#and one half of the couple is a supernatural being. and also. their story itself is profound and great and god-defying

[angelsdean]

i'll be honest, i truly do not understand when people get all up in arms whenever anyone involved with spn describes cas's love for dean as beyond the human understanding of love, as if there haven't been posts made on here for years by fans literally describing cas's love for dean / destiel's love as akin to worship, a powerful force greater than god, cosmic, all encompassing, profound, etc etc. i thought the outrage was silly when jensen expressed the idea of cas's love being more than romantic back in denver con 2021 and i think it's silly now with these bedlund tweets. not to mention being more than and beyond something imo means it encompasses the romantic AND more. it's romantic, it's platonic, it's cosmic, it's worship, it's everything. and i think that's beautiful. and yes, it's exactly what their love is. a huge profound force that changed the narrative, that wasn't meant to be there, that kept breaking through anyway.

and i understand what people are saying about this language being used for a queer ship etc etc, but like, there's nothing inherently wrong or negating their love in saying that it's a greater love. if anything i think it's saying, hey, see these two? yea their love is bigger than what we can even comprehend. idk i'm just going to continue to take these statements in good faith. and also, until the reboot happens, they can't really say more about destiel beyond the bounds of the confession. jensen, bedlund, misha, etc can't speak to dean's feelings, for instance, or confirm anything one way or another, because if those feelings are a major plot point to be explored and acknowledged in the continuation then to speak about them now with any kind of definitive statement would be spoiling / jumping the gun, and it's not their place to make those statements yet, if we are indeed going to see more of dean and cas's story in the future (which i mean, at this point based on their statements about the reboot it's really a When not If situation).

[falconearring]

goood day! hope you're doing splendid

if you have the time, would you mind explaining a bit of the lore of your au so far? I'm very interesting in lot of mechanics of aus, and apart from whatever bits you've dropped about the gang and what they're upto, is there any specifics you'd like to add on as a note? this isn't about spoilers, and if doing so might reveal some then it's completely understandable!

I'm really interested in how your story progresses and if not the above, id love to hear what you think so far about it and what you think of the thoughts of people, like their interpretations if have any! thank you for taking the time for this and its completely fine if you don't want to answer

apologies if I came off as rude or too assuming, and for the rather long ask ahah

thank you again! have a great day or night ahead! take care

Hey thank you so much for dropping this in my inbox!! You taking interest warms my heart!

I'm gonna use this ask as a means to drop these headshots and notes. Below is every person who currently resides at the repurposed logging yard. They call themselves the Hermits. All of these people will appear at least once in the comic, and I'm going to do my best to include these little bits of info within the actual story too!

Other members of traffic/life smp will also appear, they just aren't associated with the group established here. So Scott, Lizzie, Jimmy, Martyn, Bigb, Scar and Grian are going to make an appearance later.

As for the setting, we're 2 years into the apocalypse at this point. There are safe guarded cities, but these places are far away from where the story is taking place. The Hermits have pretty much been living their lives completely isolated from other people as a means of keeping safe.

Weather in this universe can be a bit extreme, as the world faces an imminent climate crisis a few years before the zombies start appearing inexplicably. Space stations were in the midst of being established before the apocalypse, with hopes that humanity could reestablish itself in outer space. When it hit, much of the remaining human race was evacuated from the planet as a last ditch effort. The status of the shuttles that were sent up is unknown. The stations being set up really weren't ready to be inhabited so soon, so its kind of iffy whether or not things are going much better up there.

Early into the apocalypse, helicopters would fly overhead looking for survivors and escort them back to safe zones and launch sites. This stopped not long after though, and whether or not they're going to start looking for survivors again is unknown.

As for the zombies themselves, the 'science' behind them is beyond anyone's understanding. Upon being bitten, the body instantaneously progresses through the stages of decomposition and takes on a sickly kind of bruised look. As far as any one can tell, there is no brain activity beyond this point, but the bodies still move inexplicably. Kind of a night of the living dead situation. Important to note that much like a human, if the heart or brain is destroyed they will die, despite not having a functioning nervous or circulatory system. I'm taking a distinctly supernatural approach to them because I just think it's cool.

I have no clue what year this is set in, but the Hermits are residing in the wilderness somewhere in Canada. I'll touch on pretty much all the above within the comic as well, but I thought there was no harm in sharing anyhow because you asked so nicely!

As for the second half, people have said a couple interesting things. Sadly I can't comment on a lot of it because it dips into spoilers! Somebody said they find it funny that Bdubs is probably freaking out while Etho is just chilling and that's absolutely spot on and made me laugh.

Thanks for such a detailed ask, anon! And thanks for your patience, I had to think about what I wanted to say ^_^ Hopefully this is what you were looking for, hope you have a fantastic day!

[dumbassalex]

Ok, as someone who sorta defended The Crow 2024 reboot, and now that i've seen it, i have thoughts about it and i wanna share them... (More under the cut, spoilers ahead)

So firstly i liked the action, it was clear and you could see what's going on and the gore in those scenes was good, so no real issues with the action scenes. I really dug the soundtrack, the songs they chose to play were good and something i'd listen to.

I also like that Shelly had more screentime and got to be more of a character, that was fun and FKA twigs played her well in my opinion. Bill Skarsgard gave a good performance, as basicly always, with his Eric too.

Now my biggest issues is with the story itself, and especialy the pacing, it was SO slow, we spent like half the movie on Eric and Shelly while watching the villians look for Shelly, while also barely any real time has passed for Eric and Shelly, or at least it didn't feel like much of a time has at all passed between Eric and Shelly running away and being murdered.

And even once the couple gets killed by the villians, it takes us like another third of the movie for Eric to really become the Crow, for most of the movie he's just Eric with healing powers, and only becomes The Crow right before the opera scene, whitch is way too long for something based on a comic that's mostly just Eric being The Crow and hunting Shellys killers.

Another thing i dislike is the villians and their story, the original idea for the villians was just a group of street criminals coming across Eric and Shelly on a random day in the rain as their car broke down and deciding on a whim to do what they did, that was the tragedy, that it was random, senseless and didn't have to happen if a single thing happened differently. And changing it to a group of rich people hunting Shelly specificaly due to an incriminating video is such an odd change, along with the change to give the main villian superpowers.

Another thing that i feel like is a big difference between the comic and the movie is that the movie is very literal and very open about Eric coming from the death, healing super fast and there being supernatural entities and superpowers, while in the comics it was all more lowkey with Eric not feeling pain and healing slower than what the movies show, with his walking around wounded and scarred, the crow talking being in his head, same for the skeleton cowboy and the vision of the white horse that was a metaphor for the conflict of the story, it was a random senseless act that Eric had no control over yet he couldn't leave it be and blames himself for what happened.

In the movie it's a literal thing that happened to child Eric and doesn't set up his character arc and personal conflict of not blaming himself and moving on. Whitch was WHY he came back for revenge, because he was angry, blamed himself and couldn't move on, something he was only able to do at the end when he died at Shellys grave.

Whitch brings another change i disliked, the ending, the original ending of the comics is about Eric finaly being at peace and being able to move on and die, joining Shelly in the afterlife. But in the movie the reason he keeps going on is from pure love (somehow he felt such love after such short time) that can waver and make him loose his powers until making a deal for Shelly soul and becoming The Crow, bringing Shelly back to life while Eric stays dead. That just kinda misses the point, there wasn't no coming back and living again, it was about Eric having to come to peace and move on, it was a bittersweet ending but it was fitting the story and the themes, but just like the white horse methaphor, the movie ignores that.

So all in all, as a movie it's alright, but as a Crow adaptation it's overall kinda awfull in most ways. If you enjoyed the movie, good for you, but i personaly didn't really like it as a Crow adaptation and think it could've been much better. One thing i will give the movie for sure tho, is that it skipped Shellys assault, something i think wasn't entirely neccecary to motivate Eric to do what he did.

[seashoreshell]

To this day my brain is still taken with immense brainrot about the emblem holders, especially Thane (go figure).

Like at the last couple of holders the story had already gotten stale. Emblems were handed out like cookies and everybody adjusted just fine and the big supposed sacrifice mentioned sounded kinda lame in comparison to the awesome new powers but- I keep thinking of how this was with Thane, being the first one to accept it.

Before him, there was no precedent! He had no idea what would happen to him, and neither did Respen really. He had no sense of comfort in that another mortal had paved the way before him and successfully inherited an emblem, because nobody had!! It speaks of the sheer terror and determination that lead him to risk having his body teared apart by the combined forces of all the gales in the world. And that's only skimming the surface of how his choice really and truly affected him. I will go full tinfoil hat below, and while Lilith proooobably didn't think that hard abt this- it's more fun this way.

What I keep coming back to when I think of it is the sheer amount of stress it took on him. Both in body and mind. The text itself says the emblem was "woven into his body", and considering that the emblem is basically the force of nature distilled into a pretty little glowy symbol, I can't imagine said emblem forcibly reconstructing your body to be anything but horrifically painful.

One hc I've had for a while is related to this. Noticed that all the other emblem holders have white hair? True Solise and Baden had white/silver hair before, but Brutus and Belinda had light hair that turned white upon transformation. Thane on the other hand had much darker hair than the rest, and his hair similarly didn't lighten all the way to white. But it *did* lighten significantly. And sure blue isn't exactly a logical step when lightening dark grey/black hair, but fantasy setting fantasy rules (also it looks good but I digress). As I see it, the hair lightening process could be a physical effect of the sheer stress put upon their bodies when transforming, following the same logic that hair can turn white following immense stress and trauma.

Another thing is the mental aspect of all of this. I hc that Solise had the easiest transition of them all, considering she already possessed innate abilities that connected her to the voices and lives of all the greenery in the entire Dark Forest. However in comparison to like, say Thane, whose only mildly supernatural senses were an uncanny ability to pinpoint an enemies' weakpoints, he had to quickly and suddenly adjust to being a mortal avatar of the wind. And depending on how his connection to the element compared to a divine being born from the elements with the sole purpose of being the unbridled force of said elements embodied, that's one hell of a jump from "I have some heightened senses" to "my mind is now all of a sudden barraged with a deep understanding of the element unattainable to mere mortals, and an awareness amplified to the thousands of the largest storms to the smallest gusts of winds near here and across half the damn continent".

Like you can't tell me he didn't have to take a moment after the initial crisis blew over (hah) to try his best to not go clinically insane as he's assaulted by sensory inputs so vastly beyond his previous experience as his senses stretch far far far beyond his own mortal body. There's some real eldricht potential here!!

It's why I disliked the magical girl-esque transformations in the animated shorts, as it missed out on showing just how excruciating such a transformation had the potential to be. And lend more credibility to the idea that accepting such an emblem actually *was* more of a harsh choice than simply "uuuuh you're gonna be chased by these mob npcs that are gonna be where you're intending to go regardless but now you'll have awesome powerups to actually fight them hmm hmmm difficult choice to make".

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #554

Top Ten Movie Trailers

I love movie trailers. They’re so cool. Talking about music videos being short films, here you have a short-form video that has to not only condense the themes and – maybe – plot of a longer film into two and a half minutes, but it also has to be entertaining in its own right. As someone who’s spent about fifteen years making TV promos, a well-cut movie trailer feels like a piece of high art; something to aspire to.

Nowadays there’s a template to these sorts of things, especially for big budget blockbusters. Moody opening shots, often of a location; smatterings of enigmatic dialogue; tension music; leading to fast cuts, action scenes, thrilling music, before coming back down with either a big effects money shot or a funny one-liner. Even within this format you get some great trailers – Marvel in particular has a strong trailer game – but I prefer the ones that think outside the box. Trailers that use their short runtime to tell a story in some way, to evoke emotions. Sometimes this is via bespoke footage made just for the trailer – we’ve got a couple of these in the list – and sometimes it’s using the film itself.

Music, too, plays a huge role in a good trailer. There are a couple of examples here, too, where the track is just really well-cut, with visuals to match; it almost turns the trailer into something approaching a music video. Sometimes these songs are really well chosen, matching the visuals with the lyrics so expertly as to make you think they could almost be written for this film. Which, interestingly enough, brings us to another point: great trailers for crap films.

Maybe that’s a bit harsh, but there are trailers here for films which I must say I don’t love. Interestingly enough, I feel like Zack Snyder films make terrific trailers, even if I’m often not too enamoured with the final product when it hits cinemas. But that’s not really the point: we’re not judging the films here, literally all I’m talking about is the trailers themselves. How cool they are, how exciting, how they make me feel – and, yes, whether or not they make the film they’re supposed to be advertising look good or not. Because in a way, a terrific trailer for a terrible film is almost the highest form of compliment: a trailer so good it assembles sub-par material in such a way as to make it seem really, really cool. And hopefully we can all agree that these ten trailers are really, really cool.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999): watching it back now it’s like a museum piece. An almost-archaic use of footage, dialogue, and music – with Star Wars dissolves and wipes, in the promo – but as a tool for building excitement, nothing could be greater. This was a return to a beloved galaxy, and whilst nowadays we’re totally disillusioned by everything far, far away, back then it was hugely anticipated. Seeing stuff we’d just never seen – CGI cities, impossible aliens, elaborate lightsaber fights – was gobsmacking. People can criticise the film all they want, but as an artfully-constructed promo, with its expertly chosen shots and sounds, the trailer is a masterpiece.

Cloverfield (2008): I had my issues with the final film of Cloverfield, but maybe they were all because no film could ever really live up to this incredible first impression. Unlike Phantom, which was eagerly anticipated to the point of mania, this just emerged out of nowhere: an enigmatic title, an unknown film, starring and directed by unknowns, but with uber-producer JJ Abrams somehow attached. And in its brief runtime it perfectly sketches a scene, home video footage of a party segueing into unease, tension, fear and then terror. Coming so soon after 9/11 the grainy imagery of explosions in New York carried greater resonance, and only as the atmosphere amps up do we realise something unearthly or supernatural is going on. And as money shots go, the head of the Statue of Liberty being flung down a street is right up there.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991): in the annals of “specially-shot promo footage” this has to rank as the greatest of all. A series of industrial close-ups show the construction of an actual Terminator, something that filled baby nerds like myself with all kinds of lore-building delight. The use of sound design, lighting, and – of course – the fantastic Terminator theme helps build both tension and excitement, until we’re finally face to face with a naked Arnold. Funnily enough, I think the first time I saw this was as a chunky lo-res intro to the Terminator 2 videogame on the Amiga.

Watchmen (2009): another film where I much prefer the trailer to the finished product – weirdly, a very common phenomenon when discussing the films of Zack Snyder! The use of slow motion and frame ramping in the trailer gives the action a sense of gravitas, suitable for such a revered text. But really it’s the music that sells this, the excellent Smashing Pumpkins song The Beginning is the End is the Beginning matching brilliantly – if a bit on-the-nose-dly – with the visuals.

Jurassic Park (1993): here we get to one which, I think, is perhaps a bit less iconic, but had a profound effect on me when I saw it in the cinema in – I guess – 1992. Over shots of a mosquito in amber, a serious voiceover explains in dry tones how dinosaur blood was found in the frozen insects, and scientists have used that to clone dinosaurs. When I first saw this, for the longest time I thought it was true; some kind of documentary or news report or something. Only as it progressed did my innate (even then) knowledge of how promos and movies worked did I begin to suspect this was a film they were talking about; and, of course, it ends with “next summer Steven Spielberg will take you there”. Well, I was already a huge Spielberg fan even back then, so this was just incredible. A subtle, enigmatic, and quietly creepy trailer that totally whetted at least one kid’s appetite thirty years ago.

Spider-Man (2002): although feeling like another bespoke specially-shot featurette, this was footage that was meant to be part of the movie, in the montage of Spidey’s actions. It has gained notoriety in the years since, as it was briefly released to the internet before being banned – for reasons that shall become clear. Because the trailer – which is an excellently-shot bank heist, evoking classics such as Heat, and doesn’t tip its hat at all to the superheroic nature of its target – ends with a helicopter caught in a spider’s web spun between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. This was an excellent trailer, really showing us something that no superhero film had done, and also just damned exciting.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011): in the annals of trailers-basically-just-cut-to-an-existing-music-track, this must be one of the best. The use of Immigrant Song might be a bit first-base for a film set in Scandinavia but the beat is perfect for the staccato cuts of a trailer like this, and the haunting visuals perfectly set up a dark noir story: snowy lanes winding into the distance, disparate scenes of violence, enigmatic faces, wide expanses of landscape… the sense of threat is all-encompassing, yet there’s also an undercurrent of, I dunno, excitement or even humour somehow, because, well, Immigrant Song is a banger. Anyway, it’s great.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995): another one where I think maybe I remember this trailer a lot more than anyone else, it really had an impact on me back in the day. I think the first time I saw it was on a VHS full of movie trailers that came with a special issue of Empire magazine – just in case you didn’t know how old I was. But it utilises the film’s rather shocking opening – a bomb suddenly going off in New York – and then reprises Ode to Joy, echoing the first film, a series of rapid action beats cut to the music. It was just so much damn fun and really exciting.

Independence Day (1996): so perfectly calibrated that it could be a case study for how to ramp up expectation. ID4 was going to be an event, and this trailer cemented it; people went wild. Sure, we get the money shot of the White House exploding and a super-cool badass Will Smith kiss-off line, but the slow-burn ratcheting of the tension – the signal detected, the people gathering, the worried politicians, the shadows stretching over cities – plays like the first half of the film in microcosm. Indeed, you could argue that this trailer distils the very best of the finished film into under three minutes; perhaps it’s even the perfect version of the film. Although you don’t get Brent Spiner.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003): there can be no victory without loss. There’s a particular type of trailer – the Saga’s End, let’s call it – that really breaks out all the stops, and whilst ROTK may have more-or-less pioneered the form (pre-dating Revenge of the Sith and Deathly Hallows), it’s still the master. Slow dissolves, dialogue snippets like “we come to it at last” and “the pieces are in place”, shots ramping up a sense of finality, of danger, of sacrifice. Someone’s crying, someone’s screaming, someone’s giving a heartfelt speech; there’s the promise of spectacle on a scale hitherto unseen in the series, of an event so great there’s no going back. Gondor’s in flames. Legolas scales a Mûmakil. There’s a bloody great spider. I think what really sells this is that this sense of our heroes undergoing great loss in the pursuit of victory is actually an overriding thread in Tolkien’s work; that some wounds never heal, that evil like this cannot be entirely unmade. We know that not quite everyone will emerge the other end, and those that do will be changed. A trailer like this should promise melancholy, and this succeeds and then some.

Would have been nice, at some point in my career, to make an actual proper trailer for an actual proper movie. Ah well. I’ll always have that Pokémon promo I made for CITV using Duel of the Fates as a backing track.

[adamwatchesmovies]

I Still See You (2018)

Released in theaters on October 12, 2018, I Still See You came and went without making an impression. With the teenage protagonists in the middle of a post-catastrophe world, you’ll wonder why at first. The Darkest Minds, The 5th Wave and Divergent all fizzled without their stories concluding but some people were clamouring for them. Could this be a YA-novel adaptation so bad it couldn't even find an audience among 13-year-olds?

In 2010, an explosion at Ashburn Laboratories creates a shockwave that kills hundreds. The deceased come back as non-sentient “remnants” (ghosts) who repeat some of their final moments every day. Ten years later, high school student Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Calder (Bella Thorne) is startled by a new (sexy) ghost (played by Thomas Elms) in her bathroom. Impossibly, this remnant writes “Run” in the steamed mirror before vanishing. Her favourite teacher, Mr. Bittner (Dermot Mulroney), doesn’t believe her but quiet loner Kirk Lane (Richard Harmon) does. Together, they follow the remnant's trail and discover it may be trying to attack her from the grave.

