#and charlie both metaphorically and literally putting herself back together…

[quietwingsinthesky]

leviathan!charlie also takes care of the weird plothole about her going from “hunting & hunters are scary and dangerous wtf get away from me” to “oh wow murdering people is soooo fun, guys!!! i just wish it was more magical!!!” because in this scenario it is not her going into hunting and somehow being in complete denial of the bloody reality of it, but her actually regressing to more violent tendencies in order to keep in contact with the Winchesters, who are basically the only friends she has.

leviathan!charlie who teamed up with them to take down dick specifically so that she would not have to act like she did in purgatory and could find a new life, but inevitably being drawn into the black hole of hunting/winchester-related violence. leviathan!charlie who sets out like vampires can to feed on animals…. and the occasional asshole, but that one shaky spot on her moral ground gives her room to backslide into seeing the monsters she hunts as just more assholes to eat (regardless of the fact that they are her!!! she’s a monster too! she just got lucky siding with sam and dean first!) leviathan!charlie who tries to hold onto the humanity she painstakingly taught herself, but the longer she’s around the winchesters, the harder it is to be anything but a monster.

[thecrimsonjaguar]

A Short List of Adventure Time AUs

So I got a google doc of adventure time aus I’ve made over the past two or three years. Here are some of my favorites (and also the ones I came back to and edited)

If you’ve got ideas for an au or ideas to add onto the preexisting ones I’ve got here, please tell me! I’m always up for some au discussion. 

1.) Jermaine AU: Jermaine comes to live at the treehouse after his house blows up. This, unlike canon, happens rather early in season 3. The rest of the series mainly stays the same, except this time there's three brothers instead of two. He's a kinda anxious dude with demon hunting expertise and a painting hobby. He sometimes wonders if he made Dad disappointed by letting all his work explode. Finn and Jake help him out, and he helps them. Despite this, Jermaine is the only one with a brain, and Finn and Jake share exactly one (1) braincell that they trade every so often. Jermaine is tired. (Jermaine is the only one who tries to clean regularly, and he's also the one to keep Neptr, Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant, and a few others company. He's a bit of real wisdom the early series Finn and Jake needed.

2.) Melted Ice AU: Mid season two, IK is hit with something that de-ages him. He turns six. Maybe this mystery de-aging thing blows up the top of the ice mountain, who knows. Maybe he wakes up in the snow, with no memory of how he got there or why. No memory of the last one thousand years. Finn and Jake don't know about his backstory since that happens in season three. Simon is carried by a snowman out of the ice kingdom where he breaks down in the plains. Finn, of course, finds him and is ecstatic to meet another human. Completely missing the fact that this small child is, in fact, the Ice King, Finn declares to help this boy no matter what. That promise soon becomes difficult when people hear about the second human in Ooo, and whatever effect that's keeping him young starts to wear off. (Marceline comes to visit and has a heart attack)

3.) Adventure Falls AU: AT x GF baybee!! Seventeen year old Stanley Pines hops on the Stan O' War and sets sail when he's kicked out. Unfortunately, that boat is nowhere near sea worthy, and all it takes for him to go overboard is one sudden (magical) storm. But, miraculously, Stan doesn't die. He washes up on Ooo, the island of misfits. Where there's daddy issues galore and punching things and getting gold is a legitimate career. He's found on the shore by none other than Finn, who asks if he's okay and if a dungeon adventure would soothe his worries. Stan accepts, because that sounds awesome, and they maybe date. For the next ten years, Stanley is a professional hero. He travels with Finn, he lives in a tower with tons of gold, he's respected, adored, and has made a family for himself. Ooo has a habit of forcing traumatic therapy onto to people, so Stan gets (read: is forced) to work his issues out. And then, somehow, he gets a postcard from his brother.

4.) Young Pups AU: Jake's kids grow up fast- but not that fast. He stays with lady for a few episodes being Dad and when the Pups are old enough, go visit Finn and Jermaine. Also Jermaine is there when the pups are born that always bothered me in canon like what the fuck. This whole AU results in Jake the Dad being a better father than in canon, because he actually has time to make mistakes and learn from them. He sometimes shapeshifts into one of those baby carriers but suited for five kids instead of one. Finn and Jermaine fight for best uncle privileges. Finn is considerably more awesome but Jermaine's got magic junk and juicy stories about Jake. So far the votes are: FINN: Jake Jr, T.V.  JERMAINE: Kim Kil Whan, Charlie. Viola remains undecided.

4.) Evilgreen AU: Evergreen was evil. His idea to make the crown to stop the comet was actually a cover story to take control of all the elements and freeze everything. Of course the same thing happens here as it did in canon, Gunther gets the crown and wishes to *be* evergreen. This is bad. Very bad, so bad in fact, that things get FUnKy. A couple eons later, Simon gets the crown as per canon, and then things start to slide downhill. Since the crown is significantly worse, Simon tries to get rid of it. No amount of magic pull is going to get him to put on the eldritch hat. It teleports back. When things go to shit, the crown tells him he's got two options: He can either live, or he can live unwillingly. This all coalesces in super angst and mild horror as Simon has to fight off evil urges and somehow keep both he and Marceline safe. Things start looking up, though, when he summons Hunson Abadeer.

5.) Nightmare Therapy AU: Simon, now himself post canon, has some funky nightmares. Problem is: he's due for a visit from the cosmic owl due to some mystical bureaucratic bs. If that were to happen, Simon's dreams of Golb and Orgalorg and the world ending and everyone dying and maze would come true, without the veil of metaphoric junk dreams are known for (also due to bureaucratic bs). So, Simon gets a dream therapist. An OC, probably, that would fight off his nightmares when they came and talk to him about his issues.

6.) High School AU: Except they're all still magic and crap. Finn's a jock that's part of the LDnD club(Literally Dungeons and Dragons), Jake's got a job at a pancake place and hosts the Card Wars clubs on Wednesdays, Jermaine's in college and their parents were still detectives/demon hunters. PB is preppy/nerdy girl with weird fucking family and is absolutely a mad scientist. Marceline is still a demon/vamp (vampire biker gang, they all died, deaths pending) and her uncle is Simon. Simon is a history teacher whose ex wife might be an eldritch abomination (the students wonder, but there are no answers)((simon says cryptic things every so often that are the subject of much ridicule, but he's a nice guy)). Ooo High has all of the AT characters in some shape or form. Tree trunks is the lunchlady, Mr Pig is a janitor. Lemongrab is just there. LSP(Q?) is a teacher because that's hilarious. Hunson is dead along with Marceline's mom because fuck hunson. Magic Man is a hobo that snuck onto campus and can't be chased off (his brother is the superintendent, Glob). there's a lot more but that's for a different word doc.

7.) Back to the Future AU: So PB fucks around with time travel, right? For science. She gets sent back in time a thousand years, before the war. Now, she's a pink lady who can shoot jelly beans from her hands, of course needs to lay low. And of course she needs to get home, but she's in a Futurama situation where she only has one type of time machine; the one that can go into the past. Not to mention her own time machine got busted on her way there, so she's double screwed. But, she remembers something. There is an individual (two, actually) that knows about time travel in this time period. She knows him, and he's likely to help her if she plays her card right. She needs to find Simon and get back to her own time, preferably without dooming herself in the process. (perhaps she tries to steal the notes Simon has, and Simon's completely oblivious, except Betty can smell trouble from a mile away and immediately notices some pink woman trying to steal books and she goes ham. Perhaps she goes ham in such a way that Simon doesn't notice. Perhaps this goes on for seven acts.)

8.) Bread and Butter AU: Bella Noche during the episode Betty creates a huge black cube that engulfs all of Wizard City. This box acts as a cage and prevents Wizards from escaping the magic purge. Simon is unable to bring Betty back from the past, and he's fading fast. In a desperate attempt to stop things from escalating, Simon chugs a bottle of anti-magic like a fucking god. He gets through the cube that surrounds Bella Noche and knocks their lights out. He passes out, and when he comes to, the anti-magic he consumed as merged with him. This is because of a simple rule: Magic sticks to magic, anti-magic sticks to anti-magic. And since humans have always had just a little bit of anti -magic present within them, humans and anti-magic go together like bread and butter (badumtish) ((I have actually written a fanfic about this, you can find it here))

9.) Swapped AU: Through various shenanigans Ice King's and Magic Man's powers gets swapped. These shenanigans somehow land them in space as well. This happens before Magic Man's trial. The swapping of their powers results in Simon getting his memory back. It also gives Magic Man the Ice Crown, unfortunately for him though, it seems to hate him. Simon's glad to back, but quickly realizes one issue: He's still crazy. So the pair try to make it back to Ooo. MM needs his powers to swap himself with some other shmuck so he doesn't croak when his trial comes, but Simon's made it clear he isn't giving his powers up without a fight. The pair starts off rocky, neither trusting the other, but space trouble forces them to work together. Simon's a nice enough guy he wouldn't leave someone to die and MM really needs Simon alive so it works out. A weird friendship forms, and they learn get along. Just a couple of crazy space wizards. Then the crown is destroyed. MM is freed from the crown's control, and he's freed from magic. He gets his sanity back, just in time for his trial.

that’s all I’ve got for now!

[wellamarke]

Alright. This is going to be shorter than I planned because I keep tying myself in knots over the very first shot, but I'm going to skip straight to my main point about the Dashing White Sergeant, which is this:

Nobody gets to dance with the person opposite them in the circle.

That is not how the dance works. In DWS, you dance with two people: the ones either side of you, in your row of 3. Yes, to be fair, you join hands and walk back and forth to meet your opposite person, but that person never gets your hand. So, how, pray, do we get this:

AND this:

Well, it's because, in what is arguably his boldest move since 'carrots', Gilbert breaks the set and spins Anne over to his side:

When what they're supposed to have done is this:

ie. Diana, Gilbert and Jane should have performed a straight swap with Caleb, Anne and Charlie. That twirl? Does not exist in the Dashing White Sergeant.

This absolute... opportunist, sees his moment and risks throwing the whole dance just to get to hold Anne's hand. I'm so proud.

The first time they come into the centre he's all smirky, because yes, being face-to-face is fun and an excellent twist on their usual head-to-head. But that's not enough, he wants to dance with her. He's going to get his hand-hold after 3 years of waiting for it, damn it all.

(I know, I know, I'm coming late even to the Netflix release and I've missed the intense week-long dissection of the scene by literal months, so obviously all this has been said. But it's NEW TO ME and I haven't seen the text posts so I'm going to still talk about it).

There is so much metaphorical resonance here.

The two positions (beside and opposite) are supposed to be irreconcilable in the dance. Anne and Gilbert are two people who so often oppose each other but, when it comes to things that really matter, they are on the same side. Likewise, the parts of the dance they spend opposite each other are fleeting, and for the main section, they are on the same side.

Both Anne and Gilbert are the center dancers of their row (the center is the only person who dances throughout - all 4 corner dancers wait out certain bars). This mirrors how both of them have their own storylines, concerns, goals etc in the show. But when Gilbert breaks the set, positioning Anne as to his choosing, he doesn't make her a corner dancer. Instead, she becomes the center dancer of his line. What an interesting fact about the axis on which Planet Gilbert spins.

Even when they're part of the same row, things aren't straightforward: there's a third person involved. In real life it's Winnie; in the dance it's Charlie. Gilbert watches Anne with Charlie and has to wait out the bar. Anne will have to do the same with Winnie.

At the end of the dance - literally in the last few bars - he returns Anne to her original position. In practical terms, this means Mrs Lynde doesn't have anything to complain about, as there's no evidence by the end that the set was ever broken. In sneaky terms, it means he gets to finish the dance face-to-face making eyes with Anne, and not Jane or Diana. In heartbreaking terms, it foreshadows how (at least for now) the discoveries made during the dance aren't going to change their relationship, as everything goes 'back to normal' on the outside. In romantic terms, it could be seen as Gilbert saying: "I want you by my side, but in the end, I'll put you before myself" (in the sense that 'before' can also mean 'in front of').

Breaking the set ought to have thrown everything off - if nobody else moves, Gilbert has put Anne next to Diana, so the boy-girl-boy-girl pattern is lost. The fact that the dance is able to continue means that others have moved to compensate. Crucially, one of them is Diana, who is best placed to perform damage control as it's her spot Anne's moved into -– foreshadowing her manoeuvring the situation on the train and saving the day! But it's not just Diana: everyone in the set will have noticed the shift – mirroring how the whole of Avonlea are basically aware of how these two feel about each other before they are.

Or, in more mathematical terms, the other 4 people in the set, shifting to make way for Shirbert, represent the 4 people with the most to say about Shirbert: Jane plays Winnie (telling Anne she isn't engaged to Gilbert; this parallel works weirdly well since Jane and Gilbert are seen dancing together, and Jane's traditional values mirror Winnie's 'expectations') Diana plays herself (being the person best placed to call Gilbert out the train journey, and being the person best placed to compensate in the dance itself, since Anne's in her spot. Damn, she even does the callout opposite him in a train carriage, a position usually held by Anne). Charlie plays Cole (telling Anne about Gilbert's crush; interesting, then, that Charlie's got a crush on Anne) and Caleb Lynde plays Bash (knowing about Shirbert before so much as meeting Anne; and would you LOOK at that, I was about to say I can't find a link between Caleb and Bash, but the link is MISS STACY!)

