions, he learns more about humanity, he learns more about what is important in life and what is worth fighting for. As Cas will admit himself 12 years later, “Ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell... Knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam. I cared about Jack... I cared about the whole world because of you.”

We start to see sprinkles of this especially throughout season 5 as Cas begins to come to terms with caring and adopting Dean’s mindset to care. Consider Sam for a moment. He and Cas don’t necessarily get along a lot and mostly just tolerate one another in these early days. However, as we see in “Abandon All Hope” when Castiel is captured by Lucifer, Cas gets visually upset at the concept of Lucifer taking Sam as his vessel. “You are not taking Sam Winchester. I won’t let you.” 

Sam and Cas don’t have much of a relationship at this point, but Cas cares because Dean does. In “The Song Remains the Same” not long later, he even refers to Sam as his friend.

By the time S6 rolls around Castiel is in the midst of a civil war in heaven entirely because he has adopted the Winchester’s all encompassing mindset on the importance of free-will. Castiel is making his own choices, and he does everything he can to protect the Winchesters from harm as he does so. He decides not to seek out Dean’s help while he’s raking leaves because Dean had already sacrificed too much in Castiel’s eyes. He raises Sam from perdition because he feels it the right thing to do. He re-sinks the Titanic to keep the boys from being killed by Fate. 

Personally, I think Castiel has been slowly falling in love with Dean this entire time, he’s just not aware what this feeling is. But this becomes even more plausible to me when we get Castiel’s perspective in “The Man Who Would Be King.” Cas cares what Bobby and Sam think of him, sure, but all he focuses on is Dean. Dean’s happiness and ensuring he not sacrifice more. Dean’s loyalty even as Cas seems to be guilty. Dean’s words when they capture Cas in holy fire. 

The problem is, their relationship this season is also rocky. Cas seems to think that he’s merely a tool at the Winchester’s disposal and not much else. But he doesn’t mind because he cares about them so much, so what do his feelings matter? He sees himself as their protector. Their guardian angel. A role he’s fine with filling regardless of how they feel in return. 

But when things get bad, Dean says to him “Next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest things I have to family. You are like a brother to me. So if I’m asking you not to do something... You’ve gotta trust me, man.” and Cas seems genuinely surprised at this admission. Emotional, even. 

As time goes on, Castiel’s actions nearly primarily revolve around Dean

After Cas realizes his error and is sending the purgatory souls back to their place, he tells Dean repeatedly that he’ll find some way to redeem himself to him. That’s the most important thing to him then. 

When Cas smites the demons outside of the mental hospital in 7x17, all of his flashes of memories coming back were memories of Dean. 

Partially to aid Sam and partially to redeem himself to Dean, Cas takes on Sam’s Hell brain in the asylum and goes crazy.

Cas runs in purgatory to keep the leviathans away from Dean. 

Cas breaks out of Naomi’s mind control/brainwashing because of his feelings for Dean.

Let’s talk about that final bullet point for a moment. The Naomi chapter is damning in “Goodbye Stranger.” It isn’t copies of both Sam and Dean that Naomi trains Castiel to kill hundreds upon hundreds of times. No, it’s ONLY clones of Dean. 

“What broke the connection?” Dean will ask after Castiel heals him in the crypt and takes control back over his mind. “I don’t know.” Cas will say. It wasn’t the angel tablet. That may have unwound the last of Naomi’s control over him, yes, but he’d dropped that angel blade before that. It was Dean that broke that connection. Even if this remains unsaid, it doesn’t make it any less true. Maybe Castiel starts to have an understanding of what his feelings are and what they mean here, but he won’t be truly sure until he soon becomes human. 

Before we get there, though, we’ll take a brief pause to explore Cas’ heterosexual explorations and connections. 

First is Meg. Cas’ relationship with Meg is born of sexual exploration more than anything else at its conception. He’d just been watching porn in his downtime and when Meg kisses him, he goes with it enthusiastically. Later, he seems to have a certain infatuation with her in his “crazy” state, and seems to trust her perhaps simply because she had been watching over him in the institution. 