What we’ve got here is one of the most convoluted vehicles for a mystery I’ve ever seen. Let's begin with this world. Everyone drives slowly, not knowing if the old lady crossing the street is actually a human being, or the memory of one. Inside Ronnie’s home, there are always three chairs at the dinner table so her deceased father can appear unimpeded in the morning. I’m certain there are many awkward trips to the washroom where someone with a full bladder opens the door to find a phantom sitting on the toilet. Half of a couple in the middle of having sex is floating in a hotel bedroom. Passengers who died on a flight are zipping through the air high above us, etc. I know we're not supposed to think about that but you can't help it. You expect the film to be about Ronnie and Lane discovering a conspiracy behind the remnants or that perhaps since “Brian” wants to harm her, that all remnants are about to turn on humanity unless the explosion's cause is discovered. You’re way, way off. The remnants are not integral to the story except to explain how Ronnie saw that first ghost, and why she begins a quest for answers.

At 98 minutes, this is a short film, and a significant chunk is spent on information that's ultimately useless. In fact, the role remnants ultimately play in the story proves this never should've been a movie. I can't emphasize how superfluous the ghost thing is in the end but you get stuck on that angle. It's all you care about. We know the remnants are not - as previously stated - forced to simply relive their last moments in the same place as they lived them. Obviously, “Brian” and his sumptuous behind didn’t die in his underwear in Ronnie’s bathroom 10 years ago. This means remants can be anywhere, at any time. They can also be animals and from a time period which precedes the explosion. What the rules are, you don't know - but you want to. Makes you wonder what happens when two of them collide.

What this movie is REALLY about is the mystery. Too bad it's nonsense. It’s impossible for you to figure out what really happened to Brian and how Ronnie ties to him. Once you learn the truth, it’ll leave your head spinning. Hopefully, fast enough for you to stop asking questions - or so director Scott Speer hopes. There are so many seemingly random aspects to the enigma that is Brian. February 29th is an important date, and a crucial clue to what’s happening. Why an explosion-created ghost would care about leap years, I don’t know. It gets crazier as bodies pile up and time starts to run out. You wonder how all of these clues and characters we’ve been introduced to will fit together. Got a theory? I can tell you without hearing it; you're wrong.

I Still See You is ridiculous. Its story derails itself. The film feels like it was re-written to contain a supernatural element. When the ghost thing didn’t sell, they altered the recipe again to draw in fans of the post-apocalyptic YA genre. In the end, there are more misshapen ideas than fully realized ones. It’s so utterly bewildering I think you can have a lot of fun with it as long as you know it’s a bad movie ahead of time. (June 28, 2019)

[sunriseverse]

I'm picking random numbers for that ask thingy: 2 7 10 13 18

hi moth!!! thanks for the ask :)

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

for current wips, i'm most excited about tsl and sitwyltme; they're both fairly plot-centric, so that'll give me a chance to exercise those muscles, and also, tsl is what i've been planning for literally nine months now, and more or less counts as a culmination of all of my ongoing research for the setting, while sitwyltme is personally cathartic. for future projects, i'm working on a fem!tiesanjiao pre-canon fic, which i'm very excited about, half comedy, half sincere exploration of character issues, and i have a fun little tdj concept knocking about my head, where post-explosion, yohan goes into a coma and his spirit anchors itself to gaon, so gaon has to carry out his plans while being pestered accompanied by his boss' spirit, and also occasionally being possessed about it.

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

i think my writing characteristics are 1. being very verbose, and 2. realism. i really enjoy descriptive writing, and i have a hard time writing things not grounded in reality (in the sense of societal reactions/characterisation; i still write scif/supernatural/fantasy-esque settings, which aren't necessarily "realistic"). i personally like this about my writing, but i can fully imagine there's people out there that are ticked off by these tendencies of mine. "verbose" can easily be interpreted as "can't shut the fuck up" and "realism" isn't a far step from being seen as "pessimism".

10. How would you describe your writing process?

there's two processes, which often intertwine. the first is that i come up with a concept while busy with something, and then spend the next one to ten business days vibrating with a Need To Write until i manage to bang out the concept and toss it onto ao3. the other processes is coming up with a concept while talking to a friend, collaboratively losing our minds over it, helping me solidify my thoughts, and then i spend the next one to ten business days vibrating with the Need To Write until i finish it.

13. Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?

yeah my writing is on ao3 under the user OnyxSphinx (it's linked in my bio as well). sometimes i also toss half-finished, lapselock snippets of fics into my writing tag on here, but they're not really worth mentioning.

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

uhhhhhh i'm trying to think. i think the only one i can remember is the gotham longfic i wrote ages ago. originally i had plans for it to be fairly complicated, but 1. i lost the drive to work on it, and 2. somehow i lost (never wrote down???) my notes for what exactly i wanted, so when i went back to it a couple years after i abandoned it to rework it, it wound up pretty different from the concepts that i could still manage to remember.

[the-breath-in-air]

So you're done with Our Flag Means Death, now what...

Whenever I come across a fandom praising a relatively mainstream show/movie for being Peak Gay or the Most Radical Thing Ever, I create a list of other queer media that fans might like. I love Our Flag Means Death, and its certainly doing some unique things. But it's a lovely, unique blend of things found in other media, not something radically new. Hence, this list of series that you might like if you like Our Flag Means Death.

In no particular order:

The Other Two (2019 - present) - The Other Two was marketed as a comedy about the antics of the jealous siblings of a Justin Bieber-like child star. But that's a bit misleading. For one thing, Chase Dreams (the child star) is written to be a genuinely good kid. For another, although it absolutely is a comedy, there's a family tragedy at the heart of the series that really grounds all characters even as they do ridiculous things. And the older siblings aren't really jealous; it's more that they're kind of disasters trying to latch onto Chase's fame to figure out their own lives. The older brother, Carey, is gay and although his character goes through a self-acceptance arc, he doesn't ever have to 'come out,' which is refreshing. The show also satirizes what it's like to be a millennial queer in Hollywood.

Everything's Gonna Be Okay (2020-2021) - Everything's Gonna Be Okay is a series written by Josh Thomas about an autistic gay man who becomes the guardian of his two half-siblings. There are multiple autistic and queer characters portrayed by autistic and queer actors. It's a comedy about dealing with grief as well as being about self-discovery, both for the teenagers and the adults in the story. It's also a story about family supporting each other through difficult challenges.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow (2016 - present) - Legends of Tomorrow is about a group of misfits who "screw up history for the better." It's really a hodge podge of DC characters (and original characters) that don't fit into a superhero series of their own. The cast changes frequently, but there is always at least one queer character on the series (and sometimes quite a few). It's full of a bunch of misfits who cause havoc and then try to fix the chaos they created. There is an episode with pirates, and a running gag about an electronic stuffed animal toy and eventually there are same-gender co-captains. The first season is rough, so maybe read a summary and skip to season 2 if you find yourself falling off it after the first couple episodes.

What We Do In The Shadows (2019 - present) - What We Do In The Shadows has been accused of queerbaiting, and not without reason. It's not Supernatural-level queerbaiting by any means, but season 3 seems to really be leaning heavily on the "are they or aren't they" tension between two characters. That said, the series itself is actually hilarious and there are a number of explicitly queer characters.The main characters are vampires and they'e all queer. They're also a found family of misfits and fuckups. And within that dynamic, the story finds real human (or vampire) connections between all these characters. The series style is (like the movie its based on) like a documentary, with interviews and everything. And there are some episodes that really use that framing well, with the fictional camera crew becoming part of the story.

Schitt's Creek (2015-2020) - Schitt's Creek is a comedy series about an obscenely wealthy family that loses all their money and has to move out to a small little rural down named...Schitt's Creek. One of the characters is David, who is pansexual. The story is basically about how this family learns how to love each other and actually be a family...and also come to value their relationships with the other people in the town. The series very deliberately depicts a world in which homophobia exists, but not within the town or amongst the townspeople.

Black Sails (2014-2017) - Black Sails is actually nothing like Our Flag Means Death. It's a pretty grim drama about a queer pirate captain who wages war against the British Empire as revenge for the homophobic violence the empire enacted against his lover. It's about other things too, but that's really the driving motivator of the main character. There are a number of other queer characters as well, though unfortunately only two of them are pirates. If Our Flag Means Death is a rousing cheer, then Black Sails is a roaring rage. Trigger warning for rape, blood, and general violence.

[oviids]

pls share some of your spn fic recs 🥺🥺

ok, a few things first:

followers and mutuals who do not have supernatural brainworms, kindly avert your eyes

i don’t normally rec or even read much fanfic any more but this is a CRISIS ok (cont.)

there is so. much. content for deancas out there and i have incredibly high standards, several ancient ao3 bookmarks, can speedread, and want to spare you guys the experience of wading through it all.

i also have a section for spn femslash since I was pretty into that back in the day (sadly a lot less fan content for this :/)

I don’t really like au’s or pure smut (I honestly usually just skim or skip those scenes) so if you’re mainly looking for that kind of thing this probably won’t be very helpful to you. jsyk.

i’m not great at describing stuff but i’ll do my best, i’ll also try and add tw’s when neccesary.

i wil try and keep updating this with any other decent fics i find, feel free to rec stuff too since i’m like 7 years behind.(edit 1/25/21) this is getting looooong so i’m going to start making another list on my spn blog rather than update this one

(edit 1/3/21) since this has gotten pretty long i’ve added rating/approximate word counts and marked my particular favorites with an asterisk.

Dean/Cas fic:

So Says The Sword*** - explicit/85k. FUCK its good...au/time travel where dean is not pulled out of hell by cas and says yes to becoming the michael sword. honestly could serve as an alternative to actually watching the show, if you want to get into dean/cas without actually doing that to yourself.

Fata morgana.*  - teen/6k, pst s9 finale. very bela centric and i love it, she finds cas looking for dean in hell.

Redemption Road -misc/600+k. an incredibly long fic from a collaborative writing group back in the day. canon divergent from the end of s6 on, has a cool take on godstiel and the leviathans, as well as the lovecratian mythos connection. ngl when i reread it i only made it about 28% in but imo the casual reader can actually stop around there, the rest concerns a lovecraftian apocalypse that is still good (i think i don’t remember it very well) but not required to enjoy the first half. if you prefer i have an ebook version i can send you on gdrive.

Someone Who's Feeling For Me* - mature/45k, s12. they run into lisa braeden and dean thinks cas is into her while cas thinks dean still likes her. treats lisa way better than the show ever did and the miscommunication is pretty funny rather than annoying.

a turn of the earth - mature/95k. time travel fic where cas from s10 keeps showing up in deans life from a few years before s1 to right before the hellhounds take his soul.  slow burn, good character study, and at one point cas punches the dad in the face and it rules.

On the Wings of War - teen/85k, canon divergent s5. dean accidentally becomes the Horseman of War. plays fun, fast and loose with biblical lore, michael has some rights.

Named - mature/95k, alternate s5. EXTREMELY blasphemous in a fun sexy way. manages to predict metatron almost to a T. there’s one major character death and its literally jesus christ, everyone is very sad about it and it sets the rest of the story rolling. an alternate interpretation of cas’ mission to raise dean from hell which had me on the floor. ngl its kind of misogynistic at points, but its from 2010 and tracks with late oughts-2010 spn (sorry anna the author did you dirty here:/).

The Girlfriend Experience - explicit/15k. uhhh i don’t normally rec or even read smutty stuff unless someone i know is specifically asking for it but this has stuff like sam trying to be a good ally and dean thinking holding hands with cas is ‘kinda gay :/’ minutes after having gay sex with him.

i crippled your heart a hundred times - explicit/19k, s8. cas confesses his feelings and dean spends a long time getting his head out of his ass about it. truly hits different after the actual confession, despite being written six years early it feels like its actually what could have gone down more or less if the writers weren’t talentless demons who hate us.

My Roots Take Flight** - mature/125k. reverse au where cas is a hunter and dean’s an angel...OR IS IT???? an alternate retelling of s4. tw for briefly being set in a psychiatric hospital/the hospital being mentioned somewhat frequently throughout the fic, plus more references to torture in hell and heaven than usual.

The One Thing You Can't Lose* - teen/4k.you know those posts about how cas is a super-strong super-tough ancient warrior but he just lets dean tug him around because he likes it? thats it thats the fic.

Hands, From Which All Things Are Built - teen/14k, post s8′s ‘goodbye stranger.’ cas is on the run with the angel tablet but keeps in touch with sam and dean by text, he and dean still manage to be terrible at Actual communication.

Autrement, Danger - or, The Account of an Exceedingly Long Day - mature/30k, post s11. a monster that takes the appearance of your soulmate leads to some wild miscommunications and dealing with years of repression, also dean gets to see cas’ true form which is always cool. tw for non-graphic mentions of underage sexual assault/sex work.

Down to Agincourt - mature/explicit/900++++k, endverse continuation. endverse!cas survives his encounter with lucifer and discovers another time-displaced dean from s7. i’ve only read the two of four parts but its really good, veeeeery slow burn, has a lot of fun oc’s and takes a rather surprising but (imo) entertaining and intriguing turn into Hellenic history and mythology. usual tw’s for endverse/endverse!cas but nothing graphic, it’s actually pretty light-hearted (relatively speaking of course).

Nothing Equals the Splendor** - explicit/8k, THEE finale fix it fic you’ve been waiting for! posits that the entire final episode was just a (very bad and lame) djinn’s vision.

like moses and batman and james dean - explicit/31k, post s8. explores dean’s trauma and internalized homophoba from his technically canon experience with sex work and its impact on his relationship with cas. the sex work itself isn’t really shown in any detail but it’s still a relatively heavy fic.

Crazy Diamonds - explicit/25k, s4/alternate s14. fresh-out-of-hell dean and dean from 10 years in the future are displaced from time and sent to each other’s present.

where the weeds take root - explicit/30k. au where the men of letters kick them out of the bunker and they accidentally move out into the country, get over their codependence and semi retire. featuring chicken coop building, sam volunteering at a dog shelter, gardening, and blissfully mundane domesticity.

No Resting Place - teen/6k. djinn dream fic, switches back and forth between cas’ dream of being married to dean and retired from hunting to the aftermath when he wakes up. tw for brief mention of suicide since, y’know, djinn dream.

any port in a storm - mature/52k. post s8 finale. cas and dean have to pose as a couple going through a rough patch for a case and actually deal with their emotional baggage, cas struggles with being human and metatron is up to stuff.

all this and heaven too* - explicit/7k. in the author’s own words ‘...a love letter to every trans person who ever projected onto Dean Winchester.’ absolutely unzipped me emotionally and theologically, its just. so good. tw for very brief mentions of internalized transphobia/dysphoria.

Because it is* - mature/6k, finale fix it. killing chuck does not bring back anyone back and the winchesters spend a very long time dealing with what they’ve lost, cas and dean SOMEHOW still manage to have signifigant communication issues even after the confession. tw for suicidal thoughts/brief attempt.

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit* - teen/4k, s6. when cas fell for dean it automatically soulbonded/angel married them, shenanigans ensue when dean finds out during the angel’s civil war. funny and actually written back when s6 was airing so cas is still (or at least pretending to be) kind of an OP asshole which is fun.

Rinse, Repeat - teen/3k, s8. angsty character study of cas as he’s reprogrammed and trained to kill dean. not really dean/cas since its just cas’ pov of canon events but its beautifully written and ends with him snapping out of it through the power of love (also now a canon event!).

Emergence - explicit/59k, canon divergent after s11. dean meets a hunter he only recognizes as their friend claire novak’s missing father, but soon realizes he might be the answer behind the mysterious void in his memories and feelings (aka everyone’s memories of cas are completely wiped away for three years).

Cuckoo And Nest - explicit/10k, early established relationship/character study, cas tries to figure out how he fits into dean’s life and space in the bunker.

Build a Home* - teen/20k, canon divergent s12. sam and eileen are cute and turn the bunker into men of letters/hunters hq and everyone but cas moves in, mutual miscommunication issues and pining ensues.

Down in the River - teen/5k, early s8, cas prays to dean in purgatory while sam and dean try to figure out a way to get him out.

Teaching Poetry to Fish* - mature/52k, ?? BC through the entire series/canon divergent s14 and 15. retelling of crucial scenes throughout the shows timeline from cas’ pov, feat. actual fish and poetry.

the minor fall, the major lift - gen/4k, post confession/finale fixit. dean goes into the empty to save cas and runs into several old friends (and enemies).

With the Kisses of His Mouth* - teen/3k, gen later seasons. dean and cas keep kissing by accident.

Remaining Grace - explicit/109k, alternate s6. au where cas asks dean for help with raphael and dean, of course, does. tw for temporary major character death/semi-graphic depictions of alcohol withdrawal.

The face of heaven.* - teen/10k, au, dean is a regular guy and cas is a fallen star (think ‘stardust’, kinda).

Stories Are Made of Mistakes*  - teen/5k. newly human cas has trouble getting used to a human body and humanity in general, but still figures out that he and dean are A Thing before dean does.

Hurry Up And Wait - mature/21k, canon divergent s12. a fairyland and quite possibly LOTR related case comes up and dean goes full fanboy, mary is introduced to the wonders of the peter jackson adaptions, many references and comparisons (including between cas and dean’s ‘friendship’ and arwen/aragon). also charle is still alive and has just been doing fairy stuff this whole time.

There Are Many Things - explicit/28k, s9. cas is extremely lonely/touch-starved and trying to figure out this whole human thing, as well as where he and dean stand after being kicked out of the bunker.

It's A Long Life to Always Be Longing - teen/40k, post s11 finale. amara helps dean by putting him in a magical coma so he can finally get some much needed rest and show him possible futures for him, sam and cas. meanwhile sam and cas go on a roadtrip (or several) to find componets for a spell to wake dean up. really good sam and cas friendship, they actually talk about their shared lucifer trauma and stuff.

Non-Photo Blue - gen/2k, s4/5/alternate s5. fifty moments from cas’ memories of dean.

Tall Grass - explicit/57k, canon divergent post series. cas becomes the ultimate plant dad. feat the wayward sisters gang, cathartic character growth, fun oc’s, domesticity, and lots of actual botanical info-dumping.

on vessels - no rating/gen/2k. established dean/cas, cas tells dean about how he used to imagine what it would be like to have him as his vessel.

search for tomorrow on every shore* - teen/11k, post-finale (extremely derogatory). some angels in jack’s new heaven act out and dean gets temporarily resurrected in 2003 and runs into his younger self.

Architecture of the Minotaur’s Heart - explicit/45k, very canon divergent post s1. dean’s new house seems to have a life and mind of its own, while in his dreams he sees glimpses of a world and apocalypse that never came to be and an angel that looks strangely like his mysterious neighbor, cas. loosely inspired by the book house of leaves (which i highly recommend for fans of weird horror).

The Distance Of The Setting Sun - explicit/17k, post s5. established dean/cas relationship, team free will finally takes advantage of cas’ abilities to go on vacation around the world.

diamond star halo - teen/5k, s11. dean lets cas use him as a temporary vessel while he recovers from rowena’s spell, sam is a long-suffering third-wheel.

Make Known** - teen/16k, s6/7. dean struggles to understand how cas could have become his enemy and whether he ever truly knew him in the first place.

blunt little instrument* - mature/1.4k, post finale. dean finally confronts his father in heaven, very cathartic.

my heart a compass*** - teen/10k, post confession. the empty forces cas to re-experience his most regretted moments while dean tries to snap him out of it and bring him home.

A Crash Course in Someone Else's History - teen/11k, s6. cas from the very start of s4 is brought forward in time by s6!cas to distract the brothers from his and crowley’s plans.

The Cuckoo Father - mature/8k, s7 au. the woman who found cas in the river post-leviathans does not marry him bc he was sent to her by god or whatever, but actually identifies him as jimmy novak and sends him back to claire and amelia.

The Dead Dean Clause* - teen/5k, post alt s5 ending. team free will celebrates surviving taking down lucifer by getting blitzed, cas lies to a cop and gets an impromptu driving lesson. title/description sound dark i know but it’s actually very funny and light.

Suck It, Judy Garland - mature/20k, s12 (after the ‘i love you...i love all of you’ episode). cas and sam have to pretend to be a couple for a case and dean is NOT happy about it.