Most dancers look in the direction they are skipping in for the circle part of the dance: Gilbert and Anne look dead across at each other before the swap, and then after the swap:

...yeah, they're looking at each other the whole time, even for the direction change - which means that one of them is always skipping 'backwards' (sideways, but against the direction they're facing, led by the other). If that ain't a metaphor for trust, I don't know what is. Also, they will each be the backwards-facer for the same amount of steps, and if that ain't a metaphor for compromise... you get what I'm saying.

I will probably think of a few more resonances after posting this, and yes, I know that I'm reaching on some of it, but even without all that symbolism, you HAVE to hand it to Gilbert. As far as he knows this might be the only time he'll ever get to dance with Anne, so he's going to make the most of EVERY SECOND, and dance more with her in that one rehearsal than any other couple in the room have managed in two.

Something else I like, as well, is that he knows the format of the dance from watching the initial demonstration - so he COULD have tried the spin in the first run-through. But he doesn't do it until he gets the vibe from their first face-to-face that Anne, maybe... isn't opposed to dancing with him. (Also, he waits 'til he's invalided Moody out of the running, freeing his buddy up to give them some nice twinkly backing music... Gosh, Gilbert, how far back does your web of cunning go?!)

Just as a parting shot, I'll point out that Miss Stacy is the one who pushes Gilbert (nonsensically) to the other side of the room, where Anne ends up. I say nonsensically because at the beginning they're standing like this:

with Gilbert being the ONLY boy on the right hand side of the room, so no way should he be moving across. What actually needs to happen is that two boys from the left should go to join him. Gilbert should have stayed put. But no, Miss Stacy wants him over there:

She ships it, y'all.

Gilbert then stands for a bit in the middle of the room, foreshadowing his indecision/being torn between two options later on:

Look at him, stroking his chin, all confused! Thankfully, Mrs Lynde is there to park him firmly on the left side of the room, ensuring proximity to Anne. Thanks, Rachel. Thanks, Ms Stacy.

And most of all, thanks to whoever choreographed this scene! It took me so long to get a comprehensive look at Gilbert's actions because I kept getting distracted by everything else that's going on: Ruby, Tillie and Jane are all wonderful too, and let's not forget Moody and Charlie partnering each other just before Mrs Lynde yells 'stop'. Wonderful. Perfect scene is perfect.

[scullydubois]

Only the Light Ch. 14

14/? | AU where Melissa moves in with Scully after Scully’s abduction | angst, msr slow-burn, occasional fluff | currently: early 1995 (Humbug adjacent) | T | 5k | previous chapters | read on ao3 | tagging: @today-in-fic <3

As the new year beckons Scully to put her life back together, she and Mulder share a Valentine's 'anti-date' on the Hoover Building rooftop.

TW for brief discussion of disordered eating.

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

The new year struck Scully with a particular melancholy. 1994 was, to put it plainly, one of the worst--if not the worst--year of her life. Even without her disappearance, it would earn that title. Her father’s untimely passing and the brief but brutal closure of the X-Files wrenched the few good things left from her fingers. Factor in the four weeks in late summer that she has no memory nor knowledge of, and you’ll understand why Scully has taken to calling it her year on the dark side of the moon.

Of course, the aftershocks of her abduction are still felt every day. Flipping the calendar does nothing to remedy that. At her last appointment, Dr. Zapolsky noticed that Scully’s weight had decreased rather sharply from previous visits and made the point that “rapid weight loss can stop ovulation,” which Scully interpreted as kicking her while she was down. That’s not exactly fair, after all. Technically, her period stopped well before she decided to restrict herself. 

It’s odd how it happened. Her weight was fine before her abduction; slender but within the healthy range for her height. Even when she was returned, it had only dropped a couple pounds, as if they fed her...as if they cared. She found that hard to believe. In the months afterward, she sought a physical representation of her mental anguish, and since she and food were never on the best terms to begin with, the choice was simple.

The other day, she had to punch an extra hole in all her belts to hold them steady on her hips. She knows the consequences of this; she’ll live them and accept it. 

There has been some beneficial progress. Dr. Zapolsky started Scully on low-dose birth control around Thanksgiving, hoping that it would balance her hormones and regulate her periods. It has, in fact, brought back her cycle, something that Scully did not expect. She gave Melissa her leftover tampons in October. Now Melissa buys enough for the two of them and insists that Scully doesn’t owe her a dime. Scully is too grateful for this to speak about it.

Her downward spiral reached a snag when she realized that smoking would make her birth control ineffective, shortly after her and Mulder’s Christmas Eve smoke break. She ditched the cigarettes, mad at herself for taking a month to read the disclaimer (she’s a doctor for god’s sake, she should know better!), yet glad to have an out. Smoking was a habit she exercised because she could. It won’t hurt her anytime soon, and millions of others do it, so where’s the harm? That was her thinking. As soon as she had a reason to stop, she did, and it felt a bit like jumping from a runaway train just before it skids off the tracks. 

So she is better, and she is worse. Which really means she is the same as she was. That is the conclusion she carries into 1995’s frosts and thaws. 

There is one thing she is certain of, something that she hadn’t given much thought to until the one year anniversary of her father’s death. She needs her faith back. She’s always practiced in a cyclical pattern, her devoutness orbiting in and out like the moon around the Earth. Sometimes closer and brighter, sometimes farther away, sometimes nowhere to be found.

She has to believe it will come back; it always does. She was made in God’s image, and her father’s. This is both a blessing and a curse.

But no one can be God, and she can’t be her father either. His faith never wavered. If hers was the moon--fickle and subject to doubt--his was the sun, steady and warming everything around it. This was a quality she was envious of, and then guilty in her blasphemy. She has never managed to feel completely content inside the bounds of piety like he could. She’s constantly shaking the devil off her back, then repenting for it, then wondering if it were all worth it. What if...what if...what if...she isn’t fully persuaded in her beliefs, and she knows that this is the worst sin of all. Like Mulder though, she wants to believe, and shouldn’t that count for something?

Imperfection is allowed. Understood, even. Doubt is not as permissible. “He who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind,” the Bible says. Sometimes Scully takes that to mean she should walk into the ocean. Then she realizes that would be blasphemous too. 

Some people believe without trying. Her father was one of those. Mulder too, in a different way. She used to think that she was too. Now she’s not so sure. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” How many times has she read that line? Has she ever lived up to it? She’s seen and still not believed. Certainly that means she’s going to Hell.

Or is she already there?...She wonders that sometimes. Maybe she didn’t make it back from the other side. Maybe the devil just wanted her to believe that she had, and so he’d constructed some kind of diorama of Scully’s life that would go wrong bit by bit, boiling her like a gradually heated bathtub. No resting in peace for the unbeliever.

She can’t imagine a worse punishment than all the potentially good things in her life getting dismantled beyond her control. She’d rather never experience them at all than know their joy then watch them fall apart. Missy would kill her if she heard this, but you can’t please everybody.

It is at this point that Scully embarks on her chosen method of religious self-flagellation: going through the Ten Commandments and determining whether she’s violated them. Count up your sins and God won’t have to; practically the tagline of the Catholic faith.

She thinks she does okay with the first few. She has no idols, she honors her mother and father, and Mulder knows not to call her on Sunday mornings. Of course, the part about not taking the Lord’s name in vain can be tricky, but she’s working on it. 

Number five is where it gets dicey. Thou shalt not kill. She imagines that she wouldn’t, not on purpose, but the circumstances of her job worry her. God makes no exceptions for self-defense. And what if she were ever to be a true doctor? If she couldn’t save a patient, does that mean she killed them? 

Her father was in the Navy. He never killed anyone.

Number six...well, she doesn’t mention that often. Few people know about Daniel. Missy is one. Scully harbors a genuine shame regarding that time in her life, not so much because of Daniel, but because she was complicit in hurting his wife and daughter. It was a young, foolish mistake that she never wants to make again. 

She feels pretty good about number seven. The only thing she has ever stolen is one of Charlie’s matchbox cars when they were kids. She was uninterested in Missy’s hand-me-down Barbies and Raggedy Ann dolls. The boys’ toys were much cooler. She trusted the Lord enough to know that He wouldn’t hold something she did when she was seven against her. Besides, she gave it back when Charlie figured out it was missing. She just wishes he had let her play with him after that.

Number eight: thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. She considers honesty one of her best qualities. She sure hopes God does too. She’s not the most open person, but that’s different from lying…

Nine is a lost cause, considering six had been broken. This was her least favorite part of her family’s religion: the power it had to cause her shame about her own body, her own desires. She had her first crisis of faith over this at age 14. Missy comforted her with something she has never forgotten: “The original sin was the serpent’s deception, not Eve’s desire. Even God pins it on the woman.” She knew her sister could only say that because she didn’t truly believe and wasn’t trying to, but it had stuck with Scully through many moments when she needed it. 

And finally, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. She supposes she did this with the matchbox cars when she was seven, but in literal terms that’s about it. Metaphorically, she does this all the time and struggles with why she feels so inadequate. Her sister’s confidence, Mulder’s tenacity, her father’s faith...The ideal Dana Scully would have all of these. The real one is a work in progress.

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

So it goes that she finds herself prepping a case in the office on Valentine’s Day. Mulder’s scheduled to fly to Florida the next morning to investigate attacks in a community of circus performers. He’s convinced it’s the Fiji Mermaid, she’s convinced he needs to get his head checked; the usual. This is one comfort Scully can always rely on. No matter how utterly twisted her life gets, she will always think Mulder is crazy, and he will always go along with it. 

The occasion of the day goes unmentioned until what Mulder lovingly refers to as “closing time,” which is not a specific time but rather the point that he finally gives up for the day, usually hastened by his partner’s prodding. Scully has learned the signs of his dwindling tenacity by now. She glances at the clock as he pulls his glasses off his head and tosses a sunflower seed in the wastebasket, pleasantly surprised that it reads only 5:15. He catches her checking, his eyes--amber today--meeting hers.

His lips curl in amusement. “You got a date or something?” 

“No,” she blinks, feeling like a child caught taking a cookie from the jar. Her cheeks grow hot, threatening to make a scene. “I figured you did, since you’re finishing up so early.”

Mulder straightens his stack of papers, clinking them against the desk obnoxiously. “Think again, buckaroo.”

He’s taken to calling her that lately. Neither one of them is sure why, it just popped into his mind one day and stuck. It makes her feel like a heroine in some 70s Western shoot-out flick who wrangles all the bad guys and locks’em in the county jail. She’s thankful that someone can see her for what she could be rather than what she is. It helps her see that too. 

He stuffs his papers in a manila folder, then rises from behind the desk and stoops toward the backpack he prefers to a briefcase. (She called him a kindergartener once because of it and he remarked that he’d ‘rather be a kindergartener than an adult.’ She couldn’t argue with that.) “Valentine’s Day isn’t really observed under the Fox Mulder calendar,” he says, unzipping the bag and putting the folder in. “Halloween and Thanksgiving, those are my holy days.” 

“You worship at the shrine of the food pyramid,” Scully smirks. 

“Yes indeed. Wait--” Scully’s gaze flicks to him, genuinely concerned. He dissolves her uncertainty with a boyish grin. “--does the food pyramid include candy?”

She rolls her eyes, but it’s not deeply felt. She misses these flat-lining comedic routines of his, usually at their best when they’re putzing through some tumble-weed town where the bathroom stalls at the gas station don’t lock. He loves being the funniest person in a ten-mile radius, and that’s not a satisfaction he can have in DC. She wonders if he tells these lame jokes to strangers now, or if they were just for her. 

“Speaking of food,” he says, brushing a hand through his hair, “you wanna grab dinner?”

Scully’s forehead creases. “Like, in a restaurant?”

“I mean, I wasn’t gonna be that forward, but I guess we could take it to yours or mine...”

Scully laughs lightly, wrapping her arms around herself, fingers caressing her bony elbows. “We’ve already covered what day it is,” she demures. “Everyone having dinner is going to be on a date.”

“You’re right...the restaurant probably won’t let us in unless we make out in front of the hostess,” he deadpans. 

“Not to mention that we don’t have any reservations…”

“Well, making out might remedy that, depending on the hostess.”

She gives him her ‘last straw’ look--crossed arms, arched eyebrow, stinging glare--and he raises his hands in surrender. “I’ll stick to slipping a twenty, then.”

Scully uncrosses her arms and slinks toward her purse rather languishly. “No restaurants, Mulder. It’s too much trouble on a holiday.”

“I sure hope you didn’t mistake my suggestion as an invitation to Mulder’s Downhome Country Kitchen, cause that place is not Michelin star rated.”

“I’m well aware. I’ve seen the menu.”

“Is Chateau de Scully open tonight?” he asks with an eyebrow raise that his partner couldn’t have missed if she tried--and she did. 

“Well, the chef is celebrating Valentine’s Day with her girlfriend in Oregon, so you’d be waiting awhile for your meal.”

“There’s no back-up chef? I don’t know, someone who may need to feed herself while the chef is away?”

“Yes, but she doesn’t serve the public.”

“Ouch.”

He plucks their respective coats off the rack, folding his own over his arm and throwing his partner’s over her shoulders. She jumps just the tiniest bit--she probably thinks he didn’t notice, so he’ll pretend he didn’t--then slips her arms in the sleeves and pulls it on properly.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, avoiding eye contact.

After he’s put his own jacket on, he hoists up his backpack, fielding off his partner’s near swerve into laughter. She’s barely maintaining a straight face, and even if it’s at his expense, he loves it because unadulterated joy is something she deserves so much. 