This is interesting because in his “crazy” state, Cas is a lot more raw and unfiltered and optimistic than he ever has been before. He compliments her, is concerned with her safety, and trusts her. On the contrary, with Dean, Cas is a lot more hesitant and even fearful when talking about certain subjects with him because of his past failings. He tries to keep the peace without directly getting involved because his direct involvement in the past had failed them all so spectacularly. 

He and Meg continue to have a sort of connection whenever they cross paths until her demise the next season, and he still holds a respect for her years later, continuing to use her nickname for him “Clarence” as an alias at various times. 

When Castiel becomes human in S9, he’s a bit lost and overwhelmed. April takes him in for the night. Although this is a short-lived romance considering she tortures and kills him the next day, for a brief enough time Cas starts to become acquainted with human romance and sexual desire. He loses his virginity to her. It is estimated by some that this is merely sexual experimentation on the part of a very confused newly human Cas, and others have used this to say that Cas is not gay but pan or bi. The conclusion in any regard, in my opinion, is purely up to the viewer. 

If I’m to offer my opinion, however, seeing as he has shown interest in both sexes, though remains unlabeled, I consider him simply an unlabeled queer person. Sexual identity and orientation has never seemed to matter much to Castiel, so I don’t see why it should matter to me. He loves who he loves, simple as that. 

When we get to Hannah, she provides an interesting foil to Castiel for a time, and an emphasizing expression on just how much he’s changed since his introduction to Earth and the Winchesters. Where Castiel has been open to a plethora of new emotions and experiences through the years which have made him a bit more human than angel at times, Hannah is still new to humanity and the range and movement of emotions that come with it. Just how little she seems to understand proves how much Castiel has grown and does understand by comparison. 

As such, he seems to pick up on the fact that Hannah has an attachment to him that appears to be forming into a romantic or sexual interest. He gently turns her down multiple times, not expressing interest in her behavior although he does respect her greatly as a person. Though this relationship isn’t considered romantic from Castiel’s perspective, its unrequited nature again is a good parallel to Dean and Crowley’s relationship at this same time. Angel x Angel and Demon x Demon. Both one sided.

Now, let’s get back to Dean. 

Up to the point that Castiel turns human, for however brief a time, he finally gets a look behind the curtain of human emotion. Now, we all know that Cas is in love with Dean already here- and probably has been for some time. Years, even- but it’s my personal belief that during this time turning human is when he actually realizes it and understands where these emotions come from.

Maybe it’s the heartbreak of Dean kicking him from the bunker, maybe it’s seeing Dean again when he shows up in line at the Gas n Sip, or maybe it’s somewhere in between when he sees two people on the street looking at each other and realizes “oh, that’s love. I know what that is. I felt that, too.” And every moment from then on he realizes what that feeling was in his chest when he looked at Dean for a little too long, or why it hurt so much to see the pain in Dean’s eyes at something Cas had done, or why hearing Dean’s prayers to him just felt different than they did with Sam’s. Why everything that he’d done since he rebelled from heaven was in the name of doing the right thing, muddled alongside doing the right thing for Dean. Caring because of Dean. Caring for Dean.

It’s during this time when he realizes what these feelings are, that he also must come to terms with the fact that they’re unreciprocated (or as he believes, anyway). This is for two reasons. The first, he still believes at this time that Dean kicked him from the bunker just because. And the second, if there’s anything that Cas took to heart from Dean’s example as strongly as the concept of free-will, it’s self-loathing. He doesn’t see himself worthy of love. Dean doesn’t see himself worthy of love either. They’re both messy piles of self-loathing that breeds into a blindness to the depth of care they hold for one another.   

Now that we’re on the topic of self-loathing, this leads into Castiel and his decision to become Lucifer’s vessel in season 11. Much like Dean, Cas has a consistent issue with seeing his own personal self-worth, so when the opportunity comes along to “be of service to the fight” and become Lucifer’s vessel, he takes it on easily. He considers himself expendable, and he won’t see just how much Dean struggles with this fact while he’s possessed. In fact, Cas never knows just how much Dean struggles with his absence at all, which is just one of the many divides between the two of them that could easily be resolved with communication, if either were ever good at that. 

