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yourmomxx · 1 year

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Sweet Child O’ Mine

father of mine masterlist

summary: It’s time for Dean to face what he has been so afraid of the entire time. Meanwhile, the monster that has already taken one young man’s life, is on its way to claim the next one

warnings: canon violence, child abandonment, swear words, angst, daddy issues, character death, throwing up, this is written like an episode of Supernatural

word count: 11,2k (whoops)

disclaimer: What I know about Group Homes is what I know from my country (and Google), so I apologize if I made any mistakes

pt1 pt2 pt3

@psycho-magnotheric-slime

Now

The cafeteria was loud. The mixed noise of talking children and clattering dishes and cutlery filled the air, creating a yet bearable loudness.

You were sat at one of the light blue tables, across from you your best friends Cassandra Claire and Finnegan Beckett.

Cass and Finn.

She was lowly cursing at the paper straw in her apple juice box and a few strands of her black bangs slipped into her view. The wolf cut, which had been so present a few months ago, was now already grown out and even the shortest strands of Cass’s hair were reaching her shoulders.

Finn seemed caught up in his own world as he carefully laid out little figures and symbols with his french fries. He still had a few, slightly red acne spots lingering on his skin, amongst freckles covering his nose and cheeks. His hair was flaming red, just as Roy’s had been, but other than him Finn usually hid the tousled locks under a cap.

Roy. The news of his death had hit the three of you hard. You had been a friendgroup of four, Roy and Finn, and Cass and you.

Almost a week ago you had been eating lunch at this exact table, the seat to your right had been taken, laughing about terrible jokes, bickering, and not even considering it all to end as soon as it did.

And especially how it did.

Roy’s body was still lying at the morgue. The authorities had kept it there for ‘further investigation purposes’ as they had said, so no funeral had been possible yet.

Of course, the adults had introduced all of you to helping hotlines and offered their own support in case anyone wanted to talk about their feelings and their grief in the safeness of a closed room.

Not that one of you took that into consideration.

The only way you three were coping with the whole situation was through joking around and pretending none of it ever happened. Which was fine.

You and Cass had sometimes talked in the darkness of your rooms, careful and short conversations while sleeping over because neither of you wanted to spend the night alone.

But other than that? Zero. And it was alright that way. The right moment would come.

Maybe.

“Aha!” Cass suddenly yelled out triumphantly, and startled Finn out of admiring his artwork.

You looked up at her from half-heartedly poking around in your own food, as she proudly held up the apple juice that was now pierced with what looked like the abused version of a thin straw.

You gave a small clap. “Bravo” and she grinned at you before turning to Finn.

Well done, Cassie,” he sarcastically said. “You won the hard fight against the opening of a box of apple juice.”

Cass pouted and took a sip. “You don’t appreciate my victories enough, Finn. And don't call me that. Cassie.” She dramatically shuddered at the nickname.

“I’m mentally unstable, not five.”

Finn examined her perfectly done eyeliner and makeup with skeptically raised eyebrows. “You don’t look mentally unstable to me,” he remarked.

Cass gasped. “Excuse me? Prejudices??” She exclaimed.

“You see that?” She asked, frantically pointing at her face. “See how perfect my makeup is today? That's not a good thing, dumbass! Perfect makeup means that I am absolutely mentally fucked!”

You nodded supportively, and Finn just raised his eyebrows, before he dedicated his attention back to poking around in his food.

“Don't you think that's kind of ironic?” He pointed out, and Cass simply ignored him, except for the tiny eye roll she gave.

“Guys, I need your help deciding what color I'm going to dye my hair next,” she changed the topic instead and desperately ran her hands through her hair.

Finn’s head whipped around, back to his friend. “You're honestly thinking about dying your hair right now?” He asked incredulously.

She groaned and threw him a look.

“No, Finnegan, I am not actively thinking about dying my hair, but I sense a mental breakdown coming and if I'm going to absolutely lose my shit and take it out on my hair, I want the result to look good. Otherwise, we are met with that weird yellow-green-combination again.” Cass let her body shudder dramatically.

“I liked the yellow-green-combination,” you interjected.

Cass reached over the table to lay her hand above yours and looked up at you with sweet eyes. “Thanks, hun.”

“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of it,” mumbled Finn, his mouth stuffed full of fries. “Just leave them black.”

“I don’t think you quite understood how a mental breakdown works, man,” you said.

Finn shrugged and dipped a frie into his ketchup. “Whatever.”

You looked at Cass. “I’ll go shopping with you soon and then we will choose a color together,” you promised.

“Thanks,” she said and eyed Finn, “at least someone who cares if I ruin my good looks or not.”

But Finn didn’t hear her, or maybe he just ignored what she was saying. Because he changed the topic.

“Did the FBI agents get a hold of you guys yet?” He suddenly asked.

Your eyebrows shot up in confusion. “The what?”

“The FBI agents,” Finn repeated.

“Why, thank you, I got that part, but what is the FBI doing here?”

Cass just shrugged her shoulders. “Apparently they are here investigating Roy's murder.”

“What, they think someone murdered him?” You asked in disbelief.

“Well, he will not have crushed his ribs all on his own now, will he?” Finn drew a heart shape with the remaining ketchup on the plate.

“It's better than the state police,” retorted Cass, “who still think that it was some kind of ... animal attack.”

You snorted. “Yeah, right, because a bear sneaking into a castle, pushing down on someone's chest and then just leaving seems so plausible.”

Your friends raised their eyebrows in agreement.

“What did they ask you guys?” You closed your waterbottle and absentmindedly started cleaning up your plate.

Cass shrugged and leaned back in her chair with crossed arms. “Not much, the usual, I guess,” she answered, “Wanted me to tell them some things about Roy, his behavior lately, who would have wanted to hurt him…” She trailed off.

“Same here. Routine stuff,” Finn said. Then he leaned a bit closer and lowered his voice.

“To be honest, I don't really care why they're here, they are both incredibly handsome.”

“Finn!” You and Cassandra exclaimed at the same time.

“What?!” The boy widened his arms in defense. “Let me enjoy the one good thing that came from Roy's death.”

Cass shoved him in response. “God, you are a manwhore!” She grumbled.

Finn rubbed his arm with an offended pout on his lips and you giggled. “Geez, we must seem so fucked up, our best friend got murdered and here we are, joking about his death.” You shook your head lightly.

“It's what he would have wanted.” Cass scooted a bit closer on her seat and took both yours and Finn’s hand in acted solemnity.

“If I die,” she vowed, “you are now officially allowed to joke about my death as much as you want. On any occasion.”

“Sick!” You called out and Cass smirked.

“Can we please get back to the part where she said if?” Finn pointed out.

Cass rolled her eyes and pulled back.

“I'm a witch, after all,” she reminded him with a threatening silken voice that had a tone of mockery. “And one day, I will figure out the secret of necromancy, just you wait.”

Finn scoffed and grinned. “Right, you with your crystals, and your smokey sticks and your herbs and tarot cards.”

He wiggled his fingers in front of her face. “That's some real serious stuff you got there, Cass.”

She pushed him away. “Yeah, keep making fun of it. We'll see who has the last laugh when I turn immortal and outlive all of you idiots.”

Finn shook his head. He looked at you and pointed his forefinger to his temple, moving it in circles to indicate what he held of her words.

You shook your head grinning, and Cass, who noticed the interaction, promptly took Finn’s sugar-glazed donut and dumped it in his untouched mayonnaise.

"Ew! Jesus, Cass, you are disgusting!" Finn yelled as he stared at the disaster.

She just shrugged and was quick to eat her own food before he would get any ideas.

For a while, it was quiet. You continued cleaning and sorting your lunch plate, while Cass ate and Finn and her did not speak a word to each other.

It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, though, just a break from conversation.

Eventually, Cass was the one to break it.

“So, uhm, did you guys, like - I mean, have you been thinking about Roy, too? Or, like, dreaming or something?” With every word her voice got more quiet until it was only a low mumble, drifting apart in the busy noise around.

But still everything she said managed to pierce through the air and directly into your heart.

“Why would you bring that up?” Finn asked through gritted teeth, he almost sounded mad.

Cass avoided eye contact with both of you and pressed the palms of her hands against her forehead, as if to stop it from giving her incredible pain.

“I’ve been having those horrible nightmares, since it happened,” she sighed in despair.

“It’s the same thing over and over again. I see something going into his room, but when I try to open the door, it’s locked. And I hit it, and I scream, but there’s just no sound coming out of my mouth. And when the door finally opens, there he is, lying on the bed, just-”

A heavy clatter interrupted her monologue and made you flinch. Finn had thrown his fork onto his dinner plate.

“Didn’t ask about fucking details, Cassandra,” he hissed lowly, stood up and walked away with his tray in hand.

Cass looked after him as he left and put her head in her hands with a groan.

“I didn’t mean to upset him,” she mumbled into the fabric of her sleeve.

“I know,” you said. She raised her head. You gave her a sympathetic smile.

“D’you think he hates me now?”

You shook your head no. “He’s just grieving. We all are. He will get himself together again, promise.”

For a second, her lips quirked up in a small smile.

“Come on,” you said then and swung your leg over the bench, standing up. “We’ve been sitting here for far too long anyways.”

You took your tray and Cass was quick to follow you and put the dirty dishes away.

“I didn’t have any, by the way.” Confused, she looked at you.

“Nightmares,” you added.

Cass nodded. “Yeah, didn’t think so.” She shrugged. “Guess I’ll deal with this the same way I deal with everything: completely and utterly alone.”

You jokingly shoved her at her theatrics, and she grinned. “Shut up. I’ll be damned if I let you deal with any of this on your own. Got me?”

She laid a hand upon her heart and the other on your shoulder. “You’re so sweet,” she said. “And I suppose that also includes helping me study for my biology exam which I have definitely already studied for?”

You pulled back and inhaled sharply, pretending to think. “Ah ma’am, I am afraid this feature is not included in your subscription. We apologize for any discomfort this may bring.”

“It brings a great deal of discomfort!” Cass exclaimed while you two walked the hallway to your rooms.

“You can write me an email-complaint,” you joked. “No guarantees though. You’ve had like two weeks to study for that one.”

“I know, I know, but it’s so endlessly boring and complicated!” she cried.

You shrugged. “There’s a reason I didn’t take the AP class.”

“And I will forever envy you for it.”

You stopped when you reached the two doors to your bedrooms that laid right across of each other.

“Then,” you said and bowed lightly, “farewell my friend. May your head not explode while rehearsing for the terribly difficult school subject that is AP biology.”

She flipped you off and disappeared into her room. Laughing to yourself, you opened the door and slipped into your own.

༺ ｡ ° ୨❀୧ ° ｡ ༻

Central Nebraska 2007

The past few hunting days had been rough. Sam and Dean had driven from one case to the next without a break, been beaten up by an entire pack of werewolves and hunted down a loose chupacabra outside of its usual territory.