By Daylight and In Dream - teen/16k, s5. pre-dean/cas, dean invites cas to use his dreams to hide from the other angels. tw for very brief mention of a memory/dream of alastair sexually assaulting dean.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - mature/22k, post-canon. an actually happy (if sometimes bittersweet) heaven endgame written several years ago, though some details are rather eerily similar to the show’s ending.

heaven is a place on earth* - teen/2k. dean’s pov of some of the times cas left him behind throughout the show, and one alternate ending where he finally gets to stay.

I Cleanse The Mirror - teen/20k, alternate s6. dean’s body is stolen by an ancient elemental and his soul has to hitch a ride in cas’ vessel.

an exploration of gender; angelic*** - mature/4k. *oscar isaac voice* lets get into angel gender politics!! aka cas is trans.

Zenith - explicit/33k, s9. after 9x06 an angry witch curses cas with the ability to see supernatural beings and human souls.

La cucina. - gen/3k, alt s9. dean goes wild helping a newly-human cas find out what kinds of food he likes, or the early s9 domesticity we deserved!

Dean Winchester, Cocksucker at Rest***** - teen/7k, post-finale. john and mary finally come over for dinner and john reacts to dean/cas in a rather predictable fashion. SOOOOOOOOO good omg, its so funny and a little sad and very very cathartic. part of a series that has a few other really good short fics.

The Way You Didn't Go - teen/5k, s15. coda to 15.09, dean has nightmares about the moc!cas timeline.

On Drowning - teen/28k. dean saves cas after he nearly drowns, they both try and deal with the physical/mental fallout (aka the fic where thee iconic “you only touch me when you think I’m dead or dying” originates). tw for realistic depictions of drowning/triage/misc medical information.

The Thirty-Six Questions That Lead to Love* - mature/13k. claire has dean and cas pretend to be her gay dads for a case and they play the titular 36 question game, get mistaken for swingers, and birdwatch, among other things.

Assorted F/F stuff:

Deep Breaths* - mary/ellen, au where mary said no to azazel’s deal and let john stay dead, still becomes a milf.

Like Rebel Diamonds - krissy/claire, they become hunter gf’s on the hunt for cas to kick his ass for taking jimmy. not-so-stealth dean/cas as well.

To Ash and Bone - anna/ruby, same author as the previous fic (p much all of her stuff is good from what i recall). au where ruby is a witch and helps anna when she’s cursed.

Holy Clockwork Angels - jo/ruby, STEAMPUNK au with very cool worldbuiilding.

At Day's End - jo/anna (my fucking KINGDOM for more jo/anna content, the dean/cas parallels are allllll there), au where they are both at the camp in the endverse and gfs.

these posts - ok so not actually a fic but i’m now obsessed with this hannah/meg dynamic.

Tagelied - mary/ellen, the true story of how ellen got into hunting before angels interfered.

Hell's Bells** - meg/abaddon, alternate s8/9 where meg survives crowley’s attack with sam’s help and teams up with abaddon (who she has a sk year old crush on) to take back hell.

The Ecstasy of the Rose - anna/ruby, anna travels back in time to escape heaven and becomes a signifigant part of ruby’s old human life.

Angel Underground - anna/jo, kind of an urban fantasy au with a very intriguing premise (sadly its very short, i’d love to see more if this ‘verse).

Clover, Flame - billie/mary, billie was always the reaper that showed up to take mary after her death(s) over the years.

Drag Me To Heaven - anna/ruby, a variant on the ‘last night on earth’ thing with dean.

Come Home* - jo/anna, canon-divergent au where anna is the new waitress at the roadhouse and helps jo set up a (probably not really) haunted house for halloween.

[mask131]

Deadly fall: The Ankou

THE ANKOU

Category: Breton folklore

The Bretagne region of France is quite unique in many ways: most notably it is the French region where Celtic culture and Celtic heritage is the strongest. This results in numerous beliefs and legends in a variety of supernatural beings, a strong and complex regional folklore, and one of the most famous entities said to exist in Bretagne is “L’Ankou”, The Ankou, a death entity whose name comes from the old Welsh “Anheu/Anghau” and the Cornish “Ankow”.

The Ankou is not death itself – this is a point the legends around him are very clear about. The Ankou is rather the “servant of death”. His job is the one of a psychopomp : he appears to take the souls of the deceased in the afterlife. The Ankou travels and takes the souls away in a creaking cart known as “karr an Ankou/karrig an Ankou” in the Breton language (the Ankou’s chariot). When someone hears the squeaking wheels of the Ankou’s wagon, it means they (or a member of their family) will soon die. In a similar way, if someone sees the Ankou it means they will die in the year. In the sea-side regions, the Ankou doesn’t take the inland roads : instead of a cart, he drives a small boat called the “Bag Noz” (The Night Boat), taking the dead by sea.

The Ankou’s physical appearance is the one of a very tall and very gaunt man, with long white hair, and its face half-hidden by a large-brimmed hat. While sometimes he just appears like a very skinny old man, all dressed in black (black hat or black cloak), other times it is said his face is hideous and reminds people of a skull, with no nose, a wide mouth going from ear to ear, and black holes instead of eyes, with inside them two little lights like candle flames. In several local variations, the Ankou is in fact confused with the “Grim Reaper” figure and is depicted as a skeleton wrapped in a funeral shroud. But no matter how he is depicted, the Ankou is always wielding his great and terrible scythe. The fascinating thing with the Ankou is that his scythe is not a regular scythe, unlike for example the one wielded by a typical Grim Reaper : the Ankou’s scythe has its blade reversed, so that the cutting edge is on the outside, not on the inside. It is because when the Ankou “reaps” the dead, he doesn’t make a movement that bring the blade towards him – rather he throws the blade in front of him to “cut” the dead faster and more efficiently. (Though the legend explicitly describe this reverse-scythe, many old statues have him with just a regular scythe).

The Ankou is also sometimes said to be the “watcher” and “guardian” of grave-yards, making sure its souls do not escape and that no living comes to trouble the graves – though sometimes this role is rather attributed to one or a couple of ghosts, usually the last deceased of the year. While as I said the Ankou is not death but merely its servant and “henchman”, charged with collecting the souls of the dead, some Breton proverbs give a bit more of power and independency to the Ankou – for example when there is more death than usual in a year, Breton people used to say “War ma fé, heman zo eun Anko drouk” (On my faith, this one is a nasty Ankou). [The explanation of which comes below].

- - - - - - - -

While the Ankou appears as this iconic, ominous, supernatural figure, the Breton legends don’t actually suggest that he is one full entity (despite his appearance, methods and name never changing). Rather, many tales claim that the “Ankou” is just a title, a role taken on by various souls. For example one legend claims that the last male dead of the year, at the end of December, is to become the Ankou for the next year, while the first male dead of the year is to become the “komis an Ankou” (the Ankou’s clerk/employee), the personal servant and assistant of the Ankou. The “Bagel Noz” variation also has stories of this kind: in one, the driver of the “Night Boat” is supposed to be the last men to have drowned in the year, while another variation claims that the leader of the Bagel Noz is rather the first male dead of the year.

Another creepy trivia about the Ankou: one legend claims that he can fully rotate his head on his neck, so that he can look everywhere when he travels and so that no dead or living can sneak behind his back. There are much more bizarre and morbid trivia about the Ankou or his servants, in fact there are entire books written about the "Legends of Death" and the death folklore of Bretagne (books that I own ) but given the Deadly Fall are just presentations and introductions, I'll stick with these primary facts - though as usual, if you are interest, I can be here to deepen the information and extend the knowledge.

[the-badger-mole]

Can you write a short story with a jealous Zuko?

PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE

Zuko was used to being overshadowed. By Azula; by Lu Ten; by Avatar Aang. It still often annoyed him to know that the most he could aim for was second best to someone else, no matter where he was. But he never minded when it came to Katara. Give her enough time, Zuko often told himself, and she could bring the entire world to its knees. She'd saved his life in more ways than he could count. She had saved them all, and there would never be enough people singing her praises as far as Zuko was concerned. She stood out no matter where she was. Even in spaces where the Fire Lord should have been the center of attention, Zuko knew he didn't stand a chance when Master Katara entered the room.

It should have annoyed him, Zuko thought, but it didn't. She was sunshine, for all she was a child of Water, and she drew everyone towards her like plants reaching up for Agni's rays. When she laughed, it filled the room- a bit too loud to be polite, but too infectious to really be upset over. She talked with high-ranking nobles with passion, leaving them stunned at her knowledge and convictions- this woman who was barely not a child anymore. She had earned the grudging respect of Zuko's council, which even he hadn't succeeded in doing. He should be jealous, but he watched Katara make her way around the room with pride. Maybe he wasn't as eloquent or magnetic as Katara, but he was her friend. He knew her in a way few- if any- in that room would ever know her.

Someone- Iroh, Zuko guessed- had signaled for the band to start playing. Business was done for the day. Soon the crowd had reshuffled itself, and couples began making their way to the dance floor while everyone else made their way to the buffet tables lining one end of the hall. Katara met Zuko's eyes across the room, and with a warm smile, made her way over to him. She seemed to glow supernaturally. Zuko cast a surreptitious glance to see if some prankster had aimed a spotlight on her. Was it just Zuko? How was no one else being blinded by the way the light reflected off her smile? Her hair? Her skin? Zuko swallowed hard, trying to unstick his tongue from the roof of his suddenly dry mouth.

Katara's smile widened and she opened her mouth to greet him.

"Excuse...um...p-pardon me." Katara turned in surprise to the young man who had approached her. Zuko recognized him vaguely, and he scrambled to place a name. Katara spared him the ordeal of guessing.

"Lord Jee-Soo," she smiled politely at King Kuei's cousin, though Zuko could see an odd tightness in the corners of Katara's eyes. Jee Soo, however, did not notice. His face was tinged pink and he leaned forward in a stiff, formal bow.

"I-I hope I'm not disturbing you," he said. "I was hoping that...that maybe you...er, that is...would you grant me the honor of a dance."

Zuko froze. A shock went down his spine as if someone had walked across a carpet and touched his skin. Katara gaped at him in surprise. Her cheeks flushed a pretty dusky red. Jee Soo smiled at her, nervous and hopeful. She cast a glance at Zuko, trying to communicate... something.

"Oh!" Katara gasped. "Well... I was just going to..." She cast another look at Zuko before she shrugged and smiled at Jee Soo. "Um... sure, I'd love to."

Zuko watched silently as Jee Soo wrapped a clammy-looking hand around Katara's and led her out to the dance floor. His hand squeezed his punch cup dangerously tight as Jee Soo slid his arm around Katara's waist and pulled her as close as propriety would allow. His breath caught in his throat as the young Earth Kingdom noble said something that caused Katara's nose to crinkle in amusement.

"Take care, Fire Lord Zuko," Iroh sidled up to his nephew, with an affable smile and a knowing gleam in his eye. "Someone might think there's trouble between the Fire Nation and Ba Sing Se the way you're glaring at young Lord Jee Soo."

"I'm not glaring!" Zuko insisted hotly. Still, he turned his scowl on his uncle instead.

"She would have danced with you if you'd asked," Iroh told him. "I'm sure she still would."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Zuko grumbled.

"Oh no?" Iroh tried unsuccessfully to hide his amusement. "My mistake. It's been a long time since I was young and in love. Perhaps I don't remember the signs as well as I thought."

"Perhaps not!" Zuko knew he was being peevish, but his uncle was overstepping. Zuko had admitted to having a small crush on Katara years ago, and Iroh had never forgotten, even though Zuko had gotten over her a long time ago. She was dating one of his best friends at the time.

But not anymore.

The traitorous, smug voice in his head sounded annoyingly like his uncle. It was true that Katara had broken up with Aang, but it made no difference. Even if he wasn't over Katara- and he was over her- she and Aang hadn't split on the best of terms. It wouldn't be fair to either of his friends for Zuko to insert himself in the middle of that.

On the dance floor, Jee Soo seemed to have gained some confidence. He twirled and spun Katara with expert ease. If Katara had been hesitant to dance with him before, she seemed happy enough now. Her eyes were bright and her face pink with the exertion of the dance. She was having a good time, and Jee Soo gazed at her as if half in love already.

Zuko could dance. He could dance at least as well as Jee Soo. Others may outshine him in literally every other part of his life, but Zuko's mastery of dance was part of what made the Blue Spirit so deadly. Maybe he could challenge Jee Soo to a friendly competition. Katara could be the judge. Maybe the first prize could be a kiss...

Zuko shook his head. Dangerous territory. She was just coming out of a serious relationship. With one of his best friends. True they had broken up almost a year ago. Also true that Aang hadn't been in close contact with any of them since the breakup. And there was speculation that things had ended because Aang had cheated. But Zuko didn't know that for sure. No one knew for sure except Katara and Aang. Suki probably had more of the story, which Toph probably bullied out of her. And Sokka at least suspected if his coldness towards Aang at the last summit was any indication.

Dangerous territory. Friends don't go after a friend's exes. Even if you happened to have had a thing for said ex before your friend started dating them. Even if that ex was also your best friend.

Jee Soo dipped Katara, causing her to let out a nervous, but giddy laugh. Her hands clutched at Jee Soo tightly, to keep herself steady, but as a result, they were much closer than they started at the beginning of the dance. Jee Soo's face lit up with a grin as he did it again. And again. And again.

Didn't this guy know any other moves? Katara was going to catch on to him, and she would be annoyed. Wouldn't she? Zuko knew she'd been out with a couple of other guys since the breakup. Nothing serious, though, Suki had informed him. No one who lasted more than a month. Still, Zuko wasn't sure what her type was anymore. Jee Soo reminded Zuko a bit of Aang, but just because Katara had dated Aang for three years doesn't mean he was her type. Maybe she was into quieter guys who got way too deep in their own heads and overthought hypothetical situations until they lost entire nights of sleep worrying about problems that didn't actually exist. Yeah...for sure that's what Katara would find attractive.

How long was this song, Zuko wondered. Jee Soo was dipping Katara again, though she seemed to be getting tired of it. Her smile was that polite, tight smile that she'd given him earlier when she wasn't sure she wanted him to interrupt her. Zuko saw her say something to him, probably asking him to keep her upright for a while. Jee Soo laughed and shook his head and said something teasing as he pulled her closer. Katara's smile fell away completely, and Zuko saw she was getting mad. He was halfway across the dance floor before he'd even realized he was going to go over. He was ready to yank Jee Soo away, and if necessary, deck the creep for not respecting Katara's reasonable wish. But before he got to them, Jee Soo had stepped away with a deep, embarrassed blush on his face.

"I'm so sorry," Jee Soo was saying as Zuko got closer. "Honestly, I was just trying to...well, I didn't mean to upset you or offend you."

"It's alright, Jee Soo," Katara said patiently. Her smile was back in place. The song ended, finally, and another one started up.

"Would you...like to dance again?" Jee Soo asked.

"I'm a bit tired," Katara begged off. "But I'll bet Kimiko would love you to ask her. Don't say I told you, but she's been checking you out." That didn't seem to soothe Jee Soo's disappointment, but he accepted the rejection graciously enough.

"Seems like you had fun," Zuko said. Katara sighed tiredly and slipped her arm through his.

"I thought the song would never end!" she groaned. "It was like dancing with Aang. Fun for the first minute, but he was doing way too much. All the dipping gave me vertigo." Zuko heard that with interest.

"I didn't realize you weren't having fun," he tried to keep his voice even as he led them away from the dance floor over to the punch table. "I would have come rescue you if I'd realized. We should come up with some sort of sign when you want me to cut in."

"You never dance at these things," Katara pointed out.

"I'd make an exception for you." Zuko blushed and scrambled to cover. "I mean, I'd do it if it saved you from some over-eager guy who can't take a hint."

"My hero." Katara scrunched her nose up at Zuko and leaned against him. It was adorable! Zuko had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from grinning.

"Actually..." Katara said slowly. "I was coming over to ask you to dance before Jee Soo interrupted."

"Really?" Zuko's voice hit an octave it hadn't hit since he was fourteen and his voice was still dropping. He cleared his throat, trying to ignore the fact that Katara was trying very hard not to laugh.

"Yeah," she nodded her head. "I know you don't really like dancing, but maybe you can preemptively cut in for me? Someone told me that Lord Hino's son wanted to ask me for a dance." Zuko grimaced. Lord Hino was one of his most trusted advisors, but his son was a famous klutz with two left feet. No woman left the dance floor without bruised feet when she danced with him.

"You told Jee Soo you were tired," Zuko reminded her. Why, he yelled internally, would he say that? Fortunately, Katara just shrugged and looked up at him coyly from the corner of her eye.

"I'd make an exception for you," she said quietly. Zuko froze midstep. Katara looked up at him in alarm. There was a spectacular blush rising from her neck towards her hairline, and a panicked retraction already on her lips. Zuko turned to her and took her hand. Then in a move that would have pleased every last one of his etiquette tutors and his uncle, if he was watching, Zuko bowed elegantly and brushed a feathery light kiss on Katara's fingertips. He lifted his gaze with an impish grin.

"I would be honored," he said, "to have this dance." Katara nodded speechlessly and allowed Zuko to lead her out to the dance floor again.

Zuko was used to being overshadowed. He wasn't the most powerful bender, or the most charismatic leader. He wasn't the most handsome man or the most eloquent. But there on the dancefloor, with the most beautiful woman in at the ball in his arms, he knew that no one could match him for dancing. Katara seemed to agree because she accepted his request for another dance. And another. And another...

[fucktheroyals]

You know after reading and reading and reading peoples theories and the meta from before the spn finale aired and the meta writers reactions to the finale I think I have a theory of my own. We don't have any answers tho, so this is pure speculation. If you wanna add something to support or discredit any of this that's cool but there's too many things floating around. Know I dont have proof for this conclusion at all. A lot of what I say is just guesses based on previous facts.

This all came together in my head when I realized how much this finale REEKS of the original producers and who the show was originally for. It REEKS of Robert Singer. Like if the execs started saying they didn't want it, Robert Singer was the one pushing that the story was about the brothers. That kinda thing.

Then, I was thinking of the problems in this episode and it struck me these are all of Supernatural biggest issues and to be honest all of it feels completely deliberate.

Take the sexism for example, Supernatural in it's later seasons largely out grew this, we have Jody, Rowena, Donna, Charlie, Mary, Claire (and even a wayward sisters pilot with MORE women/girls) all making regular appearances. They're mainly good characters and mostly aren't there to hurt our boys. Rowena, of course, is the one outlier being very about herself but it's clear she still cares for them, I mean its part of her development. But they're all real, with character flaws just like everyone else. (And we have Death too and she was POC 😭 THANK GOD)

Now look at the earlier half of Spn, we have Ellen and Jo, who's appearances were far in between. There's Bela in season 3, recurring for quite a bit (5 eps), but she is a character that is only there for herself, definitely not found family (unlike Ellen & Jo), and she's got more episodes in season 3 than Ellen and Jo in season 2 who aren't seen again til season 5. The "fans" send in hate mail after hate mail to try to get these characters off, and eventually they are. Then there's Ruby who's character stayed for a whole two seasons and was a largely recurring character. Why does she get to say so long? She's a plot device. She's supposed to be there to betray Sam. She has to stay (plus Jared obviously likes her). But she's not just a character the writers like writing about. Same with Lilith. Obviously not as recurring but still a plot device. Did they get hate mail tho? You can bet on it. Why? because tHeY'rE gOnNa PuSh ThE bOyS (Dean and Sam) aPaRt ThE sHoW iS aBoUt ThE bOyS oNlY. Without even thinking about the hate mail, just notice how large the difference is from how women are seen in the earlier seasons to the later seasons. Misha got tons of hate mail too for being a character that could split up the boys (probably only being allowed to say because he a man, thanks sexist producers and execs).

Only after Castiel was killed off and then Castiel fans successfully (thank you guys) got him back on the show did the hate mail largely simmer, which means female character's were allowed to stay! Which has lead us to a show with a good amount of female characters. But can you imagine having to kill characters off time and time again because people keep complaining that the show is "only about the boys." Fun times really.

