#but this one is specifically referencing the time in season 6 where he says 'then why's this juice box frozen solid?'

[pankomako]

made myself a new pfp btw. if you care

technically i made two, because i drew one thing, and then went for something completely different. as always! hell world!

[reikunrei]

A Parallel World

Last time I talked about Doctor Who, we met Rose's father, Pete, who died when she was 6 months old. That episode prompted me to watch a 2-parter in which Pete returns, only this time he's from a parallel universe. Let's talk about:

Season 2, Episode 6: The Rise of the Cyberman, and Episode 7: The Age of Steel

The general premise of these episodes is the Doctor, Rose, and her sort-of boyfriend Mickey find themselves crashed in a parallel world. There, they stumble into the nefarious plans of a scientist named John Lumic, who’s attempting to turn the entire population of the world — staring with Great Britain — into Cybermen.

We open on a scene with Lumic and a fellow scientist unveiling one of the very first successful Cybermen. A Cyberman is sort of like a robot, but rather than being built purely from metal, they’re an “evolution” of, in this case, humans. The human brain is slotted into a metal exoskeleton, making them a living thing.

Okay, Brenner-ass bitch. Even saying "blessed," something so close to the "miracle"-type language we get from Patty in TFS re: Henry's powers? Sure.

Lumic wants to go straight ahead with their plans to convert more people, but Dr. Kendrick reminds him that they need to get "Geneva's approval" due to its status as a new life-form. Lumic, however, knows that it'll be rejected, but he's hellbent on going ahead with it anyway. This experiment is a means to save himself in his declining health, and he'll be damned if anyone gets in his way.

He has the Cyberman kill Dr. Kendrick and decides to move ahead on his own.

We then cut to the Tardis, where we find the Doctor and Rose regaling tales of their travels to Rose's boyfriend, Mickey, while he holds down a button on the Tardis's control panel at the Doctor's request. The Doctor sheepishly admits he could've stopped holding it about a half hour ago, and after Mickey lets go of it, the Tardis lurches and starts going haywire. The Doctor frantically tries to regain control, but the Tardis's panels aren't reading the time vortex at all. He shouts that it's impossible, but it's just gone.

This honestly just makes me laugh, specifically the "Otherwise known as London" in conjunction with all the TFS promo about a "portal opening in London" etc. Also, the zeppelins are such a nice touch because of how Fringe does the same thing. I'm not sure if Fringe did it as a reference to this, because it's a trope that appears to happen in other shows, at least per my meager research. But given that Fringe began airing in 2008 and this episode of DW aired in 2006, I wouldn't be surprised.

Also, I know @aemiron-main has spoken about the UD as it possibly exists as an "in-between" place, which I can't find the original posts about, but he discusses here. I also recommend checking out Stav @heroesbyler's posts, like this one, about the void and differences between it and the "real world."

The Doctor says this isn't their world, and Mickey is the first to suggest parallel worlds, referencing the concept as it exists in films. That's when Rose notices a street advertisement of Pete, holding up some health drink and saying his catchphrase “You can trust me on this,” indicating that he's still alive in this world. The Doctor tells her that she absolutely cannot go see him, because he likely has his own Jackie and his own Rose, "His own daughter who is someone else, but not you."

Today, as it happens, is Jackie’s birthday (February 1st), and she and Pete are setting up her birthday party at their swanky mansion due to this world’s Pete’s entrepreneurial success. It’s her 40th, but she insists she wants to tell everyone it’s her 39th. Something something weird ages something something dates being just slightly wrong something something she wanted her birthday to be the same as a celebrity so specific dates are important. Here, we also learn about the EarPods that everyone is wearing, Jackie gloating that Lumic sent her a diamond-studded version of the latest model for her birthday. We’ll learn more about these later, but for the time being, just think of them like a cross between bluetooth headphones and Neuralink.

We return to the Doctor and Mickey, who are sitting in the darkened, dead Tardis wondering how they’re going to leave.

“The worlds were sealed” really popped out at me. While we don’t know when or how the UD and Dimension X were created in ST or if they’ve been there this whole time simply locked away, it’s interesting to imagine that there could inevitably be a harmonious existence between worlds, especially with what the Doctor says here about things becoming “less kind.”

It pulls on a similar idea from Fringe, wherein the two shown universes begin colliding, and with two universes being shoved into the space of one, they start conflicting with each other in highly catastrophic ways. Before that point, things existed harmoniously, with our characters even able to view this parallel universe without issue. It was when meddling began, including lots of hopping between universes (sometimes for selfish reasons) without understanding what it would do, that the problems started. Ultimately, all is solved by permanently separating the universes again, barring travel between the two forever. Which, and I’ll talk about this in a future post, is interesting when taking into account how the parallel worlds in DW interact with each other in the future, including forcibly keeping characters apart/having the two worlds be barred from one another unless massive amounts of energy are used to link them, and, even then, only temporarily.

I’m curious to see how all our dimensions in ST interact with each other and if the solution will be keeping their communication in check, or if they’ll have to be sealed off entirely. I’m of the belief that destroying the UD is not the way to go as a solution to anything in ST5, and I highly doubt they’re headed that way anyway, but only time will tell how it’ll really shake out.

As the Doctor and Mickey talk, the Doctor spots something: a little speck of light down in the grating of the Tardis’s floor. Though it’s small, it means they’ve got power, and, thus, a way to get home. They need more power though, but specifically power from their universe. The Doctor, being the one source of that available to them, gives away 10 years of his life to this little glowing power cell, putting it on a 24-hour recharge loop that, once completed, will give them enough juice to hop back home.

Meanwhile, Lumic has sent one of his henchmen, Mr. Crane, on a “recruitment drive” for his Cybermen experiment. He drives to a homeless encampment outside the city in a freight truck marked as “International Electromatics,” which doesn’t match the name of Lumic’s company, Cybus Industries. The henchman gathers the homeless men, claiming he has hot food for all of them in the back of the truck. Many rush to him, but one is stopped by a young man with a camcorder telling him to reconsider.

The man brushes him off and goes to the truck. Once he steps inside, however, he seems to realize what’s really going on, but he’s grabbed and wrangled behind some hanging plastic sheets as the doors shut, leaving us only to hear the screams of the men inside.

Lumic’s entire operation is very HNL coded, if you couldn’t tell. It’s even tied into the Russian presence in ST3, what with the both of them working under the guise of a different company name in order to skirt under the noses of the public. But here, specifically, it’s obviously reminiscent of HNL stealing kids to experiment on/with, especially under the guise of it being helpful.

The Doctor and Mickey find Rose, who’s been reading up on her dad in this universe after her cell phone was automatically connected to the Cybus Network, which is basically just a specific kind of internet access made by Lumic’s company.

“You can’t become their daughter” okayyyy alternate selves filling in gaps where they “should” be. The "wrong" kid being stuck into circumstances they were never meant to. Surely nothing to think too hard about. With a name like Peter involved too? Completely unimportant.

With their 24 hours to kill, Rose goes off to see Pete and Jackie, the Doctor right on her heels, while Mickey goes to visit his grandmother. In their world, his grandmother died several years prior, so with the understanding that Pete is still alive, Mickey is curious to know if his parental figure is still around, too. However, as he comes up on his neighborhood, he finds a roadblock. He asks if he can enter.

“Lessons begin promptly at 10:00.” … sorry, I had to.

We really don’t get much into the socio-economics of this world, but, as it’s easy to see, there’s a clear disparity between the classes, and the average citizen is strictly surveilled and poorly treated.

Mickey does find his grandmother, still alive, but, here, she calls him Ricky.

Boy, if you don’t quit it with the name swapping and taking roles… something about TFS Henry likely being Edward and taking on a role that possibly isn't his own...

His grandmother complains about his friends and him getting into trouble when Mickey gets suddenly scooped up by a mysterious van, driven by a woman and accompanied by the young man who tried to save the homeless men. They speak to Mickey like they know him, scolding him for speaking to his family when he supposedly said doing so would be dangerous. He runs with it, opting to let them share their intel.

Always gotta have a "who?" moment...

As Rose and the Doctor head to the Tyler household, the crowd of people around them suddenly freezes as all of their EarPods begin beeping. Rose’s phone, connected to the network, also begins beeping and showing what everyone else’s EarPods are receiving.

Color me surprised when we get a hivemind reference even in these episodes. Because why wouldn’t we?

It turns out that Cybus owns most of the companies in Britain, including Pete’s. As soon as the “download” is done, everyone goes back about their business as if nothing happened, and Rose and the Doctor watch in bafflement before continuing on their trek.

We then get a scene of Lumic meeting with the President of Britain (remember, alternate universe!) in order to gain approval for his Cyberman invention. He speaks about the human brain being “the most precious thing on this earth” and “yet we allow it to die.” Through his invention, he’d be able to sustain the brain “indefinitely.” This would be “the ultimate upgrade” and “Our greatest step into cyberspace.” Disturbed, the President asks him to stop his presentation.

It’s kind of giving Brenner’s “I did everything for you” moment to El in ST4, claiming that all that he did was for the greater good, and should that all be cast aside? Here, Lumic’s goal on the surface is to better humanity, but he has selfish reasons for pursuing it as well. We get hints of Brenner’s selfishness, with it being much more overt in ST4 and in the VR game, in which Vecna and Henry, respectively, call him out for using the kids as a means to seek out greatness for himself. Not to mention the idea that Brenner may have been using Henry, at the very least, to find some sort of means of immortality or regeneration, just like Lumic is doing here.

Referring to Lumic as “God” really jumped out at me, specifically irt things James @henrysglock has spoken of extensively regarding the religious imagery/coding of various characters. We get a lot of it with Vecna and One, but there’s also endless religious coding for Brenner, specifically in the role of a priest/father. While that’s also not specifically God, it’s not a stretch to consider on-screen Brenner as “God” in the sense that he’s creating these children in his lab to be used for his own purposes.

Also, I’d be remiss to not at least touch on the mention of “cyberspace.” Again, I’m genuinely surprised that we get a hivemind-esque aspect in these episodes that contain myriad other similarities to ST. It’s not really emphasized that the Cybermen can communicate with each other/are all connected in the way the UD creatures are in ST, but they do all experience the same lack of emotion and have one shared goal, and they can all be simultaneously communicated to via Lumic’s transmitter. It’s akin to the flayed in ST3, following the idea of them existing in their daily lives before being “activated.”

Despite the President’s explicit rejection of Lumic’s plan, Lumic once again goes behind the backs of authority and asks Mr. Crane to move their plans forward — “I am governed by greater laws, old friend. The right of a man to survive.” Using the homeless men from before, now equipped with EarPods that leave them blank and pliant, he orders them into surgical chambers which, though we don’t have a reveal yet, put their brains into the Cybermen exoskeletons. They, along with many others that have been made from the “vagrants” they’ve grabbed off the streets, are loaded up into trucks to be transported. When one of the drivers concernedly asks what they are, Crane says “I’m told they’re the future. Ain’t technology wonderful?”

Honestly, Crane gives me lowkey Owens vibes. While he doesn’t have as much (supposed) kindness as Owens does and is still rather cold like Lumic, his demeanor is very casually playful by comparison. Unfortunately he doesn’t show up too much throughout the episodes, but he does progress the plot substantially again later, also in a semi-Owens way.

Now let’s check up on Mickey, shall we?

So, he’s been not-kidnapped by these two folks in a van, but when they return to their hideout, they find… Mickey already there.

But, if we remember, this is actually the previously mentioned Ricky, Mickey’s parallel world counterpart. Realizing Mickey isn’t who they thought, the three of them strip him and tie him up in a chair to search for bugs, of which they find none.

Okay Henward… cloning and brothers but also just being alternate versions of the same guy… surely nothing to see here.

Mickey learns that these three — Ricky, Jake, and Mrs. Moore — are part of an underground rebellion called the Preachers — “As in ‘gospel truth’”, as Ricky puts it, since they don’t wear EarPods. He says they’ve got “freedom” compared to everyone else who gets downloads from Cybus, which is so... haha wow okay fourth-wall-breaking sentient Henry in NINA helping El learn that HNL is a prison. As we saw in the earlier scene of Rose and the Doctor on the street, it might be hyperbolic, but "freedom" isn't far off. Everyone being hooked up to the same system, being fed the same information at the same time every day, and being closely monitored at all times? Slight Soteria reference, I see you…

Then, Mrs. Moore, their techie, interrupts with news that they got “an upload from Gemini,” who tells them that the vans (containing the Cybermen) are moving. Gemini is someone working with them from inside Cybus — a double agent — but they don’t know who that person actually is.

Now we return to Rose and the Doctor, who’ve snuck into Jackie’s birthday party disguised as waitstaff. The Doctor takes a moment to tell Rose that she “can’t stay. Even if there was some way of telling them.” Rose immediately dispels the possibility, since she has her actual mother back at home, but she does lament that this Pete and Jackie “have each other,” while her Jackie has “no one.”

Something something a universe where none of this bad stuff ever happened.

Rose finds her way toward Pete to talk to him — obviously not giving herself away and simply making small-talk — and, similar to the other episode I linked at the top of this post, Pete finds himself sharing personal information with Rose and has a “have we met before?” moment. Again, despite not knowing who she is, and even though she’s not even from this universe, there’s an automatic connection that he feels.

Rose even tries to talk to Jackie, and, since she’s posed as a waitress, asks if she can get her anything, to which Jackie responds “The last 20 years back.” Yeah, I’d bet Henward would like that too.

Ultimately, after having a tender moment, indicating that this version of Jackie also feels a connection, Rose tries to convince Jackie to give Pete another chance, since she learned from Pete that the two were having marital problems and Pete had even moved out, they just haven’t made it public. Rose believes Pete to be a really wonderful guy, same as always, but the forwardness of her comment sets Jackie off, who verbally berates her for sticking her nose where it shouldn’t be when she’s “just the help.”

Here we also begin to learn that the Tyler residence is where the Cybermen are headed. Pete, with his company owned by Lumic, works closely with him — the Preachers call him a “henchman” and “traitor to the state” — but that also means he’s been interacting regularly with the President, who is in attendance at Jackie’s birthday, who also just rejected Lumic’s plans for the Cybermen. I assume you can see where this is going.

The Cybermen are released onto the property, where they promptly surround the house and start breaking inside to round up everyone. While the Cybermen are new to this universe, the Doctor recognizes them from his own — they’re from the original run of DW, which I haven’t seen, but we see the dismembered head of one in a season 1 episode, which Rose and the Doctor even call back to here.

Lumic, though not physically present in the room, speaks to everyone inside the house and, specifically, to the President.

Lumic argues that they were “homeless and wretched and useless, until I saved them, and elevated them, and gave them life eternal.” One of the Cybermen speaks, saying “We have been upgraded.” When the Doctor asks into what, it answers that it’s “The next level of mankind … You will become like us.” When the President asks what would happen if he refused the upgrade, despite the Doctor insisting that’s a bad idea, the Cyberman says he will be “deleted,” and promptly kills him via electrocution with its hand to his shoulder.

Do you see what I’m seeing? Are we seeing the 4.07 monologue parallels? One tells Eleven that she’s better than everyone else and he can help her get even further, that they can change the world to be what they want, and when she refuses, he tries to kill her. I also just think it’s neat that, while they’re not exact copies, Lumic being more Brenner-coded while the Cybermen are like One in the monologue… okay we get it, that wasn’t really One and he was just a husk for Brenner to puppet in NINA.

With the President dead, everyone panics and begins trying to flee, while Lumic orders the Cybermen to kill anyone who refuses and round up the rest. The Doctor and Rose flee outside alongside Pete, catching up with Mickey and the Preachers, who have guns and try to shoot down the Cybermen as they’re all surrounded. The Doctor warns them that bullets won’t stop them, however, and we see this in action with the Cybermen being entirely unfazed while they’re shot. Okay, Vecna.

Trapped, the Doctor orders everyone to put their hands up and says they’re surrendering, explaining “There’s no need to damage us. We’re good stock.” Doooon’t say that word!!! Don’t get that close to the HNL breeding program terminology!!!

However, the Cybermen claim they’re “rogue elements,” “incompatible,” and “inferior,” and therefore must be deleted.

Which, I haven’t really touched on that yet, but isn’t it curious that the Cybermen use the word “delete” rather than something like “kill” or “eliminate”? Searching around, it seems that this was something introduced in these episodes, so it’s not standard to Cybermen across the entire series, and it doesn’t even regularly continue when they appear in later episodes. However, while it ostensibly is a stand-in for “kill,” the use of a different word, specifically one more correlated to something like cyberspace and a digital realm, has me staring hard at NINA. To bring up Fringe again, it even makes me think of Peter being wiped from the timeline, something more akin to “deleted” since he wasn’t actually killed.

Stuck under threat of death, the Doctor uses the little power cell from the Tardis to hit the Cybermen with a beam of his energy, which…

Sure, disintegrate them, see if I care. Whatever.

Now able to escape, the whole lot of them pile into the Preachers’ van and drive off. There, Pete admits that he’s Gemini — the one who’s been giving the Preachers their inside information, though he was under the impression he was communicating with security services, not "Scooby Doo and his gang."

Lumic speaks to several of the Cybermen now, calling them “My everlasting children” and asking them how “it” feels.

Okay mister “you must not rely on emotions” and claiming that it will lead to failure if they use them to boost their powers, whatever you say.

At this point, it’s also very clear that the Cybermen are further reminiscent of massacre One with the lab kids, and Vecna with his whole “end your suffering” schtick that just amounts to killing his victims. Like, that sure is a way to end suffering, bud. Even if the Cybermen aren’t actually dead, as we’ve established, the humans inside of them are entirely stripped of their emotions and autonomy, which does technically lead to a sort of “end to suffering,” if you give it that angle.

Pete explains to the gang that “This all started out as a way of prolonging life, keeping the brain alive. At any cost.”, which Lumic claims is the one part of the body that “makes us human.” Having since removed their EarPods, all of them watch in horror as everyone who was wearing EarPods are activated and made to herd themselves toward the big Cybus factory where they’ll be made into Cybermen.

However, Mr. Crane roughly pulls out his EarPods before he can be turned into a mindless drone. Lumic is slightly disappointed by this when Crane comes to him afterward, but Crane says he wants to willingly offer himself for an upgrade. However, as soon as he gets close to Lumic, he begins ripping out the life support attached to the wheelchair he uses (“Are mommy and daddy fighting again?”). A Cyberman intervenes and kills Crane, but the damage has already been done.

Reminds me a lot of Brenner’s “bit off more than he could chew” tendencies. Like Lumic, he can control things only to a certain point, the only difference here being that Lumic’s situation is with the intent to help him, while Brenner’s is/would be a matter of creating something stronger than what he can control. However, it does make me think of the Brenner/One merge theory as well. Could there potentially be a sequence of events where, in Brenner's search for greatness, he is unwillingly, literally brought up to that level of greatness via some sort of merge with his favorite test subject? And, as a result, it ultimately destroys who he was, despite his desire to reach this point?

Then we get a really fun shot coincidence.

I also want to interject with a brief sidenote here. When I was plotting out this post, I found myself having to jump back and forth a lot. Many of the scenes as I've outlined are actually way more split up, with most of the different people interactions we get "overlapping" with each other. I realized it's because it's a very similar style to how ST operates, wherein there's several groups of people who are all working on different parts of the plot simultaneously, resulting in scene sequences getting "interrupted" by each other, before they finally converge and realize they've all got different information to help with the same situation. And I just thought that was a neat similarity! It's not something that happens often in DW, given that usually there's not this many "main" characters in any given episode and it's usually only the Doctor and their companion(s).