Once Lucifer is shoved from Cas’ body, however, Dean makes a point to let Cas know just how important he is in his life. He’s said Cas was family before, but that was before the falling out at the end of season 6. Dean makes it clear that he and Sam both consider Cas family, once again, during a ride in Baby. “You’re our brother, Cas. I want you to know that.” 

Now, here, simultaneous heartbreak and love occur. Because while Cas is likely very much in love with Dean here, and very much aware of it, to hear that Dean simply thinks of him as a brother must ache a bit. However, we’re also talking about Dean Winchester, and for him to call someone a brother is an immense depth of love, probably the most the man is even capable of. Dean never says the words “I love you” to anyone, so this is about the closest anyone could get. Cas knows this, he’s well-versed in the ways of Dean Winchester by now. So, while it aches, his heart is also full. 

Comparable to:

“We need you, Cas. I need you.” 8x17

“We’re gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.” 8x05

“Don’t make me lose you, too.” 7x23

“Don’t do anything stupid” 

The entire purgatory confession/apology prayer in 15x09

Cas returns this love just hours later, offering to go with Dean to die taking out Amara.

If we jump forward to the divorce arc of season 14-15, we can hit upon the next great heartbreak of Castiel’s sad little love life. While the Winchester brothers, Castiel, and Jack have all become a family unit, Castiel never wants to lose that. But two things happen. First, Cas’ deal with The Empty is made, and somewhere along the line, silently, he becomes aware that allowing himself to be happy, and that happiness, somehow involves Dean. The second thing that happens is Jack kills Mary Winchester, and Dean says Castiel is dead to him. 

So, The Empty won’t take him, but his family is broken apart. Castiel never gives up on a single family member, though. That’s the thing about Cas. The same way he consistently forgives Dean for all his behaviors over the years, he never loses faith in anyone in this family. And when they come to reunite, he’s happy simply in appreciating any and all time they have together, however brief.

Then, in true Castiel fashion, he sacrifices himself for Dean Winchester in 15x18. 

Their relationship has always left things unsaid, but I don’t think there’s ever been a question on whether Dean loves Cas or Cas loves Dean even if they don’t talk about it. You can’t look at Cas and Dean’s faces seeing each other again for the first time in weeks at the end of “The Last Call” and say that there wasn’t love and heartbreak there. On some level I think that Cas knew that Dean loved him back, but Dean was so buried in trauma at that point that it might take him years more to realize what he actually felt and what he needed. But Cas is such a selfless lover that he was absolutely 100% fine with just being around Dean for the rest of his life, even if he never got a chance to tell him how much he genuinely cared for him, and never got that reciprocation back. Castiel’s love for Dean is so pure and selfless it’s overwhelming to even consider, but for someone like Dean it would be a hundred times harder to accept or even fathom someone caring about him as much as Cas does. 

So Castiel never pushes Dean further, never suggests, barely even touches him. The only liberties Cas takes are small touches to heal him (even though he doesn’t need to touch a person to heal them), a few small hugs through the years, just sharing comfortable space inside the impala, small moments watching Dean’s favorite movies with him, or sharing a moment over beers in the kitchen. And Cas’ happiness was in telling Dean how much he loved him likely because then maybe Dean would actually see how much he was worth. Cas wanted Dean to know how much he loved him and how he viewed him, because Dean deserved to love himself and was worthy of it. 

The five types of love languages are as follows:

Words of affirmation

Physical touch

Gift giving

Acts of Service

Quality Time

One of the reasons Dean and Cas miss the mark with one another so often could simply come down to love languages. A lot of the time, what a person needs in love language is often what they also give. I don’t think this is the case where these two are concerned, though. They’re both so sacrificial that it’s difficult for them to accept this in return, even though this is what they each offer to the other and anyone else around them. 