Dean was beyond exhausted. His muscles ached, his head was pounding, and the lack of sleep was weighing his limbs down. He was practically dragging himself over the gravel path, before he swung open the door to Harvelle’s Roadhouse.

The air that hit them from inside was stuffy, warm, and smelt like sweat and alcohol. Low but loud enough music fell into an uncoordinated melody with loud chatter and the clinking of glass.

Dean felt like he had never experienced something more beautiful, after the weeks he’s had.

“Deeeeeannnn!”

He heard the excited cry of his name before he saw where it came from. He spotted a bright sundress on a small girl, and out of instinct crouched down as she sped towards him.

With a grunt, Dean picked her up in his arms mid sprint and lifted her up. Behind him, Sam closed the door again as Dean made his way over to the bar with little Y/N on his hip.

“How is my favorite girl today?” He asked her and she grinned at him.

“I’m good! I missed you,” she added.

Dean’s chest clammed with how much he loved her.

“Well, I’m back now, ready to give you allllll my attention. Come on, show me those fangs.” He nodded his head at her chin at his request, and Y/N drew her lips back and bared her teeth to him.

Dean held the hand that wasn’t holding her in front of his eyes and pretended to be blinded. “Wow, those are clean! I can’t even see anything.”

With a giggle, Y/N closed her mouth again and Dean blinked hard a few times.

“I brush them extra hard. Ask Auntie Ellen.”

Dean nodded. “I totally believe you. Every werewolf would be jealous of those teeth. Oh, did I say werewolf? I meant vampire, of course.”

Dean shook his head at himself, and Y/N beamed up at him with the brightest shining eyes he had ever seen.

“Good to see you again, boys,” Ellen greeted them and pulled out two glasses. “The usual?”

Sam and Dean nodded. Ellen started pouring. When Sam took his drink, he pointed somewhere in the back of the bar and said, “I’ll go have a talk with Ash.” Then he was gone.

Dean placed Y/N on one of the bar stools and took his seat next to her.

“Dean, can you play Operation with me?” Y/N asked him, and Dean stilled in his movement to take a sip of his drink. He opened his mouth to answer her, but Ellen was faster.

“Baby, let Dean rest for a bit. I’m sure these past few days haven’t been all sugar and cakes for him. Maybe later, alright?”

Y/N pouted a bit, but then shrugged and shuffled off the barstool. “Okay,” she said, and disappeared between the people, probably to the private rooms.

Dean looked after her and then turned back to Ellen with a thankful look on his face.

“Can’t believe that game is still so popular. I mean, I used to play with that in my childhood,” he said, and took a sip from his drink. The alcohol burned a bit down his throat, but it was exactly what he needed right now. Dean closed his eyes and sighed appreciatively.

“Really glad you’re back,” Ellen then told him honestly, as she opened up a beer for herself and folded her arms on the counter. “She’s been asking me nothing else than ‘When will Dean come back’ for the past few weeks. I can’t hear that sentence anymore.”

Dean chuckled and she took a sip.

“Yeah,” he dragged, and threw a look in the direction that Y/N had disappeared in. Ellen tilted her head and gave him a look he couldn’t quite read.

“You’re really good with her, ya know?” She twirled the bottle loosely on the counter. Dean avoided her inquiring gaze and looked into the liquor in his glass instead. He vaguely saw his reflection in it.

“’ve always been good with kids, I guess.” He shrugged it off.

Ellen hummed. Dean didn’t know what to make of it. He looked up at her again.

“For what it’s worth, she makes it really easy,” he said. Ellen raised her eyebrows. “To lo- to like her, I mean. She’s a great kid. You did good with her.”

Ellen sighed. “Yeah, I like to think I did. Wasn’t always easy.”

Dean nodded. A bit after they had met, Ellen had vaguely told him how she got to Y/N. How someone had just dumped the little girl, barely one year old, on her doorstep. No note, only a name and date of birth, and a blanket in the basket she had been put in.

When he had first heard the story, Dean’s hand had cramped around his beer bottle so hard his knuckles had turned white.

Stories like this about kids always got to him. But about this one? Hell, the lengths he would go to protect that little girl. She had made her way into his heart so easily, no preparation or caution, just boosted right into it with her bright smile and those happy eyes.

And Dean had never spent a day not wanting to know her.

Sometimes, when he thought about it, he thought about how easy it was. To love a kid. She wasn’t even his, but every time he had to say goodbye to her for God knows how long again, his heart broke a little more.

And he thought about how it was that easy, and how yet, somehow his father had not managed it. Had left his children alone, abandoned, in ran down motel rooms, without any contact for days and sometimes weeks. How he had felt absent, even when he was physically present, and how Dean could never do enough to feel enough for him.

It made him ache, but he had promised himself to never make anyone else feel this way. And maybe, just maybe, this little wonder he had come across was supposed to be his salvation.

“Dean, I have to tell you something.”

Somehow, the way Ellen said it, made Dean stiffen. A strange mixture of regret and hurt crossed her exes.

“It’s about your daddy,” she added.

“And about Y/N.”

༺ ｡ ° ୨❀୧ ° ｡ ༻

Now

If Sam had tried to read the different emotions that were crossing his older brother’s face right now, he would have given up as soon as he had started.

But one thing was certain, they were many, and probably none of them were good.

They stood in front of the wooden door to their last room.

Your room, to be exact.

And they stood there for the second time today, to be exact.

Maria had pointed them the numbers of the bedrooms where Roy Kendall’s friends lived, they had paid each of them a visit and asked them questions about the deceased.

None of those interrogations had proven to be useful to them, though.

Also, funny enough, it turns out that Cassandra Claire and Y/N Winchester’s room happened to lay just across the hallway from each other.

But when Sam offered to move on to her after finishing Cassandra’s questioning, Dean had not-so-smoothly avoided his question and decided he was in desperate need of some lunch.

Which is why, now, they were standing here, staring at the old wooden door with filled stomachs and angel Castiel in tow - who had decided to join them after all.

Said angel now leaned in closer to Sam and not so silently whispered, “Is he- frozen? Shall I wake him?”

Dean snorted and shook his head, as if Castiel’s words had actually woken him up from the sort of trance he had been trapped in.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, still talking into the direction of the - apparently very intimidating – wooden door.

Sam raised his eyebrows, fully aware that his brother couldn’t see him. “Well then,” he said, extending his hand to the door. “Knock.”

Dean threw a murdering look over his shoulder at his little brother and took a deep breath in, shook his shoulders.

Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He knew this had to be difficult for Dean, but he also wanted to get all of this over with. He could think of more fun things than spending his entire day in an orphanage, investigating a murder. Also, his suit was starting to get itchy.

The sound of Dean knocking at the door felt like a salvation. “Agents Shield and Stark and …” He threw Cas a look, “… Miller. We’re here to ask you some questions about the death of Roy Kendall.”

For a second, it was quiet. Then, “It’s open.”

The voice from inside made a chill run down Sam’s spine. He couldn’t imagine what his brother felt. But even if Dean was falling apart inside, he didn’t let his face show any of it.

Dean’s heart twisted with the door handle, as he pushed the door open and entered into the room. After him, Sam and Castiel entered, and Dean closed the door behind them again.

The room wasn’t big, but it had been decorated to be comfortable. In the middle of the wall to their right, a twin-sized bed with unified colors was placed, a small bedside table next to it.

To their left was a tall wardrobe that almost reached the ceiling, and under the window on the wall opposite them stood a nice desk.

And there, shuffling through some papers, stood a young teenage girl, with her back turned to them.

“Sorry about the mess, I-“ Dean’s heart skipped a beat as you turned around.

You hadn’t changed, not a bit, but had grown so much. The roundness in your features, like with all children, had gone away as you grew older. You had changed your hair, and your voice was different, but it was so unmistakably you that Dean needed a second to catch himself.

He feared his feet would buckle under him, as you looked at him with wide open eyes, those eyes that he remembered looked so much like your mother’s.

You felt your whole world tumble around you as you looked at them. At him. Your heart was speeding in your chest, a feeling spreading in your stomach as if you had been sucker punched.

This couldn’t be real, there was no way. But then again, there was no reason why it wouldn’t be. There were more epic scenarios you could have come up with to reunite with your … family. And nevertheless, you had stopped having dreams like that a long time ago. You had given up on hoping a day like this would come.

But now it was here, apparently, and it was so unspectacular, it was almost funny.

They walked in here, after years, in fancy suits and badges, wanting to know about- what exactly was it they wanted to know about?

You cleared your throat and took a deep breath, gathering yourself.

“What are you doing here?” Compared to the chaos inside of you, your voice sounded calm and collected, almost devoid of any emotion, and a part of you was proud.

Sam cleared his throat. You noticed he looked older.

Well, no shit. But more … drawn, from his experience. Trauma, maybe. You hadn’t been aware of much when you were a child, but that their work took a toll on them, that had been unmistaken.

And Sam’s eyes held a story that seemed as tragic as it seemed muddled.

“We heard about Roy Kendall’s death,” he answered.

Your eyebrows shot up to your hairline. They had heard about Roy. Did that mean they were here to-

“And we’re here to find out what killed him.”

What?

“What?”

“Yeah, we, uh-“ Sam shifted his weight awkwardly, “We don’t think it was a … natural death.”

“Well, no shit.” Roy’s chest had been cracked open. You were no coroner, but even you knew that couldn’t exactly be filed under the case of natural deaths.

Now, Dean took a small step forward, trying his best to hold eye contact with you, and your shoulders subconsciously stiffened.

“Y/N-,” he started.

“Dean,” you shot back.

And that wort was like a punch in his guts. Dean felt physically sick. But how could he expect any different really?

You noticed him stumbling slightly at the word, a look of hurt crossing over his face.

Good, you thought.

A part of you wanted to hit him in the chest, scream at him until your voice was raw, Why did you do this? Why did you leave me? When did you stop loving me?

But in the end, you didn’t.

You would rather die than give him the satisfaction of breaking down.

Why you thought he would feel satisfaction at your hurt, you didn’t know.

“So, Roy,” you simply said, something to break the pressing silence in the room.

Sam nodded. “Yes, exactly. We, uhm –“ He pointed to the third man you had never seen before, “and Castiel, we wanted to ask you a few things about him.”

You glanced at the guy in the trenchcoat, who raised his hand to do an awkward little wave. “Nice to meet you.”

“Too,” you said.

There was a silence again, until Dean took the floor. “So, he was one of your friends?” He asked, “That Roy kid?”

People had been doing it for days, yet something about them talking about one of your best friends in the past tense made your stomach turn with uneasiness.

You hummed in agreement.

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Sam said.

“Stick it,” you bit back, and crossed your arms in front of your chest. Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

“Did your friend mention anything … out of the ordinary happen, before he was killed?” The third guy, with the trenchcoat and the weird name which you had already forgotten, asked.