Anyway, Rose and Pete want to break into the factory to try and find Jackie, who they rightfully assume was taken to be upgraded, though they’re not sure if they can save her/if it's too late.

Not sheep……….

Now, Rose and Pete go off donning fake EarPods to sneak into the factory to find Jackie; Mickey and Jake go together to try and shut down the transmitter on the zeppelin; sadly, Ricky was killed by Cybermen while they were trying to flee the Tyler residence; and the Doctor and Mrs. Moore team up to go down into the cooling tunnels beneath the factory in order to enter from below to shut everything down. At this point, the entire lasting population of London has gathered inside the factory against their will, and they must stop it before they’re all converted.

The Doctor and Mrs. Moore make their way to the cooling tunnels, which they find lined with rows upon rows of inactive Cybermen. The Doctor asks her how she found herself in her current position with the Preachers, and she says she “used to be ordinary” (there’s that word again, we LOVE that word) and she even used to work at Cybus Industries.

Gotta love going down into an underground maintenance area while discussing truth and lies and escape. Hasn't happened anywhere else before.

When the Doctor asks her about “Mr. Moore” she explains that “he’s not called Moore” and she simply got that from a book — “It’s safer not to use real names.” She essentially faked her own death in order to keep her husband and kids safe.

Meanwhile, Pete and Rose are caught in the factory after showing emotion — they’d found Jackie, who had, unfortunately, since been turned into a Cyberman. Rather than be killed, though, the Cybermen recognize Pete as someone who worked with Lumic to create their species, and therefore decide to take him and Rose to be upgraded.

This aspect of their conversion is interesting to me, specifically the “she remembers” part of it. Because, yes, she does remember who she is; she herself confirms to them that she “once … was Jacqueline Tyler.” However, it’s not really her. On a physical level, obviously, but even still mentally, it’s barely Jackie. It even refers to Jackie in the past tense, saying it was Jackie rather than is. It's kind of giving "I'm normal. I'm Henry Creel" lol, like, okay, sure you are.

Let’s briefly touch on the whereabouts of Mickey and Jake. They’ve made their way to the zeppelin, where Mickey convinces Jake to simply knock out the guards at the entrance rather than kill them because then “what’s the difference between you and a Cyberman?” Usually I argue against this sort of rhetoric, because it’s just kind of stupid (“you’re no better than me!!1!” bro just kill the baddie it’s fine). However, we want to remember our emphasis on compassion, especially as it involves people who are either entirely innocent of or under the influence by the actual bad person. Mickey understands that there’s no point in avoidable death, even if these people are aiding in the eradication of the population of Earth — he doesn’t want to be part of it if it involves the murder of someone simply twisted up in a bogus system they have no control over. Something something circumstances make the man. The two of them find the computer controls, where Mickey begins tapping into the Cybus network to find a solution.

Returning to the Doctor and Mrs. Moore, Lumic is alerted to their presence in the tunnels, and so he begins waking up the dormant Cybermen to chase them. They manage to escape, crawling up out of the tunnels and shutting the door over the Cybermen making their way up the ladder. They then, however, come face-to-face with another, which Mrs. Moore incapacitates with an electromagnetic bomb.

This allows them the chance to get up close and personal with the suit. The Doctor opens its “heart of steel” to get into its chest, where they find it filled with flesh — a central nervous system which was artificially grown and then “threaded throughout the suit so it responds like a living thing.” Which, the Doctor clarifies, is what it is: a living thing.

Then he points out a small black chip within the chest plate.

The Cyberman then “wakes up” and asks why it’s so cold. The bomb broke the inhibitor, which is now allowing the human inside it to feel, which the Doctor apologizes profusely for. After learning her original name, he puts her to sleep so she won’t have to suffer in this new body.

This gives the Doctor the realization that that’s the answer to their problem: if they want to stop the Cybermen, they should aim for the emotional inhibitor, the key. All they’d have to do is find its cancellation code and feed it into the Cybus network, making them all realize what they are and kill them.

Just then, however, another Cyberman appears and kills Mrs. Moore. It senses the Doctor’s binary vascular system (two hearts), however, and deems him an “unknown upgrade” and will need to be analyzed.

So, he, Rose, and Pete all find themselves captive together once more. Lumic, now converted into a "superior" Cyberman — "designated Cyber controller" — reveals himself to them. Very early on in the episode, Lumic speaks on his experiments and, in an attempt to dispel rumors that his health is declining, talks about how his mind is "more creative than ever." In his new Cybersuit, he tells the Doctor that "London has fallen, so shall the world" and he shall bring everlasting peace, unity, and uniformity to the world so they never have to experience pain and suffering again.

The Doctor says that now the Cybermen will never advance, they’ll “just stop” and stay stagnant forever. He says that, in that world, the planet will lack the one thing that makes it so alive: “Ordinary, stupid, brilliant people.” I spoke extensively about the importance of the “ordinary” in my last DW post, so I’ll simply link that here again rather than talk your head off about it, lol.

Lumic asks the Doctor if he’s “proud of [his] emotions” and he gives an enthusiastic “yes.”

Um, Duffers… Tom MacRae called and he wants his ST3 Jim Hopper letter monologue back.

Emotions are good, even the nasty ones. Especially the nasty ones, because that’s what makes you alive.

Lumic says then, sure, he’ll simply kill the Doctor, but the Doctor shouts that that’s not his decision to make, and he “[doesn’t] control [him] or anything with blood in its heart.” Lumic threatens him with his army of Cybermen, but the Doctor argues against him.

Absolutely insane to me to call ordinary people the key. See again my last post about the importance of ordinary people, and this post (among others) about the importance of the word key as it exists in ST, and thus the tie to ordinary compassion being the key to solving our Vecna problem.

Mickey, with the Doctor’s help, plugs in the numbers for the cancellation code at his computer, which causes the emotional inhibitors in all of the Cybermen to cease functioning, which causes all of them to fall into hysterics. One stares at its reflection in a metal panel as it moans in agony, and the Doctor apologizes. The rest of the victims, those who hadn’t been converted yet, are free to escape with their EarPods now functionless.

With the Cybermen neutralized, the Doctor flees with Pete and Rose to head to the roof. They make it, but so does Lumic as he grapples up after them on the rope ladder to the zeppelin. However, with some help by cutting one of the ropes, he gets knocked off and falls to his death atop the roof of the burning Cybus factory.

The rest of them manage to escape, and Pete finally really asks who Rose is. She explains that she’s his daughter from another world, and he seems put off and overwhelmed by this. When she calls him “dad” in an effort to get him to come with her, he appears to panic and hurries off, telling her that he has to work on shutting down the rest of the Cybus factories across the globe.

Even Mickey decides to stick around in this parallel world, seeing as he has his grandmother here to take care of, and with Rose traveling with the Doctor, he’s become a bit of a third wheel anyway (specifically "the tin dog," an inside joke about the Doctor's old robot dog, K-9, which I won't get into here but... we love our dog talk here at ST, don't we?). He tells Jake, however, that he’s “a different man, I’m not replacing [Ricky].” Once again, I want to point to the whole "I'm Henry Creel" thing in TFS and the concept of Henry and Edward swapping, literally, or at least being "swapped" by way of being shown interchangeably on-screen, etc. etc.

The Doctor brings Rose back home to see Jackie, who’s surprised when Rose rushes her for a big hug.

Whew! Are you still with me? We’re in the home stretch, I promise. Time for some last thoughts!

The first thing I want to touch on is the concept of the Cybermen in general, but also as they were adapted for these episodes in particular.

The main objective of Cybermen, as indicated in these episodes, is a desire for survival and immortality. This slightly changes between iterations of the Cybermen across the whole series, but, as the fandom wiki puts it, “they were often born out of a human civilization’s, or an individual’s, fear for survival,” which even included threats like poverty or degradation of their planet, which, speaking specifically to the “poverty” aspect, is something we see with Lumic claiming that kidnapping the homeless men was helping them.

Cybermen, as we’ve established, also lack emotion. In this iteration, they have their emotions forcibly removed because Lumic sees them as a hindrance (and it keeps them agreeable in Cyberman form), but past iterations involve it being a voluntary part of the conversion process because they “considered [emotions] to be a weakness and instead embraced pure logic.” How borderline-Vulcan of them… but as I previously mentioned, it’s similar to the sentiment Brenner expresses in the ST4 NINA sequences, wherein he warns the kids against relying on emotions to strengthen their powers.

While some Cybermen had names or monikers, most were only individualized by ranks or numbers. All of them, however, wanted to fully conquer their universes to ensure survival and would work to convert any “compatible” life forms to ensure their survival as well. Something something they’re not gone something something they’re still in here with me. Stripping them of their souls but claiming now they’re somewhere better or safer. Sure. Whatever.

Cybermen, despite being considered “life forms,” cannot breed and they only increase their numbers by converting compatible living creatures into Cybermen. Evidently, however, an upgrade was introduced in, as far as I can tell, season 8 of the 2005 DW reboot wherein Cybermen could convert the deceased into Cybermen, no matter the state of their corpse, but this could only occur in a place called the “Nethersphere” which is dubbed a “Matrix-like computer” where the “minds of the dead” were stored until their bodies could be converted. This “Nethersphere” is also called “the Promised Land, Paradise, or Heaven” … aight. Surely nothing to see here irt recent leaks and speculation.

As an additional note, even the stuff about Cybermen being made rather than born has me looking at what's introduced in TFS irt Brenner using Henry's infected blood to do transfusions with other patients to give them the same type of infection/alteration. As we see on screen, it's very clear that at least some of the kids were likely bred from Henry/were actually born into the lab, even if they were from outside mothers like Terry ("outside" meaning "not presently living in the lab"), but TFS partially presents it as children being brought in from the outside to be directly given these transfusions and "turned into" the same "thing" as Henry.

A key point of interest with the Cybermen is that they have no real point of origin. They don’t have a “homeworld” that they’re born from, and instead they crop up across several universes, or even within the same universe, at different times and places simply because the populations there had a parallel desire for security and/or immortality. This has me mulling over stuff such as:

Us still not knowing what the origins of the UD (and Dimension X) is, and whether or not it’s been around forever or if El created it. And thus, in that vein, what’s the origin of the Mind Flayer?

The mere concept of on-screen Brenner, across timelines, seeking out the same kid(s) in order to fulfill his still-unknown final goal, which in itself is interesting… what are his motives? What are his origins? How did we reach creating a child torture dungeon?

Patty being referred to as “the girl from nowhere” and, though having never been mentioned before on screen, carrying immense weight in driving the story of TFS forward, often times by force, at least as it pertains to Henry. Something something her and Henry being connected “whether you like it or not” vs the Cybermen/Lumic forcibly converting people.

Henry, per TFS, is from Rachel, Nevada, despite the town of Rachel having not existed in 1959.

For these specific episodes, the writer, Tom MacRae, wanted to reimagine the Cybermen so they weren’t “mere villains” and instead were “sad figures,” made terrifying because they were forced into being converted rather than outright killed. He said that this would make them “a cross between vampires and zombies.” Please, not two of the monsters wound tightly into the imagery of ST…

He didn’t want these Cybermen to be simple mechanical beings, he wanted them to be as close to human as possible while stripping them of everything that made them as such.

Moving on, I briefly touched on it above, but I once again want to draw special attention to the scene of Lumic being forcibly turned into a Cyberman. As I’ve said, we still don’t know much, if anything, about what Brenner’s goals actually are. Sure, the government probably does genuinely want a leg-up on the Soviets, and these kids are a path to that. They’re funding it, after all! However, come ST4, the government doesn’t seem too happy with their continued existence. Hell, even in TFS, Brenner has a quick line about how the DOD wanted to dispose of Henry, but he convinced them out of it. If that tracks from stage to screen, then there’s some sort of personal stake here for on-screen Brenner. What can I say? The man loves his wife. If you want to see more about why I’m keeping a neat divide between TFS Brenner and on-screen Brenner, peruse @henrysglock’s page and keep an eye out for his big upcoming post that will delve into a lot of that.

Like Brenner using the lab kids to fight the Soviets, Lumic presents his goal as a means to better humanity on a global scale. It’s about preserving the human mind and giving them a reprieve from what he deems to be “suffering.” However, he has the fairly explicit ulterior motive of preserving himself. He’s in poor health, thus this would indefinitely prolong his life and, as the creator of the Cybermen, would put him in charge of every other Cyberman in existence. Again, we don’t know Brenner’s goals, but, as I mentioned above, it does have me staring at the Brenner/One merge theory and the potential for Brenner being somehow mixed up in Vecna, which then creates a neat through-line with Lumic and Vecna’s shared intention to “end suffering,” even if it’s in the most eyebrow-raising and clearly-lying way possible.

It is interesting, however, that Lumic begged to not be turned into a Cyberman. The Doctor said it for him, but Lumic likely understood that once he became a Cyberman, he would no longer be the same man who created the Cybermen. Early in the episode, he speaks of feeling creative, but removing what makes him human also removes that creativity. He wanted to save his conversion for his very last breath, prolonging his human life for as long as possible.

On top of everything else, this leads me to wonder if whatever personal goal Brenner had/has for the lab kids is a double-edged sword. A lot of that comes simply by virtue of the unknown. TFS Brenner wants to make contact with Dimension X/the Shadow, but instances of that often result in carnage. On-screen Brenner (potentially, allegedly, possibly) used El to find Henry “in the darkness,” which resulted in our Mother Gate mess in ST1 that kicked everything off. If Brenner was seeking something like immortality or abilities of his own, would any path to that “greatness” ultimately have a large flip-side that makes him “lesser,” for lack of a better term?

Moving on, I want to further discuss the similarities between Brenner and Lumic and them claiming their arguably heinous methods are “helpful.” In Lumic’s case, he believes that he’s “elevating” the people in the lower rungs of society by creating a world of uniformity, even if it means entirely stripping them of their humanity and freedom. Hell, he has to turn off their emotions so they accept it. Similarly, Brenner claims he’s helping the lab kids and making them stronger, more important, calling them his family and saying he loves them, but somehow that also involves isolation and shock collars. El and One are right to call the lab a prison, but from Brenner’s perspective, he believes he’s doing best by these kids to prepare them for their roles in the world and protecting them from folks on the outside who might abuse them for their powers (yeah, ironic, I know, but that’s also kind of the point, right? When someone else does it, it’s for the wrong reasons, but when he does it…).

Now, I personally don’t doubt that Brenner truly loves the lab children. He’s very distraught during the massacre, and he seems genuinely grief-stricken when he talks about Henry (I couldn't find the more serious version of this post, I'm sorry ghsfjdgk). While he’s using them for expressed and personal gains, it’s clear that the pain he feels at losing them is something more than just “oh, boo-hoo, my experiments are ruined now.” Lumic expresses similar sentiments, and while he’s much farther in the camp of “wow look at my inventions, everyone clap and cheer about how smart I am”/it’s more about being proud of himself, he does still call the Cybermen his children, indicating he does carry a deep fondness for them as his creations.

And I know this sounds contradictory to what I said earlier about them working for their personal gains, but while they might have their selfish reasons, that doesn’t mean the expressed ones aren’t also real, you know? Lumic fully believed that this would be better for humanity as a whole, and Brenner fully believes that this is for the better of his children and the country. They also just both happen to have their own personal stakes in it that give them a little more devotion to their respective projects, even if it backfires in the end.

Now damn. Am I done talking? I think I’m done talking. These two-parters always take a lot more words than I think they will, especially when they offer enough interesting connections and ideas irt ST! There’s little doubt in my mind that the Duffers may have taken these episodes, or the Cybermen in general, as inspiration for HNL and its inhabitants. There’s just too much language surrounding them for it to be a total coincidence. The similar parallel world stuff I can at least concede is by virtue of how parallel world stuff usually works, but the rest of it? I’m looking.

As I mentioned prior, we do get returns of the Cybermen, including in episodes where we also get a return of the parallel world, which I’m planning on delving into soon. But for now, I think this is some interesting stuff to chew on irt how things might shake out in ST5 in conjunction with Brenner, HNL, and his children. Only time will tell!

There's plenty more things I could have touched on, but there's so many little things in these episodes that just had me pointing and going "you see that, right?" It's really great fun, and I wish I had more articulate thoughts on a lot of it, but I know it'll stand out to the folks who read this.

Until next time!

[deadendtracks]

Continued from here...

On to season 6 finally. One thing that surprised me looking back over the season is that as far as I can recall, Tommy doesn't actually ever directly say that he's trying to be a "good man" in those terms.

I searched the @peaky_script twitter for that term and it doesn't come up referencing Tommy at all. Which isn't really how I remembered things, but *is* more in line with what I think is going on. What he does talk a lot about is "changing." Of course, the question is from what into what, and the implication is certainly at least "something better than he was." It just intrigues me that he never specifically refers to it as becoming a "good man," even if that's somewhat implied. This contrasts with Arthur, who flat out calls himself a "good man" a few times in canon -- most notably while assaulting and slashing up the man Linda was seeing in s5. What Tommy *does* talk about is doing good things (such as the housing project), but that's something of a tangent.

In the first episode of s6, Tommy does say to the men in Miquelon since I foreswore alcohol, I've become a calmer and more peaceful person. This is the first glimmering of Tommy making purposeful changes. Of course, he says it right after being quite violent in self-defense, so it's said with a bit of conscious irony. It's also fairly evident that swearing off alcohol didn't particularly make him calmer or more peaceful (I've written before about how giving up self-medication of his PTSD actually made him a lot less stable and anxious). But this is at least something he's attempting to achieve in some way.

So yeah. I went looking for Tommy talking about changing into a good man in s6, and what I found was that he never quite says this, and the places where he does discuss anything close are a) mostly after Ruby's illness and b) still pretty ambiguous.

The first mention of him 'doing good' is in the scene with Ada at the Garrison after he's talked to Captain Swing.

Ada, this will be the end of it, do you hear me? This is the way out for all of us. And along the way, I will be doing good.

and when she points out he's going to be making money:

All right, fair enough. Any incidental rewards for my good work will be welcome. But you will get your fair share, sister.

What I want to underline is that he doesn't talk about being a "good man" here, he talks about *doing* good and about his *good work* -- I know this might seem like semantics, but I don't think it is. I think there's a difference.

After Ruby is admitted to the hospital, Tommy sits at her bedside and tells her he'll strike a bargain to save her. He goes looking for Esme. Esme takes him to a burial site and tells him a story about Evadne Barwell blaming him for her daughter's death and cursing Ruby in revenge. Setting aside whether this actually happened or whether Esme was fucking with him, this is when he starts the sort of magical thinking/transactional deal making in earnest.

He tells Esme he's done bad things, that he'll give Evadne ten thousand pounds and build a monument to her daughter if she'll reverse the curse. He tells her his children are teaching him kindness. Notably, he says Now that I'm without whisky I can hear the spirits clearly, and they're saying Ruby will be well, if I make amends. That is the conversation.

Again, he doesn't say that this would make him a "good man" so much as it is a transactional 'deal' where if he makes up for his sins, his daughter will live. If he strikes the right bargain, if he convinces Evadne Barwell to take back her curse by giving her money.