“You know what, I’ve got just the solution,” he says as he strolls out the doorway, flipping the light switch as he goes, leaving Scully scrambling in the dark. 

“Hey!” 

He hears her petulant voice, followed quickly by the laugh he was looking for. When she turns to him after locking the office door, her eyes are still shining from the momentary euphoria. He is so happy to know her.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place is the Smithsonian of vending machines.”

“Mm-hm.”

“And I know a door to the rooftop that never gets locked.” He flashes her a sly look, his intentions pure despite himself. 

“It’s 40 degrees outside,” she counters before he can even voice his proposal.

“Sure, but we can make some fresh coffee, and there’s gotta be blankets in that storage closet of ours.” Ours. Very few things are theirs. She wishes he would say it again.

As much as her instinct is to protest, she can’t quite muster the resolve to. I mean, it checks all the boxes. It’s not a restaurant, she’d only have to eat a snack from the vending machine, and she wouldn’t have to spend Valentine’s night alone, which is a sneaky sadness that had been pressing at the back of her mind.

“Fine,” she bluffs, as if it were a great inconvenience to her. She enjoys the cat-and-mouse game, what can she say? “You find the blankets, I’ll get the coffee.”

Mulder smiles, his lips edging over his teeth in an aesthetically pleasing way that makes Scully feel like he missed his calling as a male model. Of course, this smile isn’t posed. The constant in his life is his partner’s unpredictability. Everyone thinks she’s a stone-cold skeptic, but he knows she’s an uncertain believer, and there’s no one harder to pin down than that. Her yes to his Valentine plans may as well be an admission that Bigfoot exists. 

“Let’s meet by the sixth floor stairwell, okay?” he prompts, laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Flashes of Christmas Eve sabotage her thoughts--her mother’s kitchen, her untidy tipsiness, Mulder just trying to iron things out. He’d touched her, and she’d lashed out at him. Reaction formation, that was the term for the defense mechanism she’d used. He knew it, probably studied it extensively. Concealing an impulse by acting out its opposite.

Instead of mentioning this, she looks him in the eyes and says, “Okay, I’ll use the coffee machine on the sixth floor then,” as if his touch hadn’t brought forth both memory and desire. 

“Great. See you there.” He pulls finger guns, and she thinks that maybe this is already her best Valentine’s Day yet.

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

Five stories of stairs is a long way to go with two hot mugs of coffee. Scully had hoped there would be some styrofoam cups--something she could put a lid on--but the Bureau is stingy, so she had to go all the way back to the basement, grab their coffee mugs, take the elevator back to the sixth floor, brew some dark roast (to Mulder’s probable discontent), then hope that by some miracle, they could make it to the roof. 

Ever the idealist, Mulder takes the challenge in stride. Though his arms are already bundled with some comforters he found tucked away in storage (he shudders to think how old they must be), he takes the handle of his mug, squeezing the blankets snug against his chest. 

“Are you sure about this?” his partner asks with her usual uneven tone. “What if we get all the way up there and the door is locked?”

“We knock and get the snipers to open the door for us,” he answers matter-of-factly.

Scully’s eyebrows shoot up. “Snipers?”

“Oh yeah, did I forget to mention? There’s a longstanding rumor about snipers on the roof that I’d like to get to the bottom of.”

His demeanor is just loose enough to make Scully question whether he is in fact kidding. A conversational casualness permeates all of his sensational soliloquies because to him, the phenomena he’s discussing should be regarded as a fact of the world. If he ever launched into an indifferent lecture on the subject, she’d know he was bluffing.

Having never heard the rumor herself, she decides this is simply a figment of his overactive imagination. She’ll play along. “Well, if it’s anything like the talk of you being spooky, then it doesn’t look good for us…” she teases, her own smirk eliciting an identical one from her partner. 

Masking his impatience by embodying the role of the gentleman, Mulder uses his free hand to prop open the stairwell door, ushering his partner through. The landing of each story has one stray light bulb, there for show more than anything. Most of them are either flickering or burned out, the agents discover as they inch their way up, one slowly taken step at a time. Step, pause for the coffee to settle, hope it doesn’t breach its container, step: that’s the process they adopt for approximately 100 steps in the cold Hoover stairwell. There are many ways to show love; Mulder bets that you wouldn’t find this in any lame self-help book. 

“Do you think Romeo would have done this for Juliet?” he muses.

“Depends on what he was expecting once they made it to the top,” Scully quips, the edges of her lips turning up slightly.

Mulder nods, perpetually amused by her (too) infrequent jaunts into suggestive territory. “My man really got ahead of himself with the whole ‘dying for her’ schtick.” 

“You’re one to talk.” 

Mulder eyes her. “Actually, I think it was you who was going to die for me.”

“Not for you, because of you.” Her statement is neither packed with malice nor free of blame. “There’s a difference.”

She may as well have shot him at point blank range; then at least she could see the bleeding. She didn’t mean to be so blunt, but he gave her the perfect setup. Mulder cauterizes his own wound, disguising his pain as a joke. “Damn, I was finally moving past that!”

“At least one of us was,” she says, her voice fluttering, and he knows she’s just teasing, but god, what if she’s cauterizing her own hidden wounds?

They reach the door labelled ‘roof,’ and Mulder can’t decipher what happens first, him putting his hand on the door handle or her placing a chilly hand on his cheek. Playing it back in his head later on he won’t even be able to figure it out-- it cut time loose from its axes in such a way. 

“Are you okay, Scully?” He’s not sure why this is the first question out of his mouth, but it is.

“I need a hand warmer,” she murmurs. “The coffee’s already cooling off.”

All the while, Mulder is acutely aware that her hand’s still on his cheek and she’s got him propped against the door, and what does she want him to do with that information?

Her thumb grazes his mole, and it becomes clear to him that there are two ways this scenario could go, and if she doesn’t want the second one it’s imperative that she stop rubbing rhythmic circles into his skin.

He clears his throat. “Do you want to...do you want me to check for snipers?” Her touch continues, uninterrupted. 

“Is the door unlocked?” Her voice sounds airy and far away. She probably didn’t even hear his question. 

He pushes on the handle, confirming their freedom. “Yes ma’am,” he answers, fear of a sort edging him into total politeness. He is twelve tiptoeing through the too empty halls of his house, again.

“Let’s have a picnic,” she says, still light and airy, as if that weren’t the plan the entire time. Then, she breaks into sudden laughter, pulling her hand away from Mulder’s cheek in her fit. “We forgot the food!” 

She is back to normal now, his steadfast Scully with a side of joy. 

Half of him mourning for the otherworldly Scully and the moment that could have been, he laughs too. “There may have been some lapses in planning.”

“We can make do, can’t we?” There’s a glimmer in her eyes that suggests the moment is not as far gone as he believed.

“Cold coffee sounds like an enduring Valentine’s tradition,” he affirms.

They choose not to dwell on words like “enduring” and “tradition,” entering the chill of the Hoover Building rooftop on Valentine’s night. 

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

They’re not that far above the city really--the Hoover’s no NYC skyscraper--but their heads are in the clouds, that’s for sure. It’s not the typical dinner date complete with melted candles and overpriced dessert and overly attentive waiters, but as it turns out, they would both hate that. After all, this is not a date, it’s a casual hangout between two coworkers who don’t have dates on Valentine’s Day. If anything, it’s an anti-date. That’s what they tell themselves.

February’s unrelenting chill swirls around them, catching Scully’s hair in playful tantrums and turning the two of them into life-size paperweights atop the blankets. More sensible people may call the night a bust, but not the Prince of Halloweentown and his esteemed guest. This unconventional adventure is exactly what they bargained for.

Scully looks to Mulder, who’s holding his coffee like it’s a beer. She smiles. That is so him.

She exhales, and her breath spells itself out on the air. She tilts her face to the sky, as if the sun might suddenly rise and bask her in its heat. Mulder notices and fixes his attention there too, happy to have an excuse to look skyward. It’s his outlet, like hers is the sea her father dedicated his life to. His preferred escape method is to fly away; hers is to drift off.

He forces himself back into the moment, here, with her, and the expanse of the sky. “I once spent fifty bucks on one of those ‘name a star’ certificates, and I can’t even see it because of the goddamn light pollution.”

“I think that’s really more about the gesture than anything else,” Scully replies, trying to soothe him as if this were actually a pressing problem. “Unless you bought it for yourself...?”

Mulder chuckles. “No, no. It was for an old girlfriend.”

Scully raises her eyebrows in amusement. “Did you name it after her?”

“No, we named it the Rhine star.”

A puzzled look passes between them. It gives him a twinge of joy that his partner is not the encyclopedia she seems to be. 

“After Joseph Banks Rhine, the founder of parapsychology,” he clarifies. “We were both fascinated by the field.”

“Oh.” She turns her face back toward the sky with the feeling of a kid who missed the winning word of the spelling bee. There are times when she is grateful she does not know everything, and times when she is not. Somehow, this is both. 

“I’ve thought about buying another one and naming it after Samantha,” Mulder continues, “but it feels too much like a grave marker.”

“I’d consider it a lovely tribute,” Scully counters, used to doing so. “But I’m thirty and I own my own gravestone, so take that with a grain of salt.”

It’s true--once Dana was returned, her mother couldn’t bear to look at the gravestone she’d had engraved in memory of her missing daughter, so she gave it to Mulder, who saw no logical place for it to go except the woman whose name it bore. Margaret hadn’t wanted her to know that it existed, that they’d gotten so far as considering her gone. While it brought Mulder no joy to present it to his partner, it served as a reminder of the miracle her survival was, and in such bleak times, they had both needed that. 

“It doesn’t scare me--the thought of dying,” Scully says to the stars. Mulder wonders if she meant for him to hear it. He wishes he hadn’t, but he’s met with the realization that she is trying to start a conversation when her eyes look into his.

He doesn’t know where to go with this, so he toes the line between deep and sarcastic. “I thought Catholics were all about that heaven and hell stuff.”

“Yes, but…” where is the line between truth and blasphemy, she wonders? Settling herself, she starts over. “I’ve lived both on Earth, so what have I got to fear?” She turns her glance to the blanket, as if shrinking out of the Lord’s sight. “Besides, sometimes I think I’m already there.” 

“Heaven?”

“No, Hell.”

He should have known. He grips the edge of his blanket, wondering why his parents had prioritized the sex talk but never explained what to do in a situation like this. He has a psychology degree, sure, but he’s as much a psychologist as she’s a physicist. 

“There are periods of life, I think, where everyone feels like that,” he says in the most earnest voice he can conjure. “It’s just that nobody ever talks about it.”

“Did you feel like that with Samantha?” 

Leave it to Scully to turn a personal conversation back on him.

He bites his lip. “Yeah, yeah, I did. Still do, if I think about it too long.”

“How did you...move past it?” The lights of nearby buildings reflect off her blue eyes, galaxies to his black holes. He’d give anything to sluice the pain right from her heart. 

He’ll rely on his words instead, despite knowing there are depths they cannot touch. “I, uh, I didn’t really move past it, I just moved. Kept moving, I guess. I found a place where I could make progress out of my pain. Here--the X-Files.”

Scully swallows hard, knocking back tears. "That’s the issue. I feel stuck. Just completely unable to go forward. There’s a current in my brain that keeps pushing me backward.”

Mulder lets out a deep breath, trying to take both their pain with it. “Have you considered seeing a therapist?” he asks delicately. “It sounds like you may have PTSD.”

“Over what?” she practically snaps. “I don’t remember a thing.”

“That doesn’t mean you have no memories. Regression hypnosis could help recover repressed or unconscious memories, so you could understand exactly what’s bothering you.”

“You think I haven’t heard this spiel from Melissa?”

“I bet Melissa doesn’t have first-hand experience with it.”

“No, she doesn’t,” she murmurs in the tone of an apology. She knew that he had it, she had listened to the tapes. How could she let it slip her mind? It is uncouth of her to look down on his chosen method of healing.

Mulder isn’t bothered. He continues, “It helped me. Both in recalling the details of the experience, and in having a recorded recollection of it. It helped me feel less...insane.”

“Mmm.” If he were just a bit closer, she’d reach out and touch his hand.

“If anything, I wish I did it earlier.”

Scully’s understanding of him sharpens, like an ophthalmologist flipping the lens, making her vision clearer. Her gaze probes him, mutual souls recognizing mutual pain. 

“Hey.” He uses his extended wingspan to touch her shoulder with the care an older sibling would show holding their baby brother for the first time. She turns her head, their faces mere inches away from each other. His eyes are a dopey brown, his breath scented with coffee.

“Yes?” she says with a coquettish flitting of her eyelashes. 

“You should come back out on the road. I could use someone to shoot down all my wild whims.”

She can’t help but smile, though she keeps her mouth closed. “Tired of telling jokes to strangers who don’t laugh, are you?”

He smirks. “Well, yeah, that too.” He leans back a bit, putting enough distance between them to keep the sparks in check. “Of course, if you’re not ready, there’s no pressure. I just think you could use the change of scenery and--you know--companionship.”

She nods, looks out into the night. He’s got the pulse of her problems and the salve that could soothe them. “You’re right.” How often does he get to hear those beautiful words come out of her mouth? “I need to get out of my cocoon, and I think I’m okay enough to do that now.”

“Yeah?” There’s a twinkle in his eyes, something like hope.

She laughs--catharsis manifest--and it’s like a sheen of light coming through a crack in her jagged surface. “Yeah, Mulder. I’ll make the arrangements with Skinner.”

He pumps his fists in the air. “Hallelujah!” 

She hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her. Any stray thoughts she had of him being lonely she chalked up to her own delusions. 

“Florida is probably a lost cause,” she notes, “but after that…”

He nods, pats her shoulder. “After that.”

To have her back meant something like freedom. The X-Files had never been anything without her. He had never been anything without her. 

[firesoulstuff]

For that beautiful modern school AU, Charlie at the parent teacher conference

Charlie is scowling under the safety of her helmet as she puts her bike into park. Make no mistake, she volunteered for this, but the sheer fact that she had to volunteer for this is what is blowing her mind right now. She has no idea why, really, after ten years one would think she’d have lost all faith in Lachesis’s parenting abilities and things like this wouldn’t surprise her anymore.

Oh well.

“Alright Babe,” She says with a smile as she steps off her motorcycle, chuckling to herself while watching her nephew clumsily slide down. “Come on, lock up your helmet.”

He’s still struggling a bit, and she laughs when he finally manages to pull of his helmet and his black curls pop back into their proper place. He comes up to her side and slides the strap of his helmet onto the lock alongside hers, then taking the lock from her fingers and securing it because he likes to.

He likes to have some semblance of control. Poor kid.

She, she isn’t sure he’s aware of that yet, so she snickers and ruffles his hair.

“Thanks Gary.” She says, “Now come on, let’s get on with it.”

They start walking towards the school, mixing in with other parents and children all heading for the rear entrance. Gary’s talking excitedly about showing her his desk and the drawing of his family he made in art class. She laughs along and asks a few questions, and when they have to check in at the front desk she’s grateful the teacher stationed there - Ms. Rider - is one who has seen her enough times to know she is Gary’s aunt without checking the emergency contact card AND her ID.

The school hasn’t changed a bit since Charlie was here as a kid. It’s the same pale yellow hallways, the same smell of dry-erase markers, the same bright locker tags standing in stark contrast to the rusted metal. She never did like this place.

Gary leads her to his fourth grade classroom, a room she used to sit in back when it was a third grade room and she wonders idly if the stain is still on the back radiator from when she melted Behrad Tarazi’s science project.

Actually, speaking of Behrad Tarazi, that last name is the one boasted on the door. At first she wonders if it’s a coincidence but then she walks in the room and sees the teacher, and it’s been awhile since she’s seen Behrad or his sister but that is definitely her. Zari Tarazi.

Oh fuck.

When they were kids and too naive to know anything, Charlie had always looked up to Zari. Both physically and metaphorically speaking. Zari had always walked Behrad to class, painted his nails, and there was that one time she punched Rip Hunter in the face because he’d been being a jerk to Behrad. She was everything Charlie had wished her sisters were. On top of that she was beautiful, smart, and literally the coolest girl in school by Charlie’s opinion. Now that she’s older and no longer naive something is crashing over like a truckload of bricks. She did not look up to Zari Tarazi as a child. She had a crush on her.

Fuck.

Of course Zari sees her right then and does a double take.

“Charlie?” She asks, coming over. “What are you doing here?” She then looks down to Gary, and Charlie isn’t sure if the look on her face is horror or straight up shock as she puts some kind of pieces together but it doesn’t matter, Gary clears it up.

“This is my aunt.” He provides, and that’s it, but it’s enough to settle the fear on Zari’s face.

“Good.” She says, “I was worried I was old enough to have the kids of my brother’s classmates.”

Charlie finds herself chuckling, and then they’re back into an easier rhythm, which might actually be worse than the awkward assuming she was Gary’s parent.

“So...” Zari trails, “Did Gary show you his desk?”

[francoiserenaldt]

This playlist is for one of my ILITW MCs, Desirée Ashton. I hope you enjoy! Song explanations under the cut.

wings little mix

mama told me not to waste my life / she said spread your wings, my little butterfly

I wanted to kick off the playlist with this song because it’s the closest I could get to establishing who Desirée is as a person. People have talked shit about her all her life; growing up poor and black in an affluent, predominantly white neighborhood will do that to you, so this song represents how she manages to rise above it everyday.

omg little mix

i don’t even know / why they fall like dominoes

My girl is...not the best at relationships. She’s very stubborn when it comes to what she likes in a person, so she ends up in a lot of situations where people who don’t interest her in any way are attracted to her. It’s about as nightmarish as you’d expect. 

pray for me kendrick lamar ft. the weeknd

if i’m gon’ die for you / if i’m gon’ kill for you / then i spill this blood for you +

i fight the world / i fight you / i fight myself

This song represents Desirée’s relationship with her twin brother, Devon. Because he’s so much more emotionally fragile than she is, she’s constantly defending him from the community. She would happily die for him, but it wears on her constantly.

no tears left to cry ariana grande

right now, i’m in a state of mind / i wanna be in, like all the time

Her emotional state is a series of high highs and low lows because she’s always going through some shit, so it’s really an occasion when she’s feeling good. 

scrolling adrianxpression

i’m looking in the mirror to make me reconsider / but the hole that’s in my heart / it just keeps on getting bigger

This one is her when her anxiety acts up. 

i was here beyonce

i gave my all / did my best / brought someone some happiness

Desirée gives a lot of herself to the people she lets in, which is why it hurts when no one mourns her.

elastic heart sia

I’ve got thick skin and an elastic heart / but your blade might be too sharp +

you won’t see me fall apart / cuz i’ve got an elastic heart

elastic bali baby

fucked it up, made it back / it’s elastic +

i wanna go off / yes, i know it is tempting

Her resilience through everything she’s gone through takes its toll on her patience, so when it’s gone...let’s just say you don’t want to be the one she’s mad at.

successful ariana grande

it feels so good to be so young and have this fun and be successful / i’m so successful

Before her family got rich, she had a borderline unhealthy obsession with working hard because her parents engrained it in her mind (“work or die” and “go to school or die in poverty” type stuff) so this is sort of her enjoying the product of all of her work in addition to the money she has now.

icy girl saweetie

i don’t got time for these hoes / speaking on my name like i’m someone that they know

This is her attitude toward naysayers as an adult (think ILB age). In Wings, she was bothered by the things people said about her. Now, she’s mostly dismissive unless they really cross a line.

bartier cardi cardi b

cardi took your man, you upset / cardi got rich, they upset, yeah

Self explanatory.

joan of arc little mix

i don’t need a man / if i’m lovin’ you, it’s ‘cause i can / i don’t want your cash / i put my own rock on my hand

As someone who’s been on both sides of the class spectrum, she’s pretty knowledgeable about the power of money and what it does to people. Knowing that information has made her really cagey about who she lets herself depend on. 

home with you madison beer

you do what you wanna, wanna do / but i’m not going home with you, home with you

7 rings ariana grande

been through some bad shit, i should be a sad bitch / who would’ve thought it’d turn me to a savage?

pop shit molly brazy

fuck all that squashing that beef / bitch you know there ain’t know ending that

Desirée holds a mean grudge. Nuff said.

one woman army porcelain black

i’m on the battlefield like oh my god / knocking soldiers down like house of cards

This could be taken literally or metaphorically depending on how you look at it.

vroom vroom charli xcx

all my friends are princesses, we keep it whipped and creamy / ice cubes on our tongues because we like to keep it freezy

I included this song because I could see her blasting this in the car (when she eventually gets one) while driving with the other girls in the cast. 

cocky af megan thee stallion

cocky as fuck and my friends cocky too / if you got beef with me, they got it too

6 inch beyonce

she fights for the power, keeping time / she grinds from monday to friday / work from friday to sunday

Desirée is a huge fan of throwing herself into her work when she’s dealing with other problems. She kind of...spirals when she doesn’t have a project to focus on and I thought this song was a good representative of that. Also there is no such thing as too much Beyonce. 

i don’t feel anymore kahlen barry

want you to think about / everything you’re leaving behind / walk out that door, i promise i won’t cry / because i can’t cry / i don’t feel anymore

She takes betrayal hard. Yeah, no one takes betrayal well, but she becomes a different person when she’s been screwed over by someone she let in.

love is blindness jack white

love is blindness / i don’t wanna see / why don’t you wrap the knife / around me

This is her view of her parent’s relationship. Without getting too much into it, they’re an example of everything she doesn’t want for her future partnerships.

ball w/o you 21 savage

you was my rock, heavy metal / now you ain’t shit to me +

gave you my all / you was my dawg

This is the song about Noah Marshall, plain and simple. 

teeth 5sos

you turn into somebody i don’t know / and you push me away, push me away yeah

Desirée can be two completely different people when she hates them.

fashion killa asap rocky

i love your linda farrow / i adore your dior +

smiling is your treasure, you’re so well put together

Desiree is very into fashion and dressing well, so the new money gives her a chance to really show out.

not friendly flo milli

ain’t no competition to me / girl, i always seem to win / when i’m done wit ha / i bet she won’t try that shit again

Desirée does not put up with anything that harms her or her loved ones. Period.

girls in the hood megan thee stallion

because the girls in the hood are always hard / ever since 16, i been having a job / knowing nothing in life / but i gotta get rich / you can check the throwback pics / i been that bitch +

these bitches mad mad / they wanna hurt me

Self-explanatory.

If you read all that, I love you. Thank you for your time and I hope you have a good day!

[thesinglesjukebox]

DUA LIPA - PHYSICAL

[7.50]

It's okay! Move that boogie body!

Leah Isobel: It is a dark and stormy night. In a sinister science lab located somewhere in Carmen Sandiego's plush pomo lair, a pop singer plugs in a neon light, shrugs into a next-season Gaultier lab coat and gets to work. In the reflection of her gold-tinted goggles we see her add one (1) part Extract of "Into You," one (1) part Juice of Newton-John, and four (4) drops of Synthesizer Spice into a contoured beaker. She turns on the flame of a Bunsen burner; stream gushes from her concoction like a geyser, emitting a high, keening refrain. She whispers a few luscious words into the steam -- "diamond," "sssimulation," "adrenaline" -- but her experiment still lacks a certain something. Then -- BOOM! -- in a thundercrash of lightning, it hits her. Eureka! She turns and sees her reflection illuminated in the glass of an emergency axe container, kept onsite in case of fire. "Well," she chuckles to herself as she breaks the glass with a four-inch stiletto heel, "I am creating something... hot." Axe in hand, she chops the neon light into pieces and stuffs the shards, now glittering like a million sequined dancefloors, into the beaker. With the addition of this Decoction of Disco, her potion bubbles... it burbles... then KABOOM: it explodes the entire building and half of the surrounding city! She stands in the wreckage as thunder splits the sky above and sirens wail in the distance. We see Dua's eyes glow green before she throws her head back to the sky and screams: "GAY RIIIIIGHTS!" [9]

William John: Probably the best example of what parts of the Internet's stan culture would facetiously refer to as "gay rights" from a mainstream musical artist since... the last Dua Lipa single, or, failing that, "Into You." Like those precedents, "Physical" is camp but magisterial; playful but extremely melodramatic; sweeping, dance floor ready, and dripping with an exultant swagger. Her reminder to "hold on, just a little tighter" at the bridge is, truthfully, a hollow gesture; at that stage, the listener is so deeply embroiled in her glorious disco caprice as to not really be capable of gripping anything at all. [10]

Jackie Powell: It couldn't be clearer that Dua Lipa had something to prove not only to herself, but to the pop music intelligentsia on her sophomore offering. What has struck me most about the Future Nostalgia cycle is how Dua is executing every facet of it with confidence. On this track, she's not afraid of hitting notes that eclipse the breadth of her previous singles, especially on the bridge. "Physical" is a representative offering of exactly what she's aiming to prove. Each track we've heard so far reflects a different decade accompanied with a modern polish. I don't think I'm the only one who believes Olivia Newton-John's '80s exercise sexual metaphor smash "Physical" deserves the tribute it's getting here. There's a clear homage paid to her and to Patti LaBelle on Lipa's own "Physical." I'm going to interpret her lyric "We created something phenomenal" as a bit of a double-entendre. Not only is it about sex in the narrative of the track, but it's a comment on Lipa's approach to this era and her confidence on every single part of it. The sexual symbolism isn't just in the lyrics, but also in the track's composition and the narrative communicated in the visual treatment. The vocal highs that she hits on the bridge represent a climax musically and sexually. She has so much confidence in the visual treatment, she spends most of it braless. That takes guts. [9]

Tobi Tella: Dua Lipa's perceived lack of personality has turned out to actually be lack of a schtick preventing her from artistically evolving, something many of her peers are plagued with. Also, I've died and gone to gay heaven. [9]

Alfred Soto: The way Dua Lipa's unexpected bon mots and smoky sultriness ride the beat and compete with the strings compensate for a production too dressed up in leg warmers and headbands for my taste -- I mean, her exhortations are more fearsome than erotic. [7]

Julian Axelrod: Pop's '80s revival arms race has escalated to its natural endpoint: the accidental exhumation of Olivia Newton-John. I wish Dua Lipa had used "let's get physical" in a more literal iteration; singing it over hyperdrive synths guarantees it'll be never played in its intended setting, especially when she has half the energy of ONJ. But she hit the mark where it counts: This is going to rule spin classes for the rest of the year. [6]

Brad Shoup: A throwback training-montage track that suggests sex but is really about dancing and Olivia Newton-John erasure. This is Stranger Things pop. [5]

Thomas Inskeep: Sex is natural, sex is fun, sex is best when soundtracked by throbbing '80s synths. [6]