You clenched your jaw and something about the way Dean pressed his eyes shut in exasperation made you believe that this guy’s bluntness was something quite common.

“No,” you simply said. Trenchcoat frowned.

“Are you sure?” Sam asked, taking a slight step forward.

“Yes, I am. Roy never said anything about anything strange that would be in any way valuable to your case.”

“What do you mean by that?” Dean questioned.

You shrugged. “What I said.”

“Y/N, any information you can give us about Roy’s behavior before he died is extremely important and could really help us,” Sam urged.

Something about the way your name slipped off his tongue, with that sense of familiarity and normal, made your skin itch.

You took a deep breath and cleared your throat. “Well, I mean - he just mentioned that he was having those … terrible nightmares all of a sudden.” You shrugged. “Like I said, nothing that would be worth writing down.”

Sam did it anyways.

Dean tilted his head and looked at you quizzically. “Why would you think his nightmares were unusual? I mean, everyone has bad dreams from time to time.”

You shifted your weight uncomfortably. “Yeah, I know, but it’s just …” You paused. This was stupid. “It’s stupid, really, but – Roy doesn’t usually dream.”

Didn’t, you corrected in your head, but the word didn’t make it past your lips.

Sam and Dean looked at each other.

“And it was just strange, because he was having these nightmares frequently, or rather this nightmare, because it was always the exact same,” you keep rambling on.

“What was it about?” Dean asked.

You swept your hand across your forehead. “I don’t know, he wouldn’t talk much about it. Just said that it was like the worst day of his life replaying over and over.”

Dean nodded. Sam frowned in interest.

“Do you know what that was? The worst day of his life?”

You shrugged. “The day he lost his parents, probably,” you said. “The entire house burnt down right in front of him. He made it out, they didn’t.”

Your voice was quiet and pressed, still feeling bad about sharing such an intimate part of Roy’s history with those … strangers. A nagging part in the back of your mind kept telling you he wouldn’t – couldn’t – mind anymore.

Sam’s pen kept scraping over his notebook, and Dean threw a glimpse over his brother’s shoulder. As you watched them, your gaze fell on trenchcoat-guy, who was still positioned in the corner of your room, just a few steps behind them.

He was observing you with interest, blue eyes staring back into yours as if he was looking directly at your soul. Something like a chill ran down your spine.

The man tilted his head, as you diverted your attention back to Dean and Sam. His brows were furrowed.

Cas recognized you. He didn’t know where from, but you looked so weirdly … familiar. Your features, the shape of your face. They way you talked and moved.

“Your boyfriend is staring at me weirdly,” you mentioned to Dean, as you caught the man’s gaze again.

Dean turned his head and looked at him, then back to you. “Yeah, he tends to do that.”

You lifted your eyebrows and made an ‘Ah’ sound. Trenchcoat was getting weirder by the second. But at least the guy had stopped his creepy staring. For now.

“Look, I don’t want you guys here. But I understand that your presence is necessary in order to catch whatever it is that’s killing my friends. So, you just do your thing, look around a bit, kill something, and then leave. Both of you.”

With a look at the third guy in the trenchcoat, you added, “Three.”

Dean avoided your eyes, but Sam nodded jerkily and cleared his throat again. “Yeah, we uh … we understand that.”

He straightened his coat and turned to leave the room. “Thank you for your help for now, really. We’ll get in touch if we need anything else.”

You nodded simply, even though you didn’t exactly know what to make of that idea.

As Sam and trenchcoat-guy made their way to leave the room, Dean took a small step towards you and pulled something out of his suit jacket.

“And if there’s anything else you might remember or see, you can always give us a call.” You stared at the small paper he had handed to you. With dark blue pen, a phone number was sloppily scribbled on it. The edges of the paper were uneven, it had probably been ripped off a bigger sheet.

You pursed your lips and nodded.

“Yeah.” You didn’t know what else to say. Thank you wasn’t really in the cards right now. Dean cleared his throat and stepped back with a nod. Then, they left the room one by one.

“Have a nice day,” Sam said.

“You, too.” The answer came automatically. The door closed behind them with a click, and you were alone again.

The small paper suddenly felt incredibly heavy in your hand.

—

When Dean stepped through the threshold and out into the hallway, he felt like a heavy weight had been lifted off his chest. He took a deep breath like a man starved.

The sick feeling in his stomach still lingered.

He didn’t even wait for the click of the closing door before he started making his way to the exit, trusting that his brother and Castiel would follow.

His fast steps echoed over the hallway, when suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder yank him around. Dean was staring into the eyes of his younger brother. He shook his arm to let Sam’s hand harshly fall off.

“What?”

Sam didn’t say anything, and Dean just glared at him. It was Castiel who spoke up first. His head was tilted, eyebrows scrunched, and a curious tone in his voice.

“She is your … daughter.” It wasn’t a question. Cas had figured out the root of all of Dean’s hesitation – to come here, to stay here, to investigate. All because of one person, that he knew was so close to Dean Winchester, but yet way too far than two people with their natural bond should be.

“What gave it away?” Dean turned to Cas. His tone was bitter. “The attitude or the way she hates my guts?”

Castiel looked him up and down.

“She is so similar to you,” he stated matter-of-factly, completely ignoring Dean’s sarcastic response.

Dean exchanged an annoyed look with his little brother, who simply shrugged.

“All right, now that we’ve cleared that up,” Dean gruffed and made his way down the hallway again, “Let’s go.”

He trusted that the others followed him quietly.

When they reached the gravel path that led from the small castle to their car, Sam picked up his pace to catch up with his older brother. “Dean, I’ve been thinking.”

The man scoffed. “Oh, don’t hurt yourself like that, Sammy.”

“I’m serious.” Sam halted next to his brother and pulled him to a stop with a firm hand on his shoulder. “And I think, maybe… we should sit this one out.”

The way Sam said the last bit was careful, and Dean tilted his head as he turned to his younger brother. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m just saying, maybe this case is too personal for us, Dean. Maybe we should let some other hunter take care of it.”

Dean shook his head. “No way. This is the first time in years that I get to see my daughter, I will not just throw this away.” He lifted his index finger to point it at his brother.

“Well, what exactly is it that you want to do, Dean? It’s not like the two of you have the strongest father-daughter bond!” Sam scoffed and his arms in the air.

Dean started walking towards the impala again. “I know, and that’s why I want to make things right with her.”

“What for, Dean? Just so we leave her here, again?”

"I don’t know!” Dean whirled around in fury as he yelled the words. He slumped his shoulders.

“I don’t know, okay?” He said, his voice was smaller now. “Look, let’s just … let’s finish this case. Give me some time to figure things out and then we will decide.” Dean peeled himself out of his suit jacket and tossed it in the backseat of the impala. He slammed the door. “But first, let’s save some lives.”

Sam shook his head. “Alright. Whatever you say.” He matched Dean as he opened the door to the back and tossed his jacket on the leather seats.

“By the way, where’s Cas?”

Sam threw a look around them. He was right, the angel was nowhere to be found. He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he zapped to the motel again.”

Dean frowned as he pulled open the front door. The hinges squealed. “We need to have a serious talk with him about that. Can’t have him disappearing on me the entire time.”

Sam frowned. Dean meant them, right? Couldn’t have him disappearing on them the entire time. Us.

Right?

Sam decided to shrug his brother’s strange comment off for now and got in the passenger’s seat.

“We have to go there anyways. Do some research,” he said.

Dean hummed and started the car. Sam could about assume what that meant. The gravel gnarled under the Impala’s tires as they drove off.

—

Back alone in your room again, you sat on your desk chair as your playlist of favorite songs blasted through your headphones. Dark ink started covering your thighs, where you were drawing on them with your pen as you had placed them on the surface of the desk.

The past few minutes, your mind had been insanely occupied with processing what the actual fuck had just happened. Because. Well. What the actual fuck had just happened?

When they had knocked on your door, you had expected the normal questioning, something that Cass and Finn had been talking about anyways.

When you turned around, just to stare at the face of Dean Winchester, your mind had gone fully devoid of every thought ever formed.

The typical “heart slipping into your pants.”

It felt as if you had worked on autopilot, not even coherently remembering what you had said to them. Had your reaction been an appropriate one? After years of imagining this exact scenario, in all ways and forms it could’ve played out, you not being able to form a simple sentence had not been one of them.

In afterthought, maybe you should’ve punched Dean.

Maybe that would’ve been the appropriate response.

The sharp sound of a knock at your door made you startle. You pulled your headphones off your ears and turned the music off. Those things were great, but in all those years they had never quite managed to overpower the sounds around you.

Maybe that was why you were still allowed to wear them all the time.

“Who’s there?” You asked loudly into the room.

“Me.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. The fuck? How was there not a single normal person knocking on your bedroom door today?

“Who is me?” You asked again.

The door opened just the tiniest bit, creaking in the process, and through peeked the head of the third man that had accompanied Sam and Dean earlier.

Trenchcoat guy.

“It’s me,” he repeated.

You frowned. “Uhm - come in?” You invited him and lifted your feet off the table.

Trenchcoat guy carefully shuffled in through the gap in the door until he stood in your room, awkwardly, and his stiff posture made him look so out of place, it was almost funny.

When he didn’t seem to plan on doing anything more than eyeing the bookshelf on the other wall, you decided to speak up.

“I’m sorry, but I think I forgot your name.”

Slowly, he turned his attention back to you, as if he had now just remembered that you were there. “I’m Castiel,” he answered in a deep, gravelly voice.

You raised your eyebrows. “Ah. Right.” Another beat of silence. “Are you, like - Dean’s boyfriend or something?” You asked.

Castiel frowned and tilted his head. “Me and your father are not romantically involved in any way whatsoever,” he reassured you.

“Ah,” you said again. Then, “Did Dean send you?”

Castiel shook his head, almost offended at the implication. “After our … conversation, earlier, he figured you were not too enthusiastic to see him. That is why only I am here.”

You swallowed hard. No, that wasn’t true.

“He’s damn right.”

Castiel nodded.

Then it was quiet again. “Is there … anything you need?” You dragged out, unsure of what he was planning to do in here exactly.

“Well, no, not specifically, I just - wanted to talk to you,” Castiel said, though he seemed not too secure about his purpose himself. “About your father.”

“Dean,” you corrected, but were sure Castiel didn’t miss how your shoulders stiffened at it. The man in the trenchcoat frowned and dipped his head lightly.

“Yes, your father.” He repeated.

You shook your head. “He’s not my father. He’s just Dean.”

“As I understand it, you were conceived through him and your mother having sexual intercourse, therefore-“

“Okay! Thank you,” you interrupted him and raised your hand to sign stop. “What do you want?”

Castiel took a few steps closer to you, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor as he seemed to look for the right words.

“I fear your father- Dean,” he corrected himself with a look in your direction, “does feel very bad about what happened between you and him.”

You pursed your lips. “So? Did he tell you that?”