However, Ruby dies before he can find Evadne Barwell.

Tommy's speech at Ruby's funeral continues this theme of change and *doing* good:

Little Ruby's fate came a thousand miles too soon. But in her name and in her memory things will change.

And whatever comes down the river from now on, we will make good, we will make peaceful and honest and good and send it on down the river better than it was. In her memory we will do this.

Notably, he says *things* will change, and that *we* will make things good in her memory. It's quite ambiguous what he actually means by this, and he doesn't directly refer to himself. Given he's been talking about going fully legit since season 1, it at least carries the connotation of getting the family out of the violent business and concentrating on the positive work he's been doing in parliament. But he doesn't say anything specific. And I think in part, he has no concrete idea what he himself means here.

And of course, directly after saying this, he leaves the funeral and hunts down Evadne Barwell and murders her and the three men who try to defend her. Absolutely not the actions of a good man and not remotely making things peaceful and honest and good. When he returns home, Lizzie confronts him about what he's done, screaming WHAT IS THIS "GOOD" THAT YOU WILL BECOME?!

His response is that their bodies will be thrown aboard the boat, like all the other bodies, but I am stepping off that boat and onto another boat. Do you understand?

Again, he's not really specifying what this other boat is, except it's not the one with the bodies on it. And it's interesting that Lizzie asks him what is the good he will become when he hadn't actually framed it as he *himself* becoming good. It's understandable that she interprets it that way, and it's not even that he doesn't mean it that way, but it's not something he's said to that point.

That night, Mosley, Mitford, Captain Swing and Jack Nelson show up at his house for their meeting. Mosley asks Tommy to prove his dedication to the fascist cause "physically" in the form of the Nazi salute, which he complies with. Tommy is then shown staring at Ruby's chair and then abruptly leaving the meeting to go outside and scream at the sky while firing a machine gun. Later we find out he burned Ruby's chair in the fire place.

One thing I haven't really talked about is the impact on Tommy of working to take down Mosley. This starts in s5, and it's something he was immediately terrified of. Briefly, he's afraid of what he'll have to do to destroy Mosley; this is at least part of why he tries to have him killed. Mosley's talk of the forbidding being forbidden, the talk about Mosley sleeping with his family members, Mosley basically trying to tell Tommy that he should hand over Lizzie to him -- all of these things freak Tommy the fuck out. But that's another longer meta. The point I wanted to make is that "proving" his loyalty to the fascists in front of a representation of his daughter, the day of her funeral, really fucks him up.

And this brings me to my original point! LOL I did have one. That he doesn't look at killing Mosley as something that would make him a good man. I've already talked about how he never frames anything in s5 in those terms. In s6 he's moved past trying to kill Mosley to working behind the scenes privately to inform on Mosley to Churchill. To do this, he has to keep up this charade of being on Mosley's side, working for the 'cause,' by introducing Mosley and Nelson, President Roosevelt's envoy.

When Lizzie discovers him typing up his notes from the meeting the next morning and tries to reach out to him after he talks about burning Ruby's chair, he stops her and says:

Not yet. Not yet. I have this work to do cos now I know that I will change. That I have to change. And change for good, Lizzie. Not just yet.

What stands out to me here is how he says that he has to change (again, not specifying what he'll be changing into, and not framing it as a 'good man') but not just yet.

So what does he mean by that?

My interpretation is that he knows that what he'll need to do in order to succeed in bringing down Mosley will require him to do things that don't fit that 'change for good.' It requires the man who is willing to murder people, the man willing to do a Nazi salute to prove his bona fides, the man who will sleep with Diana Mitford to 'prove it physically.'

That man *isn't* a good man. He thinks that in order to achieve his goal, he has to stay the man he currently is.

Anyway, that was incredibly long, but hopefully illustrated the point that I think Tommy doesn't believe killing Mosley (or taking him down from the inside) will make him a good man; on the contrary, he has to remain the 'bad' man in order to do it. He has to put off this "change for good" whatever that means, because it will be impossible for him to do what needs to be done otherwise.

And I'll conclude by saying that the "change for good" that Tommy talks about doesn't seem to be linked to anything specific or concrete that he'd do, so much as it is about the things he'll *stop* doing. So it's not really framed as "if i do this, i will be a good man" but "to make a change for good i will stop doing these bad things." Which is why he can't make that change while there's still a chance he needs to do 'bad' things to achieve his goal and stop Mosley.

[thnxforknowingme]

The S5-S6 Time Vortex

As referenced earlier, I tried to figure out what happened when between the end of Season 5 and the start of Season 6 (for my purposes, specifically focusing on Blaine). In case this is useful to anyone else out there, I've summarized my findings below. Also shout out to this post by @spaceorphan18 for providing an excellent starting point (and just being useful for all kinds of post-S4 information).

Relevant Plot Points and References to Time:

S5E20: March 2014

Kurt, Rachel, Blaine, Sam, Mercedes, Artie and Brittany stand on a street corner in New York, and Rachel proposes they all make a promise to meet right back there in six months.

Rachel gets a call from the TV network saying that her show will film a pilot.

S6E01: September 2014

After her show was received so terribly, Rachel went into hiding, then eventually returned to Lima.

In the Lima Bean, Blaine says to Rachel, “No one has heard from you in months.”

Blaine then breaks the news that, after she went into hiding, he and Kurt broke up. He adds that “I got super depressed after we broke up and uh, my schoolwork sort of started to slip and I got cut from NYADA.”

In Kurt’s voiceover he says, “I’ll admit it, it’s been a rough few months.”

During the flashback to Kurt and Blaine’s breakup, Blaine announces that The Mercer Kitchen is “totally available on Labor Day for our wedding.”

At Scandals, when Kurt asks how Blaine and Karofsky started dating, Blaine says that they met “a few months ago”

S6E02: October 2014

In the opening voiceover, Blaine lays out the following series of events: “When Kurt and I broke up, I was devastated. I thought I was gonna spend the rest of my life with him and then suddenly he was gone. My therapist told me I should concentrate on the thing I love most: music. And then, I couldn’t even do that. But then I started coaching the Warblers, and I was totally reinvigorated. I know I stepped out of the box when I started dating Dave, but honestly I thought I needed to shake things up even more. I mean, everyone’s always saying change is a good thing, right? So I stopped gelling my hair, I even stopped wearing bow ties." [queue concerning/racist reactions to Blaine's wardrobe change] "It was that moment when I realized that I didn’t need to change it up. I had to get back to where I once belonged. And that’s Dalton Academy, where no matter what happens, you can always count on the fact that nothing’s ever gonna change.”

Based on the above information, here is the necessary order of events:

That’s So Rachel airs

Rachel gets fired and goes into hiding

Kurt and Blaine break up

Blaine is cut from NYADA and moves home (a typical college semester would end in May. NYADA might be on a quarter system, though – that would actually make the dates align better with canon, and in S5E14 Kurt refers to being in a “winter master class,” so probably they’re in the winter quarter instead of Jan term. I looked up a bunch of different schools on the quarter system, and it seems like the spring quarter would typically end in mid-late June. Assumedly, Blaine would need enough time between the breakup and the end of the academic school year for his grades to slip and him to be disenrolled.)

Blaine meets and starts dating Karofsky

Blaine starts working at Dalton (I assume that school would have begun in mid-late August, although since Dalton is a private school there could be some flexibility there)

Rachel returns to Lima

I’m not sure what the fastest is that That’s So Rachel could have aired, but Glee has never cared about realism when it comes to putting on a show, so let’s say that Rachel moved to LA, rehearsed and filmed a pilot that was immediately panned, and the show got cancelled all within a month or so. She goes into hiding by the end of April.

Kurt and Blaine move back in together, and apparently their relationship devolves extremely quickly (although S5b was great at showing the fault lines there). Let’s say they break up sometime in May, which would allow ample time for Blaine to crash and burn academically before the spring quarter was over. By the end of June, Blaine is back in Ohio.

If Blaine says in Loser Like Me that he and Karofsky met at Scandals “a few months ago,” and LLM is taking place in late September, that means that their reunion must have happened pretty dang quickly after he got back to Lima. Even if we generously assumed that “a few” is being used colloquially as “more than one,” it seems like they probably had to have started dating by the end of July.

Let’s guess that Dalton began classes in mid-August, and Blaine started coaching the Warblers right at the start of the school year. This means that by LLM, he’s been coach for just over a month. The one weird contradiction here is that in Blaine's S6E02 voiceover the writing seems like the order of events is "came home after breakup > couldn't focus on music > started dating Dave > started trying out other new things > realized new things in general were bad, went back to comforting familiarity of Dalton." However, one of the scenes of people reacting negatively to his un-gelled hair is at Dalton, so I guess the experimentation actually happened after he got the job.

Meanwhile, Rachel had been in hiding for 4-5 months. At least, that’s my estimation of the most realistic timeline, with the info we’re given (I can’t believe I just wrote the word “realistic” here).

Other fun little facts I found in the process of this:

I took a screenshot of the magazines in Lee Paulblatt’s car to see if they included any dates that would give hints to the timeline. One of them did have a date: August 1999. So if that’s canon, Glee really takes place in a time vortex.

I also looked up the Mercer Kitchen out of curiosity. It was a restaurant in the Mercer hotel, on the corner of Mercer and Prince Street in Lower Manhattan. It apparently shut down in 2022. I assume Blaine was referring to it as either a reception venue or a catering option for the wedding? I don’t know a ton about wedding planning, but it seems kind of rushed to be nailing that down four-ish months before your planned wedding date.

[thebadtimewolf]

Hello! I hope you don’t mind this message but I immediately jumped into the rose tag after the episode. When you say Rose died 6 times to sutekh what do you mean?

I’m not familiar with extended canon much sorry if this is a silly question :)

shorter answer: hi! it's not a silly question at all! rtd chose screengrabs of eps where rose tyler was directly in the crossfire of sutekh gift of death so she couldn't react or run. it was a choice he made! a choice! to show that beach! Again! and then put the line of 2005! Out of 15's mouth! Rose was dead before she can even start something something haunting the narrative something something blue drapes something something im sure tentoo had fun experiencing his first human death!

shortest answer but really a reminder for everyone including you: tumblr doesn't go by tags when you search (in this case) rose tyler. it goes by who types out the words "rose" and "tyler" in a post and lumps it in there with the rose tyler tag even if said post or reblogged post isn't even tagged at all. THEY USED TO! IT USED TO NOT BE CLUTTERED! BUT NOW THEY DONT! SO NOW WE GET RANDOM BOOBY BOT SPAM LINKS! I HATE IT THANKS. but also if you also see this in the tag, my point about this is made

short answer: get familiar with extended canon because rtd pulling all these bitches out for tv so u can be prepared and have further context and further horror (but fun! fun horror!) on the why is it so devastating, why the dr is so horrified but knows the villain, why it's exciting to see these things for that do know extended canon both televised, comic, book, audio, etc etc etc it's fun. it's like a rabbit hole that actually warms you while latching onto you. like the beetle backpack. but fun! plenty of fans of the show outside your bubble can show you where to look, to read, to listen, to watch, but only if you actually want to learn more about it yourself. rtd is coming in with the televised/written mindset that you already know eu and prev seasons and prev marketing strategies and prev characters referenced. that's why everything 15 brings up is short and brief about it.

long answer because brain go brrrrrrr

the shots shown of where the tardis lands in the Memory Tardis monitors shows shots from s1 s2 and s4 of eps that rose tyler was in where she was standing in front of the ship before she gets a chance to reaction ie the shots of the TARDIS before dematerialising from said location

the beach shot, pete's world - specifically the shot before tentoo and rose can look at each other in s4 journey's end

2005 was the year 9 frequented the most in regards to earth but they do two shots of rose tyler's eps (one is a cctv shot of born again/christmas invasion tardis standing after he gets carried off), (another shows the bad wolf space station) to really highlight how devastating sutekh plan actually is by showing that no matter what reality one can escape to, if the doctor or rather the tardis piloted by the doctor lands there, sutekh spreads the gift of death or as im starting to call it, the imotep tsunami

which make sutekh, if anything very through, to kill rose tyler way too many times and it looks less like 'oh rose is such a threat' and more like a dog attacking someone that harmed someone the dog cared about.

a tad over kill methinks but, it highlights the relatable devastation that the doctor has to connect to the audience that no one and nobody that isn't the current onscreen companion, not even rose marion tyler herself, is immune to sutekh over reaching hand of death.

even mel bush got hit in the end because she was a former companion.

but it's all saved at the end.

It's just that rose tyler and tentoo (tentoo's proper first time dying like human because of an invasion awwww bless! his first death as a human!!! I'm sure he was geeked out!) now have additional trauma of dying and not being able to do anything about it because the tardis screengrab they use is moments after them JUST RECIEVING the tardis seed, with him taking off.

at least in a way sutekh was probably the reason why 10 and 14 are mayfly regenerations. they didn't last as long but they made an impact.

funnily enough, this is probably the only proper harkness death where he stayed dead since abbadon. so i know when he came back AND SAW GWEN ALSO BRUSH DUST OFF HERSELF he probably cried tears of joy because it's the first time he got to die alongside the human race with a friend

so yeah fun story to tell mia when she's younger AND BBY TONY TYLER OH GOD LULUBELLE AAA sorry but I hope this somehow answers this. I'm still reeling that gallifrey essentially got dusted SO MANY TIMES that dhawan!master being sad about wiping out the species (who is death's champion) is essentially just went sad about the lie being fed to him and that he gambled with the toymaker FOR NOTHING sorry sorry anyway. christmas special might be a doozy. it just feels that way.

[kiss-my-freckle]

Julie said in an interview that Kevin wrote 1x3 and she referenced the scene where Stefan tells Damon "These are people Damon. They aren't puppets," and I believe in that interviewe she also said he thought it was a good way to juxtapose Damon's humanity surfacing at the end of the episode after he sees Elena sleeping after the events of the episode. Kevin also wrote 1x2, 2x1, 2x13, 2x19, and is responsible for the storylines he had with Caroline and Andie but Julie is overly hated and people accuse her of treating Damon like the golden boy even though it was Kevin and not Julie who said Damon was his favorite to write for and Julie's favorite was Caroline. Also Stefan didn't care what Damon did as long as it wasn't in a town he's trying to start over in, as is pointed in 6x4. I also thought it was weird how in the first half of season 5 before Katherine got into Elena's body Caroline was getting along with her better than she did Damon despite the way Katherine treated Stefan and Elena. Caroline was also trying to date Jesse after compelling him and before she found out he was turned into a vampire, with her specifically talking about wanting a cute guy in her life after breaking up with Tyler and constantly called Jesse without knowing that Wes turned him. I don't think she ever apologized to Matt for compelling him while they were together. She never apologized for trying to kill him in season 6, but people hate Matt because he wasn't comfortable with her being a vampire in season 7. Also before she compelled Liam after she tried to take their make out session outside the bar she slams his face really hard against his glass wall before making out with him. I also thought it was weird how Stefan said compulsion was what he missed most after becoming human when Damon asked him if being less physically healthy and strong was what he found lacking as a human. Stefan says "Nothing more important than free will," to judge people but uses compulsion and is sad to have lost that ability after becoming human. I also thought it was weird how in 6x17 he creepily barges into the room of one of the female students at Whitmore without knocking and touches her chest to turn her around when he could've touched her anywhere else.

I love the end of 1x3 because it shows their direction with Damon's character as it pertains to his relationship with Elena. But that was also the first time I saw him act in response to something someone said. He's often affected by the words of others, and Stefan's words sent him to Elena's room. The necklace was all about Damon seeing his humanity, so it's all introduced in that episode.

You're right about Stefan not caring what Damon did as long as it wasn't in a town he was trying to start over in. Such is the case with his comment to Damon in 1x9 and the reality of his comment being shown through Silas in 5x2.

Damon: I'm on edge. Crash diet. You know, I'm trying to keep a low profile. Stefan: You could always just leave, find a new town to turn into your own personal Gas 'n' Sip.

Literally what Stefan does when he leaves town with Klaus in 2x22... he turns the entire eastern seaboard into his own Gas 'n' Sip.

Caroline is hilarious with Katherine because she loves being a vampire, so it's hard to hate the person that turned her into one. I suppose there's a certain level of love there that wouldn't be had Katherine not turned her. A lot of these characters have hypocritical moments whereas Damon is more honest and less hypocritical

[siriuslyblacks]

wolfstar fic rec list

this is born purely out of my desire to contribute to the world of rec lists. over the past 5-6 months i have been consuming an absurd amount of marauder ff and wanted to toss my love out there for the fics that i absolutely LOVED. everything is hosted on AO3 unless otherwise indicated. i’ll probably add to this as i read more i really enjoy. everything should be marked with rating, major warnings, a summary -- i’ll put my own thoughts/comments when appropriate as well. i did not include fics where the primary relationship isn’t wolfstar because i already had so many on the list but if you ever want either more recs, more specific recs, or recs for fics where wolfstar is not the primary ship please just send an ask my way! :) happy reading!

fics denoted with ** indicate my all time faves. 

 One to speak, another to hear by seventymilestobabylon 

rating: teen, no archive warnings apply 

The Wizarding Wars are over, but the work of recovery has only begun. Remus Lupin is trying to find his place in an ever-changing world, and when he is invited to serve on a truth and reconciliation commission, he has to confront the truth that lives there—in the past and within himself.

this one i read a while ago and it probably deserves a re-read -- i remember really really enjoying remus’ portrayal in this fic as well as the concept of the truth commission. 

all my cards are here by haey1

rating: teen and up audiences

Sirius cracked a well-practiced smirk, “Nice to meet you, Remus.” Sirius looked at his bandmates loading their equipment into Potter's car, “You wouldn’t happen to know a bassist, would you?”

Marauders Band AU - When the Marauders kick out their bassist, they ask local bartender Remus Lupin to step in. As the band gains success, Remus must navigate his new friendship with Sirius under the public eye.

i love love loved this one! the sequel is currently a wip which i’ve been following as well. to be honest i’m a sucker for band aus featuring a messy r/s dynamic and this does not disappoint. 

** Remain in light by veeagainst 

rating: explicit

What if Sirius Black didn't die? It's been done many times. Here's my take on it.

THIS IS ONE OF MY MOST FAVORITE FICS. i love the wolfstar relationship. i think it’s very realistic and it’s honestly very comforting to me!! i’ve found myself revisiting this fic a few times because i can’t get enough of their characterizations, as well as the plot. i think this deserves all the hype. 

** Beneath a big blue sky by eyra

rating: explicit, warnings: homphobia, homophobic language

The four-by-four heaves its way down long, twisting lanes, little more than dirt tracks scuffed into the surrounding fields and hemmed in by serpentine walls of flat, grey stone. They truly are in the middle of nowhere: the countryside rushes past, all rolling green hills and vast, endless skies, and it's odious. Sirius wants to murder James with his bare hands.

Sirius and James accidentally find themselves on a Yorkshire farm during lambing season. The farmer’s son thinks that’s a bit annoying, actually.

this one actually took me a while before i gave it a chance and it was so so worth it! sirius is absolutely adorable in this one and things unfold so naturally between them. give everything by eyra a chance if you haven’t, i love their fics but this one is definitely a standout in my opinion. 

** Into the Fire by wilteddaisy (taotu)

rating: explicit. warnings include sexual content, recreational drug use, implied/referenced child abuse, non-graphic violence, drinking. 