Ashley Bardhan: Okay, fine, I enjoy horny music. Sue me! This song is what would happen if ABBA was brought back to life as a bunch of hot 20-year-olds in little shirts from Fashion Nova. The "let's get physical" chorus feels a little lazy since it's a direct lift from Olivia Newton-John's 1981 hit, but this is a great song to listen to while thinking about that video of Charli XCX holding poppers. No complaints here. [7]

Alex Clifton: I've underestimated Dua Lipa. Her first album had some hits and misses, but Future Nostalgia is shaping up to be one of the best pop releases of 2020 based on the strength of its singles. "Physical" is a cascade of rainbow lights in a roller rink and makes me long to go out to a club, one where I can get down in a huge crowd of people and dance my white-girl ass off poorly. I'm an extreme introvert, so anything that makes me want to leave the house and be around strangers is powerful stuff indeed. It's a little cheesy, but who cares? It's a love letter to the '80s with all the campiness a song citing Olivia Newton-John should have. I'm desperately in love with Dua Lipa after hearing this, and I have a feeling "Physical" will be one of my favourite songs of the year. [9]

Stephen Eisermann: Dua Lipa has quietly become the pop superstar that so many of us wanted Carly Rae to be. Both women make incredible music, but it is Dua who has found commercial success; after hearing "Physical," it seems pretty obvious why. It's a retro-laden, power-pop track that is extraordinary only in the way Dua delivers it. What should be pedestrian instead is hypnotic, infectious, and oh so delicious. [8]

Lauren Gilbert: I promised a friend I'd blurb this song, and now that I've sat down to write it, I have nothing to say. It is a perfect pop song -- Dua knocks it out of the park on this record. I keep getting distracted from writing jamming to the track. I'm dancing while lying down on my couch. She created something phenomenal; we are left with no choice but to stan. [10]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: I've justified Dua Lipa's dearth of personality in years past, but this is where things don't add up: her dead-eyed singing makes no sense during the chorus, whose synths lack the fervor to make up for clinical vocal melodies. Around this time last year, we had Lizzo's "Juice"; now we have "Physical" as an example of '80s pastiche that only feels like it exudes energy and passion and charm. [2]

Will Adams: It's neat to have a single that's its own Initial Talk remix, but the synthpop revivalism is a bit too literal, to the point of putting all its chips on an Olivia Newton-John quote. It's not until the bridge -- "keep on DANCING!" -- where the drama locks in and starts, but only starts, to feel real. [6]

Kylo Nocom: Dua Lipa, determined more than ever to win the Popjustice £20 Music Prize, accidentally transforms into Alice Chater in the process. [5]

Katherine St Asaph: If "Physical" being by Dua Lipa wasn't hypertargeted enough to the Popjustice set, is that the synth progression from Saint Etienne's "No Cure for the Common Christmas" in the intro and beneath the chorus? It's certainly the same height of drama. The track attached isn't quite so charged: a little too Lady Gaga circa "Applause" and a little too Peloton instructor quoting Olivia Newton-John for absolutely no reason besides the culture deciding at some point to make the phrase a permanent, meaningless meme. (The song doesn't even sound particularly '80s; the disco strings are the decade prior, and the vocal squiggles on the verse are so specifically 2016 a time traveler's on their way to erase them.) Dua Lipa only betrays a personality on the spoken-word bridge; ironic how that and the vaporous intro, the least physical things on this track, are the most thrilling. [7]

Vikram Joseph: The intro feels like a prickling at the back of your neck, the one-line pre-chorus feels like plummeting six floors in a broken elevator, and the chorus is such a headrush you can practically smell the poppers: "Physical"'s thrills might be straightforward, but they're visceral as fuck. There are vintage Lady Gaga vibes, the "come on!"s are surely a nod to "We Are Your Friends," and the whole thing reminds me, inexplicably, of Bon Jovi's "It's My Life." But Dua Lipa is starting to make this all seem effortless, and the panache with which she delivers "Physical" easily pulls it clear of the gravitational field of its forebears. [9]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: "Physical" dares us to be the boldest versions of ourselves. It finds itself at the perfect intersection of confidence and lust. Dua Lipa is flirting with you with a playfulness she can only possess because she already knows you're going home together -- and she won't let you leave until the dancing is done. Dancing here is instinct, it's synths that sound as sweet as they do sinister, it's salty like the sweat that rolls down your forehead after you've been, well, physical. Dua Lipa is crushing the Confessions on a Dance Floor album that I've long been waiting for Lady Gaga to make. Dance floor music has long been my site of refuge and catharsis, so it's refreshing to be reminded that it can still sound so immediately, eminently thrilling. [9]

Kayla Beardslee: This doesn't quite reach the heights of "Don't Start Now," but damn it comes close. "Physical" should, in theory, be a cookie-cutter pop girl release, but Dua proves once again that she is the most important element in her music. The producers are doing everything right too, but who else could pull off her endearing smirk in "common love isn't for us" or that wonderful growl in "follow the noise"? And Dua takes us through a transcendental bridge that highlights the best qualities of her voice: singing simple lyrics that say everything they need to, she's breathless yet confident, desperate for touch yet satisfied with the musical world she's helped to create. Something phenomenal, indeed: this rollout has been a joy to follow. [9]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: "Physical" takes the opposite approach to "Don't Start Now" -- while that song's studio version swallows up its singer in a beautifully constructed, sterile disco pastiche (the live versions and remixes are much better), turning her into just one more retro cog, "Physical" makes her the center of attention. The production around her is good enough (the synth preset change right before the chorus starts is especially nice), but not particularly coherent or hooky on its own. In the vacuum left, Dua gets to have more fun, charismatically switching between vocal styles and walking around like she owns the place. [8]

Jibril Yassin: A powerhouse vocal colliding headfirst with production that's neither plodding nor limp. It's a song that's meant to feel like a blockbuster and after a few failed tries, it's thrilling to hear Dua Lipa finally nail the landing and sound like the superstar she wants to be. [7]

Michael Hong: "Physical" is magnetic. Its pulse is unrelenting, its atmosphere is shadowy and captivating, and Dua Lipa gives possibly her best vocal performance. There's no sense of the up-and-coming performer who delivered everything with stolid execution, instead, "Physical" is a sly wink of a pre-chorus leading to a forceful command: "baby, keep on dancing like you ain't got a choice." Dua Lipa is at the helm, all thoughts and any other desires are out the window, and the night is neverending. [7]

Joshua Lu: Several of Dua Lipa's past hit songs have relied on a marketable veneer of cool: "New Rules" works because she's the straight-talker friend giving advice, "Don't Start Now" necessitates a stoic character who can't be bothered to fret about her ex, and even on collaborations like "One Kiss" does Dua employ a rather unemotional voice, like she's a blank canvas for Calvin Harris' more playful and engaging production. "Physical" feels like such a departure for Dua not just because of its obvious throwback sound, but because this veneer of cool is completely torn down when the song reaches its rushing chorus. She sounds more and more desperate as her voice climbs and the synths soar above her, and her cries of "come on" ring as desperate instead of dominant. The song is indebted to pop titans of yesteryears (Olivia Newton-John obviously inspired the title, but the theatrics of the song feel more indebted to Bonnie Tyler or Patti Labelle) to the point of it not really feeling like a Dua song, but she sells it all so convincingly that it feels like a natural fit. It's part pop song, part epic showdown, and I look forward to Dua continuing to push herself to the forefront of mainstream pop music greatness. [9]

Scott Mildenhall: Little wonder that Lipa's so keen to get physical, given that she's "dreaming in a simulation" -- her focus seems to be on the former, since the latter exemplifies the aimlessness of the verses in comparison to the locked-and-loaded chorus. That has its thrills, yet never feels as loose as seems intended. "Physical" comes across too in love with the idea of being a kind of Perfect Pop to actually be it; an anthem for kinetics developed via science textbook. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[neganandblake]

I think I liked you better when you didn’t have a knife in your hand, Peaches... Chapter 195 - Big Bad Reputation

When Blake finds herself sold out to the Saviours by her abusive fiancé, she realises that she’s certainly not on her own anymore and finds an unlikely friend in Negan. And Negan does NOT like men who beat their girlfriends, one tiny bit….

Chapter 195 - Big bad reputation

[Negan confronts Charles. Will the man holding the gun be able to make any more threats?]

"...'Cause I'm Negan."

Just three words. That was all the dark-haired man had to utter for the sound of panicked whispers to surround them suddenly.

The man named Charles stared quickly around at his people who all seemed to be shifting on their feet, looking agitated.

For Blake knew that Negan was a notorious spectre even in these parts. Known to everyone for what had to be, hundreds of miles around.

Negan had a big bad reputation. Just his name alone uttered in hushed tones was a thing of grotesque legend, and everyone here had obviously heard what he was capable of.

But while Charles stared around wild eyed, Negan and Blake kept their eyes fixed on him...ready...waiting…

"Stop it!" he hissed out to the couple of men nearest to him. But it was no use. There even came a sudden cry from one of the women behind them as Charles stared her way, lips parted, watching in horror as the integrity of his group fell apart around him.

But he tried to keep his cool as best he could, merely turning back to Negan with a sneer, giving Negan's chest a hard shove with the barrel of his gun.

"Never heard of you," he said, grimacing. "And I really couldn't give a fuck who you are. You see, we're taking your van-"

He nodded towards Lucille, still in Negan's hand.

"-your weapons, and anything else you've got. Now either you hand it all over, or I'm gonna be putting a bullet through both your skulls'."

"Charles!" came a sudden pleading voice from behind them.

Blake glanced around to see a woman in her late fifties, with sand-coloured hair, step out of the surrounding circle of people.

"Please," she continued, her brown eyes full of despereation. "You dont know who this is-"

But Charles cut her off angrily.

"I don't give a fuck who this is, Martha!" he yelled suddenly. He was breathing hard now, his cheeks looking pink. "They either give us what they have, or we kill them. Fair and square. This was the plan."

But Martha wasn't looking at Charales anymore, instead she took a step forward, her eyes darting back and forth between Negan and Blake.

"Please," she said, entwining her fingers before her in a gesture of prayer, and shaking her head. "I am so sorry. If we'd have known who you were we'd have never-"

"Martha, what the fuck are you doing?-" Charles shouted again, sounding furious.

But again the woman ignored him, and this time another man, far younger, with red hair and glasses, nodded feverently, came to stand beside her.

"She's right," he said too, in a pleading voice. "We are so sorry. Truly. Charles...H-He doesn't speak for all of us, I swear. W-We were just desperate. We thought up this stupid plan, and-"

"ENOUGH!" cried Charles, his voice echoing through the clearing, stopping the young boy mid-way through his sentence.

He was breathing hard now through his nose, looking enraged.

He turned back to Negan, wrinkling his nose and baring his teeth.

"Look I don't care who you are, Asshole," he snarled out. "This was supposed to be just a simple grab and go, no one had to get hurt, but, hey, you had to mess things up for yourselves."

Charles looked down at the gun in his hands.

"Now...well….now you haven't given me a choice," he said, his adam's apple sliding down his throat as he gave a hard swallow, before he stared back up at Negan, his beady eyes meeting with the Saviour's dark and angry ones " I guess I'm going to have to kill you both, AND take your shit."

Blake gritted her teeth together furiously at his threat, lowering her chin as he wavered for a second.

"Charles," came the woman named Martha's voice once more, sounding desperate. "Please-"

But Charles spoke over her, never taking his eyes off Negan all the while.

"No, Martha! We stick to the plan!" he said loudly, his finger slowly clenching around the trigger...

But Blake, in that instant, took her chance.

This wasn't going to be the way Negan was going to die. Or her either.

Not by the will of some stupid son-of-a-bitch.

And so, with a roar of anger escaping her lips before she could stop herself, the blonde launched herself forwards, snatching the blade from her belt.

Charles quickly caught her movement, his eyes widening.

And neither Blake nor Negan could do anything as Charles suddenly swung the gun around, pointing it in her direction and pulled the trigger.

But Blake, on this occasion, was lucky.

Very lucky.

For today was not going to be the day she got shot for a second time in just a few short months. Nu-uh.

People screamed all around as several bullets peppered the bonnet of their truck, blowing out one of the headlamps.

But Blake just took this as her opportunity, her long legs closing the gap between her and Charles, her knife plunging into the soft meat of his right flank, just below his armpit, causing him to scream out in pain almost immediately.

But now it was Negan's turn.

And with the man before them momentarily distracted, the dark-haired Saviour grabbed Charles' gun with both hands, causing him to turn back around to face him in panic.

"Oh you'll learn my name, you spinless mother-fucker," Negan growled, as he headbutted Charles, sending him sprawling backwards.

He tripped over his own feet a couple of times and fell to the floor in a heap, now without his gun, clutching his bloodied side and whimpering.

Not one of the people standing around made a move to help him now.

Negan stood up straight, face like thunder as he checked the rounds still left inside the gun in his hands, before looking back up to Blake, who both looked and felt, almost unperturbed by the entire situation.

For she had faced bigger and badder people than Charles in her life. Her ex-fiance alone being one of them.

She felt stronger now.

More confident than she ever had been. And knew that was because of what Negan had built her up to be. What he had given her the chance to become.

"Wow, Peaches, I forgot how much of a goddamn badass you can be!" Negan exclaimed suddenly, turning on his heel to face her.

But Blake merely shrugged.

"You can thank me later for saving your ass," she teased, as Negan raised his eyebrows in interest.

His gaze seemed to rove over her in a protective manner, as if checking for any damage, or hurt inflicted on her, before he looked back up to her face, his chin dipped and his eyes sparkling.