So now we get to this final and we see sexism. But it wasn't just the plain old regular sexism you find in the earlier days of spn. Because now, there ARE women to talk about, talk to. But this episode was DESOLATE women wise, unless they were used for plot (which is also sexist!). Small scenes, they're barely there. Women gets her tongue cut out. Random women from s1 gets killed. Sam doesn't SPEAK of Eileen. Nothing. No mention of any female characters from the boys mouths unless they were from/in this episode itself. That's WIERD. I know we've all said it. But that goes beyond forgetting about characters. I mean its SAM'S GIRLFRIEND for Christ's sake. There is NO REASON they couldn't have said Eileen's name. Notice how Sam's wife is just... faceless. This is literally an age old sexist trope. Like... one of the things about bringing Mary back to life for s12+ is that it takes this trope... of basically a generic mother, and gives her life and feelings, whether you like them or not, they're real feelings. They said Mary isn't just a mom she's a person. Mary's existence in the later half of spn is to fix this kind of female tropes that fall upon her character, to not let these her stay a 2 dimensional character. They said we should know she's more than just the mom who tried to save her kid. Do that is the exact opposite of Sam getting a nameless, faceless wife. The sexism of the old spn wasn't just brought back, it was completely amplified. It wasn't just accidental or some exec "fixing" the story it was DELIBRATE. Whoever wrote that, didn't do ALL OF THAT by accident. Because an exec or a producer who doesn't see the flaws in old supernatural isn't going to write it that deliberately.

Let's bring it back to s10 when Charlie was killed (singer was mainly to blame). Dead in the bathtub, age old classic of burying ur gays. If you were here you know people never let Supernatural live that down. THEY KNOW what bury ur gays means. Hell, Robbie Thompson left because of Charlie's death and you think the writers don't know what it means? I mean both Bobo Berens (especially) and Steve Yockey's careers are centered around LGBT+ storytelling and you think they don't know? They know. They know.

And Dean wasn't just apart of the bury your gays trope, it is so far BEYOND that. Dean being killed on a rusty nail/screw, the tongues ripped out, things that seemed to be meant for other people. Jensen's acting in the last two episodes was giving us "DEAN RECIPROCATES" but no one ever actually saying it. I think it's clear that Dean was killed for being Bi. They didn't address it for a reason, they just silenced him. His narrative was supposed to be about letting him be HIM for the first time, to say what his feelings are instead of having them miscommunicated, and instead of doing that, they just silenced him. And the more we look at this scene the more horrific it gets. The more it's a complete slap in the face and it's supposed to be. Some guy who knows nothing about the LGBT can't write a scene this horrific.

Some guy who knows nothing about Dean couldn't write a scene that deconstructs all of Dean's character development and gives Dean his worst nightmare. I MEAN DEAN WANTED TO LIVE HIS LIFE! THEY DIDNT HIDE THAT JOB APPLICATION (or whatever job related thing that was) IN THERE FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES THEY WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST SITUATION. Dean isn't Barney from HIMYM. If you watched HIMYM then you'll know Barney went from being a stereotypical ladies man and treating women terribly to being in love with a women and treating her right and working hard for it. The last episode of HIMYM (why its so bad) Barney's character development is thrown out and he's back to being a stereotypical ladies man. You don't need to know Barney's character very much to do that.

To kill Dean during a hunt his father never finished, to not have anyone at his funeral, to have Dean die young like his life didn't matter. Those are Dean's worst fears and you'd only truly know that if you watched the gin episode in s3, where they are basically laid out for you. You HAVE to know Dean's character to tear him apart like this.

This episode took all the core elements of the show and did a complete 180° the name of the episode itself is "Carry on" and Dean and Sam very much did not carry on. Sam grieving his entire life so that he good get to heaven and see Dean again. Dean being ready to live his life, despite the enormous pitfalls and learning to love himself only to be killed. "Family don't end with blood." Um.... it did in that episode either literally with Dean's death or you know BECAUSE NONE OF THEIR FOUND FAMILY WAS THERE. Not Jack, Not Cas, Not Eileen, Not Donna, Not Charlie, Not Jody, Not Claire... on and on we go. No one was there, nobody was even mentioned. Dean's funeral, no one even called that we know of. It was just Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean. And Bobby. Don't forget Bobby. But yeah Sam and Dean.

That's what the show is about right, the brothers.

Except it's not anymore. It hasn't been for years.

Cas not being there was deafening but it brought us to a major point. Becky. Becky's telling us about the terrible ending.

And many of us are wondering why would they literally tell us this is the worst ending and then... make it the ending.

Now before we move on, it very apparent many of you think Dabb doesn't ship Deancas. And Dabb doesn't care about the characters.

Say what you will about any plot holes in his writing, the point he is VERY GOOD at writing the characters, and giving us good ones.

Why do we know Dabb ships Deancas? (ill say when its cowrote, other wise its not) cowrote ep 8.02 - purgatory "I prayed to you, Cas, every night" "Cas, Buddy, I need you." "I have a price on my head, and I've been trying to stay one step ahead of them, to – to keep them away from you." 8.08 Hunteri Heroici - Cas helps them hunt! 😊❤ Dean & Cas have a serious convo about why Cas doesn't want to see/go to heaven. 8.22 Dean's mad at Cas. Sam's explanation of why Dean should be easy on Cas: "It's Cas." Dean then points out how he'd knife anybody else if they did what Cas did. 9.10 - Cas comforts Dean when Dean can't take seeing Sam (Gadreel) being tortured anymore. Also tons of Cas. 9.20 (bloodlines) - Canonical couple parallel "I was there, where were you" 9.22 The angels make Cas choose between them and killing Dean and he "gave up an entire army for one guy" 10.09 Claire's reintroduction. Cas heavy ep. DeanCas date. 10.22 THE PRISONER - u know the ep where Dean beats the shit out of Cas but loves him enough to not kill him.

We COULD keep going but I think I've made my point. If Robert Singer is the guy that is like "the show is about Sam and Dean only" Andrew Dabb is the DeanCas shipper. And you could even say a Cas stan.

Notice! How in s13 for SEVEN episodes we have a story that revolves around Dean's grief about losing Cas. Notice! How often the stories in all these seasons have a focus on their relationship. THAT is Andrew Dabb. If it weren't for him doing that, we wouldn't be able to easily say after Dean's lack of a response to Cas' confession, that Dean reciprocates.

To me, when I was (binge) watching s12 for the first time, I thought damn this is really got a lot of DeanCas. So I went to look at who was in charge, who was writing. I saw Andrew Dabb, associated him with Deancas episodes, saw all the new writers, Bobo, and then I saw that Yockey is known for same sex stories and it clicked. Dabb assembled a team to give us Destiel. THAT WAS IN SEASON 12!!!!!!!!

The amount of people saying he's homophobic flabbergast me. Open your eyes! That isn't what's going on.

Imagine making a show and trying to right all the wrongs of Supernatural. Imagine trying to write the greatest love story ever told and you have the entire season planned out for it to end off beautifully, it may possibly be your greatest achievement when it's done and then boom. someone comes in and tells you you aren't allowed to make Dean bi or make destiel endgame, after he was most probably already given the go ahead.

Sure. You could imply he's bi or into cas still in a way. Still make nice-ish ending. just give everyone what the kinda want.

Or you could scrap the last season, nothing close to a canonical bisexual Dean Winchester or Deancas endgame in site. People can be done with it be happy with the show, continue to live their lives in ignorance as to how close they were to Canon destiel.

OR you can lead everyone to the very closest you can get them to what you were aiming for and then show everyone the ugly truth and reality. Light it all on fire. Burn the show to the ground in your wake. Try your darnedest to making these people's (the people saying no) pockets suffer. Show us, the audience, what happened. Show us what this show really is.

I've seen people talk about the ending being changed during covid but I dont think that happened. I think what happened was Dabb already had this season planned out before it even started. Obviously the details were wobbly but it was all lead up to this ending. Destiel endgame, Canon Bisexual Dean, whatever it was. They were ready to write the greatest love story ever told and then someone shut it down.

Imagine the pain that must have caused them to be told no when they already said yes. They must have been so excited to give this to us.

I think someone (some producers) told him what this show is "really" about. The brothers. Can you imagine, after being told no, some kinda bullshit like this is said to you: "Why aren't you bringing it back to the brothers, Andrew? that's what the shows about. What with all this homosexual stuff, you know the audience won't like that. Not really." Imagine the original producers pushing this kind of view on you. "You know when we started it was Sam and Dean. It should end with Sam and Dean." That kinda sounds like someone huh? huh.

So why give us a nice acceptable finale, when you can take every problem Supernatural's had either up front or behind the scenes and create a finale so incredibly bad that people don't want to watch it anymore.

Someone made a good point about how Sam was originally supposed to be the main focus (this isn't to put any hate on Sam or Jared). Dean and Sam are the main characters but Sam was supposed to be the focus and for Dean to have become the focus, must have annoyed the producers because... well here we are. They wouldn't listen to Jensen. The producers liked this ending. Jensen's opinion didn't matter to them.

In some ways, if this is really what happened, it can be seen as childish from Dabb. To hurt all of us like that. Yes, he's hurting the producers, the execs, the cw. But to hurt us? Yeah it stings.

But in other ways, if this is really what happened, this is Dabb showing us the muck and gunk under the shiny surface. The hate for Misha. The hidden hate for Jensen. The underlying sexism. The underlying homophobia. The people REALLY in charge don't care about us, they just want our money. He needed to open our eyes and free us, at least free the people that he was writing for. The people he sees that care about this show.

This is the ending the powers that be wanted and its a big fuck you for a reason. I dont think this is Dabb spitting in our faces for loving this show, I think this is him trying to get revenge for us.

But from here, you can see it how u want it. If this is really what happened, I'm not in charge of your emotions, if you wanna be mad be mad if you wanna be grateful be grateful. And you don't have to believe me either I said this is speculation.

Also, as for all of the rumors like there being shots to the confession scene that we didn't see, which Jensen himself implied, I think that might have been a last ditch effort to canonized DeanCas but obviously it was cut. Like the name change was pretty clear. As for Misha possibly having shot some stuff for 20 I dont know what to tell you. If it's true I dont know where the blame would lie.

I do think however, that if all this was the case, the writers were prepared to become villians here. I mean they told us the writers were villians with Chuck right? So. Who knows what went down so they could give us such a vile ending. It could've been the producers or the writers, who truly knows. I do think tho that people we "trust" did some pretty shitty things to push the narrative in certain directions so now one would see this as the actual ending that was coming.

So again do with my SPECULATION what you will. This was in no way meant to put Dabb on a pedestal or anything. Just meant to give a bit of perspective.

(Also Jensen didn't unfollow Dabb recently he was already unfollowed for years)

[poptod]

The Old Gods

Description: Jack has to get close to a powerful suspect. Jack also ponders upon his humanity.

Notes: genuinely didnt meant for this to get so long, my apologies, i just like writing conversations bc i never get to have them.  also! I hate myself so much for writing supernatural fanfiction in the good year of our lord 2021. its not my fault, it was the only show i could watch with my cousin that we both liked. anyway! lmk if you like it i could do a part two WC: 11k

+

The nearest library could hardly be called a library. A more accurate description would be a collection of books––a small collection––that could be read freely but never taken from the library itself. There was little need within the Winchesters to visit the library, considering they had one in their home filled with mythical lore, but the records of Kansas and neighboring cities and states were detailed thoroughly in the nearest library.

Jack knew a great many things; inherent natures and laws of the universe, the experience of power and of fear, both before him and within him. Many things he'd seen deserved to be feared, exposing him to dangers often unheard of amongst regular children.

Three months into existence, however, Jack liked to think he knew more than he did when he was born. This was because he'd spoken to more people, experienced more things, and learned select things about his mother, his father, his family, and strangers. Still, there were things that puzzled him––the age of the world was clear in his mind (4.543 billion years, four months, 22 days, 6 hours, and 52 seconds) but how humanity progressed into what they now were astounded him.

"Humans started as... these creatures with unending curiosity," Castiel explained to him, his hands folded neat in his lap but hidden by his too-long trenchcoat sleeves. "Ceaseless innovation. They started without language but they always had kindness. I think.. that's why God favored them, at least at first."

"So... kindness is a form of.. intelligence?" Jack asked slowly, his brow furrowed tight as he stared past his father.

"I believe so," he said, shifting in his seat. "Kindness drove these animals to building homes, to conversing with one another, to creating a better world for descendants they would never know. It's quite beautiful, actually."

"Am I a part of that story?"

Only half-human, only half-alive, only half the story, belonging to nothing concrete. Jack wasn't really human, leaving him alone in his species.

"Yes," Castiel said without hesitation.

Civilization first started off in a number of areas. The first book Jack found dealt with the fertile crescent northeast of Africa, where Mesopotamia brought forth a number of societies, of cultures, meshed together over the course of thousands of years. Sumerians were one of the first to build their cities, creating writing, the wheel, and the plow in their haven apart from the unpredictable and often violent wild.

But no––the next book Jack found stated that Jericho was the oldest city, west to the fertile crescent near the shore of the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. The citystate was independent from any other power, often becoming abandoned from raids only to return to high populations, as humans flocked back to the spring water that still poured from inside the earth to this day.

Over the rest of the day spent in the nearest library, Jack learned there was no single spot in which civilization was created and then spread from. The Nile in Africa brought forth Egypt, the Indus river in Pakistan birthed the Harappan civilization, and the two rivers Yellow and Yangtze in China created the first asian cities. From there villages, towns, and cities spread like mold across the earth's surface, eventually bringing humans to inhabit every continent and nearly every environment known on earth.

There were far too many things to know, and the strain of reading on his eyes eventually forced him to retire for the day. He hardly understood anything yet, but the librarian was understanding as to his prolonged stay, and wished him a good evening when he left. He beamed a bright smile despite the strange pain growing behind his eyes, and waved good-bye.

Dean gave him painkillers when he got back to the bunker after Jack thoroughly (and unnecessarily) described his headache.

"Humans are... strange," Jack said, his brow furrowed in deep thought. He rested his elbows on the table, leaning over an empty bowl of cereal.

"Not wrong, but, care to elaborate?" asked Sam, who was sitting across from him at the kitchen table, a newspaper and pen in his hand.

"Castiel said you created the first cities out of a desire to.. to protect each other, and to keep yourselves safe. And then the first thing you do when you meet other cities is to go to war with them."

Sam sucked in a sharp breath, leaning back as he set the newspaper aside. This would take a little more concentration than a passing ear.

"People are scared by things they don't know," Sam began only to be cut off.

"Why?"

"They don't know if it's dangerous. You didn't trust us, at first, either. We didn't know whether to trust you. Remember?"

"Oh," Jack said softly.

"Yeah. But you're right," he said with a long sigh. "It's strange. We're... strange."

"Are humans inherently good?"

"I don't think anyone is inherently good," Sam said, and Jack straightened his posture, suddenly confused by his claim. "Every person – every thing, every living thing has – has the capacity for good and evil. It's really just up to the individual to decide which side they want to give into."

"Am I a good person?"

"First off, you're not really a person," said another voice from the doorway.

Sam and Jack both turned at the same time, meeting the eye of Dean, who had yet to change out of his bathrobe despite it being 2PM.

"Second off, you haven't been alive long enough to be a good person," he continued as he entered, an empty coffee cup in hand.

"Dean –" Sam began, only to be cut off.

"What? It's the truth."

The coffee machine buzzed loudly once Dean pushed a few of the buttons, setting his cup beneath the nozzle. He muttered something to himself before turning back to the kitchen table.

"Anything strange in the paper?" He asked, leaning against the counter.

"Maybe," said Sam.

He grabbed the paper again, delving into the details of a nearby missing persons case that soon faded out of Jack's state of mind. His thoughts were still absorbed in his existence, in his beginnings, and how they compared to the beginnings of humans. At least with angels he knew everything; that was how angels were born. Knowing everything.

Jack remained seated at the table when Sam and Dean left, still stewing in his thoughts that he imagined would never go away. It was half an hour later when the two brothers returned, this time fully dressed, and packed up on their way to the car.

"We've gotta go find some local records," Dean said.

"So we're headed to the library," Sam finished, and the two gave each other odd glances at the coincidental synchronicity.

"I was there a couple days ago," Jack said, suddenly perking up. "Can I come with you?"

"Sure, just don't get in the way," Dean said with a dismissive hand, already leaving the doorway.

Sam pursed his lips, letting out a bitter, almost apologetic chuckle before he followed.

He liked the middle seat. It didn't have a seatbelt, but he wasn't sure what seatbelts were for anyways, and the middle seat allowed him easy access to see both of the Winchesters. Dean never spared a glance in his direction while he drove, but Sam offered awkward, curt smiles.

Technically Jack could just fly to the library in an instant, but the drive into town was pretty, lined with the colors of autumn. Recently winds had taken up a more brisk edge, marking the absence of birds that flew in packs overhead. He scooted to one of the window seats, craning his neck awkwardly to look up and out of the glass, grinning at the ravens flying through the orange and gold trees.

The librarian showed the three men where the records were kept, directing them towards missing persons cases when they requested it. While Sam and Dean thumbed through the records, Jack returned to ancient history books, studying art and images from Vedic India.

There, amongst the carvings printed on soft paper, he found something rather odd. He stood from his position on the floor, still staring intensely at the print as he walked over to the table Sam and Dean sat at.

"Hey Jack," Sam said as he sat down, gently placing the book on the table. He scanned Jack's hunched posture before he asked, "something up?"

"I found something... strange," he said, his brow still knotted neatly above curious eyes.

"Yeah well, join the club, kid," Dean said with a groan, wiping his face with his hand.

Jack opened his mouth to ask what they'd seen, but Sam answered before he could speak.

"There's been repeated attacks, kind of," he said, waving his hand vaguely. "Once every ten years a couple of kids go missing. Always two kids, always on the same day of the year."

"And another anomaly," Dean said, reaching over to a stack of papers and slapping them on the table in front of Jack.

Big, black words displayed the newspaper title, and below it, the date of publishing. January 4th, 1967. The main article dealt with a concert happening in a nearby city, and the image printed with it displayed a number of concert-goers, most of them in their teens or early adulthood. Hidden behind several other people, a familiar face appeared––the librarian. Unhindered by time.

"Is that..."

"Big boots over there?" Dean asked, pointing with his thumb in your general direction.

You were sorting through a stack of books, but as Jack looked down, he found you were wearing rather large boots. The ends of your pants drowned in them.

"Do you think they're related?" Jack asked as he turned back to the Winchesters.

"Possibly," Sam said with a nod. "Bit early to tell. But, uh..."

Sam trailed off as his eyes focused on something past Jack's shoulder. He, as well as Dean, turned to meet your eyes that quickly darted away once all three of them were looking at you.

"I think I have an idea," Sam said.

Dean and Jack curiously tilted their heads to the side at the same time, though when Dean noticed that, he fixed himself immediately.

"I think they have a thing for you," he said in a much quieter voice.

"Me?" Jack asked, pushing his finger into his chest.

"Yeah. You could get a little closer and see if something's up."

"Are you seriously setting up Jack with a fuckin' demon, for all we know?" Dean asked flatly, earning an odd look from Sam, who had never heard Dean protest putting Jack in danger.

"Dean, Jack's dad is a demon-angel thing. I don't think it's a big deal," he said.

That seemed to shut the older Winchester up.

"Hm," Jack hummed as he debated the idea. "I also found something strange."

"Oh, right," Sam said, clearing his head with a shake. "What was it?"

"It was also... the librarian," he said with a deep frown. "In one of the books."

He pushed forward the textbook, opening it to reveal the page in which he'd found your face. The stone expression was remarkably similar to your traits, from the curve of your nose to the positioning of your eyes, and the small, polite smile on your lips.

"I found it in the history section," Jack explained. "It says it's from Vedic India."

A quick Google-search later, Sam was reading out the age of Vedic India.

"According to this it says the Vedic age was approximately around 1500 to 800 B.C., so... about 2,500 years ago."