While war brews on the horizon beyond the walls of Hogwarts, the infamous Triwizard Tournament resurfaces just in time for the Marauders’ seventh year. When the students of Beauxbatons Academy and Ilvermorny School arrive, the champions are in for three unprecedented challenges. Meanwhile, Remus still has feelings, James is still trying to get the (Head) girl, and Sirius has revelations.

not a ton to say on this one except i loved the concept and the sirius characterization! i love too when the differences between sirius’s relationship with james vs with remus are touched on and how they each bring him very different things and one isn’t a stand in for the other! i think this story does it well. 

SHAME by wilteddaisy (taotu) (must have AO3 account and be logged in to read) 

rating: explicit. warnings include recreational drug use, mental illness, drinking, implied/referenced homophobia, sexual content, implied/referenced child abuse.

There were Isak and Even, Lucas and Eliott, Matteo and David… and now, Sirius and Remus. Or, alternatively: Sirius has some figuring-things-out to do. He’s not sure if Remus helps or makes things worse.  

SKAM au! i admittedly have not seen skam. but i loved this. i loved the friends to more, i thought the subject matter was handled well, and overall it was a very enjoyable fic. 

Sweater weather by lumosinlove

rating: explicit. warnings include sexual content, semi-public sex. 

Remus works for the Gryffindor Lions as a physical trainer, and has been half in love with Sirius Black, the Lions' heartthrob captain, for a while now, but he never expected Sirius to return the feelings. Read if you like cute nicknames, slow burn, and pining. Yep. That's it.

i am a physical therapist so this actually has a soft spot in my heart because this career is never featured in fic!! this fic is such a fandom classic now and it has amazing OC’s, great pacing, and the relationship which forms is so natural and just made me smile so wide. i devoured this in a day. 

Blends by rvltn909

rating: mature. 

Words got in the way sometimes, but Remus got the sense Sirius knew what he was trying to say.

-

Another coffee shop au.

!!!! just cute cute ok. 

No Bright Line by lady_grey

rating: explicit. warnings include anxiety, PTSD, implied/referenced homophobia, implied/referenced homophobic violence, smut 

In which Sirius is a famous actor who has stopped believing in authenticity, Remus is a historian with a complex relationship to memory, and Lily is the brilliant filmmaker who brings them together. James and Harry are there too, although they mostly just want to enjoy the beach.

lily is making song of achilles into a movie!!! it’s wonderful!! i honestly forgot about this one until i was looking through my list and it is such a gem and must read. i remember absolutely tearing through this one, i loved r/s dynamic and remus as a historian is perfect. side characters/plots are awesome as well. 

** Primavera by lunchbucket plus sequel Rococo 

rating: explicit

Sirius never had an interest in art, not until he found the right person to show it to him, that is.

the art!! the age gap in the relationship!! sirius needing to grow up!!! i love older remus and this ‘verse has a special place in my heart. i think i identified a lot with sirius in this one and especially in the sequel rococo which literally spoke to my soul. if you’re in a stage of change especially with school/relationships/your career i would recommend. 

Till we have arrived home by prouvairing 

rating: explicit 

Harry takes a deep breath. “I'm quitting the Aurors,” he starts with, which is followed by a moment of stunned silence. “What?” Sirius says. “All right," Remus says. “Do you know what else you want to do? Did you think about it?” Harry blushes, the way James used to—a rosy glow lighting up his brown skin—and says, “I wanted to—that is, I thought I might be a teacher.” Remus, quite suddenly, seems to have something in his eye. "Oh." “What?” Sirius says. “And uh—there's more. I was thinking I might like to. That is. I want to become an Animagus.”

Sirius Black & The Six by bellababe

rating: mature. warnings include substance abuse, drug use, past child abuse, domestic violence, mental health issues. 

“Remus Lupin, frontman for The Six.” Sirius took a long drag off his cigarette, looking up at the dense evening sky. “You know, I asked around about you. You’re quite the mystery.”

Remus shrugged. “Not much for the spotlight.”

“Right,” Sirius drawled. “I bet you’re also not much for the rock ‘n roll perks.”

Remus tensed, sparing Sirius a scathing glance. “I’m sober now.”

Sirius quirked a brow in disbelief. Remus scowled at his nonchalance, unwilling to explain himself and scared that maybe, just maybe, the disbelief was warranted.

Loosely based on Daisy Jones & The Six

** The Cadence of Part Time Poets by motswolo 

rating: explicit. warnings include drug use, mental health issues, drinking, homophobia, im probably missing a lot

“They’re… chaos,” Remus said firmly. “And chaos is—” “Rock and roll.” He looked at Sirius sharply, and for once, matched his grin. “Yeah.” “Maybe that’s my excuse then,” Sirius said. “I cause a bit of chaos now, and maybe one day, it’ll turn into rock and roll.” Remus pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek. “That’s some goal, Black.”

After losing his mother at age eleven, Remus has spent the better part of the last four years bouncing from school to school or else running around London and pretending as though he wasn't the kind of well-bred boy his father brought him up to be. Now, with his chances all run out, Remus is sent to Hawkings Independent School as a last-ditch effort to clean up his act. There he meets the very people who will set up the rest of his life, and is forced to confront the pieces of himself he'd long thought had been lost.

(genuinely not apologising for the slow-burn in this fic anymore. You've been warned <3)

this is my favorite fic of all time. i mean it. this deserves all the love and attention. it’s wip and going to be for a long time, it’s so worth the read. the world building is amazing. it’s remus centric and you just need to lean into the differences in this universe. it’s au - boarding school au, band au in the making. everything about this absolutely gets me and the r/s slowburn is so so so worth it. the characters are all so amazing and the oc’s are even better. it’s a time investment for sure but i can’t recommend it enough. it’s definitely my favorite non-magical au and i have nothing but good things to say about this. please read it and scream with me.  

No Matter the Wreckage by greyeyedmonster18 

rating: mature. warnings include underage drinking, implied/referenced child abuse, childhood trauma. 

His first summer at the Potters after fifth year--the year of fistfights in hallways, chugging firewhiskey straight from the bottle, too much smoke, exam pressure, scathing letters from his parents, and a careless prank that nearly cost him his friends--was nothing short of painful and illuminating. Sirius Black returns for his sixth year at Hogwarts with longer hair, determined to be different. A story on learning how to love, how to exist, how to be different through cracks and leaks. A story about love no matter the wreckage.

(a sirius focused marauders at hogwarts, getting together wolfstar fic)

station to station by aeridionis 

rating: teen and up 

Beneath it all, at the back of his mind he does know that there’s something terrible in this: terrible in the fact that it’s god-knows what time in the morning and he’s sitting here, sick as a dog, and then Sirius can turn up with his eyes and his laughter and his arm resting against Remus’, and suddenly he could do this forever, Remus could – sit here with him like this. Grow old on the bathroom floor, Sirius’ wandlight casting soft shadows over the two of them like the dark patches on over-sweet fruit.

Sirius’ laughter dies down and he sighs. “Nineteen seventy-eight,” he mutters, as though testing the year out, the way it sits in his mouth. “Mad, isn’t it?”

“A bit.”

or:

Nineteen seventy-eight: there's beginnings and there's endings and there's love and elsewhere, there's war, and when you're seventeen and you're eighteen and you're Remus and you're Sirius, only some of these things are important.

i really enjoy this author’s fics so if you have time definitely check out the rest too!! this one is just such a stand out to me. 

A Wolf’s Heart by mizdiz

rating: mature. warnings include major character death. 

Remus Lupin has a congenital heart defect, and is awaiting an available heart for transplant. Sirius Black is an immature twenty-something, living with a couple other immature twenty-somethings. Both are obsessed with the same obscure book, which becomes their coping mechanism for navigating their instant and torrid love affair. Life, they discover, is precarious at best, but from each other, they learn how to make it something that's worth living.

THIS WAS SO SAD BUT SO WORTH IT. 

** Just what the doctor ordered by WrappedUp 

rating: explicit

This is the story of how Sirius Black finds a dog.

Except, it's not really that.

This is the story of how Sirius Black finds a dog and meets a skilled veterinary surgeon with crinkly eyes and dimples in his cheeks.

Except, that's not really it either.

This is the story of how Sirius black finds a dog, meets a skilled veterinary surgeon with crinkly eyes and dimples in his cheeks, and grows the fuck up (at least a little bit).

older remus!!!! their relationship here is perfect. idk i love fics where one of them has to grow up/have an emotional journey in order to be better for themselves and comfortable with who they are before being in a relationship that’s healthy. sirius’ arc in this is perfect. i have used these tips i will not lie. i love wrappedup’s fics so much by the way so please check them all out <3 i have a few more on this list because i can’t help myself. 

** Happy Birthday, you by wrappedup 

rating: mature. warnings include minor character death, recreational drug use, terminal illnesses, coercion, mildly dubious consent, homophobia, body image. 

Sirius Black is about to turn thirty. But, like, it’s not a whole thing. It’s fine. And he’s absolutely not going to have a meltdown, fall in love with his oldest friend, and sabotage his own happiness.

He’s absolutely not.

i am convinced that this author is sirius black. i love their characterization of him in every single piece of their work. 

Impossible Things by accioromulus 

rating: explicit

Sirius’s thoughts are a slow-moving, impending disaster. How he wants to pin Remus up against the cupboards, to crowd him into a corner; how he wants to intertwine their fingers, to brush his lips against Remus’s forehead, his jaw. Instead, he settles for ducking his head and sliding a finger through the belt loop of Remus's jeans—a ridiculous gesture so utterly intimate, even for the pair of them, that he only allows it because he’s just drunk enough.

“Stop stealing my bloody clothes, Lupin.” He says, very quietly.

Remus looks up at him, eyes dark, and murmurs pleasantly: “Better learn to do your own laundry then, Black. Consider it my fee.”

***

It was an impossible thing, living with Remus Lupin--but Sirius was doing it anyway.

disintegration by moonymoment

rating: mature. warnings include graphic descriptions of violence, arson, war, death, blood drinking, corruption, ptsd

Remus stepped into Sirius’ personal space, leaning down and taking out his holy water doused dagger from his pouch. He placed it flat underneath Sirius’ chin, pushing his head up to look him in the eyes. He hissed as the silver burnt him, red and vicious.

“What,” he whispered, “are you doing here?”

Sirius looked pained for a second, and then he blinked, and that stupid, cocky smile lit up his face once more.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, pretty boy?”

or - Sirius and Remus have been trying to kill each other for eight years, but something always seems to be standing in the way.

VAMPIRE SIRIUS AU! this fic is sooo good i see it all over tiktok all the time. i still need to catch up because i haven’t because i’m the worst. i love moonymoment’s fics though and this one is a whole world you need to sink your teeth into (ha!) 

The Player’s Secret by wrappedup

rating: mature. warnings include implied/referenced suicide, depression, suicidal thoughts. 

“So what’s he like? Full of it? Arrogant?”

“Yes,” he says, because he thinks that is a fair assessment. Sirius Black is full of it. He is arrogant. He’s also entitled and needy and smug. He’s talented, reckless, moody, selfish, childish, charming and sweet, and a million different other things Remus is trying to wrap his head around.

Sirius Black is hard work.

Remus Lupin is a successful documentary filmmaker who is assigned to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary featuring Sirius Black - one of the world's most brilliant footballers - as he competes in the European Championship.

All does not go smoothly.

this one is a cutie 

** from white-hot anticipation to cold-blooded fear and back again by drowsyanddazed 

rating: mature

They’re so close. Sirius can feel Remus’ hot, bated breath on his skin. He can see every one of Remus’ honey freckles and the white spiderwebs that course through his scar tissue. He can hear every one of Remus’ sharp inhales and shaky exhales; It’s the only sound he can hear above his own heart racing through his veins.

And his heart is doing that —racing. But it’s not like a thud, thud, thud in his chest or even a soft, fluttering sound like a warm, Irish lilt. The sound is more like a swoosh, like a pendulum swing, jumping from white-hot anticipation to cold-blooded fear and back again.

-or-

Remus is a storm blowing through Sirius’ small town and Sirius is laid out on the waterlogged cobblestone streets waiting to be washed away.

Ravenclaw remus!!! i love how obsessed sirius becomes with remus in this and how he just does not understand it whatsoever. too too cute. i am a sucker for their history so i don’t tend to gravitate towards fics where they’re in other houses but this one i loved too much. 

ten reasons (to go to michigan) by greyeyedmonster18

rating: mature

Best-selling novelist Remus Lupin, distraught and torn after his relationship of 10 years ends in nothing but doubt and litigation leaves the bustle of New York City, and retreats to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in hopes of reconnecting to his childhood and getting his writing spark back. Sirius Black is a local ceramicist and single parent with a backstory all his own, who happens to frequent the coffee shop Remus grew up studying in. Remus for the first time in his life didn't have a plan when he booked a one way plane ticket--except for maybe the plan to never fall in love again. Except...

A story of simple pleasures, love, and home.

(Modern, Adult Wolfstar AU; set in the states)

Highland fling by picascribit

rating: explicit. warnings include sexual content, outdoor sex, chronic illness

2004: The summer before college, Sirius goes backpacking through Scotland in order to escape his family's expectations. In a small village in the Highlands, an unexpected flirtation turns his whole world upside down. Alternately, the story of how Scotland loves Remus and wants him to be happy.

Carry me away by greyeyedmonster18

rating: mature 

“You know I need you, and that's for sure, you’re just the kind of crazy I’ve been looking for.”

Sirius had devised the perfect plan. Two weeks in London before he started University. Two weeks of bars and football games and time spent out from under his parents gaze. Two weeks without rules or expectations. He concocted the perfect ruse to fool everyone about his whereabouts. And then he met Remus. And suddenly two weeks couldn't have ever been enough time.

(non-magic, AU; Sirius is a sheltered posh boy on his first rebellion, Remus is an attractive stranger who make's him re-think all his plans).

Solntse by lumosinlove

rating: explicit

Sirius, a young Russian billionaire hires Remus, who is working part time as a call boy to make ends meet. Things happen, feelings occur.

** lover, you should’ve come over by dykesiriusblack 

rating: mature. warnings include chronic pain, disability, anxiety, sexual content. 

Sirius Black is a mess. Remus Lupin is new.

It's all quite complicated.

or

The story of Remus and Sirius meeting at age 20, falling in love without meaning to, and not knowing how the fuck to deal with it for far too long.

i love love love these messy boys in this one. another one where i love sirius character arc. i love the pining. i love the complexity of their friendship and navigating feelings. i love the rest of the group. 

** nothing left (but some blood where the body fell) 

rating: mature 

this countryside's burnin' with wolfmen fairies dressed in drag for homicide / they hit and run, plead sanctuary, 'neath the holy stone they hide / they're breakin' beams and crosses with a spastic's reelin' perfection / nuns run bald through Vatican halls pregnant, pleadin' immaculate conception / and everybody's wrecked on Main Street from drinking unholy blood / sticker smiles sweet as gunner breathes deep, his ankles caked in mud.

- lost in the flood, bruce springsteen

i’m currently reading this and it’s very very good! not necessarily wolfstar centric but it’s my current read and i can’t get enough of it so i wanted to include it. i love the relationships, the james/remus/sirius/lily dynamics are all so interesting and overall a good long haul marauder fic following them through hogwarts/the first war. 

Source codes series by flourescentgrey

rating: explicit. warnings include dubious ethics/morality, consent issues, sexually transmitted diseases. 

In 1993, Remus Lupin figures out how to escape from Azkaban.

i just finished this. it was very very dark. but it was so good. it kinda fucked me up for a day or so just the extent of the real world parallels, the dark nature of the plot, and the angst angst angst. there are a lot of dubious ethics in this one. that being said it was worth the read and very well written. 

Dear Your Holiness by MollyMaryMarie

rating: explicit. warnings include implied/referenced suicide, childhood trauma, childhood sexual abuse, conversion therapy, eating disorders, racism. 

During the week of his father's funeral, Sirius Black meets an unusual priest and offers to help write Orion Black's eulogy. At the same time, he's started texting a mysterious bass player from a pop-punk band that he accidentally swapped phones with. Eventually, the conversations between the two start to blur together and Sirius has trouble trying to decide which one he's falling for the hardest.

priest!remus. this one was hot and it was fun and i loved it. you need to read. 

Inked by drunkonturpentine

rating: mature

Remus Lupin is doing just fine, thank you: he's a fully functioning adult, business at his flower shop is steady, and he even has a vague approximation of a social life. But when the vacant building next door becomes a tattoo parlor run by the sought-after, larger-than-life Sirius Black, Remus's carefully constructed world is turned on its head, forcing him to reexamine his past, present, and future.

that’s the art of getting by by sarewolf

rating: mature

“What do you want me to do?” Remus says, tiredly. All he wants is to curl up on his bed. Smoke a pack of cigarettes. Get drunk. He can’t stop looking at Harry.

“Remus...” Dumbledore is gentle. Remus hates when he has that tone. Hates that he knows it will hurt. “There is no one else left.”

A bitter laugh escapes him. “So you’ll curse the poor thing with a werewolf for a guardian?”

a classic :)

on another ocean (WIP) by colgatebluemintygel

rating: explicit

“You want me to come with you on the holiday that you specifically booked for you and your girlfriend?” “Ex-girlfriend,” Sirius corrects. Remus looks at Sirius searchingly, and once again, several emotions flicker across his face; only this time, his expression lands on something like hope. “Yeah. Okay.” or, Sirius is dumped by his girlfriend and drags his best friend on a holiday across Europe. And somewhere between Berlin clubs, Parisian boulevards, and Transylvanian villages, they fall into each other.

i am simply a girl and a girl who is an absolute SUCKER for pining sirius!!! ugh him being absolutely oblivious to remus’ clear feelings back!!! help me!!! im also a slut for slutty remus i love that the string bean can pull 

** wading in waist-high water by colgatebluemintygel

rating: explicit

Remus is a PhD student and hobbyist baker who finds himself adrift following his father’s death. On a whim, he enters the Great British Bake Off and is swept up in a flurry of curdled custard, shrunken souffle, and under-proved dough. Remus expects to be challenged and to embarrass himself on public television. What he doesn’t account for are the friendships he develops with the other contestants and the deep connection he forms with his teenage crush, Sirius Black: charming ex-boy band member and Bake Off host.

or,

Sirius groans, dropping his head back into his hands. “It’s the dough,” he mumbles into the skin of his palms. “It’s the kneading. It’s his hands. They’re obscene.”

Lily laughs. “They are a bit, aren’t they?”

GBBO!!! this fic is pure comfort to me, i love the character dynamics--sirius and lily as hosts have a soft spot in my heart, remus’ chaos and the adorable adorable flirtation between r/s. i love. 

A Bird At Your Door by moongoblin

rating: not rated

A shiver trembles through Sirius, racing up his spine, and he blames the crisp air. Remus leans closer, and his lips are parting-- and Sirius shrieks as a chunk of wet, numbing snow is rubbed into his cheek. He squirms beneath him, twisting his head away, but Remus only presses him harder into the glacial ground.

When Remus sits back, Sirius glowers darkly, using his freed arm to wipe his face with his sleeve. He can't quite remember how to breathe, and Remus is still over him, their legs tangled and bent at odd angles.

"You were a lot nicer to me when you were sick." Sirius says.