Castiel looked sheepish. “No,” he answered honestly, “But I know your- him. Just because he does not like to talk about his feelings does not mean that he does not feel them.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Let me ask you something, Castiel,” you said. He nodded. “Anything.”

“Do you know at all what happened? Between me and him?”

Again, Castiel looked away. You did not know this man. You did not know what his history with Dean was, or with Sam. But you knew that he knew nothing.

“No.” That one word confirmed it.

You bit the inside of your cheek.

“Then - excuse my choice of words - but you have no room to talk. And if Dean wants to tell me something, he can always do that himself. In person. He’s here anyway.”

Castiel nodded. “Alright.”

It was silent again, between you and him, until Castiel took in a sharp breath and leaned forward into something close to a bow.

“I’m sure they await me,” he explained. “Goodbye, Y/N.” He then turned around to open the door, but paused mid his action.

“You do look a lot like him, you know?” He said.

That’s it.

“Out,” you ordered him harshly and Castiel walked through the door, closing it behind him.

—

You had, in fact, ended up helping Cass study for her upcoming exam. Well, what means help, you had asked her questions and she had to answer them correctly - which worked expectedly not so well.

“I can just play the dead friend card,” she had joked, but you knew that she was actually actively considering it.

In that moment though, you had just skipped over her remark and continued asking her about the digestive system of a Baird’s beaked whale.

It was already late at night when the two of you finally hugged goodbye.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “You helped a lot. I’ll forget it all until tomorrow morning, but I do appreciate your effort.”

You smiled at her. “Don’t worry, you’ll nail it. Or at least not fail.”

She laughed. “You think too highly of me, Y/N.”

For a few moments, nobody said a word. “I never asked you,” Cass eventually started, “are you okay?”

You took a deep breath and shifted your weight. “Considering the circumstances, I guess. You?”

“Same thing,” she said. You laid your head back and stared at the ceiling. “It still feels weird only being three people,” you realized.

“Yeah,” Cass agreed quietly.

A few beats of silence passed, until you got yourself back together and shook your body as if to shake off your grief.

“But whatever,” you sighed. “Can’t change that now, can we?”

You looked at Cass and she hummed with a dull shrug, seeming lost in her own thoughts.

She absentmindedly opened her bedroom door, but just as she wanted to disappear into the room, you grabbed her arm to stop her for a second.

“By the way, about your nightmares,” you said, “maybe you can take some pills against that, if it gets too much. Unregulated sleep is probably worse than no sleep.”

Cass managed a tired smile. “Will try, thanks. Goodnight babes, love you,” she threw you a kiss.

“Love you too, good night,” you said back and smiled at her, waiting until she closed the door to enter your own room.

—

You didn’t know what woke you up. The glowing numbers of the digital clock on your nightstand showed it to be somewhere around half past three. Really not your usual wake-up time.

Just as you rolled around in your sheets to get your missing hours of sleep in, you heard strange shuffling outside your door. Perking up, you realized it sounded like the overlapping chatter of voices, and shoes pounding over the smooth floor.

Yeah, no way you would be going back to sleep now.

Especially not with the uncomfortable feeling that had settled into your stomach.

Stumbling a bit, your joints not quite awake yet, you trutted over to your door and creaked it open slightly.

The white light burned your eyes at the start, as you slipped out of your room and were met with the sight of multiple people fussing around not that far away.

The uneasy feeling only got worse, as you realized two things at once: The people were first responders, firefighters, to be exact. And they were all gathered around the open door across the hallway to yours.

Cass.

You moved on autopilot, as your feet carried you closer to the scene, eyes not leaving the gaping black hole that was the entrance to your best friend’s room.

“What happened?” You asked the closest paramedic next to you, a young man with brown hair and dark gear. It didn’t help much, because his voice faded out into the back of your head, as movement began to settle over the group.

The paramedic gestured his hands, as he talked to you, though that was not at all what had grabbed your attention.

You could only look at her, as she was lying sprawled out on the stretcher that was being wheeled out of her bedroom.

Cass.

But it wasn’t Cass, it couldn’t be. Dark grey plastic was wrapped around her body, covering her features as one of the firefighters that pushed the gurney zipped the material closed.

A body bag.

You felt bile rise into your throat.

Who put a seventeen-year-old in a body bag?

She wasn’t supposed to be there. What was she doing in there.

She had a biology exam tomorrow. She was supposed to join you at breakfast. In just a few hours. She was supposed to still lay in her bed and sleep, fast and sound.

Lay in her bed. Not on a moving gurney. Her bed.

You had laid in that bed. Just a few hours before.

The exam.

Breakfast.

Dark grey plastic.

Body Bag. A body. Dead. A dead body.

Dead. Dead. Gone.

Gone. Gone. Gone. Dead.

Like a distant echo, you still vaguely registered the young paramedic talking to you; he came to an abrupt stop when you bent over and threw up on his shoes.

༺ ｡ ° ୨❀୧ ° ｡ ༻

Sioux Falls 2009

The soft music that sounded through Grandpa Bobby’s old house reminded you of Auntie Ellen’s Roadhouse.

It made you a bit homesick, but for a while now, whenever you asked Dad if you could go there again, he just shook his head and said that it wasn’t possible.

That’s also the reason why you’d been living with Grandpa Bobby for very long now, he had told you.

Auntie Ellen and Jo came to visit sometimes, but it wasn’t the same. But you saw Dad much more often, and you liked that. You missed him whenever he went out and saved people.

Grandpa Bobby had told you that it was very important, what Dad and Uncle Sam did. That’s why you never complained when they stayed away for long.

Grandpa Bobby said they saved lives. Like firemen, he said. Or Sheriff Jody.

Auntie Ellen and Jo came over for a visit today. Dad had said that they were here to help him and Uncle Sam take care of something, that’s why they had to leave later.

Jo was playing your favorite boardgame with you. You had missed her. She was still very pretty. You knew your Dad thought that too.

“Alright,” Dad said, walking through the threshold that connected Grandpa Bobby’s workroom and the dinner table where you and Jo were currently playing. “It’s time to get this little Lady to sleep.”

You pouted at him.

“But Dad, I still want to stay up and play with Jo!”

Dad raised his eyebrows and threw a pointing look at his watch.

“It is already way past your bedtime, kiddo. And I heard tomorrow is a big school day?”

He was right. Tomorrow, you started your first singing lessons with all your bestest friends. Not all of them as best friends as Jo was, though.

Your shoulders slumped.

“Can I at least say Goodbye to you?”

Dean’s gaze went soft as he looked at you. He knew how hard this was for you, how he left all the time and came back for only such short periods. But he wanted to make this a better world for you to grow up in. And when all of this was over, and it would be tonight, hopefully, then he would allow himself to settle down and spend all the time he could give with you.

“Of course you can, my little love.”

Dad crouched down and lifted you up into his arms.

“Dean, Jo!” Came Auntie Ellen’s voice from the study, “We’re ready!”

Dad threw you a mysterious look as he stepped into Grandpa Bobby’s workspace, where he and Auntie Ellen and Uncle Sam already stood lined up.

You noticed the camera set up on a strange construction.

Auntie Ellen and Uncle Sam smiled when they saw you.

“You don’t mind a small addition, do you, Ellen?” Dad asked, and Auntie Ellen shook her head.

“Of course not!” She smiled, and made space for you and Dad to stand next to her. He was still carrying you in his arms, supporting your weight with his hip.

“Alright, on the count of three, all smile in the camera!” Uncle Sam said.

“One, two, three!”

You giggled when Dad tickled your stomach. You wanted to see the picture right now, but Grandpa Bobby had told you it would take a while to develop.

Enveloped in bear hugs from Auntie Ellen, Jo, Uncle Sam and Dad, to say goodbye to them, you finally agreed to go to bed.

“Dad?” You asked him, as he went to close the door behind him. Dad turned around and looked at you, snuggled into the warm blanket with your favorite stuffed animal under your arm.

“You’ll come back soon, right?”

Dad smiled at your words. “Of course I will, sweetheart. And Uncle Sam, and Auntie Ellen, and Jo. All of us.”

“You promise?”

Dad pressed a kiss into your hair.

“Don’t worry about that, baby. Sleep well.”

Even years later, Dean Winchester still carried an old photograph in his wallet, of a brunette mother, a blonde daughter, a father figure, and two brothers.

Though, one of them wasn’t looking at the camera, but rather at the small child he held on his side, his hand on her stomach as she blindingly smiled a carefree smile into the camera.

His own was dreamy as he watched her, and yes, for that moment, he dared to say, maybe even carefree as well.

༺ ｡ ° ୨❀୧ ° ｡ ༻

Now

Cass’s room was never quiet. Whether she was blasting music or playing guitar, singing her soul out in the shower or watching a move obnoxiously louder than it had to be.

Cass’s room was never quiet. Especially not as it was now.

The silver streams of light reaching through the window made her bedroom almost look so soft and inviting, as you stood there, observing, not quite in the hallway but not exactly in the room either.

It was macabre, what you saw. Not because the room looked so terrible, no, because it looked so … normal.

None of the bookshelves were tumbled over, or paper sprawled all across the floor.

The loose decoration items weren’t lying disheveled everywhere. No signs of a fight. A physical one.

The bed wasn’t made. Cass never did that.

The room looked so normal.

It looked so right.

So why wasn’t she?

“Y/N, sweetheart,” The sound of the familiar, comforting voice of Maria Whitlock reached your ears and made you slowly turn around.

Even through the blur of unshed tears in your eyes, you could make out the two familiar figures standing behind her.

“There’s someone here to talk to you.”

You blinked away the tears and caught Dean’s gaze, and for the first time since you had seen him again, his features looked so soft and merciful, towards you, it had the power to almost shatter your heart.

And you hated yourself for how much you wanted to be comforted by him, be held in his arms like the small child that once had been, only seeking safety with her-

“What are you doing here?” The question came out harsher than you had expected it to, almost an accusation. But neither Sam nor Dean did flinch at your tone.

“We wanted to talk to you.”

“Why?” It was obvious why. They knew, you knew, they knew you knew.

“I think you know about what,” Sam said, the softness in his voice grazing your stuttering heartbeat like a soft breeze.

Dean gestured in the direction of your room.

“In private.”

You didn’t want to speak alone to them. Then again, for the past almost-decade, it had been everything you could’ve wished for.

As you settled onto your bed, both Sam and Dean taking it upon themselves to find chairs to be comfortable, you felt like a small child again.

Looking at Dean, there was a familiarity that you needed, it was grounding, and you hated that it was. His presence, which had felt like home, and like safety for so long, being everything that you craved these past few days made your skin itch, because he still felt so right.

And you still felt so safe with him.

In a matter of seconds, you stood there and turned from a young woman into a small child, that wanted to throw herself in his arms and let him tell her that everything would turn out to be alright, because he was there, and he would look out for you. No matter what happened between the two of you, that had not changed, and you didn’t know what to think about it.