"Well in that case, you want to do the honors, Doll?" Negan said suddenly, holding the gun out towards her.

But Blake took a step into him, before staring over at Charles coolly.

"Hmmmmm, I'm not sure," she uttered in a purring voice, with a wrinkle of her nose, turning back to Negan. "I think this is more a job for Lucille."

The dark-haired man before her was silent from a short moment, before that tell-tale grin suddenly flicked up onto his lips, his eyes flashing with glee.

"Oh, Darlin'," he eased out, pressing the gun into her hand for her to hold and leaning his entire form in towards her, his lips lingering close to her ear. "You have no idea how hard for you I am right now."

And Blake, in spite of the situation they found themselves in, found herself smirking as he pulled back from her, his dark eyes fixed to her green ones.

"Well you can always show me later," she said in a vixen-like tone, causing Negan to run his tongue across his lips for a brief moment, before turning away from her once more.

As Charles lay there whimpering , Blake stepped back, her green eyes glinting here and there, making sure none of the others tried anything. But in their defence, none of them moved, all of them just watching the scene before them unfold in silence. All obviously knowing full well what was about to happen and none of them doing a thing to stop it.

Negan paced over towards the cowering man, dragging a hand tiredly down his bearded face.

"Oh Charlie, Charlie, Charlie," Negan hummed out in a low voice that held the tension everyone was feeling, swinging Lucille from his gloved hand threateningly.

The man on the ground attempted now to drag his sorry form away from Negan's advancing one.

He looked a far cry from the bold and arrogant man threatening both of them just a few short moments ago.

But Blake knew of course that was the effect Negan had on people, even the most strong people often floored, both literally and metaphorically, by the man himself.

"Somehow I'm startin' to think that you ain't got that dick an' balls you were busy swingin' between your legs jus' now," sighed the dark-haired man in a voice full of goading. "Cause' you strollin' on out here like you were king of the fuckin' castle, pointin' a damn AK47 at us, well, I've gotta admit, I was lookin' forward to a good ol' fashioned, all-guns-a-blazin', fight."

Negan gave a grimace now, swinging Lucille haphazardly and pointing it towards Charles' skull.

"But Charlie," the Saviour sighed again, as Charles stared up at him fearfully, not saying a word now. "I am very fuckin' disappointed. See there ain't many people that have the fuckin' balls to stand up to me."

Negan shrugged, glancing over his shoulder back at Blake.

"I mean maybe Peaches here," he continued, turning back towards Charles once more. "But you see she's a fuckin' special exception."

Blake raised both eyebrows and pursed her lips, almost rolling her eyes at how predictable Negan was being right now. Not that she minded too much of course.

"But god-fuckin'-dammit do I miss the thrill of an asshole like you steppin' out of the damn ranks, strollin' on up, threatenin' me. But, shit, jus' like a guy in line for the bathroom after a bad truck-stop burrito…. if only you could've followed the. fuck. THROUGH!"

Negan's now-furious voice rang out loud and echoing through the clearing, sending a small group of birds that had been nesting in a nearby tree, fleeing into the air with a mass of screeching calls.

The sound reverberated for a second as Negan visibly seethed, his square shoulders raised, and his teeth now bared in a look of utter distaste at the man now squirming desperately on the ground before him.

Blake had to admit, she almost felt a little bad for the guy, probably just in too deep. Wanting to stand up and be strong for his people, wanting to help them. Just like any leader would.

And for a split second Blake had half a mind to step forwards and stop Negan from making his next move.

But what Charles did next, made her stop in her tracks suddenly…

"Please," cried the man on the ground in a sudden weak voice, peering up at Negan fearfully, his eyes now wide and his voice full of desperation. "P-Please. None of this should be on me. This wasn't my idea…."

He turned and pointed a shaking hand suddenly in the direction of Martha and the others.

"...it was theirs! P-Please...i-if you want to punish anyone, it should be them. They came up with this plan. Not me. It's them that's to blame for all this."

And suddenly Blake was taken back to a familiar voice who had spoken a set of eerily similar words, back in that dusty Sanctuary lot all those many, many months ago.

Back then the cowardly David had done just what Charles was doing now, trying to backtrack, trying to blame others for his own doing. Trying to get others hurt, to save his own skin.

Blake's blood boiled at this, her eyes becoming all of sudden black.

"You utter fucking asshole," she spat suddenly, marching forward on her long legs, shoving past Negan and pointing the barrel of the gun to Charles' skull.

The man before her whimpered, holding his hands aloft.

But Blake had had enough.

She looked up to Negan to at her side, her green eyes meeting with his.

"We done here?" she asked simply.

And Negan gave a knowing nod, grimacing and stepping easily back.

"Oh we sure are, Peaches," Negan murmured out, knowing exactly what Blake was about to do.

And the blonde, with eyes full of utter hatred for the man on the ground before her, merely uttered out a low "good" before firing the gun into the man's skull.

The kickback of the gun jolted her shoulder hard, as blood and viscera spurted out of the back of Charles skull tearing it easily apart.

The brown haired man seemed to flounder there for a moment with a vacant expression before collapsing onto his side. Dead.

Everything seemed to fall silent after that, as Blake gave a sniff, lowering the gun and turning to face Negan.

But the dark-haired Saviour was already staring back at her, his gaze a little questioning.

"Reminded me too much of someone I used to know," Blake explained, before pursing her lips.

And Negan immediately seemed to understand, blinking with recognition of just who she could have been talking about.

"Prick had it comin'," he growled. "Both pricks actually."

The blonde woman gave a small sigh, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as Negan leaned into her once more.

"Jus' wanna let you know though," he said in a meaningful voice. "Your ass looked fuckin' incredible when you were blowin' a hole through ol' Charlie-boy's dome back there."

Blake raise a single slender eyebrow upwards, leaning back on her hip and eyeing him.

"You only saying that because you still think you're gonna get that blow job?" she asked, tutting.

But Negan merely flashed her a grin.

"And am I?"

But Blake merely pursed her lips, smirking and turned away from him, leaving him without an answer.

She strolled easily over to Martha now, knowing Negan's eyes were following her as she went, her face becoming serious now as she stared into the eyes of the other woman.

Martha looked back at Blake nervously but held her gaze.

"How much supplies do you have?" the blonde asked in a gentle voice. Probably far more soft than Martha and the others probably expected after what had happened to Charles.

Martha glanced at the young guy at her side momentarily before turning back to Blake, here eyes flicking over to Negan over Blake's shoulder for a second as she did so.

"We have a little water, probably a couple of days worth, and some cans of food, but not much…" she started in a nervous sounding voice. "...that's why Charles...I-I….we're so sorry...we never meant for anything like this to-"

"Its fine," Blake said with a small shake of her head, her eyes earnest.

None of this, or what Charles had done, was these people's fault.

From this angle staring right at them all, even in the dim evening light Blake could see how gaunt and scrawny these people were, probably surviving off next to nothing for weeks on end.

Blake worried at her bottom lip with her teeth for a short second before she looked over her shoulder back at Negan who was pacing slowly over towards her, barbed wire-covered bat brought up onto his shoulder..

Her eyes met with his and she knew that he understood exactly what she was thinking.

That's why they made a good team. Why they always had been...

For Negan could read her like a book. And vice versa.

And the dark-haired Saviour made no move to argue with her now, merely coming to stop just a foot or two behind her, letting her do what she need to do,

Blake took a breath of air through her nose turning back around slowly, staring once again at Martha, parting her lips.

"How many are you?" she asked in a quiet voice.

Martha blinked rapidly as though she had not quite been expecting this question.

"I...uh...there's twelve of us here," she replied with a stammer. "Plus we have two young kids and their mom just behind that tree line over there."

Blake waited as Martha turned and nodded to a man just over her shoulder who yelled out one of the trio's names. Causing them to appear from the tree-line a little further up the road a second later, all clutching each other's hands and approaching the group.

Blake paused for a moment, looking from the group, to the space at the back of their large pick-up truck then back over to Negan, pursing her lips into a thin line.

"You think we can get them all back to the Sanctuary in that thing?" she asked in a tired voice.

And Negan, rocking back on his heels, pulled a face and surveyed the truck to his right.

"Well we can give it a good fuckin' try, Darlin'..." he mused, looking back at her, his lips curving up into an arrogant grin.

"...I mean, they don' call us the Saviours for nothin'."

Masterlist can be found on my profile page. 

[thedancingsoldier]

My Top Song for The Second Half of 2019

⚠️Warning Long Post⚠️

Sam Smith: How Do You Sleep?= Lies, LIES. Lying out your teeth. The question is how do you sleep when you lie to me? This song is addictive to me. Sam Smith speaks in this song wondering how does this person sleep with all the lies that he’s been told? Sam Smith regrets staying in the relationship with this person as long as he did because he also couldn’t stay away from this person. But now he realizes he has to leave and he hopes that the love that he left, keeps this person up at night. Because he’s done. It doesn’t help that the beat is infectious and Sam Smiths voice just floats. I literally just melt into this song, and I lose myself.

Charlie Puth: I Warned Myself= This song sounds like a hook-up that went terribly wrong. In this song Charlie Puth explains how he met this person who was in a relationship with somebody else oversees. Charlie actually liked this person, so with him being skeptical, he went along with the shenanigans anyway. Later this person threatened to kill him, if he told anybody about what they did together. With that being said, Charlie regrets going about the whole thing, and blames himself and this person for messing with his heart.

Keiynan Lonsdale: Rainbow Dragon= This song is a mix of everything, but it is ultimately a message of excelling for yourself, excelling for the world, getting back up from when you fell, and changing this world for the better. Keiynan delivers some shade to the politicians as well, which is always great. One line stuck out to me, “if I can slay, you can slay too b***h.” It’s simple but powerful in its own way.

Rat City: Deliriously Good= This song is a basic admiration for a girl that Rat City finds “deliriously good”. This song makes me smile every time I listen to it, or hear it in the distance even when the volume is too low for anyone else to hear it. The beat is so disco, so retro with that modern electronic dance flavor attached to it. I can’t get enough of this song. It’s doesn’t help that Rat City made a trilogy of videos not to match the lyrics of the songs but as a story with the songs just being background music. It’s good background music though. And good marketing and good production. So kudos to Rat City for that.

Jax Jones, Martin Solveig, Madison Beer & Europa: All Day All Night - Jax Jones & Martin Solveig Presents Europa= This song speaks about another toxic relationship. The singer Madison Beer speaks of getting no sleep because of this person she can’t stop thinking about, and that she fell in love with and that she’s tired of it. This person just left her out of the blue, and never came back. Jax Jones, Martin Solveig and Europa collaborated on this song, and they did it beautifully. It’s perfectly electronic dance music, with some tropical house influence. It’s perfect.

Camila Cabello: Shameless= This song can be interpreted in so many different ways. One way I interpreted this song was, it’s one person expressing their love for the other person. Going all out with it. The other side thanks to @camrencabregui on the comment section of genius.com. They see it as a lgbt relationship. Being all out with their love and shouting it from the rooftops, not caring what anyone thinks. Either way it’s needing someone more than you want them. It’s loving someone shamelessly and with pure love in your heart.

Bebe Rexha: You Can’t Stop The Girl (From Disney’s “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”)= Side note, I’m so glad Bebe Rexha released this song. It reminds me of her earlier songs that she came out with. And the message is as powerful as ever. It’s so Disney and that’s what makes it great and so influential. It’s breaking that glass ceiling, that still not totally broken. It’s accomplishing your dreams, and not letting anyone stop you.

Charlie Puth: Cheating On You= With this song, Charlie Puth states, on the album cover for this single, “This song is not about a person, it’s about a feeling I’ve never had.” I love that he puts that out there. It’s a song anyone relate to. It’s about both parties of a relationship leaving each other. But, one person is still attached to the other. Even, when this person meets a different person, it doesn’t feel right. This person hasn’t moved on enough to feel love for another person, other than the person they fell in love with in the first place. This song is a masterpiece.

Zedd: Good Thing (with Kehlani)= This song is an introverts theme song. Honestly it is. It basically states that the alone time this person has is already serene and perfect. To broaden this persons horizons the other view that someone else shows them, has to be better than this persons world. And according to this person, everything, and everybody else has yet to excel against that.

Yuna: Forevermore= The Malaysian artist that broadened my horizons on music. Somehow, they managed to fuse Malaysian influences with modern influences and subtle funk influences as well. It’s truly spectacular. The song talks about reaching for the stars. Finding that strength and sticking with it no matter how scared you are or how scary it gets.

Labrinth & Zendaya: All For Us - from the HBO Original Series “Euphoria”= This song is based off of the show on HBO called Euphoria starring Zendaya and Storm Reid. It’s a also a remix from the original that’s on Labrinth’s 2019 album “Imagination & The Misfit Kid”. In the show (From Genius.com), the main character of the show is Rue (Zendaya), a 17-year-old recovering drug addict struggling to find her place in the world. While her father was in the hospital, she began taking his medication. To cope with his death, she started to abuse drugs and ultimately became an addict, realizing she can’t find happiness or love without the drugs. The song takes cues from a bunch of sources, from the subtle trap beat in the background, to the choir that slowly builds and barges in at the “climax” of the song. It’s a really great song.