"I was weak." Remus smiles, and the warmth from his body fades as he gets to his feet. "Don't get used to it."

Of pub quizzes, old films, Chinese takeaways, broken arms, and impassioned discussions of literature: Remus is confusing, and Sirius is just trying to figure him out.

again. i live for s being obsessed with r. i can’t get enough of it. especially when he can’t figure out quite why. i love the begrudging friendship they form in this one. 

[lokiondisneyplus]

Yes, Loki series director Kate Herron knows about your fan theory about the show, the analysis you posted to social media. No, she won’t tell you what she thinks about it, or whether you were right.

“I follow all the conversations on Twitter,” Herron told Polygon in an interview shortly after Loki’s season 1 finale. “I don’t always weigh in on them, because I made the show, so they don’t want me weighing in like, ‘Actually, guys…’ I think that’s the whole point of art — it should be up for debate and discussion.”

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for season 1 of Loki.]

Loki has been a hit for streaming service Disney Plus — episode 6 of the show, the final installment for this season, was reportedly watched by more households than any of the platform’s MCU finales to date. The series has been a popular source of fan conjecture and argument, with one particularly big rolling conversation focusing on whether the budding romantic relationship between trickster Asgardian Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his alternate-universe counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) is a form of incest.

Herron is willing to speak up about that one. “My interpretation of it is that they’re both Lokis, but they aren’t the same person,” she says. “I don’t see them as being like brother and sister. They have completely different backgrounds […] and I think that’s really important to her character. They sort of have the same role in terms of the universe and destiny, but they won’t make the same decisions.”

Herron says thematically, Loki falling for Sylvie is an exploration of “self-love,” but only in the sense that it’s Loki learning to understand his own motives and integrity. “[The show is] looking at the self and asking ‘What makes us us?’” Herron says. “I mean, look at all the Lokis across the show, they’re all completely different. I think there’s something beautiful about his romantic relationship with Sylvie, but they’re not interchangeable.”

Directing the final kiss between the two characters was a complicated process because it had to communicate something about each of them over the course of just a few seconds. Herron says the primary goal was creating a safe, comfortable environment for Hiddleston and Di Martino, and after that, she had to think about how to bring across Loki and Sylvie’s conflicting goals in that moment.

“It’s an interesting one, right?” she says. “Emotionally, from Sylvie’s perspective, I think it’s a goodbye. But it’s still a buildup of all these feelings. They’ve both grown through each other over the last few episodes. It was important to me that it didn’t feel like a trick, like she was deceiving him. She is obviously doing that, on one hand, but I don’t feel the kiss is any less genuine. I think she’s in a bad place, but her feelings are true.”

Herron says directing Hiddleston in the scene mostly came down to discussing the speech Loki gives Sylvie before the kiss. “That was really important, showing this new place for Loki,” Herron says. “In the first episode, he’s like, ‘I want the throne, I want to rule,’ and by episode 6, he isn’t focused on that selfish want. He just wants her to be okay.”

Loki writer and producer Eric Martin recently tweeted that he wished the show had been able to focus more time on two of its secondary characters, Owen Wilson’s Time Variance Authority agent Mobius M. Mobius, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer. “I wanted to explore her more deeply and really see their relationship,” he says, “But covid got in the way and we just didn’t have time.”

Asked if Loki and Sylvie’s relationship suffered from similar necessary edits, Herron says it’s true that the show’s creators and audience still don’t know everything Sylvie went through to make her so different from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s original version of Loki. “We’ve seen her as a child, but she’s lived for thousands and thousands of years, in apocalypses on the run,” she says. “I think there’s so much more to delve into with Sylvie […] You’re filling in the blanks. You see [her on the planet] Lamentis, and it’s horrific. And you’re like, “Well, what kind of person would she be, growing up in apocalypses? What kind of personality would that give her?”

Herron says Sylvie’s backstory actually reminds her of the 1995 movie Jumanji, where a young boy is sucked into a magical board game in 1969, and emerges 26 years later as a full-grown man, played by with typical manic energy by Robin Williams. “It’s such a weird reference, but…” she says. “He’s a little boy when he ends up captive in that game, and when he comes out, it’s obviously been a life experience. With Sylvie, it’s similar. She was a child when she had to go on the run, so she’s had a very difficult life. I would love to see more of it. As Eric said, she’s a rich character, there’s so much to be explored.”

Herron says, though, that during her time on the show, material about Sylvie was added rather than cut — specifically, those scenes of her as a child, being kidnapped by the TVA. “This was before my time, but I know in the writers’ room, there were lots of avenues exploring Sylvie on the run and what her life was like,” Herron says. “I wouldn’t want to speak more to those, because I wasn’t there when they were being discussed. But something wasn’t in there that was important to me — I felt we should see her [history] in the TVA. Me and the team were talking about how it made complete sense, because episode 4 is all about twisting the idea that the TVA might be good on its head. And so that’s something that came in later, once I joined, was seeing her as a child. I think we needed to see that, not to understand her completely, but to get an idea of her motivations, why she’s so angry at this place.”

Talking more broadly about the series finale, Herron says the last few episodes weren’t as heavily referential as the first episodes, which she intended as “a love letter to sci-fi.” While early images like the TVA’s interrogation rooms had specific visual references from past science fiction, episode 6’s locations were drawn more from collaborations with the crew.

“The idea of the physical timeline being circular, our storyboard artists came up with that,” Herron says. “I had in the scripts, ‘We move through space to the end of time,” and then me and [storyboard artist Darrin Denlinger] discussed how we could play with the idea of time, while also adding MCU nods. He was like, ‘What if the timeline is circular?’ I think that’s such a striking image, like the Citadel at the End of Time is the needle on a record player. I just thought that was such a cool image, but it wasn’t necessarily taken from anything.”

Episode 6 focuses heavily on the mysterious figure He Who Remains and his citadel, a space she says was largely conceived by production designer Kasra Farahani. “I remember he brought in the art of the Citadel, and I thought it was beautiful,” Herron says. “He said, ‘The Citadel has been carved from an actual meteorite,’ which I thought was such an inspired idea. And He Who Remains’ office is the only finished portion of it.”

She says there are only a few direct homages in episode 6, including the zoom shot through space, which directly referenced a similar sequence in Robert Zemeckis’ 1997 film Contact.

“And then I have my Teletubbies reference for episode 5,” Herron says. “I wanted the Void to feel like an overgrown garden, like a kind of forgotten place. And I realized I’d pitched it as the British countryside. I remember trying to explain it to ILM, who did the visual effects, and saying, ‘Oh, you know, it’s like the Teletubbies. It’s just rolling hills, but they go on forever.’ That actually was quite a helpful reference in the end, which is funny.”

Asked for her favorite set memory from shooting the season, Herron says it comes down to Tom Hiddleston starting a mania for physical exertion before takes. “Sometimes he runs around set to get himself in the right mindset before he performs,” she says. “He does pushups. You know, you’re going into an action scene, you want to look like you’ve just been running. And it became infectious across all the cast. We’ve got so much footage of — I think Jack [Veal] ended up doing it, who plays Kid Loki. I’ve got [shots of] him and Sophia doing pushups and squats, just to get ready. It was so funny watching that echo across all the cast. I think all of them ended up doing those exercises with him at some point. It was so funny.”

“That might be my favorite set story, but it’s honestly, not a sweet one,” she adds. “I would say my favorite thing is his enthusiasm. He’s a very kind empathetic person. We were filming this in quite tough circumstances, a lot of people were far from home and isolating, and he brought this warmth and energy and joy to the set every day. And I think that made everyone feel very safe and very bonded. I’m forever grateful to him for doing that.”

[aquarii-writes]

Dsmp Headcanons

So ngl I've been really into the dream smp recently and I've been doing a bit of art for it so why not give my headcanons? Also all of these are for the characters not the content creators

Notes: the song referenced in Karl's headcanons is seasonal feathers music box version. This is all I have for now. I’ve lurked around the fandom since about early February and beware this is fucking long

WARNINGS: In some of these I do mention dead parents(various), death in general and as an entity(Philza), alcoholism(Schlatt), and traumatic experiences. None are in detail but just beware. Oh and a slight suicide warning for Dream

DREAM

Dream got his mask from his father and Drista got hers from their mother

His mask is specifically a gift from his mother after his father died

Dreams mask is infused with dreamons. His parents made a deal with a few dreamons and the dreamons now live in the masks

He will never say what his eye color is because he doesnt care, but if you can catch him without the mask you'll see his eyes are an amber color

He watched his mother commit when he was about 12~ and when Drista was 6. At the time he didnt want to understand why

WILBUR SOOT(plus Ghostbur)

Wilbur's mother is a fox hybrid(cause ya know I live by the saying that canon is my sandbox and a fuckin fridge doesnt make sense)(Momza anyone?)

His beanie is from his mother along with his love of singing

He has records of his parents singing

He has wings it's just that he never learned to fly

Ghostbur can see various other ghosts he just doesnt realize that no one else can see them

Ghostbur has selective amnesia. He genuinely cant remember parts of his life but some moments are too vivid to forget

FOOLISH GAMERS

He can partially shapeshift to make himself bigger or smaller(23 fuckin feet tall without changing height)

His son, Foolish jr, is biologically his and Jr is a demigod

Jr is too small to see the world yet so Foolish keeps him in an enderchest

Foolish is fully a god

He really likes turtles no damn reason

Aside from keeping his son in a chest, Foolish is a relatively good dad

He's a very good builder and rarely takes time to sleep when hes working on a commission for someone

He is most certainly strong enough to break the egg though he doesnt want to get involved for his sons sake

SAPNAP

He is a hybrid blaze born

BBH found Sap in the middle of the Nether playing with a few baby piglins

He met Quacky before Karl but Karl is the reason the three got together

TECHNOBLADE

Dispite how loud the voices can be sometimes l they can be rather peaceful. They really only get violent during fights

(Based off my techno design) the skull techno uses as a mask is a hoglin skull

Personally I dont think Philza adopted Techno as a son but Techno kinda became friends with Philza when he was just a kid

Techno was a very small child: especially in comparison to the village he came from in the Nether

Piglin hybrid piglin hybrid

Does not know who his parents are all he knows is that his glasses are from his mother

He has a baby sister(the two are half siblings; they have the same dad)

He literally doesnt need the glasses he just keeps them for the aesthetic and because its the only thing he has from his mom

He has a soft spot for Michael and Michelle since all three of them are forms of piglins

FUNDY

He has very vague memories of his mother

Looks stupidly similar to is grandmother; momza

He has a picture of Philza and Momza on their wedding day

One day when he was just a kid,like 14ish, he found an old sword that used to be Philzas and just never told Phil that he took it

KARL JACOBS

He's time traveled less after getting engaged to Quackity and Sapnap

Most of the books he writes never see the light of day again

Some of his books were actually found by one of Ranboo's descendants(not Ranbob)

One of his more scary experiences is when he accidentally met Dream when he was little. Momma Dream almost killed Karl

He's slightly immune to the effects of dreamon possession

He once found an old music box within the inbetween and he hasnt found a name for the song on the music box

PHILZA

He's known as the Angel of Death, or Deaths Angel for a reason(go look at @resonating-kitty s headcanon post about this. Ngl I love it and think it needs more attention)

After the 'death' of Momza, Philza swore to never love till he met Death once more

He remembers a time where hybrids used to be a lot more common: humans will fuck anything remotely humanoid

He doesnt remember if he has parents. By the time Wilbur was old enough to ask about them Philza made up the story that his parents went on to greet death when Wilbur was a baby

He's the reason for Momza's 'death'

SCHLATT

I really like the idea of Schlatt being Tubbo's dad even though it probably wont be canon

When Schlatt was little he watched his father but heads with other ram/sheep hybrids(he found it very funny)

He has a horrid tendency to headbutt people he has strong emotions towards

How hard he headbutts you really depends on what emotions he feels in that moment. The more loving/kind the emotion is the softer he'll be

When in a good mood Schlatt would let Quackity touch his horns

Glatt is a dick head and he knows this. He plays it up to piss people off even more

He comes from a rather large community of ram/sheep hybrids though his family in particular was a little violent

Schlatts first name is Jamison

He has a small ram plush from when he was little: his mother gave it to him before she died

His mother was an alcoholic before him though she was a very sad drunk

THE ERET

Herobrine is their cousin

He is very willing to do next to anything to succeed at something

He doesnt remember his family name

As a kid Eret's mother used to tell them stories of kings and queens. She told them that they could be a ruler one day if they worked hard enough

Their mums name was Elenora

GEORGENOTFOUND

(Based off of @/sctbrr on Twitter. I adore the au they made off this) George is a reincarnation of DreamXD's past lover.

Heterochromia heterochromia

His eyes are brown(left) and blue(right)

His clout glasses allow him to see color

RANBOO

Because he can’t remember his other half he doesn’t know what all he can/can’t do

Though one thing he’s noticed is that he can see much better in the dark than actual people; doesn’t know if he’s half enderman or his other half

As a kid he would pretend to be a dragon with someone. He has a feeling that the person was his father

He has two crowns. One from Techno and one from his mother; it’s one of the few things he genuinely remembers from when he was little

He sees a lot of Tubbo in Michael

Speaking of Michael, the lil one is only about three

TUBBO

He doesn’t know who his parents are and really only saw Philza as a father figure

He’s a ram hybrid like Schlatt

For the longest time he thought bees could understand him

[you-cant-spell-subtext-without]

so get this. I was gonna roll around in Tombstone related fluff today - but no, no - this post came across my dash so Now We Are Gonna Discuss the Carnal Consumption of Meat as it appears on That Show Supernatural.  YEAH BUDDIES!

(also my sincere apologies to OP of the inspiration post who innocently tagged it with “lunch date!”  because I am about to go Elsewhere, cursedly).

Let’s all go meat man, after the cut!

This analysis centers primarily on 5x14 Bloody Valentine.  The title of course is a semi-homage to a 3D Slasher Film Jensen starred in circa 2009. 

Which I will be renting soon I guess.  ,[<- parasocial panda GET BACK IN YOUR ENCLOSURE]

Also Its Really Fun that the trailer for Said Cinema ends with “nothing says date movie like a 3-D ride to hell” [are you also thinking of Cas pulling Dean out of hell, or are you normal?]  ***unironically the teaser for 5x14 is -

EXT. SIDEWALK - IN FRONT OF ALICE'S APARTMENT BUILDING

RUSSEL 

First date.

They then eat each other.  Literally they eat each others flesh.  They also do it while dirty talking about it.  SPN IS A SHOW 

ALICE Ugh! I've been so alone. So empty...

RUSSEL I know. Me too.

ALICE I want you, Russel---All of you... inside me...

[they both take bites out of each other, Alice chewing on a piece of Russel's flesh]

****Remember this detail, as it is important.

ANYWAY, it’s truly Cursed that not only are we doing an homage to this 3-D Jensen Horror Date Flick but also this episode is specifically centered on Valentine’s Day.  The day honoring romance and love Now Coopted by Hallmark, everyone, that is the day spn writers chose to introduce us to 

Sir Horseman of THE Biblical Apocalypse Famine. 

Canonically, we are aware that the show is drawing from the book of Revelations in its depiction of the Four Horsemen.  Here’s what it says about Famine -

"When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, "Come." I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.”

-Revelations 6:5

Famine holds scales (used to weigh out grain in times of food scarcity).  Spn’s depiction is represented as hunger, a bottomless pit of need.  It consumes souls (demon and human alike).  

Cas describes Famine a little more poetically:

CASTIEL 

"And then will come Famine riding on a black steed. He will ride into the land of plenty... "

"... and great will be the Horseman's hunger, for he is hunger. "

"His hunger will seep out and poison the air. "

***Consider a prior season in which we are introduced to the Seven Deadly Sins.  Which are the sins associated with hunger?

Gluttony

and Lust.

***this is also important

Back to the episode.  Case cold open, and we find out that Alice was a Nice Girl.  In that she didnt drink, smoke or

have premarital sex.

***So Alice’s hunger for the sin of Lust caused her to succumb to it; and her demise was presented as Gluttony (literally eating her partner’s flesh). HMM

Famine’s presence is affecting the town, and Cas is not immune.

DEAN 

And when did you start eating?

CASTIEL 

Exactly. My hunger-- it's a clue, actually.

***They lay it out a little more in case you missed it ->

SAM 

I thought famine meant starvation, like as in, you know, food.

CASTIEL 

Yes. Absolutely. But not just food. I mean, everyone seems to be starving for something--Sex, attention, drugs, love...

***this is so important.  but of course because its spn and our textual narrators are generally unreliable (even in a Ben Edlund episode, yes I know)

we get a red herring

CASTIEL 

Right. The cherub made them crave love, and then Famine came, and made them rabid for it.

***but that’s not accurate.  they didn’t get married or become obsessed with each other (remember the cursed coin in 4x08 Wishful Thinking and the unconditional love wish? not what happened here). they had premarital sex.  they did the thing Alice considers wrong, and dark, and sinful.  and then they ate each others’ flesh.

DEAN 

Okay, but what about you? I mean, since when do angels secretly hunger for White Castle?

CASTIEL 

It's my vessel-- Jimmy. His, uh, appetite for red meat has been touched by Famine's effect

***mad lad Jimmy Novak’s hunger is for...red meat?  He is starving for red meat?  You are telling me that the Novaks, red blooded conservative religious midwestern Novaks, ate RED MEAT SO SPARINGLY that Jimmy Novak was LITERALLY starving for it?!?!  No way.  Absolutely no way.  This is a man who was such a religious zealot he STUCK HIS HAND IN BOILING WATER and accepted an angel of the lord into his own body but his secret hunger was for fucking ground beef?

give me a damn break.

to me this is an absolute coverup.  Because Cas’s burger consumption is not related one iota to his vessel Jimmy Novak.

it is a representation of Cas falling.  Cas’s cravings for meat represent his growing (and very much prohibited) feelings for...humanity (Dean Winchester), and they are presenting as Gluttony in the form of his downing more and more copious amounts of red meat.  

SERIOUSLY, consider this - at one point the depiction is so desperately carnal that he is eating raw ground beef with his bare hands. It is fucking uncomfortable.  and it is SUPPOSED to be.  Famine stirs up hunger for the prohibited.  For the sinful. That which we are starving for but do not believe we can ever have, so we lust and we lust and we LUST after it, but should we allow ourselves even just a taste of what we have been ravenously craving, we binge it until we ourselves disappear into the oblivion of our own sinful, dark desires.

Since You Want More Examples of why this cant possibly be hunger for Cheeseburgers and Cheeseburgers alone, Consider Famine’s effect on Dean.  Remember his doctor kink?

**when its revealed that Doctor Corman has succumbed to Famine’s poison by drinking himself to death, Dean - very uncharacteristically by the way - reacts by saying out loud

DEAN Thanks. Crap! I really kind of liked this guy.

***please note that Doctor Corman says the following to Dean in the prior scene they have together -

DR. CORMAN [to Dean]

Agent Marley, you just can't stay away.

****was that a flirtation?

***Also, Dean doesn’t want to go out and chase tail for Valentines Day.   

SAM

I mean, what do you always call it-- Uh, unattached drifter Christmas?

DEAN 

Oh, yeah. Well... be that as it may...I don't know. Guess I'm not feeling it this year.

SAM 

So you're not into bars full of lonely women?

DEAN 

Nah, I guess not. [takes a sip of his beer] Ahh. What?