"Wow, this fucker's old," Dean snorted.

Sam shot him a look over the top of his computer screen.

Having found the information they were looking for, the Winchesters began to pack up their belongings and their scribbled notes, shoving them into their bags or into their many-pocketed coats. Jack, on the other hand, prepared himself for talking to you, hoping his ineptness towards social situations with humans wouldn't be too obvious. He swallowed through the knot in his throat, taking a shaking breath in an attempt to steady himself.

It didn't work.

"Dean, what am I supposed to say to them?" He whispered when they were already approaching the front desk, his palms growing sweaty.

"I don't know, their job or something? Something normal," he very unhelpfully advised.

"Thanks for letting us stay for the day," Sam said with a polite smile, handing back one of the printed out records you'd fetched for them from beneath your desk.

"Not a problem. You keep quiet. I like that in a reader," you said, smiling back as you glanced between the three of them.

None of them moved, and your expression turned to mild confusion. Dean had to jab Jack in the side to get him to speak. He opened his mouth to protest, but Dean motioned something to Sam, and the two of them quickly left for the car, leaving Jack alone while they 'situated' themselves.

"I, um..." Jack started before he was ready.

The silence felt wrong, but the silence after saying something was much, much worse. Whatever came into his mind first would have to be what he said.

"I like your job," he said, keenly scanning your expression for any hint of your thoughts.

You paused, clearly taken back for a moment, before you broke out into a chuckle, looking down to your hands as your face flushed.

"I like it quite a lot, too," you said with a grin, looking back up at him. "I've always been interested in becoming a librarian. Granted, I didn't quite imagine it in Kansas, but it is pretty here."

"Where did you imagine it?"

"Greece, actually," you chuckled, and he smiled as well, his heart thumping with a sudden haste. "I was heartbroken to hear the Library of Alexandria was burned down."

"The Library of Alexandria?" He repeated, tilting his head to the side again.

"Haven't heard of it?" You asked.

He shook his head gingerly. Was he supposed to?

No matter––you explained in full what the Library of Alexandria was, when it was created, when it was burnt, and the loss it caused amongst human society. He listened intently, frequently asking questions you were happy to answer. When Jack glanced out the library window, he found the impala gone, and realized Sam's plan had, in a way, worked.

"Are there.. any books about the library?" He asked once you completed your short story.

"Yes, but I don't want to hold you folks up –"

It was then you looked out the window as well, finding the two large men had abandoned the smaller.

"Oh where'd they go?" You said in a curious, high voice.

"Don't worry about that, I... have a bus," he said, earning a strange look. "I am... I ride buses."

A beat of silence passed.

"So the Library was in Greece?" He asked, and your earlier mood returned.

You brought him––with much excitement––to one of the rows in the library filled with simple textbooks for primary school kids. Other rows of your well-tended library were occupied by old books, their bindings worn and frayed at the edges from continuous use. Pages were turned yellow and were soft beneath his fingers, but despite their age they were rather hard for Jack to read and understand, meaning his discovery of children's comprehensible textbooks was a giddy one.

Jack wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to be looking for when it came to you. What counted as suspicious? You continued to speak with him even after the sun set behind mountains, that could be a sign you were trying to gather information on him, as well. That could also mean you liked him. Was your friendliness suspect?

"- and the Phoenicians were really only called that by the Grecians. The name came from the purple dye that they're famous for, some root word for 'purple people' in Greek is Phoenicia," you explained, moving your hands expressively despite the fact that Jack's eyes were set dead on the textbook on the floor in front of you. Paragraphs of words surrounded modern depictions of ancient people and their art.

"So what was their actual name?" He asked as he looked up to you.

"Canaanites. From the land of Canaan."

"... you know a lot," he said, looking back to the page as you chuckled.

"It's just memory," you said with a shrug.

"Can I... can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Do you know anything about mythical creatures?"

Surely this would reveal something, Jack thought––you might react poorly, in which case you could be the monster, or you might react in complete knowledge, which... could also mean you were the monster.

"A little," you said slowly. "Why do you ask?"

"I have an interest, in myths and monsters," he said, almost smiling again.

"Oh man, I have a show you're going to love."

Far in the back of the library, a hollow, steel door led to a small break room, the carpet inside being a dark, scratchy grey against his palms when he sat down. There were no chairs in the room, but an old TV sat on a cheap cart plugged into the nearest, bare wall. On the opposite side of the TV was a dull blue counter that stretched from the door to a window covered by plastic shingle curtains.

You snatched the remote off the counter, pressing a large, red button that had the television buzzing to life loudly. The screen sparked, static radiating around it as a thin line of white brought life to a Netflix loading screen.

After several minutes of waiting for Netflix to load and then typing a title into the search bar, a show called Myths and Monsters was before him. He let out a laugh as he realized what had sparked the connection––he'd literally spoken the title.

Would an ancient being or monster know how to work a TV?

Castiel could work a TV.

Kind of.

The first episode began to play and you took a seat beside Jack, crossing your legs neatly beneath you. A few minutes in, rain pattered lightly on the roof, followed by sudden winds that battered the now pouring rain against the window. Jack watched through the side of his eye as you smiled at the change in weather.

That was suspicious.

Late in the evening, when night darkened the land and heavy thunderclouds darkened the sky, he left the library. He stood in the threshold between the warm light on your desk in the otherwise dark room, and the falling rain outside. Yellow-orange streetlamps illuminated the sheets of rain and the nearby bus stop, but you still stopped him, holding the door open as you both stood motionless in front of one another.

"I have a car, I can drive you home," you offered, gesturing over your shoulder to a door in the back that led to a private parking lot behind the library. "I'm not sure if the bus runs this late."

Extended time with you would be good, and he imagined your face illuminated by dim dashboard car lights would be better than good––great. Beautiful. You had wonderfully warm features. But you couldn't know where he lived for a number of reasons; if you were the monster, that was giving away a hiding place, and if you weren't, you would wonder why he lived in such a strange place.

"Thank you, but it's alright," he said. "I like the rain."

A small smile stretched across your plush lips.

"So do I," you said, and the two of you bid good-bye, retreating into your respective dark.

He gave a thorough rundown of the events proceeding after Sam and Dean left, and the three of them––Sam, Dean, and Castiel––listened closely. Dean already filled Castiel in on the rest of the case, and the two brothers were eating at the long table in the bunker's library.

They stared at him in silence when he finished.

"Sounds like a regular kid," Sam finally said.

"Ah don't be so sure about that," Dean said, raising a single brow. "What did you say the monster probably was?"

"A – a fae, or something," he said.

"Fae's good at lying," Dean pointed out, earning a reluctant nod from Castiel.

"He's right. Fairies are remarkably good at acting," he said in his low, grating voice.

"So... what next?" Jack asked.

"We'll keep looking into the case more, and you can probably ask the librarian out on a date," Sam suggested, earning an agreeing remark from Dean. "You can keep them distracted while we search their house."

"Do we know where they live yet?" asked Dean.

"No, but it shouldn't be too hard to find out," Sam said.

Jack watched the brothers for a moment, his mind emptying of answers as to what a 'date' was.

"What's a date?"

"Oh Christ," Dean muttered, moving immediately to his feet and leaving the room.

Sam let out an exasperated sigh at his brother, turning to Jack to explain what a date was, what were appropriate date activities, and how he should act when asking you out and when being out with you.

"Okay," Jack said with a nod despite not really understanding. "What are dates for?"

"They're between people who are interested in.. getting to know each other," Castiel said as he took a seat beside Sam across from Jack.

"So... like when Dean and I went driving."

"No. Not like that," Sam quickly said. "Not like that at all. If – if a guy is interested in a girl, like interested in having her be his girlfriend, then he might ask her out on a date. It's a romantic thing."

"The librarian does seem to be interested in you, from what I’ve heard," Castiel said with a pointed look in Jack's direction.

"I think you've got a shot," Sam agreed, nodding.

Jack thought for a moment before he said, "okay."

A few days later––Dean insisted he only try a few days later, saying anything less was damaging his honor––Jack returned to the library, lighting up when he found you were still working at the small front desk, your nose buried in a large box full of papers. Large, round glasses were hanging off the tip of your nose, and you pushed them up to your eyes when they slipped further off.

The door clicked softly shut behind him when he entered, scanning the room as if there was another reason he was there. You watched him the whole time, continuing to when he approached you, something obviously on his mind.

"I was wondering..." he trailed off, losing himself in your bright, expectant eyes. When he realized he'd fallen silent, he added the first thing that came to mind––a lie. "... if you could show me where the... books are."

You chuckled before you said, "which ones?"

"Maps," he said, smiling as he came up with something actually substantial.

Of course, it wasn't asking you out, but at least it was talking to you. He would have to do that later, though he supposed he'd have to do it that day or he would be disappointing the Winchesters and Castiel when he came back to the bunker without even trying to complete their orders.

"We don't really have a maps section, but I might be able to help you if you tell me the time and place you're looking for," you suggested for him, and he nodded slowly.

"Yes. Please."

"So what are you looking for?"

"Oh. Right, uh.. Greece and Mediterranean," he said, repeating subjects from the last time you'd spoken.

"Mediterranean sea?"

He nodded.

"What year?" You asked.

"Uh..." he drew another blank, "two... hundred."

You seemed reluctant to ask the next question, but it was necessary; "before christ or after?"

"... before."

"Alright," you said with a soft snicker, moving around your crowded desk area and towards the bookcases.

Your stride slowed as you approached a certain shelf, shifting up onto the tips of your toes to reach the highest books. Jack thought of offering his help, but he wasn't much taller than you––if at all––and he didn't know which books to get down.

Four thick books ended up in your arms, and you heaved them over to the nearest table, letting them thump down heavily. You spread them out, flipping rapidly through the pages till you found the proper maps you seemed to have memorized within each of the books.

"This one's about 900 BC to 200 AD, so it's got a bit wider of a range. Includes the bigger cities. This one is.. 1500 BC to 300 BC, so a little bit within range, has a lot more cities," you said, moving from one textbook to the next while Jack stared at you, enamored by your plush lips.

He barely even noticed that you finished your explanations, nor your quick words mentioning you should probably return to your studies and leave him to it. But he reached out on instinct, grabbing your wrist and tugging gently, convincing you to turn back to him. Your eyes, still bright, retained that same patient expectancy as his previous evening with you.

"I... could you talk to me?" He asked, oblivious to the implications read clearly by you.

"About what?" You asked in return as you stepped subtly closer.

"About fairies."

You paused, your eyes widening slightly.

"The ones from Celtic folklore or... like modern media fairies?" You asked slowly, slinking down into a seat you situated to face him.

He did the same, his feet planted firmly on the floor as he watched you, a smile tugging at his lips.

"Just... the oldest versions of fairies."

You nodded, again slowly as you pursed your lips.

"Well the oldest mentions of them in literature actually comes from ancient Greece, from the Iliad, by Homer," you began, immediately using your hands expressively as you spoke. "Those weren't Celtic fairies, though. Greeks considered creatures like satyrs and such to be fairies, as well, so... generally fairies and the fae as we think of them now came from Ireland and Scotland."

"Where are they?" He asked with a head tilt.

You stuttered for a second, your eyes flying across the room until you stood, returning to the shelves. He watched with much humor as you read the book titles at a frightening pace, fingers flipping over the bindings till you pulled one down.

"Here, world map," you said, and though he didn't notice, you didn't comment on the oddity of not knowing where Scotland and Ireland were. Almost everyone knew where those two countries were; or, at least, the general area.

"In Ireland fairies are seen as simply... mythical people. Great warriors and poets, or witches, they're all considered part of the fae in Celtic culture. In Scotland, though, fairies are more dangerous, essentially being creatures that feed off humans in one way or another," you continued. "Like... banshees, those are Scottish, and jack o' lanterns."

"Jack o' lanterns?"

He'd heard of banshees before; they were mentioned a few times by the Winchester brothers.

"Not like the Halloween pumpkins," you said, but when you were met with further confusion, you slowly said, "...and you don't know what those are either, do you?"

He shook his head reluctantly.

You spent the next two, whole hours talking to him, going over any question he had no matter how much you thought he should've known the answer to begin with. Jack relaxed into that feeling, into that ease, while suspicion grew in your own mind. There was no one of his age and stature that didn't know the questions he posed. Still, you found yourself unable to pin any such wariness of manipulation onto such a polite boy.

Engrossed fully in whatever you had to say and rarely speaking himself, Jack absorbed a number of facts about the fae. About their trickery and mischief, about their magic, how different species had different thoughts on humanity. Considering the lengths you knew about other subjects, none of what you told him occurred to him as suspicious. You seemed, again, to be a dedicated––but human––scholar.

When at last he exhausted his questions, both on and off topic, he began a build-up of courage. Asking someone out for a case should've been much easier than this, or at least that's what he thought. Dean mentioned he'd done similar things for other such cases.

Jack's face scrunched up in deep thought despite the silence between you.

"Are you alright, Jack?" You asked.

"Oh. I'm... fine," he said, nodding his head in a way that didn't convince you all that well. "I – I wanted to ask you something."

You nodded, gently helping him along.

"I know we don't know each other that well, but... you.. interest me, and.." he trailed off once more. It was difficult to tell a lie that was technically the truth. "I was wondering if you wanted to go with me. On a date."

He expected a number of things from you––perhaps anger, perhaps embarrassment, perhaps shock, but you just chuckled, leaning back in your chair. His brow furrowed at your odd reaction. Were you laughing at him?

"Was that what you wanted to ask me when you first came in?" You said through your giggles, your soft skin glowing in the warm, early evening light.

"... yes," he said, huffing out his own chuckle as his eyes fell to the floor. "I'm sorry."

"There's no need to apologize," you said with a grin. “You’re the one who had to listen to me ramble.”

"So.. will you..?"

"Yeah," you chuckled, nodding. "I enjoy your company as well."

A smile made a permanent home on Jack's face as he returned to the bunker, his official mission having been successfully completed, and his hands still burning with the touch you left as he walked out the door. While most of the town smelled like baking pies and cinnamon cider, the bunker carried no such warmth, and smelled more like rotting leaves than anything else, though Sam lit a couple apple candles in his room. The scent filled part of a long hallway.

He found his fathers all sitting on a single couch, facing a television that had some sort of film playing on it through the static. Jack silently stepped round the nearest chair, taking a seat beside them, and watching on intently. A soft, high note hummed from the speakers.

Red, ratted curtains pulled way for sunlight streaming through dust-filled air. The wooden windowsill had a vase in which a single, molted flower sat, most of its petals having fallen off long ago. But that wasn't where the camera stopped; it halted above the image of two women tangled in sheets similarly worn down as the curtains were, requiring many patches over large holes. One had their face pressed to the other's neck, her nose nudging a sharp jawline owned by still sleeping eyes. Their limbs were knotted tight together, chest to chest, and a quiet, sleepy melody humming out of the smaller's pale lips.

Jack frowned. He'd never seen two people so physically close together. The nearest thing he'd seen was Dean and Castiel hugging, and even that was reserved in a way. This was pure trust––pure peace, and he found himself wondering if it was entirely fictional, or if such happiness could really exist in the world that at times felt poisoned.

Maybe it did exist if you found a way to smile that brightly.

He earned a whole other course of schooling once he announced their plan was successful. Dean clapped him proudly on the back, shooting a dirty grin that Sam countered with clean praise. Even Castiel seemed to be proud. Jack beamed at that, his heartbeat now pounding at the thought of three days from now; when he had planned the date.

In the meantime, the brothers stayed up for most of the night, though they looked much worse for wear that morning than Jack after he stayed up with them. Researching faes was actually a little easier than a lot of other monsters––there were many articles about them, and a deeply-engrained fear of changeling children had led to thorough documentation on the fae realm and its inhabitants. Jack was still a little slow at typing, so Sam captained the computer research, while Jack sped through the books in the bunker's library. Dean looked through articles and stories in newspapers searching for any hint of where they children might be kept if they weren't immediately killed.

The more he read about fairies, about their habits, their composure, and their lies, the less he could picture you as one. Originally a fairy brought to mind someone beautiful and fair, or someone like you, with dazzling eyes that could stop an archangel in their step. But the sharp teeth and wicked, wirey hair didn't sound at all like you. He'd felt your hands––once brushing over his––and there were no claws or stinging sensations that lingered in your touch. Still, the Winchesters probably knew better than him, and he pushed the feeling aside.

In the next evening, after Dean took a long day nap, Sam and Dean set to packing up their tools and tricks once more, tossing them into the back of the impala with the rest of the permanent fixtures. Jack watched as they did this, his hair still neat and clean despite not sleeping or washing up for two days.

"Can I come with?" He asked in the politest voice he could manage.

They were headed off to the library under the cover of night. After hearing about several back rooms Jack noticed during his time there, a reasonable question was posed––was there more information you could be hiding?

"Uh –" Sam began, only to be cut off by Dean saying –

"No. If we get found, that's fine, but if you're with us, we lose your relationship with her."

Before Jack could reply Dean climbed into the drivers seat, followed by Sam clambering in beside him. He had issues getting into the car at times. The engine stuttered to life, and Sam waved good-bye through the windshield as they pulled and drove the car away.

Jack frowned, his brow knitted together again.

"Bye," he said, but he was the only one to hear it.

Castiel would be back soon. He decided waiting in the library would guarantee he'd see Castiel as soon as possible, something he desired, as there were a number of new questions he wanted to pose to the elder angel. Thousands of years his senior, Castiel must've had answers––some sort of insight to some strange impulses, or simply comfort against 'wrong' thoughts.

Technically your library was private, meaning others weren't allowed to take your books away from the building, but you allowed him to take something home under the assurance of a guarantee. He would return it next time he saw you, a promise that clearly meant a lot to you going by the ease that overtook you when he said 'okay' with a signature, sweet smile. The only reason you leant the book to him was because it contained information you considered thought-provoking, thoughts about how humanity evolves, and how technological advances could change the actual anatomy of the human mind. Some of the claims seemed to him to be a bit of a reach, but others brought him interesting points.

The metal latch on the door let out a resounding click as the door swung open, Castiel standing behind with wild hair and a stunned look about him. He flung the door shut before running down the stairs towards Jack.

"Have they gotten back from the library yet?" He asked as he approached.

"No, they left..." he glanced at the clock, "a couple hours ago."

"Hmm," Castiel grumbled. "That's a long time for them."

"Should we go help them?" Jack suggested, setting your book aside as he stood straighter in his chair.

"No, we'll give them some more time. See what happens," he said before he set off, jogging into the hall.

Jack sighed as he slumped back into his seat, almost mourning the death of an easy excuse to go see your library. And Castiel left before he could ask him anything. Dean had a point, though––if they were caught and he was with them, that would ruin your relationship entirely, and that was something he, for some reason, despised.

It took another hour and a half before Sam and Dean were waltzing back in from the garage, tossing their duffel bags aside and shucking off warm, autumn jackets to side chairs. Something must've given away their presence, as Castiel was quick to reenter the main room.

"How did it go?" He asked.

"Like shit," Dean said, not even bothering to stop as he passed Castiel.

"We didn't find anything," Sam clarified. "Whole place was clean."

"Well.. maybe it's at their house," Castiel said almost gingerly, turning to keep his ever-vigilant eyes on the elder Winchester. "All the tools and... stuff."

"Yeah, that's what we're hoping," Dean said as he disappeared into the hallway.

"When did you say your date was again?" Sam asked, turning to Jack, who blanked for a moment before he answered.

"Two days from now," he said.

"Alright, well... we'll see what happens," he said with a nod, setting his hands on his hips. "Hopefully find where they might be hiding the kids."

Dean reentered with a bottle in hand, taking a quick swig as he settled down into one of the cushier chairs.

Jack's heart sped when his fingers began to fidget together, squirming restlessly in front of him. Questions still lingered on the edge of his mind, and answers from anyone would do him well, though he was well aware Dean would probably be reluctant to offer any advice to him.