Both Cas and Dean’s giving love language is “acts of service” which translates into sacrificial actions much of the time, though it can also be more domestic than that as well. It’s Dean grabbing an extra beer for Cas or making food, or it’s Cas healing Dean without any prompting, Cas loading up on pie and beer at the Gas n Sip when Dean’s mad at him. 

What they each need, however, is different. Dean needs “quality time.” He needs his people close, he needs them to answer calls, and he needs to know where they are. This clearly ties in to his abandonment issues, and it hurts his relationship with Cas significantly when the angel just keeps leaving, or disappears without answering his phone for days at a time. And when he dies, obviously. He always comes back, though. And half the time when he’s gone it’s because he’s trying to get a win for Dean against whatever issue the team is facing at the time. 

What Cas needs, best I can tell, is “words of affirmation.” Cas has a consistent problem with thinking that he’s worth less than he is, and is less important to the people around him than he is. Dean obviously has this issue, too, but with Cas it’s somehow infinitely worse, if that’s even possible. Frequently, what he needs to get him going in low points is a few words from Dean or encouragement in general. To name a few:

“Maybe to fix it.” 7x17

“I’d rather have you, cursed or not.” 7x23, Cas then goes with Dean to find and kill Dick Roman

“I’m not leaving here without you.” S8 in purgatory when Cas wanted Dean to leave him behind but Dean was having none of it.

“You’re our brother, Cas.” 11x23, after Cas was possessed by Lucifer and thought he was expendable. 

Over time, Dean does get a bit more vocal with Cas about issues he’s having or just with encouraging words as well. Cas, too, sticks around a lot more. They’re not perfect but they do begin to grow and work with one another in these later years to give one another what they need most to see how much the other is loved. 

In conclusion, there is a significant amount of romance and sexuality written into this show, and simply interpreted as well. And that’s the thing, when a queer person says that they interpreted a certain piece of media as queer, it’s not up to someone else to say that they can’t, or shouldn’t, or that they’re interpreting something wrong. That’s the thing about media, it can have so many different interpretations and meanings to so many different people. 

It’s my personal interpretation to see the queerness embedded in the text here. Maybe it’s not there for another person, and that’s cool too, just don’t tell me how I should see it. The fact is that it was written into the show to be interpreted, and interpret is what we did. 

I’d love to hear any feedback that others may have regarding this. Any other theories, different interpretations, things I may have missed. I hope you enjoy the edits, and the endings I put together for them. We all need a little bit of happiness after that ending, so I hope it leaves you with a lighter heart. :)

Much love,

Taylor

[jesuis-melodrama]

(1)Question for you after reading Overkill. I write for Adrien too and you brought up some very interesting things for me to think about as I write my own story. I am a very empathetic person and have always related to Adrien in that way. My empathy, in part, comes from trauma, but the fact remains that I am still empathetic and I see that overall as a strength- so long as I enforce boundaries.

(2) Being empathetic at little cost to me is great. It makes me feel good and actually DOES make me happy. My work is in an empathetic field and I enjoy helping people. But being empathetic when it costs me my wellbeing and happiness- that's another story. And I think- through therapy and surrounding myself with people who don't use me- I've managed to cultivate a good balance. Do you think that Adrien can do this? And do you see his empathy as a strength at all?

I've always seen empathy as a strength, and I believe the goal to cultivating a society of true equality is not pretending everyone is the same, but seeing differences, and embracing them.

Adrien has always been an empathetic person, in canon, this elevates to the point where some can see him as unempathetic. For example, he gives far too much allowances to individuals such as Chloé and Lila (and whether or not they have justifications for acting the way they do, no actions can be dismissed if they harm other people), and in a more dangerous mindset, this transforms into Adrien having a distorted view of his father, who may be grieving and mournful, but does not, in any sense, diminishes the abuse and negligent he lays on his son.