Sam was the first one to clear his throat. Of course he was.

“How are you feeling?”

Half-heartedly, because that was all you could muster right now, you raised an eyebrow at him. At least he had the decency to look a bit ashamed of his question.

“We’re sorry for your loss.”

Surprised, you turned your head to look at Dean. His green eyes were soft with sincerity.

“I don’t know how much she meant to you.” He glanced at Sam. “But I can imagine.”

You swallowed hard and looked back at your fumbling fingers again.

“Yeah, she was – she was great.” Your voice broke mid-sentence and you sniffled.

You cleared your throat. “Uhm, but – anyways, that’s not why you’re here. Am I right?”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, that could be regret as much as it could be pity, and then turned back to you.

“We’re sorry. But if we want to catch whatever is doing this, we need to have all the information,” Sam apologized.

You nodded. You already knew what they were going to ask, so you saved their time and jumped straight to the answers.

“There was nothing – unusual.” You rubbed your eyes. “She was okay just yesterday, she was- I helped her studying biology, we-“ You interrupted yourself.

Sam threw you another pitying look.

“Is there a chance she might’ve had nightmares too? You know, like Roy,” Dean asked you.

You threw your hand in the air. “Yeah, I guess,” you said. “Didn’t really think that much into it. You know, considering what happened.”

Dean bit the inside of his cheeks and gulped. “Right.”

It was quiet again. The brothers looked at each other one last time, before Sam stood up and fixed his suit jacket.

“Alright. We’re gonna leave you now.”

Please don’t.

You nodded.

Sam stretched his hand out to reach for you, but hesitated mid-air and pulled his arm back again.

“Whenever you need something,” Dean said meaningfully, before he stepped out the door, “Call us.” Call me.

You hummed absently.

The click of the lock drowned the bedroom in a deafening silence again.

—

Night came sooner than you thought it would. Sleep didn’t.

You thought, with the exhaustion that had been dragging down your bones all day long, it would only be a matter of time until exhaustion claimed you.

Without thinking about it, you grabbed your phone from your nightstand and opened up your chat with Finn.

With a sting in your heart, you realized that the last text conversation the two of you had had, had been more than a week ago.

Before all of this started.

Your keyboard clicked as you typed out the message.

hey

The answer came almost instantly.

Hey

can’t sleep either?

Your thumbs hovered over the buttons as you thought of what to type next.

I’m sorry we didn’t talk the entire day

It’s okay

It’s not like I came to see you either

would it be terrible to ask how you’re feeling?

Everyone’s been asking that

Oh, how you knew.

But to be honest

I don’t know

First Roy now Cass

Hasn’t reached my brain tbh

Feels more like a dream and I could wake up any second

I know what you mean

You paused for a moment, before you decided to send out the next text.

I’m still waiting for her to waltz into my room at 6 in the morning because she wants to get some mini donuts at breakfast before they’re all gone

You could practically hear the snickering laugh of Finn’s, as the icon told you he was typing out his next message.

Or letting my Alexa play the most random songs

I swear to God I’ve heard less sexual content in actual porn than that one Nicki Minaj song

first of all, it was cardi b, you pig, and

second that song is legendary

she was right to show it to you

A short while, you didn’t get an answer and you were almost afraid that Finn had either fallen asleep or that you had said something inappropriate, when the familiar ding made your screen light up.

We can catch up tomorrow

You know, maybe it would help us both

I know we haven’t been the same since all of this started, but I would really like us to be

Now more than ever

A heavy tug clamped around your heart at his words

you’re right

let’s talk tomorrow

Alright

Goodnight Y/N

good night finn

Sleep didn’t come in the first second after you plugged your phone on the charger, or even after you turned around to face the other wall.

But, as you laid on your back and felt the comforting arms of exhaustion grab after you, you had a feeling that it would’ve been worse if you had not talked to Finn.

—

Meanwhile, in the motel, Dean was slamming his third book this evening shut and tossed it onto the ever-growing pile of “absolute useless crap that nobody needed and was a total waste of time”. The name had been his idea.

Sam didn’t even look up as his brother stood up with a screeching from the wooden floor as he slid the chair back, and started pacing around the room.

“I hate this,” he mumbled under his breath.

“How is it even possible that, everywhere we look, there isn’t even the smallest hint at what we might be chasing?”

Demonstratively, he picks up a book from the pile they brought back from the library, and lets it fall on the desk again.

“Not to mention that we’re completely wasting our time here reading through this absolute crap, and we’ve got jack squat!”

The paper rustled as Sam turned another page.

“I already told you, Dean,” he muttered, eyes still concentrated on the faded ink of the book. “There was nothing online, so we had to go old-school.”

Dean kept muttering under his breath. “This is ridiculous.”

Sam rolled his eyes and placed a new book where his brother had been sitting a few minutes ago.

“If you want it to go faster and we can catch this thing, sit down and get to reading. Research doesn’t do itself.”

Dean was still cursing under his breath when he reached the second chapter.

—

The loud chatter of multiple conversations, accompanied by faint music playing in the background and the occasional clinking of glasses or beer bottles was an all too familiar mix of noises for you.

The light in the Roadhouse bar was still a warm-toned white, and the men and women all towered over you in lengths. Immediately, the feeling of home engulfed you.

You were looking around, searching for the familiar set of colorful crayons, where had your Auntie Ellen put them? You were bored and wanted to draw a pretty picture of the horse you had seen this morning.

Squeezing through the people, they all made way for you when they realized who wanted to get past them, you tried calling out for Auntie Ellen or Jo, but no tone left your throat.

A panicked feeling settled in your stomach.

Then, you spotted a tall figure just a few feet away from you. They were wearing a cool leather jacket and had their back turned to you.

You made your way over to them. You didn’t know why, but somehow you knew that this stranger could help you.

When you had almost reached them, they suddenly started moving and walked away. You wanted to cry after them, but you still couldn’t speak.

You moved your legs as fast as you could, running after them, but the people in the bar suddenly got more and more, always shoving and not making room for you anymore.

The person still hadn’t shown you their face, you could only see their back as you fought to get to them. Then, they walked through the door out of the Roadhouse.

With one last push, and a protesting yell that didn’t leave your throat, you rushed after them into the light.

With a creak, the Impala’s door swung open, and you shuffled your feet out of the car until they hit the gravel.

Dad had offered to open the door for you, but you were a big girl already, you could get out of the car on your own.

When you turned around to ask him what you were doing here, you faltered.

The Impala was gone. So was Dad. And Uncle Sam. You looked around, but they were nowhere to be found. Your breathing quickened as you realized that you were alone, somewhere you didn’t know, on stoney ground with only your bunny slippers. You didn’t even have your favorite stuffed animal with you!

“Hey, let’s go,” you suddenly heard a voice say, and turned around to see a girl with black hair stand in front of you.

Suddenly, as you had just been looking up to her, the two of you were now eye to eye. She just stared at you.

A name popped into your head.

Cass.

That’s weird. You knew a Cass. And then it hit you.

Your best friend. Roy, Finn, Cassandra. Sam and Dean.

But Cass was dead. She couldn’t be here. Looking around, you noticed that the scenery around you was blurry by the edges.

Weren’t you standing on a pathway just now? Why were you in a cafeteria?

This wasn’t real, none of it. It was a dream.

Harsh dread clawed itself into your heart like iced water. You had to get out of here. How did you get out of a dream?

You knew it, you had done this before, with your nightmares. You had to die.

You moved your feet, tried running away, but the floor wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard you tried, you didn’t move an inch, it’s like you were stuck.

You began to panic. This couldn’t be, there had to be a way for you to get out.

The next thing you knew, you lost the ground beneath your feet, and everything was black. You were falling.

You felt your organs being lifted by the air pressing you up, felt your heart pump so hard you were afraid it would jump out of your chest.

There was nothing around, only darkness, only empty.

No, no, no.

You wanted to scream, but your vocal cords were cut. Not a sound escaped your lips.

You had to get out, if there was nothing around you, how could you die?

You screamed without a sound.

If this was your dream, why couldn’t you just shape it the way you wanted?

The next thing you knew, there was light around you, and you were running again.

“Dean, look at this.” Sam slammed a massive book under Dean’s nose, dangerously close to Dean’s freshly filled coffee. Reflexive, Dean pulled the cup a few inches away.

Sam placed his finger on one of the open pages of the book. “Here,” he said. “I think this could be it.” Dean leaned forward to read.

You had landed on a road, a highway, judging by the many cars around you. This time, you actually managed to run somewhere, even if a lot slower than you usually would. Like treading through water.

It felt like you were chasing something, but you didn’t know what it was.

“If this is really it,” Dean said, when he finished reading, “Then we have a big problem.”

You did your best to remember your original plan. Right now, you were on a stripe of green next to the busy road. You had to change that.

Sam nodded heavily. “We need to get to Saint George’s immediately.”

Sam grabbed his jacket, but Dean didn’t move an inch, still staring at the handwritten words on the old paper in front of him.

You used all your strength to tread to the left, where cars were rushing from both sides over the street.

“This thing basically feeds off of bad experiences, right?”

Sam nods.

It was a red car that did it. You saw it coming as you made a beeline over the highway. As you noticed the headlights speeding towards you, for a split second you asked yourself, “What if this isn’t a dream. What if this is real.” You didn’t feel the impact when the car hit you.

“Then that means-“ Dean’s head shot up so fast Sam feared his brother would get whiplash.

“Y/N,” Dean breathed out.

Your heart was still beating rapidly in your chest when you officially woke up. The memory of the nightmare was still rushing through your minds, pictures playing behind your eyelids.

You had a hard time breathing, your chest felt as if it was carrying a hard weight that caged in your lungs.

You forced open your eyes to get yourself a glass of water. You were met with two yellow glowing orbs staring right back at you, merely inches away from your face in the darkness of the room.

You couldn’t stop the terrified scream that erupted from your throat.

oooh guys, only one chapter to go! what are we thinking? do you have any ideas on what the monster could be? and what do we think about cass and finn? comments & reblogs are always appreciated, see y’all in the next part!

#dean winchester fic #dean winchester x child!reader #dean winchester #dean winchester x daughter!reader #dean winchester angst #dean winchester fluff #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester imagine #dean winchester x female!reader #dean winchester x you #supernatural imagine #supernatural #father of mine #sweet child o mine #yourmomxx

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 3 months

Note

AITA for telling my friend to not tell their crush how they feel?

TW: mention of suicide

So my (16 M) friend (16 M) who we will call T is a very close friend of mine despite us only being friends for about 7 months. He recently went through a super traumatic break up. Like he walked to my house crying and was threatening his life it was that bad, but I’ve always been there to try and help him. I’ve also introduced him to my friend group which consists of 5 boys and 1 girl, who we will call L. L and me had been friends for years. Since we’ve been 4. Me and her aren’t super close but she is definitely someone I would put in my emergency contacts. I love her. She is one of my best friends and her and my boyfriend are also super close. She also had just gotten rejected by her long time crush. She is a very skittish lady and romance isn’t her top priority. She also has just met T. Like. Very recently. They have had 2 conversations maybe and that was in the last 2 weeks.