SAM 

That's when a dog doesn't eat-- That's when you know something's really wrong.

***oh look we are relating things to eating again.  sex/lust to gluttony.  hmmm hmmm hmmm

ANYHOW -  *takes deep breath*

 this is also the Episode Where This Scene Lives

****JACKTING JOICES

oh and speaking of jacting joices, this is also the Dean Notices Cupids Crotch Episode.

frAckles, I am once again asking why you only permit celestial beings to hug you from behi-[gunshots]

but Dean isn’t hungry.  Why? Famine has the explanation, and we get it after Dean immediately runs inside after Cas heads in to complete his portion of their plan barely giving him any time to do so because he misses him that much.

FAMINE 

I disagree. [Famine moves closer to Dean and touches him] Yes. I see. That's one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean. Can't fill it, can you? Not with food or drink. Not even with sex.

DEAN 

Oh, you're so full of crap.

FAMINE 

Oh, you can smirk and joke and lie to your brother, lie to yourself, but not to me! 

***not Dean making all of those homophobic/homoerotic jokes every time he’s in danger or feeing uncomfortable; not that, that can’t possibly be what Famine is referencing, right?

I can see inside you, Dean. I can see how broken you are, how defeated. 

***not THIS parallel:

AMARA:

You're a mystery. I can see inside your heart. Feel the love you feel, except… It's cloaked in shame

You can't win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just... keep going through the motions. 

***not the motions of performative heterosexuality!!

***Dean’s not hungry because in his heart he truly believes that he can’t actually have what he hungers for.  That Thing Which This Episode Overtly but Also Very Clearly Made Obvious.  It’s an angel riding shotgun [I did Do That and I am Not Sorry], eating a burger in the front seat of the impala.  But, I’ve deviated from the meat of this essay [gunshots] [this time just for the bad joke].

BONUS

there’s Exists another episode in which a man ravenously consumes red meat; eventually succumbing to eating raw beef with his bare hands in the season prior to this one.  

Yes Supernatural the Show That Brought Us Not One But Two Scenes of Persons Carnally Consuming Red Meat With Their Bare Hands.  

This episode is a MOTW - the man in question is a rougaru - a monster that starts out as human but due to some specific genetic disorder (hmmm hmmm hmm crack in THE chassis hmmm hmmm) soon begins to be extremely hungry - “for everything, but eventually long pig.” AKA human flesh. 

Wanna know the kicker?  

Episode’s called Metamorphosis.

(GIF by jackttwist)

I’ll see myself out.

[DOUBLE BONUS for extra credit:

if you really wanna wild out, go watch the scene of Jack the rougaru looking at himself in the mirror in 4x04 - and then meander on over to 7x01 and check out God!stiel looking in the mirror as the leviathans writhe inside him over there. It’s worth the walk.]

***oh and @lilac-void​ im tagging you in this one because in exchange for your KIND creator content nomination I guess I will respond by cursing you with an Honorary tag in this, a Meat Meta.  you’re welcome slash I'm sorry XO [but seriously thank you again for your kindness and appreciation; it really motivated me to sit down and get moving on making more content <3]

[thosewickedlovelies]

AND THEY WERE WALLMATES: Banana Bread (part 1)

Pairing: Javier Peña x F!Reader

Rating: probably T for mature themes (implications of sexy times and violence). It will go up later ;)

Summary: You share an apartment wall with Javier Peña, but that doesn’t make it any easier to get to know him. You didn’t think your baking would be the catalyst (read: Javi is jealous that Connie gets all the extras).

Tags: Mention of blood; super vague description of wound care; alcohol; TW for Javi: you have FEELINGS bby

Word count: 2,791

A/N: I guess technically this starts at the beginning of season 1, but I don’t plan on referencing the events of the show, so imagine they’re working on things less intense than trying to catch Escobar. I found Javier really tricky to write for, so I hope this reads okay! I’m so excited about the future chapters I have outlined for this lol pls get hype.

Masterlist

---

You had only been living in your new place for about a month when you got new neighbors. You were glad for the company- the four-apartment building was fairly new, and didn’t feel very lived-in. You did your best to add some personal flair to your apartment, but it still had the effect of reminding you of your own newness to this place, your lack of any deep personal connections.

Your other neighbor didn’t exactly help with that. Javier Peña had lived here for awhile before you moved in, but that was all you knew about him; you didn’t speak much beyond your neighborly greetings and his insinuating smiles. He never hides his lingering glances, but nor does he make any other moves- you sense he’s a safe type, all bark and no bite (without consent). So you always amusedly but politely ignore the invitation implicit in your exchanges. They don’t seem to have a lot of depth anyway, as if he’s just trying for the sake of trying. Granted, he probably never has to do much more than that- you’re very aware of how attractive your neighbor is on the surface. You just prefer to feel a connection slightly deeper than surface level before going home with someone.

You learn more about him from Connie, who tells you that he works at the embassy with her husband, Steve. In “janitorial services.” You raise a bemused eyebrow at that, but respect your neighbors’ privacy and don’t ask further questions. You help Connie get a job at a hospital a few blocks away from the one you’re a nurse at and promise to help her practice Spanish.

The building feels more lively now, and you’re happy to have a confidant upstairs, especially one who’s more privy to the life of your enigmatic hall-mate. You don’t know if it’s the neighborly care you feel for your new friend or if there’s some other unconscious change, but you begin to keep an ear out for Javier. You do share an apartment wall, although you don’t glean much through it. Some standard kitchen rummaging, television noise, the occasional bedroom guest (whose enterprises you try not to listen to, but damn if the man doesn’t have a perfect voice for after-dark activities). The most noticeable thing about him is the odd hours he keeps: sometimes in tandem with Steve’s schedule and sometimes not, you can never predict when he’ll be in or out.

--

Little do you know, you’re not the only one paying attention. Javier has spent many an evening alone with only whiskey and the television for company, but now there are other things to stimulate his senses. The smell of your baking filtering through the wall, even lingering in the hallway the next morning. The sound of you singing to the radio while clattering about the kitchen. Sometimes he turns the tv down to listen and imagines there being no wall between your two homes. What would his life be like with someone to infuse that kind of sweetness and light into it?

He doesn’t mean you specifically, necessarily. If, once or twice, your face jumps to mind while he’s taking care of himself in bed, he thinks nothing of it. You’re his beautiful neighbor- it’s a fantasy begging to be played out.

But damn if he hasn’t been tempted to make it a reality. He gets to taste your baking sometimes when you leave extras with Connie, and one day she catches his brow creased in a frown, distracted halfway through a slice of walnut banana bread.

“Javi,” Connie repeats, trying to get his attention.

“Yeah.” Javier snaps out of it, looking up.

“You’ve been staring at that piece of banana bread for a full two minutes. Is it gonna do a trick?”

He decides to lean into it, see what Connie’s reaction might be. “Only if the trick is getting me out of my pants. I don’t know a man alive who could resist the shit she makes.” He scoops another forkful into his mouth to prove his point, letting the rich, nutty flavor remind him of other places. Homes. Real homes, made of people, not the solitary kind he lives in now.

She rolls her eyes at his crudeness, but agrees. “You’re right about that. I don’t know where she gets the energy to do this after hospital shifts.”

Javier hides his next thought with another forkful of bread and a noncommittal noise. Wonder if she’d have as much energy for it if she had a man to tire her out. It was automatic, a question he couldn’t help debating with himself. Surely no one who spent that much time in the kitchen could have energy to spare on…other pursuits.

Connie is regarding him shrewdly. He avoids her gaze, focusing on finishing his plate in large mouthfuls to avoid the questions he can feel brewing. But he’s not quick enough. “Has she always brought you extras too?” she asks. Too casually, idling with her fork.

“No,” Javier says dismissively, and it’s not quite a scoff. “She wasn’t here long before you showed up. We’re not as close as you two.” Understatement. Did he sound sour about the fact?

Before Connie can ask any more questions he rises from his seat. “Well, don’t let me keep you. Tell Steve what I said.” With a nod of farewell, he turns and strides out the door.

--

One night you’re awoken with a start from where you’d fallen asleep on the couch. Heart pounding, you sit up, listening intently. You’d never felt unsafe here, but you’re aware of the potential dangers. What had woken you?

You hear a swear from the hall, and your muscles relax as you recognize Javier’s low voice. There’s a beat of silence, then a scraping, clinking sound. He must have dropped his keys. But then he grunts, and concern sweeps over you. You’re a nurse- you recognize the sound of a man stifling his pain.

There are long delays before each new noise that indicates an action. The doorknob twists as he grunts again, but it’s a moment before the key turns in the lock. It seems to take an age for him to get through the door; his motions sound clumsy before he closes it. Safe in the privacy of his home, so he thinks, he lets out a longer sigh, the pain and exhaustion now obvious in the sound. But you can hear his fumbling through the wall, and you worry your lip between your teeth. It is your place to go see if he’s alright?

Finally you decide that it is. You’re his neighbor and a healthcare professional, and it is your professional opinion that he sounded in-pain enough to warrant a check-up. Plus, you heard him that way before he got inside, you reason. So it’s not as if you were just being snoopy through the wall.

Just in case, though, you grab some muffins you made earlier as a backup excuse (once again mentally thanking whoever left the cookbook in your apartment). 11:30 isn’t too late for a friendly drop-by, right?

You knock softly on his door. “Javier? It’s me.” Nervous energy taps in your fingers. You’re never even been on his side of the hallway before.

There’s a shuffling sound, and the door unlatches. A narrow gap opens, into which Javier plants himself, and you immediately zero in on where he keeps one leg wedged behind the door. He leans into the elbow propped against the doorjamb above his head, while his other hand already holds a glass of what you can smell is whiskey. He looks like he would rather be anywhere but here at this moment. “Neighbor,” he greets dryly, a neutral expression on his face.

“Uhh.” You’ve never been this close to him before, and his appearance catches you off-guard. His usually combed hair is messy, waves tangling over his forehead, and he’s sweaty, the open collar of his shirt damp and the exposed skin gleaming with moisture.

Javier raises an eyebrow expectantly, taking a sip of his drink. His glances down at the plate in your hands, and it prompts you to speak.

“Hi, Javier. Uh, sorry, I know it’s late, but I thought I’d bring you some of these-“ you lift the dish “-before they come with me to work tomorrow. They’re banana bread muffins.” Your voice falters with your confidence. Your eyes can’t help but flicker over his face and chest, taking in the smear of dust on his jaw, the redness of the knuckles wrapped around his glass. Mostly you’re trying not to look at the leg he’s definitely hiding, which you can tell he’s keeping his weight off of.

--

Javier stares at you, not buying it for a second. His lips purse for lack of a cigarette to wrap around. He shifts the weight he has on his arm- damn, his leg hurts- and wonders what could have possibly prompted you to start bringing him baked goods now of all moments. “Why aren’t you bring those to Connie’s?” Like usual.

“Um, well-“ He sees your gaze finally drop to the leg he’s kept out of view, and too late remembers who got Connie the hospital job.

“I heard you drop your keys, and it sounded like you were in pain,” you confess. “I’m a nurse, Javier. I can help if you need it.” Though apologetic, your tone is firm, face sincere as you offer him aid. Him, your grumpy neighbor who does nothing but leer at you.

Well, he isn’t that proud. Javier sighs, and opens the door further. Your eyes widen as you see the long slice in his pant leg, blood still damp around the wound beneath. “Shit, Javier, what happened? It doesn’t matter, shit, sit down.” You surge forward without waiting for permission, tucking yourself under the arm of his uninjured side and steering him toward a dining room chair. Where he’d been about to sit down down and tend to the cut himself. He supposes your apartments mirror each other, but your familiar reaction to the layout still surprises him.

“Whoa, hey, watch the whiskey,” he exclaims, flailing out the arm holding the glass, taken aback by your sudden manhandling. With one hand still occupied by the muffins, you direct him solely with an around his waist and your shoulder propped under his armpit. He couldn’t have resisted if he tried. If it weren’t for the fiery pain in his leg, your hold would have him feeling a very different kind of heat.

You give him a look that says you won’t be fooled by his blustering as you deposit him onto the chair and the plate on the table. “May I?” you ask, kneeling, hands hovering above his wound.

“Oh, now you’re asking permission?” He scoffs in disbelief but waves a hand in consent, leaning back in the seat.

You scoff right back at him. “Look, I see blood, I make the macho men sit, okay? Why didn’t you go to a hospital with this?”

Javier studies you as you carefully lift the denim to peer at the cut on his thigh. He takes a sip of whiskey to buy time (as well as dull the stinging pain). You’ve put on a robe over what looks like pajamas, but you seem too alert to have just dragged yourself from bed. And yet...was that a pillow mark on your cheek? Just there, arcing from your temple to your jaw…

“Javier?" you're looking up at him, a touch of confusion on your face.

“Did I wake you up?” he hears himself asking.

Her gaze drops again. “No,” you answer. “Well, yes, but I fell asleep on the couch, so it was a good thing.”

Ah, that explained the pillow mark.

Finally you stand. Your hands rest on your hips, heedless of your fingertips smudged red with his blood. “It doesn’t actually look too bad. I have enough supplies here to fix you up. You stay here, take off your pants if you can manage it by yourself, and I’ll be right back.” And with that you whisk away, robe swishing through his front door.

Javier remains where he is, a bit stunned by this turn of events, your sudden insertion into his life. He shakes his head. Maybe whiskey and blood loss shouldn’t go together. He tosses back the rest of his glass anyway in order to wrangle off his jeans.

By the time you return, he feels more composed, if rather uncomfortably vulnerable, sitting in just his boxers with a bloody slice across his thigh. He watches silently as you arrange various medical supplies on the table and pull up a chair across from him. You perch on the edge of it and look at him before doing anything else. “Are you gonna tell me how you got this?”

He’s not about to tell you it was a fluke accident during one of Carillo's interrogations. Somehow, while his back was turned, the guy got free and tried to escape, swinging a knife wildly as he hurled past Javier. The cut was long, ugly, but shallow. He’d live. He couldn’t say the same for the man who delivered it.

--

Javier considers his answer. “Can’t,” he says. “It’s better if you don’t know.” His gaze skitters away as he speaks.

He works for the government with a poker face like that? “Janitorial work, huh?” you say dryly. Sighing, you reach for the antiseptic. “At least tell me what made it. So I can treat it properly.” You look at him steadily.

Javier looks back for a long moment. “A knife,” he says at last.

You nod, and rip open a packet of gauze. He sucks air through his teeth as the antiseptic sears the wound clean, but otherwise doesn’t speak while you work. Which is fine. You notice he’s drained his glass, and you empathize. Frankly you wish you had a drink yourself right now.

Once you’ve cleaned the cut it’s easier to see the damage. Which is minimal, thankfully. Most of the blood was probably from him moving around when it happened. You explain what you’re doing as you seal the wound closed. Only when you’re almost finished does he speak.

“Why don’t you ever bake me anything?”

It’s so unexpected that your hands still. You stare at him in astonishment, waiting for him to elaborate.

“What I mean is…christ,” Javier mutters. The unflattering fluorescent light overhead highlights the dark circles under his eyes as he scrubs a hand over his face. “You always leave extras of stuff at Steve and Connie’s. Never here.” With me.

You resume your work on his thigh, surprised to feel a tinge of guilt. “You didn’t seem like a baked goods kind of guy,” you reply, hoping you don’t sound too defensive. It was true, after all. Though you never got a sense of threat from Javier, neither did he seem the type who would appreciate domestic gestures of friendship.

He didn’t look offended, however. I’ll try anything once,” he says, the ghost of a familiar smirk suggesting he’s feeling better. But then he leans forward, all traces of smirk vanishing. “And your lemon drizzle cake was incredible.” Javier looks at you seriously. His face is too close for your level of acquaintanceship, but you don’t move away.

Surprised, you assess him anew, wondering if you’re catching a glimpse of the man beneath all the masculine posturing. He’s nicer-looking this way, you muse. His face softer, brown eyes wide and sincere. You hide just how pleased you are at this insight (which you’re sure he has no idea he’s giving you) beyond allowing yourself a small smile.

“Well, maybe next time I’ll bring you some.”

--

Javier can’t quite find another quippy response, so he just gives a small nod, finding it hard to draw back even after you break his gaze. He tries not to fidget as you place a final strip of tape over the gauze bandage.

“There,” you declare, your work complete. “That should hold you for tonight.” You stand and gather up your supplies, giving him care instructions as you go. “Got it?” You seem much more relaxed than when you first arrived, confidence in your work squaring your shoulders. It’s…compelling, much more so than your usual reserved smiles in the hall.

“Yes ma’am.” Javier nods, not having heard a word. “…Thank you,” he adds, begrudgingly grateful.

You smile wryly at him. “Goodnight, Javier.”

You’ve nearly reached the door when he speaks again. “Javi.”

“Hm?” Pausing, you turn back to him.

He clears his throat. “You…you can call me Javi.”

Your smile is much warmer this time, brightening your eyes, and Javier feels his heart pound. “Goodnight, Javi.”

[lover-of-queens]

Farah Dowling is Alive Part 2

The follow up to Part 1 or as I like to call it: look mom, I told you this degree would have uses in the real world! 

If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, you can find Part 1: Here 

You know the drill, under the cut cause this is probably going to get long!

Episode 4: Some Wrecked Angel

Episode opens with our favourite trio. If you’ve read the first part then you’ll be familiar with my argument that it could be possible the writers are leaving Farah x Saul threads to pick up at a later date. I think this scene has some interesting ones. There’s a lot of effort in this scene to set Farah and Saul up as parallels - in a way that also makes them stand apart from Ben. We have them saying his name together, but also, when they discover Callum’s body, both Farah and Saul are in sync as they move into a kneeling position. 

I don’t necessarily know if this could be considered an argument for them bringing Farah back, however, in the scene with Farah, Stella and Luna, Stella brings up an interesting point about Farah’s pedagogy. We’re told that Farah chooses care and time over “solely results” when it comes to teaching. In the next episode we learn Rosalind’s own teaching style involves putting her students “through hell”. I don’t necessarily know when the change will happen but given this, I don’t see any way Rosalind can remain Headmistress, especially when they’re taking pains to show Farah as better suited for the role.

Also important in this scene is Farah and Luna’s last exchange. We know what appearances Luna has helped Farah maintain - the barrier/illusion that stops Aster Dell from being seen. So, what’s interesting is Farah’s next line:

Farah: “Yes, we’ve both done a great deal to preserve Solaria’s reputation.” 

This does not get addressed during the remaining episodes. Personally, this line and the amount of tension between Farah and Luna also strikes me as a potential thread that could be picked up later. I’m going to wager that I’m not alone in wanting to know what exactly they did to “preserve” Solaria’s rep. And my guess is, because Brian has mentioned that they’re going to expand on the winx world, we’re going to be finding out more about Solaria in S2. Theoretically, I suppose whatever event that is being referenced here could be dealt with without Farah on screen, but then we’d miss out on all the fun tension! Also, as of right now, fan response to Luna is nothing compared to Farah (at least from what I’ve seen). 

Tattoo theory, several people have already spoken on this and I don’t want to speak over them. I’m still sorting out my own thoughts on whether it’s Farah’s or Eve’s but I will say that Farah is always wearing rings so it seems to me that if they wanted it covered they could easily do it with a ring (or makeup). If the tattoo is purposely put there then I’m going to assume its for a reason that the writers may want to deal with at a later date (hint, hint: bring back Farah). 