Adrien has always placed himself last in many situations in his life: 'Chloé misses her mother, therefore she's just acting out, we need to be understanding', 'Lila is just lonely as the new girl, we just need to endure this for a little more and she'll be fine', 'Père is still grieving, I can't bother him with anything now when he's going through so much', this in itself is a toxic mindset, and it worsens, when to an extent, Adrien does expect others to have such a self-destructive method of care as himself.

I think this is where most 'Adrien salt' might actually originate from, he's empathetic to the point where he seems heartless, because he expects others to be just as lenient and compassionate, as accepting of abuse (which also springs his other more unattractive traits of being too passive and a 'doormat').

I assume you're asking about Overkill's Adrien, and whether or not he can finding a balance between empathy and boundaries (and not Adrien in canon), and the answer is: he already tried.

Adrien, at the depths of it all, I see him as a very needy and romantic person that inhibits love, in all its forms but especially in touch, as vital to his wellbeing and mentality. And after being 'free', exiting his father's household and released to do as he wishes, he did attempt to amass the relationships and romances he desired. To cut things short, as I do not want to say too much when the story is still in progress, those attempts failed in various scales of severity, and this resulted in Adrien at where he is now, segregating himself from society, demoting himself to the company of an ancient, callous being, and a woman who may or may not have ill intentions for him but is at least interesting.

Does he still desire love? Does he still yearn for friendship? Does he still misses touch? He does. But this Adrien has decided now is the time to be selfish, committing extreme actions such as cancelling all his projects when they are still in midway (resulting in Adrien getting somewhat ostracised from the entertainment scene), and focusing on 'himself', taking life slowly, doing all the things he wants that doesn't require the presence and commitment to others.

Adrien's empathy will always be his strength (in fact, it is what sets from apart from Ladybug, who is sympathetic, but has difficulty seeing any vision other than her own), but by alienating himself, although his empathy has somewhat matured, Adrien is ensuring it will not be himself who will be taking the brunt consequences of his naive impressions of love.

He can find boundaries, but it will requires a lot of experimentations and experience in doing so, experimentations and experience with intentions and motivations, not simply throwing yourself out into whatever whirlwind of fray that comes your way, and Adrien, right now, cannot be focused on such a massive, stressful projects, establishing his standing with other people, when he's gathering the last vestiges of his identity, trying to build himself.

[sitp-recs]

Hi Liv I hope you’re doing well! I’ve been craving a nice slow-burn 8th year fic but I’m having trouble finding ones I haven’t already read. I’ve read all the ones on your 8th year rec list from your master post, and I was wondering if you had any more? Or maybe your followers could recommend some too? Thank you!

Hi anon, I’m better now it’s the weekend :) hope you’re good as well! I checked the other reclist (god I should have updated it ages ago lol) and these are a few additions you might enjoy! I’m gonna save them as lists 1 and 2. Excited to see what other fics my followers will suggest!

Thermodynamic Equilibrium by DorthyAnn (2017, T, 5k)

Harry's far too hot. Draco's always cold. And somehow against all odds, together they create a perfect equilibrium.

Good Company by Greenflares (2012, T, 8k)

With Hermione and Ron always together, Harry's return to Hogwarts to complete his education isn't exactly fun. Somehow, it's his unlikely friendship with Malfoy that keeps him sane.

What Country, Friends, Is This? by khalulu (2021, M, 8.4k)

When Harry and Draco are paired up for a nebulous “capstone project” in 8th year, Draco suggests they use it as an opportunity to take a free Grand Tour of Europe.

Hey, Potter by SunseticMonster (2013, M, 16k)

Harry returns to Hogwarts for his 8th year, determined not to let Malfoy get to him. But when the snarky teasing starts up again, Harry finds that returning the jibes with compliments has a far more interesting outcome.

Inside Your Mind by @lazywonderlvnd (2020, E, 36k)

Goyle's taken it upon himself to act as Malfoy's personal, one-man guard and Harry can't help but feel like it's only making the bullying worse.