Now, here is where I might be the asshole. So T tends to be very dramatic. He exaggerates a lot of things and makes them seem a lot worse than they actually are. Like for example, he said his family would make fun of his previous girlfriend, when actually they were just teasing him about even having one and saying he was a lover boy (I’ve heard these conversations myself) Recently, T has told me that he had a crush on someone in our friend group and that he was thinking about telling them. This concerned me, because 5/6 people in our group had partners, except L, who he barely knew. So when I asked him who, he made me do a bunch of tasks to find out, which annoyed me because I didn’t really care THAT much, but he insisted I did them. When I found out it was L, I was extremely confused, and I mentioned how he spoken a handful of words to her. He said that it didn’t matter because he was in love with her and was going to tell her. I strongly advised him not to, because he was far from her type, she would reject him, and future hang outs would be awkward or people wouldn’t want to come. He told me that he would think about it and one of our other friends told him to play the waiting game, which I reminded them that L had just got rejected and it would probably be awhile (like. Years) before she was ready to date again. T told me that I was discouraging him, which has started to make me mad. I’m starting to think he only likes L for her looks and not actually for HER. I recently asked him after one of his rants about her if he even knew her middle name, which he replied with “no, but we played Minecraft last night! I’m advancing into friend level!”

That irked me bad. You should ALREADY be friends with someone you have a crush on. I’m thinking about dropping him as a friend because he has said some kinda racist remarks about how black actors can’t play stereotypically white characters because it’s either “not historically accurate” or “not the same as the original source material” and this whole situation isn’t helping me. I just wanna protect my friends.

AITA??

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole #suicide cw

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dani-sdiary · 3 months

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Story: I'm a Method Cashier!

And this was a role I could really sink my teeth into.

Okay, so, first of all, to work at Store there are 2 online applications, an online training course, 3 questionnaires for your references to fill out, 3 interviews (2 alone and 1 group), a background check, an unpaid 4-hr. orientation, a drug test, a pacer test, a polygraph test administered by an F.B.I. agent (and not like the sexy ones on Criminal Minds), a blood oath, and you have to be able to put on lipstick like Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club. Jesus, there are less requirements to be elected president. And a cult wouldn't make you jump through this many hoops to join.

My Marketable Skills: I'm a warm body and I'm not an asshole. I'm not going to say "we should hang out outside of work" to my coworkers or mouth off to the customers. Basically, you should hire me because you could do a whole lot worse.

But I couldn't just say that. I couldn't just be honest. It had to be, with tears glistening in my eyes: "It has been my lifelong dream to be a cashier at Store. Cashiering is my passion. I have 3 Ph.D.s in Applied Cashiering, Cashiering Theory, and Experimental Cashiering from Harvard University's School of Cashiering, and I completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Oxford University's St. Cashier Cashiering College. I have 97 years of experience in the field."

So, I get there, for the first interview, in my silly little outfit, mostly stolen from my mom's closet. I walk in and say excuse me to the first employee I see. She clutches her chest, looks bewildered, and says "excuse me" back.

Daniella, apprehensively: "Hi, I'm here for an interview, could I speak to a manager please?"

Employee #1, startled: "Yeah." She walks off and I assume I'm meant to follow her.

My real name sounds vaguely similar to the name of a character from a classic poem you read the Wikipedia summary of in ninth grade English class. The first five letters are the same, but the character's name ends with an a, and mine with an e. Anyway, while we were walking, we introduced ourselves and she said, and I've never have cause to use the word "chortling" before, but if there was ever a time, it was then, "Well, your mother must have been a big The Poet fan, huh?" (as if I've never heard that one before). I mustered a polite chuckle and said nothing.

Employee #1, sneering: "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

Daniella, wishing for death: "No, I know the poem."

Employee #1, under her breath: "Big deal."

The rest of the walk is silent. We turn a corner and see a boy about my age. She starts calling his name, he fully makes eye contact with her, and then turns and speedwalks away. She keeps calling after him and picks up the pace to reach him, but he outruns her. No need to watch the documentary through your fingers, the antelope is safe this time. It turns out he wasn't even the manager, because I meet her next. The interview goes okay and I get the second one. I ask a different employee this time. She says into her walkie-talkie, "Anthony, Daniella is here for an interview, do you want to deal with that?"

Anthony comes be-bopping up to me at 1,000 mph. When he's still several aisles away, he calls out "Hi, Friend!!" in an acoustic guitar-playing youth pastor voice. He leads me to the office, racing down the aisles like there's an serial killer revving a chainsaw behind him, and by the time I catch up in my pencil skirt and heels, I'm panting and sweating. Maybe this is part of the interview: seeing if you can keep up metaphorically and literally. The weakest shall be sacrificed.

Tony asks me, not why I want to work at Store, but why I want to work in general, as if earning money to eat is a casual hobby, like knitting. He asks me if I've applied anywhere else, like Store is a jealous girlfriend. Then he asks me if I have any questions, and I know you're supposed to have something, so I pull a couple out my ass. After he answers them, he asks if I have any more, and, thinking I'm out of the woods, I say not for now.

Anthony, ominously: "You sure?" Slowly pan back to Daniella.

Daniella, brightly: "I'm sure I'll have more during orientation if I'm hired, but I think I'm covered for now. Thank you!"

(Beat.) Anthony: "Well, you know, I'm just gonna give you some advice: you really should have more questions. But don't worry, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you a little bit more about how the Store family does things."

45 minutes later, he asks for a third set of questions, and then, believe or not, a fourth. Sir, this is my interview. You're not a celebrity guest on The Fucking Tonight Show. If you're so desperate for me to ask you questions, why don't you apply to this job? Or do like the rest of us and pretend you're on Ricki Lake talking about how brave you are to share the story of your divorce from Tim McGraw and how it inspired your new album, "Warm Regards, Dani," currently topping the country charts while you shampoo your hair.

Three business days later, my email: "Congratulations! You have been selected to join the Store Family! Please report for orientation next Wednesday at noon."

Another day, another dollar.

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bonesandthebees · 3 months

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Hi again Bee.

Thank you for lending an ear to listen even if I just kinda showed up. I really appreciate it. I've actually been reading through some of your other stories and they're very good (I adore the fae works!).

When it comes to Wilbur, I'm just. Very disappointed and upset. Of course I support Shubble and am glad she spoke out, it's very important and I'm glad that it's encouraged others to come forward with their own stories of abuse at the hands of large creators. At the same time though part of me wishes she hadn't said anything, so I could have continued as I was, in blissful ignorance, even if I feel really guilty for thinking like that.

It just saddens me that someone I looked up to so much ended up being this horrible person. It makes me worried that I too am bad, that somehow he has imprinted his awfulness unto me. I used to be horrible too. I like to think I've grown as a person, I was only a kid, but have I? Or was being drawn to Wilbur a sign? Like attracting like?

Y'know, I used to say that my hair style goals were how Wilbur's hair is, and recently I got a haircut. When I took a shower earlier it ended up floofing up in a similar way to his. I don't know how to feel about that. Maybe I should style it differently, even though I like the floof. I don't want to be even a little reminiscent of an abuser.

I am reminiscent of him though, in ways I can't change. I used to feel so seen by him, we're both song writers, and hypochondriacs, and I wanted to be him so badly I would cry. I would cry because he was everything I desperately craved to be as an insecure transmasc, an attractive guy with a beautiful voice and an amazing life. And now he's horrible, and probably always has been, and all of my memories of him are tainted.

I hate that I can't listen to Lovejoy anymore. It feels unfair to the other band members. It isn't their fault Wilbur is awful, and yet I'm taking away a source of their income. I know I'm taking away from Wilbur too, but he's only one person out of the group. Maybe that's just me giving an excuse so that I won't have to stop enjoying their music. It doesn't matter, I can't stomach listening to them anymore anyways.

I keep getting songs from YCGMA stuck in my head. It's like now that I can't listen to it anymore my brain has decided to fuck with me by making me listen to it anyways. I can't even justify listening to that album, that's just Wilbur's music. I was going to cover a song from that album for fun. Now I can't.

Is it bad I still find comfort in Wilbur as a character? C!Tommy is my favorite, but C!Wilbur is almost always a huge part of any C!Tommy story and I love C!Wilbur stories too. I know C! ≠ CC! but I just. It's complicated.

Idek why I'm this upset. I haven't been an avid watcher of anyone in the DSMP in at least over a year. If anything this whole thing has brought me back into the fandom more than I have been in ages. I feel bad about that, but also this situation has introduced me to people like Aimsey, whose content I'm seeing more of and I find myself enjoying.

I've also found more great DSMP fics lately in my quest to binge read them before the mass deletions start. Is it bad to find good things in a bad situation?

I'm sorry for the lack of put togetherness and the length of this ask. I promise I'm usually more coherent and to the point.

-Tech (just call me Tech like a name, "tech anon" feels weird heh)

hey tech, sorry for a bit of a late reply I've been busy the past few days

(sorry about the 'tech anon' thing, it's just a habit since that's how I refer to most of my anons. I'm going to still tag your ask as tech anon though just for my tagging system if that's okay)

I'm so glad you like the fae stories!! I'm still so proud of both of those looking back on them

anyway, yeah, I get that. I get the guilty wish that none of this had ever come out so you could just continue to go on in blissful ignorance. when someone learns something very upsetting, it's only natural to feel like you wish you never learned that. you don't need to feel guilty for that. you're not a bad person for your emotional reactions to things. your actions are what matters.

also, you are in no way a bad person because you were drawn to wilbur's content. the persona wilbur put on for the internet was not representative of who he actually was. you were drawn to the facade. an illusion of the person wilbur could've been, if he actually practiced the things he preached. you said you used to be a bad person, but you've changed. the fact that you are worried at all that you might still be bad shows a level of self-awareness and concern that wilbur apparently did not have. because wilbur was aware he was a bad person and treated the people around him terribly, but he didn't care to try and be better. as long as you're trying to be better, you're already leagues ahead of him.

also, regarding the hair, the floofy fringe is an incredibly common haircut. that is not exclusive to wilbur soot. you do not look like him if your hair does the floof similarly to his, it just makes you look like thousands of other dudes with fluffy fringe.

the day after shelby first streamed I had an MSR song stuck in my head and I hated it so much. it really sucks. you just have to try and drown it out with other music

it's not hypocritical at all to still find comfort in c!wilbur. I know it's complicated, and there's so much discussion I could get into as to why it's so complicated, but we can all separate the guy and the character in our heads. there's no reason to feel guilty about that. and there's also nothing bad about finding good in this situation. I think it's really sweet that you've found so many great fics in this time and I'm so glad you've been getting comfort from them. you're appreciating the authors hard work and that's a good thing! you don't need to feel bad about that

I hope you're doing okay tech

#ask #tech anon #wilbur situation

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budgie-city · 10 months

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THE ORIGINS OF BUDGIE CITY

Welcome to this informational article where I will be explaining what exactly this "Budgie City" is, where it came from, and in which direction it will be going. So, sit down comfortably - there are some interesting things waiting ahead of you! If you are interested in the lore, visit this article.