"Could I ask you some questions?" He asked in the general direction of Cas, who happened to be standing right beside Dean. Castiel opened his mouth to answer.

"Sure," Dean said before he could speak. Castiel promptly shut his mouth after that.

"I know this shouldn't get in the way of the case, and it won't," Jack said as he took a seat opposite Dean. He and his brother shot each other glances. "I just have strange... thoughts, when I am around the librarian. Impulses, kind of."

Dean, who had raised the bottle to his lips, paused at those words and set it down instead, a decision that shocked both Sam and Castiel.

"What kind of impulses?" He asked in a flat voice.

"I want to... eat them," Jack said slowly, his brow furrowed deeply as he looked at the ground. When he looked back up, all three men were staring at him.

"You want to what??" Castiel asked.

"Like.. put my mouth on them...?" He tried.

"Wait – you mean kissing?" Sam asked as he shifted his weight between his feet.

"N... no, I don't think it's that," Jack said, though he was growing even less sure of himself with how they continued to gawk at him.

"You want to make out with the fairy?" Dean asked with a look that screamed 'unbelievable'.

"Maybe?" was the best answer Jack could offer.

Dean sighed, rubbing his face tiredly with his free hand.

"I don't want to.. encourage these thoughts," Castiel said, "but they might help on your date."

"So I should kiss them?"

"Maybe at the end of it," Sam suggested.

"And... how do I kiss?"

"Fuckin' –" Dean muttered under his breath as he stood, leaving the room with annoyance in his scowl.

The three of them––Jack, Sam, and Castiel––watched Dean round the corner and disappear.

"Ignore him," Sam said.

Sam, with some help from Castiel, patiently re-explained the happenings and ongoings of dates, from conversation topics to activities often done on dates. Sam assured Jack that he needn't do anything dramatic, over the top, or especially original, since Jack 'wasn't actually going on a date,' a phrase that made him a little sad for a reason he couldn't identify.

A bouquet of chocolate roses lay in his hands, the neon and florescent lights of the convenience store flickering and buzzing above him. Sam insisted a good way to start a date was with a gift––conventionally flowers, but the second Jack saw the chocolate roses he was entranced. He'd never seen candy in the shape of something real. Surely you would be delighted by the art, as well. Sam was less sure than he was, but allowed him to buy it with a chuckle, muttering something about how he wouldn't need to get chocolates anymore.

"Now remember," Sam began as he adjusted Jack's collar, "blood-soaked iron is what kills them, but since we don't have that right now, I think iron should hurt them."

"Forks, fire pokers, metal pipes... those usually have iron in them," said Dean.

"And if you get into a fight, just get out of there," Sam finished.

"No hanky-panky, either," Dean said.

"Dean," he hissed, slapping his brother's arm.

"What's hanky-panky?" Jack asked, furrowing his brow.

"Nevermind, just––be safe, have fun," Sam said with a smile, patting his shoulder.

The brothers dropped him off at your house before circling the block in search of a good vantage point. He took a shaky breath as he climbed your steps, soon rapping his knuckles on the plain, wooden door. It was a bit of a task trying to swallow, but he managed to push past his tight throat and put a smile on his face.

Footsteps sounded, growing closer until the door opened, revealing your wide eyes and the olive green silk you wore, draping elegantly from your chest down to your feet. A heavyweight scarf rested upon your shoulders. The warm light of the hallway behind you illuminated the loose strands of your always messy hair, but the sight still had his lips parting as he gasped softly. He felt suddenly out of place in his simple button-down, pants, and everyday jacket, shifting his weight almost uncomfortably as he found himself at a loss for words.

"You look... really nice," he said rather awkwardly, gesturing vaguely to your outfit with a dopey smile.

"Thanks," you said, chuckling. "You look nice too."

He stared for another moment before he suddenly remembered the chocolate and foil roses in his hands.

"I got these for you," he said as he handed them to you, scanning every inch of your reaction. "Sam told me to get flowers, but I think this is better, ‘cause then you get to eat them."

"You actually can eat roses! They just don't taste very good," you giggled, fixing your hair as you took them, a blushing smile still on your face. "I do like chocolate more, though."

"Oh, good," he said, his shoulders finally falling from their tense position. "I hope you don't mind walking. I don't know how to drive."

"I like walking, actually," you said as you walked past him, trotting down the front steps of your house. He followed along, his soft brown hair flopping like a puppy's ears over innocent eyes. "I like taking walks at night, but I don't take them a lot. It's kind of dangerous."

"Why?"

"A lot of people aren't very nice, or they're down on their luck and make poor decisions. I don't want to get hurt or mugged just because I like wandering around."

"Why would someone hurt you? You're such a nice person," he said with a frown.

"That doesn't mean anything," you laughed softly.

Food wasn't a particular attraction of Kansas, but few things were. The amount of restaurants in town was high, most of them serving a very similar menu containing lots of meat, barbecue, pie, and sometimes funnel cake. None were all that classy, so Jack took you to a place that Sam recommended––a nearly 24 hours open cafe whose kitchen was always open, and who hosted quiet, live jazz on select evenings.

You and Jack spoke of a number of things while you walked, none more interesting than any of your previous conversation topics, as you seemed to want to stay on the topic of him as a person rather than the history you usually rambled about. You asked who Sam was, which he explained as one of his fathers, at which point you asked who the second was. He hesitated for a moment, unsure if he should tell the truth or formulate a more normal-person lie.

"I... my mother died in childbirth," he said, his voice uncharacteristically low and quiet, murmuring with the sureness of his trust in you. "My father, Castiel, takes care of me, with his brothers, Sam and Dean."

"Oh. I'm sorry," you murmured, and he opened his mouth to give the usual speech––it's alright, I've gotten used to it––but you continued with, "it's an honorable way to die."

He paused to absorb your words. No one had ever said that before.

"Yeah," he finally said. "I guess you're right."

"So what's your father like?"

He sucked in a breath, forced to once again decide between a truth, a half-truth, and a lie. Like with most things, he took the middle road.

"My genetic father isn't... I don't talk to him," he said.

"Oh."

"But Castiel is good. He always tries to do what's right. I'm still trying to learn about this whole.. being-alive thing, from him."

"I think we all are," you chuckled.

You ended up ordering for him when you finally got to the cafe, standing in line for only a few minutes before you were looking for a table. He had trouble understanding the menu, often asking you what things were, and eventually you had to gently push him on to let the next people in line have a turn. If this bothered you, it didn't show.

Piano and saxophone played in time with one another, their rhythms and melodies dancing around the beat of the drummer. Scant, warm light shone from above, illuminating the haze of clouds drifting from smokers, most of whom stood in the corner, nursing the embers as they watched the musicians play. Jack tapped his foot to the beat against the dark oak floor.

You joined him a moment later, two coffees in hand and your coat draped over your arm.

"Have you ever been here before?" You asked as you took a seat, casting your jacket over the back of the chair after you set the coffee down.

"No, I don't really get out much," he admitted.

"How come?"

"I don't.. really have friends," he admitted, again, though this time much more reluctantly. He'd heard that generally people respected you more if you had friends.

"That's alright," you said, leaning back with a soft smile made only more alluring by the dim, red and orange light. "I've found it's more fun to stay in than to go out sometimes. Everything becomes the same after a while. You can drink at home, you can dance at home, sing, host parties..." you sipped from your steaming cup, ".. so, obviously, I don't go out much either."

"You have friends, though?"

"Not really," you chuckled, glancing down. "Books last longer than conversation, generally."

"Then... why talk to me?" He asked, attempting to meet your eye with that knot still tucked into his brow.

"Because you came to me."

Soon your conversation was halted by a server bringing out your food. You made sure to thank him as he left, before hungry eyes settled eagerly upon your funnel cake. Unwrapping the napkin, you set the orange cloth on your lap, revealing your silverware. Jack followed your lead, copying your motions near exactly down to you rubbing your hands together excitedly.

He'd never tried funnel cake before, leaving him to melt as he took his first bite.

"Good, isn't it?" You chuckled through a full mouth.

He nodded ardently.

The crowd began to thin halfway through your meal, turning thick conversation to quiet murmurs confined to singular tables in corners and shadowed areas. Jack still had yet to find anything incriminating about you, an answer that led only to other questions, ones that flew wildly around his head.

You didn't seem human––at least, not entirely. There were things you said that hinted to something else, a knowledge within that was a little too wide for the lengths of a human mind. That and your soul; what he could see of your soul was strangely colored, florescent holographic, and warped far more than normal people's usually were––almost as warped as Sam and Dean's souls now were. Bright, yes, but warped. Something had happened to you.

But there was nothing bad within you. Darkness tinted the edges, the edges so often scraped by the world around you––the world around both of you––but the center within, where your heart emanated, was clear. It was actually rather beautiful; you were rather beautiful.

He wished he could tell you without seeming strange.

"What do you think about most, Jack?" You asked, pulling him away from his thoughts.

He instantly stuttered, as what he'd been thinking about was you, but he couldn't say that.

"Just.. uh, my, uh.. my place in the world," he said, tapping the end of his fork on the old wood table.

"Like your job, or your purpose as a human?" You asked as you sipped from your third refill of coffee.

"My purpose, sort of," he said, his eyes flickering to the ground. "I have a lot of responsibility. My father thinks I'm very powerful."

Was that giving too much away?

"What does he want you to do?"

"He wants me... to stay alive," he said, earning a soft chuckle from you that had a smile spreading across his own face. "I think he wants me to be safe and happy."

"That's a wonderful goal," you said with a grin. "And there are so many ways to achieve that."

So far he'd only found ways to achieve the opposite––how to antagonize the world by existing, how his grandfather wanted him dead, how his genetic father would use him for any power grab he posed. If you wanted to feel at risk of dying at any moment, he knew a thousand ways to do it.

"I haven't really found any," he said quietly.

You paused before you asked, "do you want my advice?"

He nodded, hesitantly at first, but sure of himself when you smiled softly.

"Always be kind to others. Mind your own business unless someone is getting hurt, and if you have to get your hands dirty, do it for only a second. Then get the hell out of there and wash yourself clean for the next hundred couple years," you said.

There it was again. A hint of something more. In passing conversations Jack heard from strangers, no one spoke like they lived history. Not like you did. And he'd wager no historian spoke with the sense of memory that you did.

"Anything specific make you realize that?" He asked, unable to stop himself from chuckling.

You looked his age––sometime in your 20's––but you spoke like an 80 year old. Something about that facade appeared humorous to him. He also looked your age––sometime in his 20′s––but he spoke like a 10 year old far more than he liked to admit.

"Family drama," you said dismissively. "I've been steering clear for a while now."

Did fairies have families?

Well, if you were a fairy, you could just be lying then.

Jack frowned. If Dean or Castiel were here, they would know what to say and think.

"I understand," was what he said instead.

The impala was still parked near the house by the time Jack was walking you home, a sight that nearly sent him panicking. Sam and Dean wouldn't want him to do that. So he clenched his fists in his pockets, his shoulders tightening ever so slightly as he tried to slow his pace in a way you wouldn't notice.

But you did. Of course you did.

"You alright, Jack?" You asked, matching his pace.

"Yeah, I just..." what was something normal to say? Something he could back up – "I meant to ask you something, but I didn't ever... find the time to."

"What was it you wanted to ask?"

He shivered as a brisk wind picked up, the dry, orange leaves on the edges of the sidewalk passing quick by his feet in the breeze.

"Do you think everyone feels this lost in life?" He asked, barely audible above the wind.

"There's a little bit of you in everybody, just like how there's a little bit of everybody in you. You're capable of the same things that a murderer is just as you are a... a hero, or a martyr," you said, taking time to think before you spoke. "Humans are remarkably similar, you come to see after a while. And even Gods face these questions, these wonderings of their origins and their purpose, if their creations are everything they're meant for or – or if they're doing something wrong, and they should be doing something else instead."

He continued to stare at the ground as you walked slowly side by side, brought out of his intense expression by something soft flopping over the back of his neck. His heart thrummed as you stopped him there, turning him to face you, and looking him in the eye as you fixed your scarf on his shoulders. The effect was instantaneous––his shoulders relaxed and the stress fell from his brow, absorbed in the warmth of your gesture.

"Whatever you're going through," you gave him a pointed look, telling him silently to not deny this truth, "is worse and better than what other people go through. It may not be the best but it's probably not the worst."

Your advice, though insightful, didn't mean much considering his problems had to do with the continued life or prompt execution of the entire universe by a bitter, old man. But the main point remained; there were more painful deaths than his, just as there were better ways to die than he would or will. He may not be facing the best circumstances, but they could be much worse, and the fact that normal humans often asked the same questions he did was more of a comfort than he thought it would be. Perhaps he really was connected to his mother in that way.

The steps creaked beneath your shared weight as you both approached the front door of your house. You opened the door, stepping partway through the threshold before you turned to him, hesitation lacing your open mouth.

Behind you, Jack managed to spot two shadowed figures running across the hallway towards what he presumed to be a back door. His eyes widened imperceptibly and he pursed his lips, quick averting his gaze back to you.

"You're special, Jack," you said quietly, scanning him with a careful look. "Don't let bad circumstances own you. You only get so much time in this world."

"You're very kind," was all he could managed to respond with. "Thanks for... going out with me tonight."

"Of course. I like talking to you."

"I'm glad you do," he said with a sheepish chuckle, one you mimicked as you fixed your hair.

"I'll see you again soon?"

"Yes, I – oh," he interrupted himself, remembering your scarf still enveloping him, "this belongs to you."

"Don't worry about it," you said, taking his arms and settling them back down to his sides. "It's kind of cold out tonight, and I'm assuming you're walking home... aren't you?"

"... yeah," he lied, blood rushing to his face at the thought of taking a piece of you home.

"Then I'll get it back another time," you said, smiling.

You hesitated to close the door again, and instead you gingerly moved forward, raising yourself to press a single, soft kiss to his cheek, the edge of it just barely touching his lips. His mouth parted in surprise, but before he could say anything you shut the door.

He walked back to the impala completely starstruck.

"I don't think they're dangerous," Jack said, restating what he'd said earlier to Sam and Dean on the drive home––he just couldn't see you as suspicious. Strange, yes, but not murderous.

"If what you say is true, though, then this is quite likely a fae," said Castiel as his eyes flickered from Jack to Sam and Dean.

"See? Facts are facts, kid," Dean said, pointing to Castiel with a smile.

"Hexbags, crystals, actual photos with them from, like, 1890? And the amount of plants," Sam continued with a slight shudder.

"How many plants were there?" Castiel asked, frowning sternly.

"Too damn many," Dean answered for him. "The point is, we gotta interrogate that thing."

"They didn't do anything wrong!" Jack said, his voice tripling without his knowledge.

Everyone in the room reacted accordingly––stiff postures and sharp breaths as the golden light faded in his eyes.

"Jack..." Castiel began hesitantly, his voice quiet and low.

He barely uttered out an 'I'm sorry,' before he turned and left, disappearing down the hallway and into his room.

It took him nearly a whole day to leave his room, having spent most of the time alone to brood and ponder over his actions, and whether or not he was being manipulated by a fairy creature. He couldn't deny the fact that there was a chance he was wrong and he was under your control, thus landing him with the only sane decision, somehow; trust Sam and Dean.

Silence surrounded him as he padded through the bunker, headed towards the kitchens after not eating for nearly 24 hours. Technically he could live without food for much, much longer than that, even without sleep, but it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience.

When he reached the kitchen he also found it empty. In fact, the whole bunker sounded empty, leaving all the cereal for him. He smiled.

Sam and Dean returned before Castiel did, though after their return they hid away doing 'private business' in the basement area. Jack tried to ask what it was they were doing, but Dean curtly brushed him off, sending him back upstairs to go clean up the mess they left in the kitchen after a quick, midnight dinner.

As he was scrubbing the dishes, a door lock clattered in the distance, marking Castiel's return. Now that the fort was manned again, he could sneak off to see you in the morning. Castiel informed him that showing up at people's houses at midnight could be seen in a very bad way. He knew you wouldn't judge him, but he still didn't want to embarrass himself, and it was only a few more hours to wait till dawn.

He could fly. He could also ask Sam or Dean to drive him (while he could also ask to drive Baby, he knew the answer would be an ardent no), but the grey clouds promised rain, and the smell of rain hitting the leaf-covered earth pleasured his mind. With your scarf wrapped around him, he could avoid the cold as well.

His feet were a little tired by the time your library came into view, though still warm in the crisp air from fuzzy, woolen socks. The frayed edges of your scarf fluttered about chaotically in the wind as he noticed something rather odd––the library wasn't open. None of the lights were turned on, the chairs were still atop the tables, and you were nowhere to be seen. He had left the bunker a little early, but you always opened by 5AM at the latest, and it was 8 now.

For several minutes he hadn't a clue as to what to do, meaning he stood motionless in silence in front of the glass door, his head tilting slowly to the side in confusion. Maybe you woke up late––that would explain it. You were perfectly safe in your bed, dozing after a good night's sleep, completely unharmed.

But things rarely worked out so easily for Jack. Your home was empty, no sign of your disappearance left as your shoes, jacket, keys, and wallet were still left by the front door. In a sudden panic at the thought of your absence, the world around him flickered for a split second before he appeared in the bunker's war room. Knowing the usual fate of the people he cared about, you were probably being hurt, perhaps kidnapped by the actual fae who'd been killing the children, or lost of your own volition in a forest you wandered too far into.

"Castiel." Jack grabbed the angel's coat sleeve, stopping him on the way to the stairs. "I went looking for the librarian and they're missing."

"Missing?" Castiel repeated with a grimace. "Did you check the library and the house?"

"Yes, I couldn't find them."

"They might be headed for the children," he said, sending a pang through Jack's heart that he ignored.

"Is... is there a way to track a fae?"

"There's no spell I know of," Castiel said, his gaze falling to the floor as he scanned his mind. "But if it's a magical creature, it may carry a sort of... a sort of scent."

"A scent?" Jack furrowed his brow, wondering if something could carry your scent.

Something you'd been around a while. Something like your books, or your bed, or –

Jack jumped after he realized he was still wearing your scarf which, despite its' time with Jack in his room, still smelled of you. He shoved it into Castiel's arms, but he only gave him a confused look.

"It's their scarf," he explained.

Castiel spared him from the embarrassment of explaining how he'd gotten it.

He held the crumpled scarf in his hand up to his nose, intaking a deep breath with closed eyes. Jack hadn't ever heard of this kind of tracking, which was odd since he inherently knew most things about angels, but he would never distrust his father. What he did distrust was the churning feeling in his chest, as though a curved knife had impaled itself in him and twisted slowly through his skin.

Doubts pervaded both angels almost immediately as Castiel followed the trail. It led near to the stairs, but took a harsh turn and went into the hallway, leading them further into the bunker.

"Are you sure this is theirs?" Castiel asked as they hurried down the hall.

"Positive," he said, earning a sigh and a nod from Castiel.

They continued, this time less sure of themselves, as the scarf continued to lead them through the bunker, trotting down stairs till they landed in the base floor. Here the walls, ceiling, and floor were made of thick cement, allowing their footsteps to echo around the empty halls.

Jack picked up the pace and Castiel followed, running after the trail that ended right in front of the dungeon door. The torture room door, where monsters were locked up, and sometimes friends as well. A sort of fury was boiling in his blood despite his earlier acceptance of the Winchester's plan. Keeping you here in secret was never something he agreed to.

Without even fully realizing it, Jack was wrenching open the handle, the door whizzing open and slamming against the wall with a resounding crack. There, in the center of a pentagram, you were bound to a chair with thick, iron chains, your molted form flanked by Sam and Dean. The latter carried a knife in his hand, one covered in dripping blood. Sam whirled around at the sound of the door opening, meaning he was the first to see Jack's glowing eyes, and the suddenly panicked expression on Castiel's face.

"What are you doing to them?" Castiel growled with wide eyes, taking long, quick steps over in front of you. Without hesitation he undid the restraints, letting you fall down to the floor.

"Cas, they're a fae," Dean said, his tone stern and curt.