Draco Malfoy, It's Your Lucky Day by Faith Wood (2012, E, 37k)

Even though he's unarmed, injured, lost in the Forbidden Forest, and facing a possible murder charge, Draco Malfoy gets lucky.

The Romantic Prawn Who Loved Christmas by @bixgirl1 (2017, E, 39k)

When Draco, forced into sharing a room with Potter for the year, finds out that Potter has a sleepwalking problem, he expects the odd conversations and the weird games of chess. What comes as a complete shock are Potter's other activities...And why he seems so intent on having Draco join him.

Catch 22 by jad (2012, E, 50k)

As if NEWTS weren't enough, Dumbledore's gone and had another one of his 'bright ideas.' If all ends well, the Houses will be getting along in no time. Or according to Harry's correspondent, an Apocalypse will be in order. [OotP/HBP/DH disregarded].

Seeker, Chaser, Keeper by VivacissimoVoce (2013, M, 59k)

Rumor has it that a wealthy investor is starting up a brand new professional Quidditch team and he’s looking for players. Harry and Draco both want to make the team, but there can be only one Seeker. Will competing for the position bring them closer or drive them further apart?

Owl Was Well by fencer_x (2020, T, 66k)

Draco Malfoy is not an owl, really he isn’t. He simply assumes the shape of one on occasion when he wants to find a bit of privacy—a goal entirely thwarted because Harry Potter doesn’t understand you can’t just grab any old bird from the Owlery and force it to send your missives and deliver your packages.

Reparo by amalin (2008, E, 84k)

Voldemort's final defeat does not mean Harry Potter's troubles are over; far from it. In the aftermath of war, he returns to a Hogwarts that is fractured and divided, but this is no break that can be fixed with a spell. New owls, fading scars, surprising alliances—and along the way, the hardest task of all, to live with it.

Changing Tides by @carpemermaidtales (2018, E, 109k)

Draco has spent half of his life spouting the things his father has taught him without much thought about how he feels about what he says. When he unexpectedly comes face to face with the Dark Lord, he grapples with the harsh realities of the world and struggles with his changing views on life.

Far From The Tree by aideomai (2020, E, 112k)

The arrival of Harry Potter’s children—snapped back in time, the children themselves guessed, twenty or so years—was the most interesting thing to happen at Hogwarts for years.

Starts With a Spin by Maxine (2004, E, 119k)

It started with the spin of a bottle, and now Harry and Draco have gotten themselves so far into their own game there's almost no way out again. Except to keep playing.

Mental by sara_holmes (2010, M, 186k)

Harry has had quite enough of sharing his mind with someone else, thankyouverymuch. A miscast Legilimecy spell says otherwise.

[livingbythewords]

(not so) small rant about Theo, Liam and season six of Teen Wolf

I keep hearing on and on and on about how "Liam is the only person who trusts and supports Theo after he came back from hell" and I keep wondering if people who say things like that have been watching the same show as me, or maybe there is some alternative version I don't know about.

In the version of the show I've been watching, Liam's intentions were clear from the very beginning – he brought Theo back for one purpose only, to use him. I mention that, because sometimes I see people acting as if Liam did it from the goodness of his heart. The moment it becomes clear that Theo doesn't have Josh and Tracy's powers anymore, Liam is ready to send him back in an instant. It's only after when Theo asks about Scott and Stiles that he reconsiders, but his motivations don't include any sympathy for Theo. Liam distrusts and despises Theo – and it never changes throughout the course of the show.

Now, I won't argue that he doesn't have reasons for that. He has been hurt by Theo just like anybody else, although here I could argue that from the whole pack he is far from being the one who got hurt the most. Even Mason has more reasons to be distrustful and unforgiving towards Theo as he was a direct witness to Theo murdering Scott at the library. I'm not questioning it – I'm simply pointing out the way Liam is treating Theo, which includes constant threats, insults and yanking him around in chains. That last part is especially disturbing to me, as I've read posts where (apart from the constant "he deserved it", which I am not going to dive into here) people were jokingly claiming that Theo probably "enjoyed" it. Now, I agree that Theo has a significant masochistic streak in him. But the way the scene, which depicts degrading someone and treating him like less than a dog, let alone a human being, got tied here to something which is supposed to be a part of proper and healthy BDSM dynamics, makes me seriously cringe and wonder why people (and the writers) think that it's okay in any context to treat someone this way – especially an incredibly traumatized kid, who developed unhealthy coping mechanisms as a response to having suffered abuse for years – and then frame it as funny for some reason.