Episode 5: Wither Into the Truth

I may do another post on this at some point if I can find enough to say to warrant it but Farah’s eye colour when she does magic. Up until now every time Farah’s done magic her eyes have glowed blue and yet in the scene where she questions Beatrix they glow light orange. Now I’d always assumed that the colour of the glow = element, which was why I didn’t know why Farah’s glowed blue to begin with; she’s a mind fairy so I would have expected the purple that Musa has. And actually the confirmation of her being a mind fairy comes from Fate’s IG page shown below, I don’t know if it’s ever explicitly stated in the show? Further, to my knowledge, Farah is the only fairy we’ve seen whose eyes glow different colours. So, a thread to pick up in season 2, perhaps? 

Also I’m very interested in the use of the word “Once”. In this instance I would almost take it to mean ‘no longer is’ but the tense is present perfect (I think?) which can suggest the continuance of an action. But now I’m being overly nitpicky and technical. Also I don’t know how ‘principle’ made it through what I’m assuming are several stages before making it onto IG, but it gave me a laugh!

“Incredibly powerful” yet loses to Rosalind without a fight? Not buying it. Additionally, the use of “other forms of magic” is interesting and I figure could be taken to mean other elements. But I wonder if there’s more to it than just that. Farah shows knowledge of archaic Fairy Magic with the Nettle Amalgam, so maybe there’s more archaic knowledge out there that she knows ... that could prove helpful. 

Now, back to the episode. When Farah and Hologram Luna are talking, the fact that there are two burned ones travelling together is cause for concern. 

Farah: “There are two of them travelling together. That hasn’t happened since … In a long time.” 

Once again we are left with a thread of something that has happened. In the same IG post as above, in the section for Saul, it mentions that he and Farah became confidants “after experiencing the Black Woods Massacre”. I wonder if that could be what Farah’s referring to here? I know the massacre has come up once or twice in conversation and correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe it’s ever been properly explained? To me, it looks like a great bit of backstory to get into at a later date. It may not confirm Farah being alive necessarily, but you could take it as a sign that we might see Eve again. 

Lastly, for this episode, is the scene between Farah and Bloom. Specifically this part: 

Farah: “I will help you get the answers you need. I give you my word.” 

You can probably guess what I’m going to say at this point, a thread that can be picked up in season 2! You could counterargue that Rosalind could help Bloom with answers (as she offers in the next episode) but in my humble opinion, I don’t think it would offer narrative satisfaction. First, because we’ve been shown what a terrible mentor Rosalind is. Second, they’ve spent the first season showing how Farah and Bloom’s mentor-student relationship has developed (bloomed?) so it seems a waste to go through all of that development for nothing. 

Episode 6: A Fanatic Heart

Rosalind has her little prison break. Personally, I still think there’s a lot of unanswered questions about what happened after Aster Dell, how they imprisoned Rosalind, etc. And I do hope that we get some answers in Season 2 - again these answers may not necessarily involve Farah on the screen but as every writer gets told the age old advice of “show, don’t tell”, I think there’s potential for that. 

Farah immediately tries to disprove my points about her intelligence by wandering alone in the woods at night. But she’s pretty, so I’ll allow it. 

Rosalind gives Bloom some answers but not all, so I do think that my point above about Farah helping Bloom find more answers still stands. Further, I find the Farah is Bloom’s mother theory to be unlikely for several reasons (this is not the post for them) but I do want to draw our attention to several lines of dialogue here. 

Bloom: “You hid me from Miss Dowling.” ….

Rosalind: “The guidance you needed was love. Farah couldn’t give that to you. Vanessa and Michael could.” 

There are SO many reasons why this exchange is fascinating. I’m interested in why Bloom brings up Farah to begin with - her other points could stand alone to the same affect. I’m also really interested in the direct comparison between Farah and Bloom’s adoptive parents -- if Bloom hadn’t gone to them, she would have gone to Farah? It almost seems as though the direct comparison implies that. Also, considering Bloom’s relationship with her adoptive parents, I really doubt the validity of the statement. Plus, I wouldn’t trust Rosalind’s idea of love in general. 

Also, Rosalind is just so certain that Farah couldn’t love Bloom … can’t love in general? There’s just so much of Farah and Rosalind’s relationship that hasn’t been explored that I think really needs to be. 

Now, the scene that always makes me cry! Farah and Bloom have had a difficult time this season and it’s all lead up to this moment of trust and vulnerability - on both sides. If you ask me, this season has been setting Farah up to be the mentor figure that Rosalind was not - Rosalind’s opposite. And they’ve worked hard at it, even when they were trying to convince us Farah might be the evil one which like lmao. I find it hard to believe that they would go through all of that work just to discard it by leaving Farah dead. Especially because what Farah admits to Bloom in this sequence feels like a changing moment for her - she recognizes things she wishes she would have done differently (being less of a figurehead, being more open) and I think its only fair that Fate allows her to follow through on those things. 

And onto the scene that I really don’t want to rewatch but I’m going to do it for y’all. I’ve touched on Farah x Saul moments so it’s only fair that I touch on Farah x Rosalind ones. There is tension here (looking at each other’s lips, Rosalind getting closer to Farah, Farah grabbing her), I mean the cast has joked about shipping them. But there are several different ways to read this and you are more than welcome to your pick! It doesn’t really change my point, which is … thread to pick up in season 2? Have you started taking a shot every time I’ve said that (please don’t <3). 

Farah who has shown herself to be incredibly intelligent and cautious when it comes to Rosalind turns her back on her. And we get what is probably the most important piece of evidence: the eye glow. It can mean absolutely anything, but I’d wager one of the reasons its there is to have people do exactly what I’m doing here. Theorizing about whether Farah could still be alive. I’m going to take that as a sign there’s hope (mainly because I think it would be cruel to suggest a ‘could she come back narrative’ and then … not have her come back). Also, in the Fate novel, it describes Farah’s death as “too easy”. I absolutely refuse to believe that it could be easy to kill Farah when she’s proved time and time again how powerful she is. 

That finishes my episode by episode analysis. It totals well over 2500 words. If you can believe me, I still have more to say on this topic (discussing general counterarguments and possible logistics of Eve’s filming), so stay tuned for a Part 3?

[mtraki]

Brain chemistry is messing with me... got me in the bad feels looking at dark roads... So let’s try and drag ourselves out of it through hyperfixation!  It’s time to rant about Agent 47′s brain chemistry-- specifically all the serums and antidotes that artificially change it! (It’s a rant... I won’t take up space on your dashboard scroll if you don’t want to see it, but if you do, please check out under the cut.  Spoilers for the comics and Hitman Season 2-3 are unmarked...)

The focus of the rant is thus: “Exactly what did Ether’s antidote do?” ‘That’s easy, MT,’ I hear you tell me, ‘It brought back 47′s memories that were wiped by Ort-Meyer before he escaped the lab.’ Forgive me, strawman Reader, (but as always, thank you for your faithful engagement) but I don’t think it’s that simple...  Maybe because I overthink things, or maybe because the details aren’t adding up... Let’s discuss. In the cutscene in HITMAN 2 (Hitman Season 2) ‘Long Shot’, Olivia and Lucas provide a syringe from Ether Biotech Corporation.  According to their information, Ort-Meyer’s estate and his research were granted to the corporation (through Providence) after his passing.  The syringe is supposed to be an antidote to what Ort-Meyer used to wipe 47′s memory.  Using the syringe, 47 is able to remember Janus, the first Constant of Providence, so they can go get his info on the Partners... and kill him. ‘Yes, MT,’ you say, ‘so it’s easy.  The answer is right there.’ Well, please bear with me... In the next cutscene ‘Gifts and Curses’, our leading ladies Diana and Olivia are doing the real work (tracking Janus’s coffin) while our lads are being moody.  Lucas asks 47 if he’s all right and 47 says, “It comes back in flashes.  Fear.  Anger.  But like it happened to someone else.” Later, in ‘Precautions’, Lucas and Diana talk about how Lucas has feelings about the things he’s done, and 47 does not-- a parallel is drawn between these feelings and “having a conscience”. In ‘The Ark Society’ mission, on the Isle of Sgàil, as you’re marching Arthur Edwards, the Constant you are abducting, to the harbor, he’ll fish around for information by giving some of his own.  For the purposes of my rant, there is an exchange I want to focus on: Edwards: “...Your murdered him [Janus] to get to me.” 47: “Not just that.  He had it coming.” Edwards: “Interesting.  It was my impression that you were cured of such... sentiment.  The ‘good doctor’ built his serum specifically to target the seats of your emotions.  Has Miss Burnwood’s sense of justice rubbed off on you, I wonder?” This is where I feel the need to stop and point out that there are TWO DIFFERENT SERUMS at play here, that were forced on 47 at TWO DIFFERENT TIMES in his forgotten past.  This is shown in the comic series. SERUM #1) This serum was given in 1989, after 47 and 6 failed to take over the Institute.  47 sacrificed himself so 6 could escape (though he was presumed dead) and instead of being killed like he expected, due to pressure from Janus (who spoke as Constant for the Partners of Providence) Ort-Meyer instead used a serum to stifle his and the remaining clones’ emotions.  This one was an injection to the neck (like the antidote).  Here are his exact words: “I gave you something most people lack: a true purpose.  And you cast it aside.  For some misguided dream of freedom.  Why?” “It’s that storm inside you.  All those feelings I fought so hard to lock away.  Raging, driving you.  So now I must wipe them out entirely.  A small chemical insult designed to target the amygdala, the hypothalamus, the cingulate gyrus.  The seats of emotion.  I’ve just sawed the legs off them.  Do you understand, 47?” “Your memories remain intact.  But now they’re a series of events with no significance.” The effects of this serum were devastating.  With the singular exception of 47, every other clone more or less lost the will to live.  They died of starvation, dehydration, infected bed sores... losing any and all motivation for anything.  Meanwhile, 47 became an apex predator of murder, stating that the opportunity to complete the assassinations handed down by Providence through Ort-Meyer were the reason he went through each day.  He had a hand in the deaths of a good number of clones, either via poisoning or smothering. SERUM #2) This serum was given in 1998 (that’s nine years after the first one) after Providence demands Ort-Meyer give them 47 as the only success of his very expensive perceived failure.  Ort-Meyer gives this serum, without the permission of Providence, very specifically so that 47 will not remember him to assassinate him.  This serum is given orally, and through a hose and pump apparatus.  Here are his exact words: “I only need one more day, and a moment alone.” (This is included strictly to point out that 47 must have escaped that exact same day) “I raised you as my own.  Taught you everything you needed to thrive in this fallen world.  And now I have to take it all away.  You would come after me.  It’s the only way I can be free from having to watch over my shoulder for the rest of my life.  It feels like drowning at first.  Don’t struggle.  I’m going to make you perfect.  Now you have all the potential in the world.” 47 wakes up later to the voice of Ort-Meyer over the intercom.  He implicitly trusts the voice, as he knows nothing else.  He knows about the existence of nothing outside of the room and the voice.  He starts making associations as he goes on, and points out that he understands how some things work (”The mechanics of breathing, the science that makes remotely operated restraints possible.”) and the justifications behind their existence (”Somewhere deep down, I even understand the need for them.”).  As he makes his escape, he observes that their is familiarity in the sensations of killing.  Out in the world, he continues killing on his own for about a year, claiming that his work is his only indulgence and that he doesn’t need things, friends, or stories.  He does also claim to have a few stray memories that haunt him-- elicit emotional responses in him (which we also see in Absolution with the whole “doctors” flashbacks). Edwards should not know about the mind-wiping, and his dialogue does not betray that he does.  Lucas apparently knows about both, but I’m going to attribute this to “Lucas became personally invested in learning what happened to 47 specifically after learning he was alive and working for ICA, so put the pieces together once he stole the data from Providence” because he wasn’t around for either serum.  Meanwhile, Edwards doesn’t have many reasons to worry about 47 until he starts trying to use his past as a lure for Diana.  Because his angle is to eventually reveal that it was 47 (AND 6... they were on the job together, per the comics) who killed her parents, and the fact that that juicy reveal would hurt that much more if he could reveal it as something 47 knowingly hid from her... I don’t think he’d go out of his way to discredit Janus’s reporting on the situation that only the first serum was given, and something else happened that allowed 47 to escape into the wild.  Janus is apparently Edwards’s beloved mentor, after all. ‘MT,’ I hear you say, ‘You’re rambling.  What’s the point here?’ The point is that 47, a man who does not mince words, makes the observation, when asked, that he remembers fear and anger.  These are the things that stand out to him in his memories.  The emotions.  This is in violation of the first serum’s properties as well as the second. Now, why is this happening?  Perhaps the first serum has an effective lifespan, and perhaps it’s wearing off.  Perhaps 47′s human (arguably superhuman, per some sources) brain is adapting to make necessary associations despite the “chemical insult”. Or... was this antidote supposed to also be an antidote for the first serum?  It is noteworthy that 47 starts behaving in ways that suggest more emotionally-driven motivations after the antidote is given-- at least it seems that way to me.  This seems especially the case at the very end of HITMAN 3 (Season 3), ‘Untouchable’, when 47 is confronted with his guilt, with his feelings about what he perceives Diana’s thoughts and feelings to be, and with his choice in the end concerning Edwards in the final confrontation.  No matter what he chooses, he owns his choice and all the baggage and consequences that come with it.  At the very end, in the cutscene 'New Deal', he tells Diana that he isn’t ‘Agent 47′ anymore.  That he chooses this path because he can. Perhaps I’m very much misunderstanding the themes, here, but 47 not remembering his past never struck me as something that held him back from choosing something else.  It has always been his inability to connect with others in any way outside of infiltrating their spaces and killing them... with very, very few exceptions... that has kept him from choosing a path outside of murder-for-hire (perfectly executed, of course ;) )  So I’m left at the end with the conclusion that 47 is now able to operate as his own conscience because he now has a... mostly usable independent sense of morality-- which requires a certain level of empathy. So... again: what’s the deal with the antidote?  Is it two-in-one?  This would be fine, (Okay, not really, I would then have to rant about how this only makes sense as a convenient plot device because for which person BESIDES Agent 47 would such an antidote be useful unless they also work with the first serum... and oh boy IMPLICATIONS... I know we keep crashing their stock but can we crash their production too?) except the antidote is only referenced as working to return 47′s memory... and his ‘warmer’ dialogues through the end of 2 and into 3 with his allies is simply treated as matter of course-- nobody points it out. I don’t know if this is a problem with my perspective, the writing, or what... But it seems like Lucas knows and doesn’t know about both serums at the same time (he comments specifically about 47 remembering things... but not him behaving more emotionally engaged)... Or like the games smooshed both serums together while the comics had them separate.  This isn’t like the whole “we don’t talk about Absolution though we do wink and nod that it mostly happened in canon” thing.  The comics were written as a companion for the HITMAN: World of Assassination trilogy! I know how I’m treating it for 'Monstrous’ (because if I don’t, I’ll go crazy and rage-quit the fic) but it still bothers me...  Anybody got any ideas?  Nuggets of lore I missed?  Am I the only one stressing out about this??

[paintedlight]

Supernatural Season 15 & Sufjan Stevens' “The Ascension”

Teaser: there’s a song on this album called "Die Happy” where the lyrics are just “I want to die happy” for 5 minutes and 45 seconds. yeah. yeah.

Disclaimer: yes it’s all a stretch and I’m overthinking it but also… am I? (yes) 

long post time! know that reading ahead may hurt you and yes it does get worse the further down the track list you get 💕 have fun kids

So just to start off, I think it’s funny that something Sufjan’s discography & Supernatural have in common is the 15+ years of the internet arguing if it’s gay or not, and the answer ending up being yes. PLUS there’s the obvious connection of American mythos + mythology + calvinist themes (I am hissing) + religious trauma prevalent in both. 

If you’re a fan of both like I am, it’s easy to connect them— notable connections being songs like “John My Beloved” and “The Owl and the Tanager” or even “John Wayne Gacy Jr.”, but I’m going to focus on Sufjan's 2020 album, “The Ascension” since even the arc itself seems so connected to season 15 of Supernatural, specifically. 

At least in my head it does <3 enjoy 

MAKE ME AN OFFER I CANNOT REFUSE

When interviewed about the meaning of this track, Sufjan explains that this song is about asking God, “what do you have to say for humanity?” That it’s about desperation, creation, and devastation. It’s about frustration with divinity. Also the vibes are 10/10. Need I say more 

RUN AWAY WITH ME

This song is beautiful, it makes me want to sit in some grass and stare at the sky. 

Some lines that make me Dean/Cas crazy are the two lines in verse 1 and verse 2 that mirror each other by being in the same place melodically:

Verse 1: they will terrorize us / with new confusion / with the fear of life that seeks to bring despair within

Verse 2: I will bring you life / a new communion / with a paradise that brings the truth to light within

Yeahhh so the words “Despair” and “The Truth” were mirrored in this song yes it was coincidental yes I’m clinging to it. It fascinates me 

But this song is about begging someone to stay with you.

sweet falling remedy / come run away with me / you’re all I ever need

VIDEO GAME

My first thought when I heard this song was about how it was such a song for enneagram 4s. If you don’t know what that means, I think Dean is a 4 and wrote a post about it here. 

AND @trapperjohnmcintyre also made the connection between these lyrics and Dean in this post, and honestly I don’t need to say much more than that??

The song is about feeling paranoid and angry that God is controlling your every move and you can’t escape it (aka hating the doctrine of predestination). Of course it’s also about not wanting to follow societal scripts. 

You just want to have an easier life instead of the weight of good and evil resting on your back!!!

I don’t want to put the devil on a pedestal / I don’t want put the saints in chains / I just want to make my life a little easier / I don’t want to play your video game

Also these painful lines, as a treat: 

I don’t want to love you if you don’t receive it / I don’t want to save the world that way

Oh, I almost forgot, also. At the end, the narrator gives up. He’s like well I guess I can’t escape. Gotta follow the procedure. Gotta be a puppet.

I don’t want it to go down that way / but in a way you gotta follow the procedure / so go ahead and play your video game

  LAMENTATIONS

I don’t have much to say about this one but this line always makes my heart ache idk:

I was only thinking of human kindness

TELL ME YOU LOVE ME

Here we gooooooo. Y’all aren’t ready.

Thesis: Tell me you love me despite the primordial darkness about to overtake me. And even if you don’t, I’m going to love you. 

15x18 Despair anyone?? 

I want to just paste the whole song but, here—

DIE HAPPY

Yep, "Die Happy" immediately follows "Tell Me You Love Me." Yes, the lyrics are just “I want to die happy” over and over for almost 6 minutes. 

First of all, the repetition mirrors the end of the song Fourth of July, from Sufjan’s previous album Carrie & Lowell, where Sufjan sings “we’re all gonna die” over and over.

Parallels, baby.

But I noticed something else about this recently though— in Die Happy, if you are listening to it in your headphones, there’s this weird sound that sounds like a wasp flying around your head (it made me uncomfortable which is why I noticed it, haha). After I felt unnerved for a moment, I had a realization— that this could be referencing one of Sufjan’s most beloved songs, “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out To Get Us!!” (yes that’s a real song title lol)

The Predatory Wasp is about how Sufjan fell in love with his best friend at the Bible Camp he went to as a teenager. The wasp is a metaphor for internalized homophobia and also his love and how he fears his love will hurt the boy he’s in love with. 