What exactly is "Budgie City"?

It is a fictional world that I am actively developing. At the moment, I’m in the process of writing it in the form of a paper draft. I write long texts by hand, and it seems to me that spelling out each letter, unlike typing, helps to approach the composition of sentences more thoughtfully, and to more successfully avoid strange and crooked constructions that will then have to be rewritten and corrected. It is far from the final, but I want to warm up people's interest in this world before the release of a full-fledged work, which is what I am doing now. I will not publish too many pieces of text until I have finished the story completely (though I probably will show some sneak-peeks). For now the content on "Budgie City" is mostly limited to drawings — concepts, sketches and character designs. Gradually, I've been starting to bring this topic to my YouTube channel in order to introduce the setting and concept to my viewers.

You may have seen my first video of Budgie City since 2014, which I have released quite recently — “I am not insane”, a video that focuses on one of the secondary conflicts of the story.

Where did this concept even come from?

It's quite a long story, and it's funny that this year is the ten year anniversary of me registering on the forum called "Budgie City". Yes, it all started with a regular internet forum — a by now almost extinct site format, which in the early 2000s and until about 2016-17 was the main place for interest groups on the internet. Now this has moved almost completely to social media, but before almost any hobby or interest had its own forum with different sections and topics. It saddens me a little that the golden age of forums has already passed.

In 2012, for the New Year, my parents bought me my first budgie — a classic green one, and I named him Gesha. At that time, I was not a regular "user" of the Internet yet. I only started to comprehend the vastness of the virtual network a few months later, and at first it leaned purely on me viewing memes in Google pictures and all sorts of videos on YouTube.

But in the spring of 2013, I discovered these wonderful things known as forums. And it was that point in time when I, having had a budgie with me for a year, decided to find a forum thematically fitting. Upon the request from my country, Google led me straight to the “Budgie City” forum.

The topics on there were something like rooms in a big house. The users randomly surfed through them and followed each other's daily lives. Therefore, Budgie City did actually feel really like being in a virtual society where everyone knows each other. I was getting used to the frequent people, getting to know each person individually. I went to their topics to write comments and answers, they wrote in mine. That's how we existed as this cozy club of interests.

There is an interesting thing with almost every child that is on the Internet — no matter where, in which community — a person with the admin/moder status is perceived as an absolute authority, any response from which causes awe and delight. And there were certain, more active and sociable admins in Budgie City — Anya under the nickname "Phoenix Bird" and Olga under the nickname "Olivka". The "Phoenix Bird" nickname spoke for itself — the image of a large bird of fire that walks around the city and receives admiring glances from everyone, was drawn in my head almost instantly. Olivka didn't have an image yet; I started turning her into a character much later.

Phoenix and Olivka in their modern designs (2022)

In the early summer of 2014, I read "Warrior Cats", and that’s where the whole story took off. I suddenly felt like I should become a writer too and write my own book. And 12-year-old me, who was spending 80% of my online traffic on the forum, decided to write a story, turning part of the admin staff and the budgies of familiar forum members into their own characters. Phoenix and Olivka turned into birds, the latter in particular acquired an image in the form of a wompoo fruit dove with olive-tinged wings, the budgies of the forum were also turned into their respective characters: Gesha and Yasha (mine); Glasha and Gosha (Hoatzin); Clementine, Jack, Fenya, Nira, Mouse, Castorka, Mithril and Small (Phoenix); Kuzya (Dmitriy68), Milana (Radujniy), Raisin (yyna) and others.

Sections of the forum have turned into parts of the city — the restaurant, the mayor's office, the registry office and nursery, and suburbs with parrots of other species, located on trees surrounding baobabs.

This is how the novel of the same name with the slogan "Feathered Metropolis" was born from the "Budgie City" forum. I posted it in its own topic, had about a dozen readers and, judging by the reviews, they all really liked reading the story. Although, looking back at the writing now... I wouldn't call it something breathtaking. Rather the opposite. But then again, I am now judging from the perspective of a third-year animation director student, and not the fifth grader I was at that time.

A couple of my original illustrations from 2014

The story was successfully brought to an end in about seven months, and after a while I started writing a sequel — however, the central conflict wasn’t thought out the slightest, so the plot quickly crumbled and was abandoned after several chapters.

Now the original text is lost in the vastness of the web — somewhere there is a piece of the prologue, somewhere even a couple of chapters. But the full version no longer exists — it was published only on the forum, and the said forum, unfortunately was — somewhere around 2019 — ruthlessly deleted from the Internet due to the desolation. All that's left of it are snapshots in the Wayback Machine.

Rewriting from the old version into a new one

In 2017, three years later, I made an attempt to rewrite "Budgie City" from scratch — leaving only the main conflict, the structure of the world, and the set of characters the same, to write a new text out of this "skeleton". Progress did not go beyond the prologue and the first chapter however, and rewriting was abandoned.

The same story with 2019 — a couple of pages, that’s all.

Two artworks from 2019

The next approach took till early 2021 to happen, when the original story turned almost six and a half years old. At that time I was already in the middle of my first year of animation directing at SPbGIKiT (Saint Petersburg State Institute of Film and Television). I wrote the prologue and part of the first chapter and went to proudly tell our master Galina Voropai about my "really cool" world. Galina interrupted me in the middle of the impromptu presentation, after which followed a forty-minute roast, thoroughly and in detail explaining that the "Budgie City" in its concept is a piece of junk that does not have the right to exist in its current form. And all this was in the presence of my classmates in the workshop. I gave up trying to defend myself halfway through, and when it was all over, I got up, quietly thanked Galina for a detailed objective analysis of the shortcomings of my project, went down to the first floor, huddled in a bathroom stall, and burst into tears.

It was the first (and yet the only) time in my life where I was literally crying over my work, and the girls from senior courses came to my howls, and we sat together on the windowsill of a public toilet. I was all red, shaking, and dropping snot, as they tried to calm me down.

(my mental state that day)

After that, I did not return to those written several pages for about a year and a half. I began to doubt whether I should continue at all or if it would just be a waste of time.

After the roast from the master, I went through all five stages of grief:

Yes, that was tough. But after so much time, I was finally able to evaluate the message of this scolding with a cool head and understand that most of the comments were actually really helpful - the conflict and the world did require a lot more careful study and rework. With the next approach, I wrote out all the conflicts, all the character motivations, and made a proper plan. And since the end of last autumn, I have returned to writing. Now I know where the story will begin, where it will head, and how it will end. All the actions performed by the heroes are finally based in actual logic. And, although Galina will not see the final result (she sadly passed away at the end of 2021), I hope that the new version will be one that she would have approved of.

A small FAQ:

Q: When will the book be released?

A: I don't want to make any promises as of now, because writing is a rather spontaneous and uneven process. I write more when I am inspired, and inspiration is impossible to predict. So the answer is simple — it will come out when it's finished :D

Q: Will it be released electronically or in a printed book form? Will I have to pay for reading it?

A: I plan to release the final version "Budgie City" in the same way as the old one — in open access, so that everyone can read it at any time. I will not charge money for reading the electronic version, but if there will be a demand for physical copies, I may release a small print run, which will cost money for those who want to get a copy. But it's a little early to think about that anyway.

Q: How does the world in Budgie City work? How do they live? What is the main conflict of the story?

A: All of this you can find out in this article!

Q: Where can I find more content to this world and story?

A: On this very blog or on my YouTube channel

I hope this article was helpful and informative enough for you to know where "Budgie City" comes from and in which direction it is currently heading. Thank you for reading!

Huge thanks to @annchanorsomethin for helping with translation of this article!

#budgie city #introducing post #information post #writers on tumblr #artists on tumblr #art #original writing #writing #info #lore article #article

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hyenahunt · 3 months

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Obbligato: The Devotion to Tatsumi Kazehaya - 12

Writer: Akira

Season: Spring, three years ago

Characters: Kaname, Tatsumi, Jun

Proofreading: Remi + 310mc (JP) & honeyspades (ENG)

Translation: Peace & hyenahunt

Kaname: I hate the thought of living as part of someone else's identity, of not being recognized as my own person, so much that it makes my skin crawl to think of it.

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Kaname: ... I don't understand.

Tatsumi: Which part? I realize that this has been something of a roundabout explanation, but essentially these Catacombs act as my group's base of operations.

You could say it’s no different than an office.

We only gather in such a suspicious space because there is no other place we can come together. In truth, I don't believe we're doing anything particularly immoral at all.

Relatedly, whenever I try to gather elsewhere, I'm chased off by the other Special Students who claim I'm quite the eyesore.

They've even called the teachers and security on me before.

It seems that they don't like that "our company" is able to procure work, though that's only natural.

Tatsumi: However, because of that, they've been doing what they can to hinder us from obtaining any more. It's rather problematic. I've tried to appeal to them time and time again, asking why they don't simply join us.

They say there's strength in numbers, after all. If all those splendid Special Students who've already made their debut would join us, then they would shine even brighter than before.

Kaname: ... I still don't understand. How is it that those who aren't Special Students, your employees as you call them in this metaphor, are so happy to work under you?

No matter how diligent they may be in their own work, it only ends up being under your name, right?

Tatsumi: Yes, and I do find that quite unfortunate myself... To that end, I do try and introduce those involved with the work to staff and fans whenever possible.

Naturally, these things haven't been in vain, as it's turned out that there are some Non-Special Students who've been able to secure independent work of their own lately.

And in such cases, I am always there to lend a helping hand in whatever way I am able to.

We're all part of the same group, so we must support one another.

Kaname: But only a handful of them manage it, correct? The industry as a whole is going through a recession, and the overall number of jobs within it is steadily decreasing anyways—

Compared to the work secured as a whole within this “Leviathan” of a group, as Tatsumi Kazehaya, anything you received individually would have little reward or honor to it.

Tatsumi: Yes, that's true... I wonder if that's frustrating for them, since they seem to return with the intention of working as a group instead of independently.

However, I'd like them to continue working independently. By doing so, it's like allowing those who aren't Special Students to debut without Reimei Academy's permission.

As a result, the teachers don't look kindly on us...

Our clients, as well as the other Non-Special Students, have decided against working alone or being allowed to do so, possibly due to awareness of the situation.

Kaname: Even so, they've set their sights on being idols, haven't they? Anyone who wants to become an idol should want to be recognized as their own self.

To be loved as who they are, not as some— some part of Tatsumi Kazehaya.