After Ghost Riders are defeated, we have Theo appearing at the police station. Liam's reaction – after Theo saved him twice – is that of relief and gratitude, oh hi Theo, good that you are here to help us… oh wait, not really. It's furiously blurting "do you want me to kill him?" to Scott (and I'm not even going into how ridiculously messed up is asking Scott of all people for permission to kill someone, even Theo. I wonder if Liam seriously thought Scott was going to say yes?), despite the fact that Theo already proved that not only he doesn't pose a threat, but is actively helping the pack.

And that continues for the rest of the season. Liam remains hostile towards Theo, constantly hurling insults at him and being violent towards him, which is another disturbing thing framed as funny and somehow 'romantic' (I don't even know what's worse). Even the infamous elevator scene, which people like to bring up as some kind of "proof of love" between Theo and Liam, doesn't offer anything particularly convincing here:

 THEO: Look, I'm not dying for you.

LIAM: I'm not dying for you, either.

[pause]

LIAM: But, I will fight with you.

That's it. Hardly an acknowledgement of anything, especially any kind of affection. Considering how constipated and bitter Liam looks the entire time, we can safely assume this declaration came out rather from "I don't really see any other options here, so I'll take whatever it is" than "I can see you've changed and I trust you". They do end up saving each other's lives and protecting each other, yes; nobody says otherwise, although it's not uncommon in the show to work together with one's adversaries to defeat the Greater Bad (when it comes to Liam, two examples on the top of my head are him saving Brett's life in Sinema in season 5 and the whole arc with Hayden, who treats him quite horribly in the beginning – see the pattern here?).

Even after the whole scene with Gabe (mind you, Theo is the one stopping Liam from killing Gabe in the first place!) everything that Theo did, all the sacrifices he made, remain unacknowledged. Liam is more willing to make amends with Nolan – the guy who actively tried to kill him many times and who participated in terrorizing him in the classroom trying to make him shift in front of everyone, which most certainly would result in his death – than even admit that Theo might be right in anything or that he changed.

Neither Theo nor Liam's actions at this point are motivated by mutual affection towards each other. Theo's main goal is getting back into Scott's good graces and into his pack. He comes back to the hospital explicitly because Scott asked him to, and there is no reason to believe that he had any additional motivations beyond that. He might have developed some sort of affection towards Liam, but even if so, it remained pretty much one-sided, and the argument here seems to be that Liam not only trusts and supports Theo, but is the only person doing so, which is not the case. Liam on the other hand is pretty much driven by his own enormous guilt, caused by the fact that he – as he himself admitted – not only attacked Scott, but at some point wanted to kill him even without Theo pushing him. Therefore, he is projecting his guilt and self-loathing onto Theo, and again, I'm not questioning that he does have reasons to loathe Theo. But that's not the point here.

Now I want to clarify, again, that the point of this post is not to tell people that they can’t enjoy the ship, or that it’s bad, or that Liam is a bad person. It’s simply to point out Liam’s canonical behavior towards Theo as a way to disprove the claim that Liam was the only person to trust and support Theo, which has no basis in facts whatsoever. 

I get that people have their headcanons and enjoy their ships, and I’m far from telling anyone who they can or can’t ship, or that one ship is better than the other. However, shipping someone and having fun with it is not the same as twisting into knots to try to prove that canon supports something, when it doesn't. Yes, there is a person who acknowledges that Theo has changed. Who trusts and supports him even when they have no reason to. Who is always there for him and tries to treat him fairly even after being incredibly hurt and betrayed.

But that person isn't Liam.