So, Die Happy references an iconic song from Illinois (2005) with these notable lines:

Tl;dr: 

I want to die happy vs. I can’t explain the state that I’m in / the state of my heart / he was my best friend

Here’s an Despair photoset with Predatory Wasp lyrics via @toneelspeelster. 

ATIVAN

So your best friend has just died happy by being in love with you. You feel like the primordial darkness is on YOU now:

I woke up in stereo—I spent the day in vertigo / I could not get the spirit off my back

You’re once again tossed in the waves of thinking that God is fucking with you. But either way you just want to be tranquilized at this point. 

Is it all for something? Is it all part of a plan / tranquilize me, sanitize me, Ativan

Is it all for nothing? Is it all part of a plan? / make my death wish, mind my business / do the best I can with what I am

Ativan asks, was the true leading woman all this time… substance abuse?? 

Ativan / my leading woman

Long story short, you’re drunk on communion wine, asking the shadows to come back.

fill me with the blood of Jesus / clean my plate 'til he receives us / separate the colors from the black / ... / tell the shadows near us to come back

 URSA MAJOR & LANDSLIDE

Not a lot to say about this (even though I love these songs) so I’m gonna skip mostly, but the narrator has decided he wants to love you, he can’t help it <3 

GILGAMESH

Oh boy. 

I mean you kinda know what’s coming because of the title. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the world’s oldest piece of epic world literature, and Gilgamesh was “the first hero of human history.” 

In the world’s oldest story, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh and Enkidu are “very close friends” (their relationship is very homoerotic and this is barely disputed). Gilgamesh calls Enkidu his brother, and they are mutually selfless towards each other but when Enkidu dies, indirectly because of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh has a breakdown and mourns him like that of a spouse and then has to come to terms with his own mortality. 

The meta level of this is so obvious I’m not even going to go into it. Anyways… here are lyrics that make me want to scream! 

the repetition of “my heart”... the concept of singing a eulogy.... saying your heart is chained to Your Angel............ it hurts

DEATH STAR

Star Wars reference my beloved. Like many of these songs this has Fuck You God energy.

what you call the human race / expedite the judgement day / it’s your own damn head on that plate

vandalize what you create / ... / witness me resist your fate / it’s your own damn head on that plate

 GOODBYE TO ALL THAT

This song is a bop honestly 

When the lyrics were released a bunch of Sufjan fans contrasted Goodbye To All That’s here I am alone in my car / hopelessly infatuted / and I’m driving to wherever you are to Sufjan & Moses Sumney’s song, “Make Out in My Car”.

Yeah, I know, we’re all thinking of this:

Make Out in My Car is basically where Moses gave Sufjan a horny car guy chorus and told him to write the verses, and Sufjan proceeded to write the most liturgical shit ever (and we love him for it). ANYWAYS… Goodbye To All That also reminds me of Dean’s depression and the weirdness that started in 15x19 and goes into 15x20. For some reason he makes it seem more upbeat and happy than it is...

Despite this song being a bop, the lyrics are depressing. He’s alone in his car. He’s hopeless. He realizes it’s too late to have died a young man. 

He’s going to try to move on, even though nothing is left of him, he’s begging someone to turn around and show me his shadow.

He also references substance abuse again—

love me / and leave me / intoxicated

  SUGAR

The music video? Iconic. The mom of a family is making a pie, or she’s trying to. She ends up rubbing the filling all over her face, crushing the fruits, the oven catches on fire. 

But she does it! She makes the pie. 

Meanwhile the other family members are in their rooms, overindulging in sugar in all its forms. And then as she and her family eat around a dining table, occassionally being seemingly marrioetted by some unseen force, she looks angrily over her family, they all seem to kind of lose it, then the house starts to come apart until the chandelier falls on the dinner table. 

It’s the making pie + overindulgence in sugar + marionetted family metaphors for me ❤️ 

Ultimately, the song is about begging for affection, being desperate for domesticity, but you feel doomed, you feel like your defeat is predestined, that you can’t escape it.

You just don’t want to be heartbroken & you don’t want to be angry anymore!!!!

  THE ASCENSION

So you may be asking… does this guy get the domesticity he’s longing for?? Does he get his love back?? 

No. He dies. :/

The Ascension begins with just that. He’s dying.

THEN Sufjan decides to rhyme “confess” with “confess”, in two lines that mean almost opposite things:

When I am dead / and the light leaves my breast / nothing to be told / nothing to confess / let the record show / what I couldn’t quite confess

So does this guy have something to confess or not??? 👀

Moving on… 

He goes back to thinking about how his life was predestined all along, and now after all that, he’s dying. So he thinks about all the times he was kind of like this Mythological Icon. That he always had to be the one to show what was right, to lead by example. That that had been his entire identity. 

And he realizes he needs to answer for himself. 

Then he is frightened— realizing he was always asking what everything meant, what it all was for, but that all along he was just angry and depressed.

But even though he feels a like he should have just resigned himself to meaninglessness, that he only thought he could change the world for the better… it strengthened him to know the truth.

And even through the absolute shit of it all, and even though God & others did things from a place of so-called holiness and hopelessness...

He did everything out of love ❤️

So then he dies 🙃

AMERICA

So, as the end of The Ascension asked, what now? 

The album ends on this long track, which Sufjan describes as a protest against all that America has been and has become. 

It’s a protest against capitalism, of destroying humanity for the sake of some cold machinery. 

I have worshipped / I believed / I have broke your bread / for a splendor of machinery

And in true Sufjan fashion, he makes this song about protesting somehow both horny and religious, god bless

I have loved you / like a dream / I have kissed your lips / like a Judas in heat

I have worshipped / I have cried / I have put my hands in the wounds on your side / I have tasted of your blood / I have choked on the waters / I abated the flood / I am broken / I am beat / but I will find my way / like a Judas in heat

I am fortune / I am free / I’m like a fever of light / in the land of opportunity / don’t do to me / what you did to America / don’t do to me / what you do to yourself

  to finish out, here’s a DeanCas post by @eggcessive with lyrics from America ❤️ I HOPE YOU ENJOYED MY WEBWEAVING :)

[firelxdykatara]

I was the anon who sent the ask about cs, and you actually addressed some of the major arguments i've seen - being with hook turned emma from a strong, independent woman into just a love interest, hook pursued emma with no reciprocated feelings, and that he never really redeemed himself. I've also seen arguments that cs is abusive, which i've seen to some extent in anti-kataang posts. i try not to dive too deep into the anti tag for my own sanity but these are some of the main things i've seen

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

ok, sorry, i was just caught up in the euphoria of reminiscing about my captain swan feelings that for a moment there i lived in a world where the Anti CS Brigade didn’t exist. but no, yeah, i know exactly what you’re talking about and honestly i think i just......blocked 90% of it from my mind because so many of those arguments were so vitriolic and widespread but also baseless, like...

gods, ok, here we go. anon you have activated my dormant ouat wordvomit processors and idk if i’ll be able to shut up any time soon but i have A Lot Of Thoughts Here, and also a lot of really bad memories cause ye gods, the ouat shipping wars of the days of yore were vicious.

ANYWAY, like, the vast majority of these arguments came from the ‘swan queen nation’, which is where you can trace a lot of super toxic wlw ship stans back to--just for a little context, but clexa and supercorp both had their roots in swan queen, among other ships, but those are the Big Three i always go back to because what they have in common is ‘the main character of the series is explicitly abused/treated horribly by another woman and for some reason the shippers go nuts over this pairing and will insist the show is queerbaiting them if this specific pairing is not made canon’. and swan queen stans, in particular, had it out for captain swan, because they were incredibly insistent about regina and emma being in love, and naturally the existence of emma’s romantic arc with killian threatened that.

as a result, they quite literally made shit up.

it’s funny (not ‘funny ha ha’ but like funny depressing), because a lot of what they accused CS of is actually shit that happened explicitly on screen with regina and emma. they claimed that emma was no longer strong or independent because she fell in love with killian, while ignoring the fact that she’d become a literal doormat for regina’s many abuses (there are so many things regina did to emma even after her alleged redemption which, if she weren’t being so coddled by the narrative, emma would never have let her get away with--like blaming her for saving the life of a woman regina had murdered in the past, or like telling emma to her face that she wanted to tear killian’s throat out because he managed to come back from the underworld while the man regina loved stayed dead) because, for some reason, they interpreted emma being happy and no longer closed off to the people she loved, choosing to let down the walls she’d built up over a lifetime of trauma as her being ‘reduced to a love interest’ which just did not happen.

like, factually, straight up, emma was every bit as badass while dating killian as she was back in season 1. the only difference is, in season 1 emma didn’t trust anyone, she was closed off, she had a million walls built high around her by trauma, and she wasn’t willing to let anyone in because she believed that if she did then she’d only be traumatized again when they inevitably left. by season 4, when she started officially dating killian, many of those walls had come down, she was happier and healthier, she was falling in love and she was letting herself be in love, she had her parents, her son, the whole town full of people she loved. she was fucking happy, but she wasn’t happy with the right love interest, so swan queen shippers insisted they wanted ‘season 1 emma back’. because they would rather emma be miserable so they could interpret her antagonism with regina as closeted gay pining, than have her dare to be happy with a man and a family that didn’t include regina.

as to the other claims, while hook did make his feelings for emma clear once he realized he felt them, the ball was in her court almost completely. he made comments, told her how he felt, said things like ‘when i win your heart, and i will win it, it will be because you want me’ where the clear emphasis was on emma’s feelings--he believed she had some feeling for him, but he wanted anything between them to be because it was what she wanted. emma initiated every explicitly romantic interaction. killian made a flirty comment, which he was wont to do, and which she could easily have brushed off--instead, she grabbed him by the coat and yanked him into a kiss which lasted far longer than it needed to if all she wanted to do was make a point. (sorry, that scene is just burned into the brain of every CS shipper, i know it literally by heart lmfao) he made it clear that if she wanted him he would be there, but i she didn’t he wasn’t going to push her. he followed her through an entire damn portal into the past because he wanted to help her, because he’d go anywhere for her--to the end of the world, or time--but emma was the one who invited him to dinner with her family. emma was the one who noticed he hadn’t come in yet, and went to see him. emma was the one who kissed him, initiating their relationship.

like @storynightlight said in the replies to the last ask you sent, a majority of the important milestones in killian and emma’s relationship were initiated by emma. she was the one constantly progressing their relationship, it went entirely at her pace in large part because one damaged soul recognizes another, and killian had been through enough trauma in his long (long, long) life to understand that emma needed to work things through on her own terms. he wanted to be part of her life, but it had to be when she was willing to let him in. and he was perfectly content to wait for her to be ready.

as far as the ‘abuse’ claims go, that was honestly just straight up fabrication on the part of swan queen shippers mostly, which is intensely ironic considering the state of emma and regina’s ‘friendship’ for literally the entire damn series. most of them referenced things that happened while emma and killian were enemies (they called their sword fight ‘abuse’, which like.... i’m sorry but two people on opposite sides of a violent conflict having a fight is not abuse, and incidentally that’s an argument that zutara gets hit with too, to this day, clearly words don’t actually mean things anymore), and ignored the fact that killian’s behavior changed as his redemption arc progressed. he didn’t become a good upstanding citizen overnight, but he did feel remorse for his prior bad actions and the harm he caused, he went to great lengths to make up for that harm when and where he could, and he tried to be as good a man as he possibly could in later seasons, even when circumstances (like, oh, gold having possession of his heart and using it to control him, which anti CSers also blamed him for, go figure) made that nearly impossible.

meanwhile, as late as season 6, regina was still blaming emma for everything that went wrong in her life. regina happily browbeat emma about everything she ‘stole’ from her for basically the entire series. regina, in the context of their friendship after her alleged redemption, was constantly verbally and emotionally abusive to emma--and yet that behavior was completely overlooked, or deemed ‘pining’ or some other obvious evidence of romantic feelings, by swan queen shippers who would prefer to claim emma was being abused by her caring and loyal boyfriend who constantly believed in her even when she had trouble believing in herself. (incidentally, it truly is incredibly rich of regina stans (and rumple stans, a lot of them say this too) to claim that killian never redeemed himself, when regina is the one with a vault full of hearts she never returned to their proper owners, and regina is the one who murdered someone emma cared about and never confessed to it, let alone apologized for it; graham died in emma’s arms while regina crushed his heart, and it was never once brought up again. regina got away with it scott free, and it is just one on a list of crimes she literally never expressed even the slightest bit of remorse for, let alone tried to atone for. yet killian is the one who ‘never redeemed himself’ mmhmmm ok sure jan.)

I’M SO SORRY ANON, you probably had no idea the can of Worms you were opening with these asks, but CLEARLY i still have a lot of damn feelings about this fucking show lmfao. THANK YOU THOUGH!!! i haven’t talked about captain swan or even really reminisced much in a while, and i miss them a lot, so it was nice to dive back into my Feelings and remember so much of what i loved about them! i may do a rewatch soon >.> it’s ok if i just skip 4b except the finale and then turn it off immediately after emma and killian’s reunion at the end and pretend the entire show ended there, right????

i hope you’re having a good night! thanks again for the asks <33

[standarrow]

abbacchio essay under the cut because he’s so important to me (god this is so long im sorry i have adhd i hope this is readable<3)

tl;dr being on how i think he healed and handled up until part 5 :”) + thoughts on his relationship to the team

tw!!! for all of the usual things that pertain to his backstory including: [death, alcohol abuse, police, ptsd/depression, etc]

i may be projecting<3 its fine

to start:

im not a fan of the way a lot of people handle handle abbas trauma and illness. the "entering a relationship fixes your problems<3" shit. or the romanticization of depression...i see both a lot, along with utilizing his substance issues as like a catalyst. i dont have to say why that shit isnt ok or healthy.

getting into it (because i want it to be this deep):

there is ... a lot of guilt that he shoulders around the death of his partner. someone he was friends with (and relied on him as a literal partner) died because He fucked up. that person wanted to protect him and died selflessly while he'd broken his own morals and he feels like it should have been him to pay for it. 

but he wasnt. and now he suddenly has two mistakes and blood on his hands. getting fired doesnt even Begin to fix that, so he withdraws because he cant trust himself, cant trust the institution he was already disillusioned from, and imo hes angry that he didnt get punished worse for his own crimes (but cops always get off easy)

bruno finds him in the worst place of his life and gives him a chance to put schedule in his life, to protect even if its not in the way he originally thought he would. he still doesnt trust himself, i do not think he takes to working with a partner easily (what if he fucks up again. he'll get bruno/narancia/fugo killed.) and i think that reflects in why moody blues isnt meant for combat. combat = danger. 

obligatory moody blues being an allegory for his trauma and ptsd surrounding the death of his partner.. constantly haunted by his own mistake and reliving that moment. heavily referencing his wish to redo, to know every detail of that prick he let bribe him that killed his partner, to have Control. because abbacchio isnt really about The Moment -- he's making sure the Moment doesnt have a chance to come to fruition. its nipping it in the bud before the weed can kill. he wants to make sure he can figure out whats going on First and protect. to figure out past events and prevent future danger.

starting to heal:

i’ve done a timeline previously: he graduates high school in 1998, six months for the police academy, 6 months before hes out again.. joins passione in december (rainy season) of 1999, and by december of 2000 (~4 months before part 5) hes like.... well. doing better in terms of his alcoholism. we see abbacchio by part 5 occasionally and seemingly comfortably enjoying a glass or two, which speaks that after some time working hes sort gained some..... confidence in his ability to keep his intake low. 

working for bruno means he cant drink as often or binge as much, hes needed and that structure keeps him in check, its not easy and yes he slips but its about and overall upwards climb because any progress is good progress... he builds a rapport with the team, comes to appreciate brunos role in giving him a chance and some peace of mind, sees himself in fugo, treats narancia like a little brother. relationships with others cant Fix your problems but friendship and structure can help, they can be there when you need it.

hes starting to trust himself more. and his relationship to fugo and nara were as crucial as his one with bruno is.

in purple haze feedback we see that he's been teamed up with fugo, and he knows fugos stand ability very well (see mirror man fight)... they Get each other and abbacchio sees a lot of his anger and distrust at himself in fugo, and easily calms fugo down when he gets upset (see mirror man episode in the car) 

fugo helped him trust himself and others more .. that other people arent Fragile and arent going to die on him every time they get into danger and its not His fault. he relies on fugo and vice versa. the kid is powerful but also a smart tactician and extremely capable. they Get each other and it helps abbacchio trust himself in combat situations and helps calm his paranoia about getting someone killed while working ... and nara is just sunshine. hes an annoying little brother but it helps him retain normalcy. some sense of like. not everything is doom and gloom

his depression and general self? depreciation perhaps doesnt leave him because those kinds of thoughts mould your brain a certain way.. they dont just go away without some work. but perhaps time with bruno helps him start to realise his worth, the way the team appreciates him and his ability. his self consciousness can start to fall away a little bit. i think by the time december of 2000 (a year after his recruitment by my timeline) hes like... a lot more comfortable with the schedule of his life, it helps him get out of bed, gives his brain a structure to latch onto. the responsibility of overseeing the younger ones and helping bruno gives him the sort of hope for this original goal of wanting to protect

@ bruno (in a more romantic sense perhaps + why i think he distrusts giorno so much)

his relationship to bruno isnt fucking “godlike savior<3″ because thats.... needless to say Very unhealthy. 

their relationship doesnt reach a point by where i think Either would even want to enter a relationship until about a year in (~4 months before part 5 begins)... theres a certain uncertainty i think bruno has with wanting to help abbacchio, he respects and cares about the other man and canonically sees him as his senior.. and i think theres a certain wall there that bruno isnt sure he wants to try to knock down, meanwhile abbacchio isnt sure when he built those walls but theyre safe (and what happens if you try to reach out?)

i think they sort of fall into it and its not... planned. its a little impulsive but it feels natural and they help each other because bruno is this comfort to abba, is the reason he has this structure and has made this progress himself and hes not....crediting it all to bruno obviously but bruno did play a Large Role. and bruno is all about little white lies, appearances. Yes hes fine. Dont worry, he has things under control. 

and i think to an extent abbacchio knows of brunos softer spots (as does fugo, bc of the reason he and fugo team up as described in phf is to protect him) but abba doesnt realise to the extent that bruno is .... hiding his real fears. brunos a lot about compartmentalization (hi zippers) and being let into brunos internal... thoughts beyond the occasional worries he mightve shared is a big step for them. bruno buries a lot of his internal problems and worries. he has to. hes got to keep moving, keep working; people rely on him... but abbacchio is the person he doesnt feel like he needs to protect because theyre equals and maybe he can let someone in to shoulder his worries and vice versa. theyre partners.

which is why i think abbacchio initially distrusts giorno so much... its not tht he doesnt trust bruno, but bruno doesnt Tell him about this. he realizes he might not know all brunos fears (specifically @ his distate and hate towards the mafia i made the point about in the bruno isnt evil post where its like.. he Couldntve shared that information, otherwise he would endanger abbacchio)

and it scares him. it freaks him the fuck out because he doesnt understand who this kid is or why bruno trusts him so much but he trusts bruno so he goes with it, even if he doesnt Understand.

anyways thts my TEDtalk ty i love you for reading this if you got here<3