"No, they're not," Castiel replied, his own voice equally as sure. "I can't.. blame you, for not knowing this. You're only human. But it's obvious to me."

Sam opened his crossed arms, waiting for the angel to explain himself. Meanwhile, Jack regained his composure after being shocked by Castiel's actions, and made his way over to you, kneeling at your side. You'd been cut in a few different places––nothing too grievous, at least not by Winchester standards––and drops of your blood painted streaks down your sweaty skin.

"They're an Old God," Castiel finally said, but the words were followed by silence.

"We're just supposed to know what that is?" Dean asked gruffly.

"I thought your brother might," he said in a quiet voice.

Dean unfolded his arms, shifting his weight as he cast a glance to his brother.

"Old Gods are... ancient deities created by wandering bands of hunter-gatherers in your past. They got their power from their worshippers, not from Chuck, which... made them very different, to say the least," Castiel continued, still keeping his voice soft as he raised his hand above several of your wounds, stitching the skin back together with his grace.

"I've heard of hunter and gatherers," Jack said as he recalled some of the books in your library. "They wandered in bands of around 50 to 100 people."

He earned several unimpressed stares.

"Well – if they got their power from worshippers, how's this one still alive?" Sam asked after a moment of silence.

"I don't know," Castiel admitted. "I've never met this one before."

"Okay, just because they're not a fae doesn't mean they aren't the one that killed those kids," Dean said, interrupting their short conversation.

The iron knife still twirled in his hands; the only weapon against fairies. Jack kept a close eye on it as they spoke.

"An Old God would never hurt a human," Castiel said with such an intensity that no one had any choice but to believe him. “And besides,” he turned back to you, “they would’ve lost their powers long ago when humans stopped believing in them.”

Your eyes listed open while you lay in Jack's hold, the swirling image of your friend coming lazily into view.

"... Jack?" You mumbled, struggling to keep your eyelids up.

His gaze shot down to you, eyes widening at the sight of your movement.

"Hey," he said softly, hushing you when you tried to speak. "Are you okay?"

You mustered your strength to nod.

"I'm assuming you're an agricultural God," Castiel said after a moment of watching the two of you interact. "You look to be around 12,000 years old." He looked up to Dean and Sam. "That's how old agriculture is."

"Yeah, I know," Sam scoffed, but Dean remained silent.

"Do I really look that old?" You asked, laughing through your slurred words.

"Your soul does," Castiel answered.

You hummed weakly in response, drifting back into unconsciousness, your body going limp in Jack's arms.

Jack healed what remaining injuries you had, using it partway as an excuse to touch you. His palms set flat on the cuts, and with you far off in your dreams, you didn't feel the burn or the relief of his healing. He thought first to bring to his room to lay you on his bed, but Sam gently suggested that you should be put in one of their many spare bedrooms.

Castiel and the Winchesters attempted to take his mind off of you, but it wasn't long before he was back at your side, waiting for you to wake up again. He scanned your body constantly with his mind, searching for any hidden injuries he might've missed the first time around. The case remained unsolved, the children still missing and the culprit unknown. Your disqualifying left the Winchesters with no more suspects, but Jack couldn’t bring himself to worry about a creature that wouldn’t strike again for another ten years when you wouldn’t wake up to his voice calling your name.

It took hours until you stirred again, eyes fluttering into a half-open state as they fell to Jack. He had his head hung low, his elbows leant on his knees, and his hair drooping in front of his face.

"I was created in Turkey," you rasped out through a dry throat.

At the slightest sound his head shot up, eyes widening with a spark upon seeing your soft smile.

"It's a country, by the way," you mumbled, correctly assuming Jack didn't know the country, and only knew the bird. "At a place they call Gobekli Tepe, now. The people of the land would... would gather there, and share their cultured seeds, and the magic needed to make them grow."

"Magic?"

"Simple water and sunlight," you said with a weak chuckle. "It was magic to them. Everything was."

You fell silent before you said, "I miss them."

"Were they different? From people now?" Jack asked.

"Very," you nodded assuredly. "But there are some people, nowadays, that remind me of them."

He chuckled quietly. Warmth spread from your touch when you reached forward, just barely gracing his hand with yours. He took the initiative, entangling your fingers together, and watching intently as your thumb ran over the back of his hand.

"You are a new God, aren't you?" You asked, narrowing your eyes curiously, with no sense of hostility.

"I'm... I'm a nephilim. Lucifer's son, actually, but I promise I'm not like him," he said, gripping you tighter.

"A nephilim?" You asked with a frown.

"The son of an angel," he clarified.

It was the first time he was able to tell you something you didn't know instead of the other way around.

"I've never heard of angels."

His brows raised in surprise.

"Really?" He asked.

"I haven't really kept up with the world as of recent. When did angels first appear?"

"I... don't know," he said after wracking his brain and finding no answer. "Castiel might know."

"Castiel.. Castiel, that was your father, right?"

"Yeah. The good one," he said, earning a chuckle from you that brought a blush to his face.

"He is another God?"

"Another angel, yes," he nodded. "(Y/N), I... I have so many questions for you."

"About what?" You asked skeptically, giving him a playful glare.

"About humans, mostly," he said. "I mean, I've already been asking you questions, but now I know you have a lot more answers than I thought."

"Yes, well, I do keep my memory stored in a mushroom," you muttered beneath your breath.

Jack frowned. Was that normal?

"Can you tell me about them?" He asked, just barely masking his eagerness.

"My people?"

He nodded, and you smiled softly, your eyes glazing over as you recalled thousands of years past.

[zhoufeis]

Why my favorite Chinese drama is my favorite Chinese drama - even though it’s not the best one I watched

As a person who focused in her English studies on the topic of TV and film studies within Cultural Studies, I will admit I’ve always been interested in why a show or a movie is considered quality, what makes them unique, what makes shows intriguing, what makes directing outstanding - and why on earth some really trashy movies and shows are popular among audiences despite being trash on all objective accounts, or why high-quality shows and movies just sometimes just don’t have the spark to be considered something to be watched again.

With some things, it’s quite easy to say what is objectively a good tv show and what isn’t. We know Game of Thrones, for example, is a pretty high-quality TV show - even though many viewers are quite unsatisfied with it - while CW shows (ya know, Supernatural and Supergirl and the like) are just not (and yet, they draw in so many viewers for a lot of reasons I won’t mention right now but just keep in mind that the fact that such viewers are still worth watching to a lot of people has very good reasons). We can mention a lot of reasons why some shows are just worse/better than others: acting, directing, story development, character development, repetitiveness, filler episodes, stereotypes, clichés, dialogue, plot twists, etc. There’s a lot of things that just are done better on some shows than on others - and some shows just fail on all accounts while others are outstandingly doing well on many accounts.

However, there’s just quite a lot of shows that tend to be something in between: they’re not bad but they surely don’t suffice in every single aspect. Now, I can assure you I’ve watched a lot of Chinese dramas at this point. There’s a lot of bad ones, there’s some really amazing ones; and then there’s the ones that are something in between.

My favorite one is one of the latter kind: it clearly has its issues, but they’re not outstanding enough for me to consider a bad or even a so-so show. Instead, I consider it to be my favorite show because it prevails on all the accounts that are important to me. In order to make a clear distinction here, I will introduce you first to the two shows that I must objectively consider to be quality TV:

1) Love under the Full Moon: Now, this one is special because it’s one of the very few modern Chinese dramas that I was capable of watching. I surprised myself with how good it was. 24 episodes - a magical number with Chinese dramas because 24 episodes for Chinese dramas are just IT as in: it always works. As many Chinese dramas do, this one works with time travelling and, unlike most Chinese dramas, does so by putting itself into a science fiction setting. Aside from learning about the turns and twists about the past, this show focuses on the inner conflict of a person who forgot her memories and is partly living in a half-forgotten past and a real future that doesn’t seem to be her own - eventually, leading to her own disappearance. It is intriguing for its plot twists, but also just for this view on time as something so fragile that dictates our lives and can change our lives in a heartbeat. As she is trying to change the past, her new future disappears right before her eyes - leaving her stranded with memories that no one but her will possess. Aside from being an intriguing take on time and making yourself wonder about how this story will even turn out at the end of all, you get dragged into a nice strangers-to-enemies-to-lovers storyline that just works with the chemistry of the two leads. Objectively, this is all coupled with good dialogues, nice science fiction elements, sufficient directing and a superior implementation of music and sound within the scenes. As in most Chinese dramas I ended up loving, the character set-up is outstanding and the development doesn’t lack. Filler episodes are nowhere to be found; the show plays well with repetitiveness as time is repetitive as we learn on the show. The plot twists are the whipped cream on top of it all, making it one of the best shows I ever watched.

2) The Romance of Tiger and Rose: Once again, 24 episodes. A fast-moving story development; the story changes all the time with every episode we watch. We never stay in one place, there’s no filler episodes nor filler storylines. The small side storylines all eventually connect back to the main storyline and largely influence the main storyline, giving you no time to ever take your eyes off that screen of yours. The story is a cliché storyline for Chinese dramas, involving a sort of time travelling (or well, travelling into a script for an ancient drama) and typical set-ups for heroines, heroes and villains - and making fun of itself for it. As the screenwriter travels into her own script, she is starting to understand all the flaws her script has due to dull, clichéd writing of story development and characters. As she is actively trying to change the script in order to prevent her own death, her characters get layers and she is developing herself into the heroine because she is authentic and layered - something she denied the person who was supposed to be her heroine. The character developments are A+ (and I’m not only talking about the ‘good’ main characters - the downfall of other certain characters is just incredibly well written yet surprising if you look at the beginning of the show - after all, some characters really do end up in ways you really didn’t expect, and yet, it always makes sense), the plot twists are impeccable and influence the storyline in large ways. Dialogues are immaculate and deep, worldbuilding done through the eyes of our female lead, yet the show works well with its constant shift between romance, comedy and tragedy. This show just works. Let alone my personal adoration for the two leading actors and their chemistry, there is nothing I could criticize about this show. It’s the only Chinese drama to ever receive 5 of 5 stars from me.

And yet... it ain’t my fave drama. It is surely the best drama and can be considered quality on all accounts - but it doesn’t give me THAT feeling. And by that feeling, I’m talking about this feeling when you really get sucked into a show, when you feel with characters, when you are incapable of stopping to think about them.

Now, let me tell you, I always have this feeling when I’m watching a show I like. The main question really eventually is - how long does this feeling stay? Sometimes, it goes away as soon after I finish a show and that’s fine. But other times, it will just stay for a long, long, long time and may stay until I die.

Now, why is that? Well, that brings us back to shows like the ones we find on the CW. The CW shows are a good example because, don’t get me wrong, those shows basically suck on almost all accounts: the storylines are dull, the acting is... questionable, the directing is boring af, the dialogues are some of the worst and most uncreative out there, the plot twists are often illogical, there’s a lot of filler episodes and repetitiveness and filler episodes again. Now, why do people like them anyway? Because those shows spend so much time on their characters. Yes, they may often be clichéd and seen before but they’re explored for so long and so deeply that people just warm up to them and start feeling with them. This is a kind of writing that telenovelas also employ. And for all their bad reputation that telenovelas and CW shows have, this sort of character depth is something that many shows that are considered quality don’t often reach. No doubts, CW shows often don’t really know what to do with all the character depth they established - and therefore often end up with very hated, unsatisfying endings because their characters all deserve better - but they are indeed capable of achieving such character depth that makes audiences connect to characters rather than to plot, dialogue or stories.

Many Chinese dramas I watched work the same way - while they clearly have plots and set up their stories around these plots, they tend to focus a lot more on characters throughout their run. Sometimes, near the end of the dramas, they may focus a little less on their characters but you can bet that in the first half of most Chinese dramas, you will get to know the characters very deeply. Most Chinese dramas are written in a way that you either have to get hooked on the characters or you will drop it; if you’re not into the characters, it is unlikely that the plot is interesting enough for you to continue watching.

That leads us to my favorite Chinese drama - the one that has understood exactly that and made the plot therefore connected to the character development of their characters: Legend of Fei.

For those of you who are not familiar with the show, let me summarize it quickly: This show is a journey in an ancient fantasy setting. It’s a journey of a young woman, Fei, who is trying to find her place in the world - she travels the world, learns from others a lot of things, gets to know herself and her skills, and returns to her hometown as a swordfighting legend who has found herself. On her way, she is accompanied by her friend and soulmate, a prior stranger, who has long lost his place in the world and who has been wandering this world ever since, looking for a new place. The journey these two go through is a literal journey that, at the same time, is connected to the mental journey they go through. That kind of storytelling is not per sé good, but I’m thinking that everyone who has enjoyed Lord of the Rings or His Dark Materials may sort of understand why this kind of storytelling is just so nice to watch. It’s a journey with a start, a lot of way, and a finish line. It’s a full circle and you wanna see all about it.

So, as you can see, the character development of Fei and Yun IS the plot - thus, drawing on the strongest feature Chinese dramas offer in order to create the plot: characters. I have a lot to say about Fei and Yun, but I guess I’ll first introduce you to the side characters that are just as great.

So, for starters, one of the first people we’re introduced to is Fei’s cousin, Li Sheng. Li Sheng is... well, a bit of Jiang Cheng (ya know, the dude in purple on The Untamed). He feels threatened by his cousin aka adoptive sister who outdoes him in swordfighting skills and charisma. He picks fights with her and shows a lot of frustration when he is incapable of winning against her. There’s a lot of envy and frustration at work - comparable to what we see with Jiang Cheng when it comes to Wei Ying. However, the large difference is, that Li Sheng is allowed to grow as a person. He understands that, after all, there is no reason to compete with his cousin/sister - but there is every reason to work with her, to accept her as one of the greatest swordfighters out there and to value and respect her as his family. He understands that he doesn’t have to compete with her but that he can live his life the way he wants - and take on his responsibility as future sect leader. They end up as him working on his status as sect leader, managing politics and the like - something that Fei has never shown any interest in, while she is his best warrior, his fighter, the first one to defend them and others in times it’s needed. They grow together as family as they spend time apart and it is hinted that their future will always be interconnected as they are part of the same team, the same family. They will forever have their arguments but they’ll always have each other’s backs.

Li Sheng has a little sister, Li Yan. Li Yan is... wow. She’s a handful. She pretends to cry to make people do as she pleases, she’s a bad fighter but everyone would believe she’s one of the best as she somehow always manages that no one can attack her - if by yelling, crying, running away, tricking, manipulating, being cute... it’s impossible for anyone to hurt her. She loves animals, she’s a quick thinker and always capable of finding her way, no matter how. She loves hugging but Fei and Sheng would never let her. She’s teased a lot by them - and she absolutely deserves as she lies, manipulates a lot and breaks rules even more often, most of the time not getting into trouble for any of those things. All in all, she’s a free spirit, searching for fun and adventures in her life as she is easily bored. Her place in this story seems to be so different as she is one of the few regular characters who isn’t seemingly in search of herself; she seems to be in balance with herself, but the life she has been living wasn’t offering her enough, so she is trying to break out to be free and find adventures - and that’s what she’s finding throughout the show.

Then, there’s also Wu Chuchu. A female character who could easily be written as typical damsel in distress - but she isn’t written as such. Chuchu is a princessy girl, hunted down for being in possession of something valuable. She is shy, passive and all around a good, well-behaved girl. As she gets to know Fei, her savior and defender, she starts to change. As her journey continues, she starts understanding that she doesn’t want to be incapable and passive, but that she actively wants to be capable of defending herself and others and to be of help. As she is thrown together with many different characters and into many different situations, she grows out of her inactive role and starts understanding what she wants out of her own life. It’s not the same as Fei does, but Chuchu indeed finds her own way to be of help, becoming a deeply literate person, studying politics and fighting techniques, and therefore becoming a valuable asset to herself and others.

Fei, Chuchu and Li Yan are three of the people with most screentime, making this a rather female-driven show as women are also more shown than men as authorative figures as well as we have quite some female villains on this show. Now, if a show is male-driven or female-driven obviously isn’t something that says anything about the quality of a show, but a female-driven show automatically attracts me more - simply because there is still a lack of those out there -, specifically when women aren’t put into cages but are allowed to exploit their full potential. And this show just does allow them to do exactly that. Fei stays as rude as she’s been from the beginning - and becomes even more arrogant throughout the show -, Li Yan stays as silly and manipulative and naive as she’s always been, Wu Chuchu has an emancipative storyline, turning from the damsel in distress into a woman who is finding her own strengths and skills in this world. The fact that minor characters like Yin Pei or and their filler storylines are boring therefore are just not a bother. They may make an episode boring - but when you have 51 episodes, it’s easy to accept 5 boring episodes if the rest works. And all in all, that’s basically the amount of episodes that may be considered boring: the filler episodes with the minor characters’ storylines and the beginning.

Yes, the beginning. In all fairness, dramas that go above 30 episodes tend to have longer introductions. These longer introductions have their advantages and their disadvantages. I like them, generally, as they give you time and space to insert yourself into a world. The Untamed and Zhaoyao both had longer introductions, too. And it was beyond important for these shows to have those as they work with fantasy worlds we need to get used to. Ancient Love Poetry did as well. However, longer introductions can become a burden when you are incapable of telling when exactly the introduction will end and we get to the main story. Now, the only show of the ones I just mentioned in this paragraph that was capable of doing this well, was Zhaoyao. Zhaoyao spent 4 entire times on its introduction but you knew exactly when it would be over as we the very first minutes of Zhaoyao already created an expectation as to where the show would go; where would be the starting point we need to get to. Legend of Fei instead worked with the full circle thinking - introducing us to the show through a line we’d hear again at the very end of the show. Again, this isn’t something out of the ordinary - after all, His Dark Materials took a looooot of episodes for its introduction - as it was necessary. So it is on Legend of Fei, and while we do get to know a lot about Fei, we also get to know a lot about side characters we can’t care about yet. It’s dragging. And you just have to get through it. The first few episodes are slow, but I can promise, it will pick up its pace. I’d say the introduction ends in episode 4 when Yun and Fei meet in the cave again, as this truly marks the beginning of her journey. Around episode 6-7, the show really is starting to blossom. It’s one of the downsides of the show that it needs so long, but truly, this show works with a lot more background than it originally needed in order to create a round storyline. It works, eventually, but it first drags.

As we just discussed the beginning, let’s discuss the ending. The ending is incredible. Eventually, it all comes together - as it should in such epic fantasy storylines - and the ending is all around satisfying. I consider it to be one of the most satisfying endings ever - it’s up there with shows like Hotel del Luna. I won’t spoil it for you but it’s just soooo good. It’s deserved. It’s satisfying. It’s everything you want it to be. A show that ends on such a high note is leaving you with good memories - even if the beginning was slow. Eventually, it really counts with what feeling a show leaves you with. This one left me with pure satisfaction and the want to experience it all over again.

But the show doesn’t stop at that. Alongside creating such a fantastic journey with incredibly deep characters, it offers a lot to see and view as well. Some dialogues to think about, some subtle moments to notice so many things in, a lot of nice scenery. Each time I rewatch an episode, I find something I feel like giffing and something I haven’t noticed before. It’s a constant discovery, a constant new thing even though I’ve seen it before. That’s what makes a good fantasy media - I have the same thing about His Dark Materials, The Untamed, Lord of the Rings, Zhaoyao or Pirates of the Caribbean. I never have discovered it all, I never get bored of watching it again: I always know I find something new and I’ll enjoy the visuals.