Emeli Sandé: Honest= This song attacked me in a good way. And it kept attacking me. And it will probably attack you too. To be honest. It simply states, “stop acting as if you can’t be honest to yourself”. Live in the present. Dont live in the past so much that you forget what is happening now in the present. Emeli Sandé did what? THAT. Honestly explaining this song does not do it justice. You’ll have to listen to this song to get it. And once you’ve done that, listen to it again, and again.

Selena Gomez: Look At Her Now= Rising from the ashes. Being in a relationship that was bad for you, and coming out of it learning about yourself more and growing from that negative experience. That is what this song is talking about. Self-preservation & resilience. On top of a beat that’s infectious. And a voice that’s soothing to the ears.

James Arthur: Quite Miss Home= You know how some songs make you want to cry? This song did that. It’s about being away from those you love. Missing them while your away. It’s really self-explanatory. But it’s a beautiful song. My side of the story is too long to tell, but this song’s chorus basically covers that.

Panic! At The Disco: Into The Unknown - from “Frozen 2”= To get this song you will have to watch or go see Disney’s Frozen 2. But I will tell you this song is the ultimate challenge song if you want to try to hit any notes that seem impossible to hit. Brendon Urie goes higher than I’ve ever heard him. I’m pretty sure his fans have heard him hit these notes, but not me. It’s incredible.

Billie Eilish: everything i wanted= This one is about a dream that Billie had. According to Billie, in the dream she committed suicide and no one cared and everyone came out and said that they didn’t like her anyway. I love that this song about a dream she had. It’s different than anything I’ve heard this year. And the melody is so perfectly blended together with the vocals. It’s captivating, honestly. Billie also molds together her relationship with her brother and how close they are in this song. And how they have each others backs no matter what happens. Billie and her brother wrote this song. Another reason why i love this song.

Taylor Swift: Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince= After finally listening to Taylor Swift’s newest album, I found a couple of gems that I come back to jam to or meditate to. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince is one of them that caught my attention. According to Taylor, “this song is about our disillusionment with our crazy world of politics and inequality, set in a metaphorical high school.” On the surface it’s about, finding someone who sees who you really are through all the noise that everyone else is spouting about you. I felt it was a very compelling and complex story to write. That’s why I love this song. I love a song that takes me a while to decipher. It makes me think. I love that!

Taylor Swift: Daylight= Chills. I get true chills when I listen to this song. Another song that I get lost in, and another song that caught my attention from Taylor’s album, because of how the melody and the lyrics and the meaning sucks me in. It’s the last song on her album “Lover”. And she did it so right. With this song it’s like she sees, like the title implies, daylight. Reading the lyrics of the song, it’s Taylor talking about herself, but also it can be a message to everyone else. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for your past mistakes, for past situations that may not have ended in the way you wanted or envisioned them to end. Look at the bright side, and see that you can grow from that, and from that, rebuild a better you.

Labrinth: Something’s Got To Give= Normally, when I hear a remix of a song. I tend to go with the remix rather than the original. But this song, I went with both. Because the beat got me, the message got me, and Labrinths masterful mixing and production got me as well. I love a song that, beat-wise, can take me on a rollercoaster. I love a song even better when there’s a great message tied to it. Labrinths talks of when going on faith and the going gets tough, you’ve got to give a little more. Going for your dreams and never giving up no matter how hard it gets. It’s bass heavy, it’s message heavy. It’s everything I hoped for in a song. And it’s something I think almost everyone will love as well.

[margarittet]

Scoobies and Djinns and Dean, oh my!

So all that talk about djinns and Cas made me think about the other times we had djinn on the show, especially 2x20 “What is and What Should Never Be” and 8x20, “Pac-Man Fever”. These two times we see the fake realities the djinn creates to trap Dean and Charlie respectively, and on the meta level these realities showed us (and the characters) a glimpse under the surface of what was going on inside their minds - mainly Dean. The first dream was Dean centered, and the other one was Dean centered by proxy. Both times Dean is faced with realization: to keep moving on with his life, he needs to let go of something (in 2x20 he needs to let go of his idea of the perfect family life where everyone is normal, happy and successful - everyone but him; in 9x20 he needs to let go of his need to protect Sam). 

Both times he decides to let it go, and by doing that he manages to break out of the dream, and get back to the reality. 

 Dude, I hear you. And yet...

Well, it is, isn’t it? It is not exactly a djinn dream, but it seems like all of the situations have A LOT in common.

This Scooby Doo episode is a CONSTRUCT, and it is tailor-made for Dean.

Why do I think so? First of all, the shoutouts to djinns and Gabriel (and a callback to the “bigger mouth” joke from “Changing Channels”), both of whom created their fake realities in ways that fit the boys personally. Gabriel adjusted the real-life television programs so that they go smoothly with the boys’ story and the djinn dream in “What Is and What Should Never Be” is made based on Dean’s dreams and insecurities. For me, the whole Scooby Doo story inside the story is more a thing shaped by Dean’s subconsciousness (or at least we should see it like that) that Sam and Cas got sucked into as guest visitors. It’s almost like being dragged into somebody else’s dream.

Do you remember when Dean hitched a ride into Charlie’s subconsciousness in “Pac-Man Fever”? He woke up in the computer game she often dreamt about, dressed as an army doctor, in full hospital uniform and heavily decorated. Why? Because that’s how Charlie saw him - as a skilled, dependable fighter, but also a guy who’s main job in life was to help people in need. Dean was still himself inside, as his whole consciousness was put into that dream, but his outside look and the role he played in her dream was dictated by her subconsciousness. In both cases, both in 2x20 and in 8x20, everyone else besides the self-aware people, were just pawns, fake background characters put there by the subconsciousness of the dreamer (or dreamers, as Charlie asks Dean in 8x20: “Is this my nightmare or yours?”) to make a point. In 2x20 Dean was still Dean, but his role in the dream (a guy with a low-level job, stealing, gambling, having a girlfriend having “low standards” for dating him), and every other person there, was dictated by his subconsciousness.

“Scoobynatural” is not a djinn dream, but the djinn dream rules seem to apply here.

So, why would the ghost kid decide to put an adult man of 39 into a tailor-made cartoon, you ask? Well, because the said man has only been mentioning kid’s stuff every five seconds since he stepped on screen in this episode: Moosylvania (the fictional country from “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle“, the original moose and squirrel show), Barney, Bat Cave/Fortress of Solitude (comic book/superhero references) , and “Frozen”. Except the moment he enthusiastically starts humming “Sunrise” from Richard Strauss’ “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, these are Dean’s only cultural references in the episode before the boys get sucked into the 2D-land.  

So, if this assumption is right, what does Dean’s subconsciousness tell us here? Let’s look how his psyche shaped the characters’ and their roles in the Scoobyland.

First of all, it puts them in “A Night of Fright is No Delight”, the episode that includes a character of Colonel Sanders (Asmodeus, anyone?).

Daphne is hotter and sexier than we remembered, which is completely understandable since Dean was watching Scooby Doo as a kid, and even the regular Daphne was probably considered crazy hot by the tween Dean. It’s understandable that his subconsciousness would make her much more adult-looking than she actually was on screen, in the same way our older siblings always seemed taller and more mature than they really were at the time.

Fred - the one guy who is everything Dean had always so desperately wanted to be. Cool, good-looking, optimistic, well-dressed, STRAIGHT, with groovy tunes and a fast car. Big, beautiful and dumb, the one who always runs head-first into the dangerous situation, no matter the consequence. His elaborate plans never work, but he still succeeds. In Dean’s mind Fred wins at life - he wins the car race, he gets the girl, he is the self-assured leader of the group. Dean wants to be him, but Dean also wants to be WITH him (but that’s a topic for another time).

Velma, Scooby and Shaggy are pretty regular, but the costruct has special roles for them - to be paired with just the right people.

Velma is infatuated with Sam from the very beginning, and Cas (the talking dog) is paired with Shaggy and Scooby right away - and please notice how it’s Scooby characters who approach them when the group splits, not the other way round; Sam doesn’t choose Velma - Velma just slides to Sam’s side, and in the same way Scooby and Shaggy are the only ones who even acknowledge that Cas exists). (Similarly, please notice how Daphne doesn’t seem to approach anyone from the TFW herself, and Fred magnetically approaches Dean every single time Daphne doesn’t seem to have any interest in him).

The Scooby characters are painfully two dimentional (no pun intended), and only seem to play their expected parts in this weird fanfiction (except for the moment when they get their nervous breakdown due the the fact that Dean stops performing, and starts being real about ghosts - and that’s also the time where the characters fall out of their expected roles). 

Three other elements get sucked into the Scoobyland alongside Dean - Sam, Cas and Baby. The three most important things in Dean’s life. The Impala looks sexy. Cas looks REALLY sexy. Cartoon Sam has a permanent bitchface looking at Dean. (This also calls back to 2x20, where Sam didn’t actually like Dean in his dream construct. Like, AT ALL.) As I said, some people in the construct are themselves and self-aware, but their outside visuals seem to be dictated by the dreamer/central person. 

You are telling me it’s not Dean’s subconsciousness speaking to us here?

As I said, Sam looks pretty much like regular Sam, but he is the only one who gets the attention of the girl who Dean most probably thinks the best suited for him: the smart, bookish one. Because that’s how Dean sees Sam: as the one who deserves attention, who is the smart one, the brains of the operation, who should get the kiss and the happy ending. In season 8, Dean says it in text (in a Dabb episode, no less, “Trial and Error”), that Sam should survive, should get a normal life, a wife and a way out. And where Dean failed to get interest of either Fred or Daphne - because even when he lets himself admit he actually does like Fred as well, his subconsciousness blocks his chances with either of them because he still doesn’t think he is good enough to be wanted by anyone (oh, Dean). (In the same way he questions why a cute, smart, and mature girl is dating him in the dream in 2x20, hearing that she she only does it because has low standards.) Daphne ignores him. Fred compliments him, but in the end leaves him as well, and goes off together with Daphne. 

Cas, as mentioned, looks devastatingly handsome (much more than usually, great job there Dean’s subconsciousness), and Dean can’t stop smiling when he shows up in the Scoobyland. 

It was the last missing piece of his perfect dream adventure. In Dean’s mind Cas is the talking dog of their group, and sure enough, from the moment he arrives he gets automatically approached and claimed by Scooby and Shaggy, bonding with them and showing his Superman side before the end of the case. Cas is not happy to be in the cartoon though, and here comes the ironic part of episode, and he whole season as well: by performing violently while chasing his unattainable goal of seducing Daphne, and at the same time seaching for approval from Fred, Dean alienated the one person who actually matters, who doesn’t care about the performance at all, who thinks the ghost’s costume is ridiculous. Not unlike in 13x06, Cas sees Dean really happy for reasons he is not a part of (or thinks he is not a part of because Dean is a coward), and fails to understand that in the end nothing else matters to Dean beside Cas (and his and only his attention and approval)(also, Dean ends the episode with losing exactly this).

Dean enjoys the Scoobyland, but he quickly learns that a) it’s not real life (obviously), and b) it doesn’t serve as his safe haven anymore.

Whatever makes Dean happy in the Scoobyland is just a childhood fantasy that he tries desperately to hold on to because otherwise he’d have to face the reality of who he really is, and the life he leads. In the end though he understands letting go (like Elsa, like the djinn dreams) is the way to go - he admits that ghosts are real, shattering the naivity and the innocence of the Scooby gang in the process, and he admits that Fred is not so bad after all, that he is not an enemy but an ally (or maybe even something more - the yang to Daphne’s yin, the metaphor for uniting the feminine and the masculine aspects in his life and his sexuality). And even though eventually TFW helps Velma and the gang to bounce back to their regular, pure selves, Dean is not backtracking after this - no, he comes back to the real world and follows through with the promise of liberating the ghost boy aka his own spirit of childhood while literally hammering the point home by smashing the tv and the Scoobyland to pieces.

This is only possible because Dean was ready to let it all go already. This was his last hurrah, his last bucket of cold water that he needed to realize that he has moved on from that childhood ideal of masculine men and hot girls, that he can admit he likes the stuff (and people) he likes without feeling ashamed, and that Fred actually is a kind of a douche and nothing much to aspire to (but he still likes him). That if he wants to like Elsa and wear ascots, he will just like Elsa and wear ascots. That being smart pays off because you find secret passages, that Freds plans never work while his own do, that being honest and sincere is always the right way to go.

In the end he admits it would never have worked out with Daphne anyway (don’t we all know it!)

Even during the story, everytime he turns away from chasing after Daphne, he turns back to Dean we know and love: the hug monster in his purple nightgown; the smart guy finding clues in the library; an excellent pep-talker; the competent hunter; the person who helps the ghost of the young boy find his peace.

Source

[vomiting-out-words]

Boyfriend’s Background Commentary - The Twilight Saga Part Uno

Movie: Twilight

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Cinematography: Elliot Davis

Budget: 37 million USD

Release Date: November 21, 2008 (Canada)

Watched: August 21st, 2018

Boyfriend: @shiftaria

Part Uno - Part Dos - Part Tres - Part Cuatro - Part Cinco

With very little convincing, I managed to get my boyfriend to watch Twilight, about 10 years later. After all, he’s never read the books or really seen the movies, so, I thought it was about time. Having read and watched the sage myself over the years, I have this entire series implanted in my head, since I am that lame, so, to watch this with someone with fresh eyes is about to be very interesting.

Now this is the first movie, and like these movies, they try to start off like the book, and it’s pretty cool like the visual was welcoming, yet, the lighting was rather bright. With the brightness being as such, it makes this seem like such a fantasy world when it’s really just a teen romance.

Just a heads up, we’ve attempted watching this a while back and never finished. This is attempt number two.

Anyways, we get introduced to Bella Swan, who is off to live with her father that is pretty on the other side of the country, because she doesn’t want to travel around with her mother and Phil; Bella’s mother’s new husband. So, off to one of the rainiest places in the world. Which can totally be relatable, because so do Shifter and myself live literally in one of the rainiest parts of the world, literally twelve hours away from Forks. 

We know a total of four characters, two of which don’t even make any kind of impact to the plot. Now, we are introduced to two more; Jacob Black; who made mud pies with Bella when they were little, and Jacob’s father; Billy Black, Charlie Swan’s best friend. We are then introduced to Bella’s lovely truck that can take a beating, which was rebuilt by Jacob. Bella does the lovely thing by hitting Jacob with the door as thank you.

First day at a new school, where all the guys just want to fuck her. Making friends with Mike, Jessica, Eric, and Angela, though Angela would be the only one that could even be called a friend, then besides Jacob (at least at the moment).

PA Announcement from Shifter: lots of three point mid-length shots, ei: a longer shot that has three different framings with two cameras moved that are transitioned between on an action beat.

This moment now is to lunch, where the Cullen’s are introduced. All of which come walking in white, then he comes Edward; dressed in black. I agree with Shifter that this was very in your face visual metaphor about Edward being the black sheep of the Cullen family. Also, another point that Shifter had pointed out, they don’t focus on it either. Like movies are either blunt about the metaphor or more in the person’s face, this movie is kind of pulling a middle ground, which is apparently throwing Shifter kind of off. Now for me, Edward just makes the scene awkward with staring, borderline glaring.

Back to class, which I now think is Biology. And shoot to Edward with wings behind his head, that once again is a shot at a metaphor. Back to Bella, who is standing in front of a fan, blowing her wonderful scent towards Edward. Jump to Edward very much overreacting. Now, this is where my wonderful boyfriend comments on their acting. This short story of it all is high school students putting on a play with a poorly written script, so their acting is either stiff or overacting.

We now get Buttcrack Santa and Bella getting really awkward with people because she hasn’t really been to Forks in a really long time. Now, I mentioned really shitty lighting with this movie. Thanks to Shifter he made a really good point. The scenes are really graded blue to give the feeling that it was at the risk of raining at any point. Like it’s fitting for the movie but the only issue was, it made the movie too fantasy-like.

Nice Edward, he apologizes for not talking to her when she sat next to him when she first arrived. It’s all way too strange, to begin with. He tries to be nice, only, Bella almost gets killed later that day, risking Edward and his family to be found out just because he went to save her. Back to being old and mean Edward. At least Alice tried to be nice to her. These scenes are just Edward mood whiplash. And she tries to invite him down to La Push as well, to be nice. Bella gets teased, and finds about the ‘Cold Ones’. Now we’re watching a Canadian History documentary, not that it wasn’t appreciated.

If Dr.Cullen might be a matchmaker, but Bella is a good friend and matchmaker herself for her friends. And she goes out of her way to do some serious research on something that shouldn’t be real, yet it’s very much is. Which leads to a very interesting way that might as well equal to coming out. But it was a rather good exchange.

Shifter finds that entire scene good, mainly because of the information dump that was given to him. Like the vampire camouflage, and the white, diamond skin. He was watching the movie with interest. Bella was asking questions, which was really good. The only line that made us cringe, was about Bella being Edward’s own brand of heroin.

Now with the movie slowing down a bit, Bella actually went out of her way for the Cullen’s to not worry about her. She gets a look into Edward’s life, through a music video with a beautiful piano, which goes to Charlie meeting Edward.

Que Charlie’s badass acting skills, especially with a shotgun. Very threatening, and very clever. Edward being very polite and say your daughter is going off the play baseball. Now, if Edward only had told us what Charlie was thinking at that moment.

Baseball! In a thunderstorm! For what reason!? To hide them making a loud boom when the ball hits the bat. Kind of surprised that nothing broke while they were playing since super strength is a thing. Like this scene was another music video, just a bit more fun than it was previously with the piano music. Really shows the family, but it’s a subplot that comes out of nowhere, yet this was pulled from the book since it’s the way to introduce our first three baddies of the series.

Thank god for Alice’s vision because they could have gotten Bella killed. Now, this is where I kind of get salty. They totally had time to get Bella out of there, just put her in the jeep and go, it would have saved like the last 30 minutes of the movie from being a fucking mess of unnecessary drama and Bella wouldn’t have to be mean to Charlie just to keep him safe.

Off to Arizona, Bella goes with Jasper and Alice, kind of putting Bella’s mom at risk. Why are they coming into a hotel during the day in Arizona? No clue, but let’s hope they don’t get found out. Just chill in a room with two vampires until your vampire boyfriend calls to let you know that you both need to disappear for a while. Now, to maybe an hour later, another phone call, but not any phone call, mom is worried about you, only to be a trap. Also, I’m honestly not surprised that Victoria got Bella’s information for James. They’re vampires, pretty easy to figure out a way to hack into a computer or something.

We all know that Bella is a complete idiot, so, she just goes alone, leaving no note or anything for the Cullen’s. Back to her old ballet studio, with glass everywhere, doesn’t that scream very bad things are about to happen. Oh, and smart on James for using a recording to bring Bella to him. Yet, dumb on Bella to use pepper spray, like what is that to do on a vampire?

Bella gets thrown across the floor, head bashing into a corner, and yes, she starts bleeding. Bring in sadistic James, who has a video camera, filming all of this, along with whatever thought told him to break Bella’s leg at that moment. Oh where, oh where is Edward? Oh, he finally arrived, but alone, and Bella is very much hurt. How hasn’t she passed out from her leg being broken is beyond me. Edward tried to get them away, but James has Edward back into a fight. James has the upper hand, Edward is too frantic with concern over Bella and the fact that her scent is filling the air due to the blood, giving James the chance to bite her.

Back to music video mode with inner monologue, and probably a seizure warning. Like I mentioned before, this entire part could have not happened if Edward and Bella just left the field, but whatever. Finally, after all of that, we get Bella frantic in a hospital room due to Edward saying that they shouldn’t be together. Kind of disappointed that we didn’t get to see Bella apologize to Charlie about all of this, it would have been nice to see since Charlie is kind of a huge part of the series, more so than Bella’s mom (I honestly can’t remember her name and way too lazy to even google it).

Father judging Edward scene, it’s very obvious that Charlie doesn’t trust Edward that much anymore for getting his daughter hurt and “hurting” her. But Bella is in a very beautiful dress, even if she’s in a cast. With words from Shifter, I would have to agree they dragged out the ending here a little much, but my main issue was why didn’t they have this nice lighting for the entire movie? It was soft and much more realistic in my opinion.

All in all, it was a good start to this review. Hopefully, I can get the next one out as soon as possible, because I can see this taking off somewhere.

[aion-rsa]

Lucifer Season 5 Episode 11 Review: Resting Devil Face

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This Lucifer review contains spoilers.

Lucifer Season 5 Episode 11

“Don’t mysterious ways me; you just exploded a man.”

Grammar faux pas aside, Joan Osborne’s 1995 release raises a philosophical question that to this point has gleaned no satisfactory answer – “What if God was one of us?” I’m not sure we’ve gained much meaningful insight to this question, but Lucifer has a lot of fun exploring that scenario while at the same time addressing much of the pain with which so many of the characters continue to struggle. “Resting Devil Face” takes a multi-layered approach to examine the  emotional cost inherent in most parent/child relationships even when God happens to be your dad.

Though the primary relationship schism exists between Lucifer and his Father, a significant amount of soul searching takes place in “Resting Devil Face.” There always seems to be that one heart rending moment that sets Lucifer apart from the standard, episodic fantasy fare, and here, it’s the exchange that takes place between God and Mazikeen after she fails to carry through her attempt to murder Him. Maze sees herself as the other, and finds God’s declaration that she’s perfect as is, to be nothing more than a denial of what she sees as her truth. She desperately states that “a demon can’t grow a soul,” which is at the core of her self-loathing, but God’s response is both beautifully brief and spiritually awakening. “Can’t she?” And it’s at that moment the audience and Mazikeen recognize she had it in her the entire time, and her decision to not kill God provides enough proof to send her on a path toward psychological healing.

Those believers who insist on a strictly literal biblical interpretation may find fault with the narrative approach of making God appear fallible, but in doing so, they’d be missing the point of this unique allegorical approach. First of all, God makes the decision to hide His powers in baby Charlie’s rattle so that He can experience what it means to really be human, and to a certain extent what it means to be a celestial on Earth. Most importantly it gives him insight into Lucifer’s angst, and to a lesser extent that of Amenadiel’s as well. From the hilarious opening scene in which the brothers plan to confront their father about his need to return home, it’s clear the writers are at the top of their game. They find him at Lux in plumber’s attire attempting to fix a problem that may or may not actually exist, but it’s unclear whether Lucifer’s insistence he rest is because he’s having memory issues or because he wants to get him back in Heaven as quickly as possible. “It must be the seventh day somewhere,” Lucifer posits, making a witty, universal allusion that partiers everywhere understand.

The fun doesn’t end at Lux, however, Dear Old Dad shows up at the crime scene which features the murder of former boxing champion Albert “Almighty” Walcott, and a frustrated Chloe even asks God for the identity of the killer. “For once I don’t know,” he tells her, and it’s clear even he’s pleased with himself. Back at the precinct God experiences one of life’s inconsistencies when he encounters “brain freeze” while enjoying a tasty frozen treat. But it’s His inexperience at the undercover sting operation that nearly brings about the 1960’s anthem “God is Dead” as he blurts out the fact that Lucifer works for the police. Of course, the surprise here occurs when The Colonel punches God in the face prompting Lucifer to come to his Father’s aid. “No one lays hands on my Father,” he declares to more than just the drug dealers.

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Has Lucifer reached a turning point in the quest to make peace with his Dad? He may not realize it, but it’s sure become clear to us. Back at the penthouse, Trixie’s unexpected appearance sets the stage for the lovely scene she has with Lucifer’s father at the train station. The two adorably sit and eat the sandwiches she’s packed while discussing what it is that’s really at play here. She admits she’s mad at Lucifer for leaving (his trip to “Florida” aka Hell) but it’s her mother’s sadness that strikes a nerve. The scene’s complexity expands when an eavesdropping Maze stands down from her plot to kill God. Is it God’s admission to Trixie that he’s made mistakes with Lucifer or the fading innocence of the young girl with whom she’s always been able to connect that stops Maze in her tracks?

Nevertheless, at the heart of “Resting Devil Face” is the acknowledgement that others can only know how we feel if we tell them, and while God may be omniscient, even He may have trouble getting inside the heads of His children. Naturally, Lucifer extends that metaphor to include the human members of Team Lucifer, and the hope here is that Chloe and Lucifer will be able to overcome the obstacles that presently keep them emotionally distant. All of this crystallizes in the tender moment between mother and daughter as Chloe recognizes her baby girl is growing more quickly than she realized. “I can tell you’re sad, mom,” Trixie admits, leading Chloe to acknowledge she needs to open up to Lucifer about her real feelings. I’m fairly certain she’s already done this, but perhaps she plans a new point of attack.

And in a series of narrative bombshells, God’s announcement that he plans to retire opens a wealth of narrative possibilities. Okay, but what exactly does that even mean? God’s been dropping hints since he turned up on Earth, and the memory issues he confesses to, seem to imply that His intellectual capacities have become compromised. Is that even possible? I mean, he’s the Supreme Being. Is this new development intended to be a metaphoric slap at a world that continues to abandon a belief in a higher power?  Is God giving up? Seems unlikely.

So what’s going on here? From a storytelling standpoint, could it be that God plans to simply step aside and name a successor who will continue the work he’s done since the beginning of time? And if so, who does he have in mind? Of course, the delicious irony that Lucifer follows in his Father’s footsteps leaps to the forefront, but it also seems unlikely that Amenadiel would agree to the wisdom of such a move. On the surface these developments may seem to be a commentary on the fragility of man’s relationship with a higher power, and while that may be true, everything Lucifer’s father does while on Earth facilitates the spiritual nourishment each individual craves. Sneaky.

Amidst the celestial family issues that dominate the episode, it’s easy to overlook the importance of Daniel’s struggle with the dark secrets he holds. Though his uncomfortable interactions with Lucifer’s father center around his sexual relationship with Lucifer’s mother aka Charlotte Richards 2.0, we shouldn’t forget the unresolved killing of detective Malcolm Graham back in season one. In a previous episode God casually implies that Dan will be going to Hell, and here, after hearing the detective’s apology for sleeping with God’s wife, the Big Guy’s ultra firm handshake causes Dan to literally explode inside the precinct. God immediately puts him back together, but that’s not the point. Dan’s fears about the afterlife are real, and while God’s interactions with him generally add a bit of levity to an otherwise serious scene, there is truth in jest. 

Despite opinions to the contrary, God is not dead, and He truly does work in mysterious ways, especially on Lucifer. And even if He leaves Earth to his sons, “Resting Devil Face” makes plain that Dear Old Dad’s influence is alive and well and not going anywhere anytime soon. Naturally, we all hope that the Devil and the detective can work their way through this relationship speed bump, but it sure sounds like there may be a job opening in the Silver City.

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Lucifer season 5 is available to stream on Netflix now.

The post Lucifer Season 5 Episode 11 Review: Resting Devil Face appeared first on Den of Geek.

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