This also goes for main ship and their dynamic. It amazes me how incredibly subtle they’re written. Chinese dramas, especially the ones I’m watching, are clear about who are the main ship and put it right underneath your nose. I love that, okay, it works. It’s direct, it’s love, I love love, I love some escapism from reality. Yunfei is a bit different. Yunfei is, like the whole show, a journey. And you truly have to go along with this show and its subtle, constant development to see the changes, to understand what makes them them. There isn’t a point at which things change suddenly; there isn’t some light switch that you pull for them to go from non-lovers to lovers. They have such a constant, wonderful, subtle development that you just have to watch all of it to understand their beauty. It’s a slow process of developing trust, of developing loyalty, of showing understanding, of fighting out of anger to fighting out of concern, of developing feelings, of showing feelings, of speaking what’s on their mind, of laying their lives into each other’s hands. It’s all subtle. It’s a relationship that grows as it is watered with moments of trust, of loyalty, and of equality. This show is capable to establish a f/m ship that never shows any kind of power imbalance; they’re a team and they’re working as one. It’s probably the only f/m ship I’ve seen in a Chinese drama where power imbalance is not an issue as this ship is rooted in equality. That’s also made clear by some parallels, btw, in which scenes that could be read as coming from a power imbalance, or typical stereotypes of men and women, are “copied” to have them the other way around as well:

Is the directing always perfect? Surely not. There’s some issues with the camerawork as well as with the lighting, and some scenes fall too flat on dialogue in connection to what is shown; sometimes, you just wish there was a bit more creativity. However, on many scenes, specifically those that concern Fei and Yun and their stories, the directing is on point. It’s like the director just really knew what they wanted to say when it came to Yun and Fei. The scenes about them are always inspired, always well done, always creative and unique. You can tell it’s been made with heart when it comes to them and that’s why the directing just overall... works.

At this point, I don’t even know what else to say; it’s been so much. So maybe I’ll just mention some more keypoints:

- Fei and Yun are my favorite characters (alongside Yuemi and Lu Zhaoyao) coming from any Chinese drama ever, both directly going into the top 5 of my all time favorite characters. I don’t even know how to explain them to you. I just love them for what they are. Fei I love for her arrogance, her sassiness, her dedication, for all the times she was sort of wrong and yet continued, for all the times she threw that little smile letting me know she’s happy and in her element, for everything she says - through her mouth, her lips or just her eyes. She’s an expressive little hothead, throwing herself into any danger at any time as she is just convinced that she’s better than anyone. And Yun I love for finding his place in stories and peace; in the fact that he loves Fei and that anywhere where she is, that’s his home. I love him for being calm but a very upbeat person, usually hiding his sufferings, but trusting Fei enough to share them with her as long as it doesn’t implicate her. He is a good person per sé, without even trying too hard, and yet, he can be a real idiot as he is dumb child spending his day teasing Fei but at the same time speaks like a 200-year-old person sometimes who accepted his fate of dying young.

- Despite this show focusing on Fei, Wang Yibo is given a lot of stage as Yun. As supportive boyfriend as well as his own person with a backstory and a mission. Unlike Lan Wangji, Xie Yun talks a lot and works a lot with facial expressions and emotions. Honestly, Wang Yibo looked like he had a lot of fun with this character - deservedly so.

- Yunfei is THE ship in any Chinese drama ever. In my opinion, they’re followed by Li Qian and Mingyue from The Love by Hypnotic (my second fave Chinese drama) and Lu Zhaoyao and Li Chenlan from Zhaoyao. But Yunfei is unbeatable. Yunfei has it all: the great actors, the awesome chemistry, the slowburn, the tragedy, the banter, the subtle love, the heart eyes, the getting to know each other, the trusting each other, the loving each other. 

- “No Extravagance” is the best song ever written. This is what got me into this show. This fricking song. The song that is so tragic; so melancholic; a melody making you want to be in any peaceful place on this earth, reminiscing about the past lives you may have had or the love that is long gone; a song that is about a love so pure.

- I’m sorry but... it’s Zanilia Zhao and Wang Yibo. Like... is there a reason to say anything else? They’re BEYOND compare.

[asleepinawell]

Book Recs

I was gonna do one of these at the end of the year, but I’ve somehow managed to read 26 books this year already (12 novellas, 14 novels), almost all featuring queer authors and/or characters so this is already a long list.

Note: There’s a few on here I was kind of meh about, but in most of those cases it was a ‘book might be good but it’s not for me so i’ll mention it to put it on people’s radar anyway’ type of thing. Insert the usual necessary tumblr disclaimer about all of this being only my opinion and your opinions are valid too etc etc.

In order of when I read them:

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir - Fantasy novella from the author of gideon the ninth that’s a twist on the classic princess trapped in a tower waiting for a prince story. Quite fun. (novella)

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht - Dark fantasy about revenge and magic. m/m couple but like I said it’s pretty dark and twisted all around so definitely not a happy queer romantic story. My opinion was interesting premise that could have been executed better and probably should have been a full novel to embellish on the world building potential. (novella)

A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine - Probably tied with murderbot as the best things I read this year. Scifi, f/f couple, wonderfully done exploration of what it means to fall in love with a culture that is destroying your own. More of the many queer anti-imperialist books that have come out recently and certainly some of the best. The second one is a direct continuation of the first. (2 novels)

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson - This is the third in the Baru Cormorant series (The Masquerade) and was my favorite so far. The second and third book were originally one book that got split I believe and the second book didn’t stand alone as well (though was still great), but the third book really made up for that. Dark fantasy world starring a queer woc whose country and culture is destroyed by the imperial forces of that world colonizing and assimilating them. She vows revenge and decides to work her way up within her enemy’s ranks to enact it from within and bring an empire to ruins. Really really fascinating study of so many different aspects of our own world and the systems which enable and allow bigotry and how bigoted and violent narratives are used to control minorities. This is definitely a darker series and I was particularly impressed with some of the commentary on the racism prevalent in non-intersectional feminism as depicted through a fantasy world. Can’t wait for the last one to come out! (3 novels, 1 forthcoming)

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells - There’s six of them--5 novella and a novel--and the first is All Systems Red. Told from the point of view of a self-aware droid/android that is rented out by a corporation to provide protection in a dystopian capitalist hellhole future that isn’t that unlike our current capitalist dystopia but is in space. Muderbot hacked the chip that controlled it and instead of going rogue just wants to be left alone to watch its favorite tv shows. Murderbot is painfully relatable and the books are both funny and poignant. Highly recommended. (5 novellas and a novel).

Winter’s Orbit - Everina Maxwell - This was a m/m romance novel with a scifi backdrop of royal intrigue. Generally I’m more into scifi with a queer relationship in the background than vice versa, so it wasn’t my favorite, BUT I think it was still well written and someone looking for more of the romance angle would enjoy it. Has all your favorite romance tropes in it, especially the yearning. (novel)

The Divine Cities - Robert Jackson Bennett - Three book series. I’m very conflicted about this one. Set in a fantasy world where an enslaved nation overthrew the country enslaving them and now rules over them. It’s a story of what happens after the triumphant victory and within that it’s also a murder mystery tied into the dying magic of the conquered nation. It also has a six foot something naked oily viking man fist fight a cthulhu in a frozen river. The second book was by far my favorite, mostly due to the main character being brilliant. My conflict comes from the fact I don’t feel like the story treated its women and queer characters well. Like it had really great characters but it didn’t do great by them overall. That and the third book didn’t live up to the first two. But still definitely worth a read, can’t stress enough how cool some of the world building was. (3 novels)

Into the Drowning Deep - Mira Grant - This might be the only one on here I disliked. It’s got a doomed boat voyage and creepy underwater terror and monsters and a super diverse cast of characters, but I just didn’t enjoy the writing style. While having a diverse cast is great, there were a lot of moments where it felt like characters were pausing to explain things about themselves that felt like a tumblr post rather than a normal conversation you might have while actively being hunted by monsters. I also bounced off all the characters. But a lot of people seem to have liked it so if you’re into horror and want a book with a f/f main couple then maybe you’ll enjoy it. (novel)

Dead Djinn Universe - P. Djèlí Clark - Around the early 1900′s, a man in Egypt discovers a way to access another world and bring Djinn and mysterious clockwork beings called Angels through. As a result, Egypt tells the British to get fucked and Cairo becomes one of the most powerful cities in the world. So Egypt, magic, djinn, a steampunk-ish vibe, oh and the main character is a butch queer woman who enjoys wearing dapper suits and looking fabulous while she investigates supernatural events. Her girlfriend is also mysterious and badass. And she has a cat. There’s three novella (one of which technically might be considered a short story) and then the first novel. You should absolutely read the novellas first (A Dead Djinn in Cairo, The Angel of Khan el-Khalili, The Haunting of Tram Car 015). Super fun and imaginative series. (3 novellas and a novel, more forthcoming)

River of Teeth & Taste of Marrow - Sarah Gailey - From the book description

“In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true. Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two. This was a terrible plan.”

Queer hippo riders!!!! Very much a western but with hippos. Main couple included a non-binary character. Loved the first one. The second one I was more meh about due to one of the characters I was supposed to like having obnoxious man pain that a woman had to take the brunt of the whole time. Also there were less hippos. But queer hippo riders! Definitely read the first one, and they’re both novellas so no reason not to read the second as well. (2 novellas)

A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers - I may be the only person who hasn’t read the long way to a small angry planet at this point, but I did grab her new novella and I loved it. It made me want to go sit out in the woods and feel peaceful. The world it’s set in feels like a peaceful post-apocalypse...or diverted apocalypse maybe. Humans built robots and robots gained sentience, but instead of rebelling they just up and left and went into the wilderness with a promise that the humans wouldn’t follow them.The remaining human society reshaped itself into something new and peaceful. It’s the story of a monk who leaves their habitual monking duties to go be a tea monk and then later wanders into the wilderness and becomes the first human in ages to meet a robot. Very sad there’s no fan art yet. (novella, more forthcoming)

The March North - Graydon Saunders - This was such a weird book that I’m not sure how to explain it. The prose style is hard to get used to and I suspect a lot of people will bounce off it in the first chapter. There’s no third person pronouns used at all and important events get mentioned once in passing and if you blink you’ll miss them. Set on a world where magic is extremely common to the point that rivers sometimes run with blood or fire and the local weeds are something out of a horror movie and most of the world is run by powerful sorcerer dictators, one country banded together (with the help of a few powerful sorcerers who were tired of all the bullshit) to form a free country where powerful sorcerers wouldn’t rule and the small magics of every day folks could be combined to work together. The story revolves around a Captain of the military force on the border who one day has three very powerful sorcerers sent to them by the main government with the hint that just maybe there’s about to be a big invasion (there is) with the implication of take these guys and go deal with this. The world building is extremely complex and very cool...when you can actually understand what the fuck is going on. There is also a murder sheep named Eustace who breathes fire and eats just about everything and is a Very Good Boy and belongs to the most terrifying sorcerer in the world who appears as a little old grandma with knitting. It had one of the most epic badass and wonderfully grotesque battles I’ve ever read. But yeah, it is not what I would call easy reading. Opinions may vary wildly. I did also read the second one (A Succession of Bad Days) in the series which was easier to follow and had a lot more details about the world, but overall I was more meh about it despite some cool aspects. The chapters and chapters of the extreme details of building a house that made up half the novel just weren’t my thing. (novels).

The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson - In this world parallels universes exist and we’ve discovered how to travel between them, but the catch is you can only go to worlds where the ‘you’ there is already dead. This turns into an uncomfortable look at who would be the people most likely to have died on many worlds and how things like class and race would fit into that and what we would actually use this ability for (if you guessed stealing resources and the stock market you’d be correct). The main character is a queer woc who travels between worlds with the assistance of her handler (another queer woc) who she has the hots for. She accidentally stumbles on a whole lot of mess and conspiracy and gets swept up in that. Really enjoyed it. (novel)

Witchmark - C.L. Polk - Fantasy world reminiscent of Victorian England (I think?) where a young man with magical gifts runs away from his powerful family to avoid being exploited by them. He joins the army and fights in a war and comes home to try and live a quiet life as a doctor, but a murder pulls him into a larger mystery that upturns his life. Also he’s extremely gay and there’s a prevalent m/m romance. This one was a fun-but-not-mind-blowing one for me. (novel, 2 more in the series I haven’t read)

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon - This was one of those that everyone loved but I couldn’t get into for some reason. I tried twice and only got about halfway through the second time. It’s got dragons and queer ladies and fantasy world and all the things I like, but I wasn’t that invested in the main story (which included the f/f couple) and was more interested in the smaller story about a woman trying to become a dragon rider. There are few things that beat out a lady and her dragon friend story for me and that was the storyline that felt neglected and took a different turn right when we got to the part I’d been waiting for. But, I know a lot of people whose reading opinions I respect who loved it, and if you like epic fantasy with dragons and queens and treachery and pirates and queer characters then I’d say you should definitely give it a try. (novel)

Bonus: I didn’t read these series this year, but if you haven’t read them yet, you should.

Imperial Radch (Ancillary Justice) - Ann Leckie - Spaceship AI stuck in a human body out for revenge for their former captain, but that summary does not come close to doing it justice. Another one examining imperialism and also gender and race.(3 novels)

Kushiel's Legacy Series - Jacqueline Carey - This is two series, six books total, and starts with Kushiel's Dart. Alternate universe Renaissance-y Europe in a fantastical world where sex isn't shameful and sex workers are respected and prized. Lots of political intrigue and mystery. A lot of BDSM and kinky stuff too (the main character is a sexual masochist, oh and also bi!). I first read this series when I was fifteen or sixteen and it definitely made a big impression on me. Same author also wrote the Santa Olivia series which I’d also recommend. (6 novels)

The Locked Tomb (Gideon the Ninth) - Tamsyn Muir - I mean, if you follow me, you know. If you don’t follow me you still probably know. I’d have felt remiss to have left them off though. Lesbian Necormancers in Space. Memes! Skeletons! Biceps! Go read them. (2 novels, 2 forthcoming, 1 short story)

Books On My To Read List:

Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho

Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse

This Is How You Lose the TIme War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee

Also, if anyone has any recs for scifi/fantasy books starring queer men (not necessarily having to do with a queer relationship) and written by queer men I’d love them. There’s a lot written by women, and some of them are great, but I’d love to read a story about queer men from their own perspective.

[accidentalrabbit]

CHERRY MAGIC

(series + bonus ep. "Valentine's Day / Rokkaku")

Japan 2020

RANK: A

A-pairing: Adachi x Kurosawa

B-pairing: eh, we’ll get to this one

Other character(s) i enjoyed: Fujisaki, Rokkaku

Overall review:

"What if turning thirty years old without having sex gave you the power to read minds?" I'm hooked. Please tell me more.

Cherry Magic is a chaste (ha!) little series with solid production value and a fun story that doesn't take itself too seriously but does try its best to be earnest and consistent, and if nothing else, i respect a show that does a good job being exactly what it is. The mind-reading virgin premise adds a unique supernatural element to the narrative without wasting screentime trying to explain itself. Sometimes weird things are just weird! The series also gets points for being an office rom-com without a boss-employee tryst or anyone getting fired because of a relationship, two of my LEAST favorite office romance tropes. Instead, Cherry Magic takes the popular kid/wallflower nerd high school dynamic, ages it up a decade and a half, and captures something magical about the banalities of adulthood and the timeless feeling of falling in love.

From the moment Kurosawa's hand first brushes Adachi's cheek, revealing his crush, i was riveted, and my enjoyment of their relationship only escalated from there. Wallflower nerd virgin Adachi and popular kid adult taxpayer Kurosawa are an excellent lead pairing, and the conceit of Adachi having to touch people to read their minds introduces an incredible amount of homoerotic tension between them despite the low levels of conventional heat. The fact that Adachi and (especially) Kurosawa both want badly to touch and be touched is played against Adachi's attempts not to take advantage of his new power, to great effect. I like the way both of them try to respect each other's boundaries but struggle deeply with their own repressed desires, which is far more effective and thematically resonant in this story than an external conflict.

Kurosawa's outer confidence and popular appeal belie his deep-seated self-doubt, and his actor gives an excellent performance full of half-hesitations and dazzling smiles whenever Adachi validates him. Adachi is a ball of self-deprecating neurosis who clings to routine for comfort. He doesn't realize his greatest strengths lie outside of his new powers, and it's nice to watch how his kindness to Kurosawa and his other coworkers ultimately forces his character to grow. They take care of each other, they listen to each other, they encourage each other, they remember each other's food preferences, they have wacky but temporary misunderstandings. Their domestic scenes are especially good, and i would pay real money to watch two hours of Kurosawa doing nothing but cooking for Adachi throughout the day.

The side characters of Fujisaki and Rokkaku are fun to have around. Fujisaki gets a whole subplot about how she wishes she didn't face so much familial pressure for being single, and the way Adachi handles discovering this information really rounds out both of their characters. It's nice when less prominent characters get thoughtful treatment in service of interesting themes. Rokkaku, who is hard-working and productive, but not always very perceptive, is a nice little comic relief character and helps advance or connect plot threads between our lead couples. Speaking of whom: Tsuge and Minato also exist. We'll get there soon. Both Fujisaki and Rokkaku come in clutch in the finale to make Kurosawa's Christmas fireworks date come true after some last-minute angst, and i love an ally moment.

Overall the writing for the show is fairly tight, and none of the characters end up feeling totally extraneous to its plot or themes. And there are a few interesting messages to look at. First, communication is key. (Adachi can read minds so it would be hard to avoid this takeaway, but it also gets a little spin when Adachi realizes he has to confess his power to Kurosawa.) Second, having a gift is not the same as knowing what to do with it. There are monents when Adachi thinks his power is an unfair advantage, but ultimately it's his strengths as a ~*natural empath*~ that inform his character, compared to Tsuge who is much less graceful with the same ability. Adachi chooses to use his power for compassion in a hundred tiny ways for several other characters, which ties into a third major theme: Never underestimate the impact your actions will have on others. Kurosawa loved Adachi because of a few moments of thoughtless kindness long before the events of the main timeline, and throughout the series small gestures of love or carelessness create opportunities for relationships to grow and strain.

Finally, Cherry Magic cares a lot about the idea that a person's thoughts and desires should only ever be their own. Fujisaki unpacks her desire to be partnered and rejects the notion that she has to find a relationship to please her family. Kurosawa has a massive crush on Adachi but never pressures him into going further, keeping his thoughts to himself (he thinks). Minato really likes to dance. And Adachi is terrified beyond reason that somehow he has abused his power to manipulate Kurosawa into a relationship in a massive breach of trust. (Which it kind of is, but he's fine with it.) So communication is important, but so are self-reflection, and boundaries, and trust, and kindness.

I had a good time, but:

The B-couple, but specifically Tsuge? Hands down the least pleasant part of my viewing experience. I understand how Japanese comedic acting can be very over-the-top, but this guy is doing way too much for the show he's in, and it's very grating. He never looks like anything other than a middle-aged man yelling in his 'funny' scenes, and his character is fairly demure otherwise so it tonally doesn't mesh with the rest of the series. Minato, who is inexplicably attracted to this behavior, has a bulletpoint of a personality that never really comes through, and an arc about following his dreams as a freestyle dancer that falls flat. His actor, and i'm trying to be charitable, never demonstrates any of this character's talent for dance, and the wig(? i hope) they put him in is a trip.

Unfortunately, you have been chopped: Bonus Episode "Tsuge & Minato."

Hope this wasn't too much of a shock! This episode is short and benign enough that i'm actually on the fence about axing it entirely, but it's just a whole episode of B-plot. I watched it specifically as filler between episodes 11 and 12 to build anticipation for the resolution between the characters i, uh, cared about. If you like Tsuge and Minato, this is probably fun and don't let the haters get you down. If you're in a time crunch because there are 50 other shows you're trying to watch and you need to cut corners somewhere, this corner is very cuttable.

Character(s) entitled to financial compensation: N/A. I think everyone here does just fine.

Conclusion: Cherry Magic is a sweet little series that is, with the exception of its second couple, difficult not to enjoy. The central conceit is unique and its impact on the world of the story is written well without being overthought. It's fun to get inside the lead characters' heads and watch them develop, and the minor characters nudge the plot in interesting ways every now and then. This is a show that finds magic in a sea of adult drudgery, wearing its heart firmly on its sleeve. I love it very much. (Also there's a sequel coming. Might be fun?)

In the next installment, hear me gush effusively about possibly my favorite BL i've seen so far, the INIMITABLE, the GOAT, Gaya Sa Pelikula (2020).