At the very least, that's how I feel. I want to be loved for who I am.

Kaname: I hate the thought of living as part of someone else's identity, of not being recognized as my own person, so much that it makes my skin crawl to think of it.

Or am I the odd one for thinking that way?

Tatsumi: I'm not sure... I don't particularly have a strong sense of self either, after all.

Jun: Mmm... If I were to pick a side, I'd have to agree with HiMERU here~ Why's this gang of Non-Specials so perfectly content with their current situation?

Tatsumi: I'm not sure what to say to that—rather, I'd like to know their reasons as well.

Jun: As I thought, this group just doesn't sit right with me, personally. I can't wrap my head around it... It disgusts me, really.

Tatsumi: I believe that's going a little too far, Jun-san. No one has the right to deny any other person of something they wish to do.

Jun: I wouldn't go so far as to deny 'em, but I just don't want anything to do with these Catacombs.

Even if it means going unrewarded and trampled all over, I'd pick that any day over not being able to be myself.

[ ☆ ]

✦✦✦✦✦

← prev ✦ all ✦ next →

#ensemble stars #enstars #enstars translation #hyenahunttl #tatsumi kazehaya #kaname tojo #jun sazanami #s: obbligato

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blue-macaron · 2 years

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royalty au (pt. 1)

characters: UNDEAD, Knights (-Leo), and cameos from future characters

x gn!reader, fluff, ~4.8K words total

a/n: Royalty AU! I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, and I plan on doing some other groups too with this idea, so hope you look forward to that! I didn’t expect for this to be almost 5k words long...it’s now my most longest work currently. Hope you enjoy! (Because of so many characters, the sections for each of them are shortened compared to my other works, just a heads up!)

part 2. (mam + leo + crazy:b)

UNDEAD

As a citizen under the kingdom ruled by the Sakuma family, you say that you’ve had a good life so far. Here and there were bumps along your journey, but it’s not been anything life threatening.

You’ve been in the forest exploring, when all of a sudden you hear rustling in the bushes. Preparing for the worst, you quickly start to retreat away until a pair of bright red eyes locked with yours.

Rei seems both interested and wary in you, asking questions of why you were in the forest. When you hit him back with his question, he simply laughs and waves his hand. You ask for his name, his eyes widening at your question. You don’t know who he is? How...peculiar. He doesn’t seem to be that disturbed, his shoulders relaxing. He refuses to give you his name, infuriating you at the fact that you had given him yours.

The only thing he does is chuckle at your exasperated face, offering his arm out to you. You decide to accept on a whim, linking arms with the mysterious man who seemed a little too excited to spend time with you. But, you shrug it off, by your gut feeling it doesn’t seem like he is gonna do anything bad. He seems like a genuine guy once you start to talk more, him helping you if you stumble on rocks or tree roots beneath your feet.

It’s not until you realize that A. You are standing in front of what seems to be a secret doorway, and B. That the doorway is connect to the royal family’s castle....huh?

You can hear arguing between two men who seem to be coming closer to the secret hallway that your new friend has led you through. You weren’t being apart of a thievery... right?

Koga and Adonis enter your sight, putting a pause to their conversation. The grey haired man seems to scowl at your new friend (you decide to call him R for his red eyes..), his eyes darting to look over your figure. The purple haired man also looks at you, before tilting his head. His piercing eyes unnerve you, looking away from him to focus on the ground.

You can tell they are talking about you, yet you tune out some of the conversation, shifting the balance between your feet. It’s only when you could hear your name being gently whispered by R that you paid attention, snapping your head upwards. The grey haired man introduces himself as Koga, and points to the purple haired man and says Adonis.

Turning to R, you tell him if the duo can tell you their names, then why can’t he? You hear gasping in front of you, and both Koga and Adonis wear surprised faces. R laughs loudly, holding his stomach with how much he was laughing. You swear you could see him wipe a tear (he says that there was something in his eye, but you don’t believe him), and he manages to get out two words that make you wonder how oblivious you have been.

Rei Sakuma.

The next in line for the crown. Oh.

After that whole fiasco of you almost fainting from shock (you didn’t even realize), the three men take you through the seemingly endless hallways and into a fancy, well furnished room. Rei sits you down (it feels strange calling a royal by their name without honorifics) and tells Koga to fetch some refreshments for you. Before you could decline, the doors open, and a man wearing a smirk walks in. He has blonde hair, and he’s placing a tray of snacks on the center table. The man introduces himself as Kaoru, and he brings up your hand to kiss the back of it.

Other then Rei’s description, you learn that Koga and Adonis are guards for Rei, and Kaoru is a old friend of Rei. You wonder why exactly Rei let you in suddenly, considering his position. Voicing this out, Rei chuckles and pats your head. It doesn’t seem like he plans to tell you anytime soon...

Rei Sakuma:

Being honest, even after spending so much time with Rei, it’s hard to figure him out. He’s always talking with you in riddles, racking your brain with trying to see behind the veil he holds up so tightly. You have noticed that he also likes to surprise you, appearing over your shoulder at the most random times.

Sometimes you can’t help but feel nervous, after all, he’s the crown prince. Compared to you, a commoner, you could never be on par with someone like him. You were thinking about this one day, and Rei had noticed your silence. Asking you about your thoughts, you just blurted out what’s been on your mind. Rei pauses, his eyebrows furrowing together slightly. He waves off your concerns, enveloping your hands and telling you that you didn’t need to worry about such trivial matters.

Yet you couldn’t help but see the way he deflated a little when you told him your thoughts, the way he curled into himself. He started to get up, bidding you a farewell. Before he could fully turn away from you, in a surge of confidence, you grabbed his arm to stop him.

....it was quite suffocating, the both of you staring at each other, and in trying to find the right words you manage to cough up an apology to him. He seems surprised, pausing in his attempt to respond. You sit him down once more, before grabbing his shoulders so he couldn’t leave. (It never crossed your mind that Rei was actually a lot longer then he looked, just wearing more comfortable and looser clothing around you. The reason he did it? So you could forget about his title as the crown prince, discarding the fancy clothing he owns.)

Tripping over your words, you tell him that you want to be good friends with him, and that you truly don’t care about the fact that he’s a prince. Did that come out right? Did it make it even worse? Your head is swarming with worries, before Rei holds your face with his hands. Fuhuhu, thank you for trying to comfort me. You never realized how pretty Rei was until now, the way his eyes glimmered with amusement and something else that you couldn’t quite pinpoint.

“Fuhuhu, you seem like you need a break. Please do take care of yourself, many people want to see you doing well. Oh? Am I apart of them? Well, I suppose that is your judgement to make, no?”

Koga Oogami:

He’s a very prickly guy, is what you have concluded. Spending time with him is sort of like trying to tame a wild dog (never in a million years will you ever tell Koga this), and you surely aren’t doing so well. He treats you alright, yet you could see some hesitance in being around you. But, you could understand that. You were some random stranger that Rei happened to find interesting, and brought into the castle.

He seems to be alert every single time you see him, his eyes sometimes flickering over to you before returning to Rei. You’ve asked how he had gotten recruited to be one of Rei’s knights, yet he just shook his head and waved you way. There was a stark difference in the way he treated the rest of the guys and you, being more reserved and less loud.

You have seen him interact with animals, specifically a dog that you learned his name was Leon. Sometimes it feels like it’s too private to watch Koga interact with Leon, the way his eyes soften and his words more gentler.

It’s when he catches you watching him, that you are prepared for him to bark at you to leave. But it never happens. He instead beckons you closer, his hands still petting Leon. You tilt you head, curious on why he’s letting you be so close. Usually there’s a considerable distance between the two of you, Koga discreetly shifting away for when you get a little too close. Koga stays silent, seemingly basking in the quietness of the sun setting, and the gentle wind blowing in his hair.

The both of you sit in silence, no words required between you two. Koga lets out a long sigh, laying down and Leon sitting down beside him. You choose to observe him, the number of scars littered on his arms. He seems to notice your staring and in a low voice, as to not break the tranquility, he quietly explains how he got each scar.

“Ah, this scar. Damn, it’s been so long I’ve almost forgotten ‘bout it. Oi! Who said you could poke it! Tch, just don’t keep pokin’ at it, got it? And don’t touch people’s scars so suddenly! Geez..“

Adonis Otogari:

He’s always so silent that you can’t help but forget about him being in the room, until he’s waving in front of your face and asking if you needed anything. Adonis is always trying to lend a helping hand to you, carrying heavier things or opening the door for you, there’s never a cease to his kindness. Sometimes you can’t help but feel bad that Adonis is taking care of you so much, almost reminiscent of a parent with their child.

You’ve also seen him around the castle a lot, and he’s escorting you from one place to another. One time you were going to ask him a question, but he seemed so focused on figuring out a gadget that you didn’t have the heart to disturb him. Otherwise, you’ve learned that Adonis is a chill guy. He’s not one to shout loudly like Koga, nor try to surprise you like Rei. (If you were being honest, he was the most sane one between all of them...)

You were trying to look for him one day, yet for some reason he seemed to have disappeared completely. Walking around the castle, you were about to call out for him until your foot got stuck on the carpet. Bracing for impact, you waited a couple of seconds before realizing that you did not crash into the floor, and that someone’s arm was slung around your waist.

Looking up, you could see Adonis with his eyebrows furrowed, asking if you were okay. You waved him off, thanking him for helping you. He nodded, before tilting his head and looking down at the small box you held in your hand. Oh right!

You took Adonis’s hand, handing him the gift. He only seemed to get more confused, and you ended up explaining to him that your wanted to get him something for all the things he’s done for you. Adonis slowly opens the box, his eyes widening at the bracelet alternating in purple and yellow. It almost seems like he’s too afraid to touch it, Adonis putting it back into the box and smiling softly. He thanks you with sincerity laced deeply into his voice, bowing in almost a 90 degree angle. (You hurriedly told him that he doesn’t need to bow).

“..Would you like to come with me to a bakery I found? They have good food, so I was wondering if you would like to enjoy some with me.”

Kaoru Hakaze:

You didn’t really see him after your introduction to the castle at first, only seeing him when he was talking with the other guys. He’s like the wind, going in and out of the castle. When he is here however, he likes to stay by your side and ask you questions about your life.

You don’t really have the most fascinating life, it wasn’t until meeting with Rei then your life picked up the pace. Yet he seems to listen every single time with interest, nodding along and humming. Usually you wouldn’t really care that much, but Kaoru just makes you feel like the only person in the room (Sorry to Koga for not responding to him a couple times...).

It always seemed to be a mystery on where Kaoru worked at, and yet fate happened to lean in your corner and amplify his voice to you. You were simply taking a walk around the gardens, looking at the pretty flowers that seemed to stretch on forever in the palace. Hearing soft humming, it carried you over to a more hidden section of the garden that you would have probably missed if not paying close attention.

You were surprised when you saw Kaoru himself tending to the flowers, the scene being right out of a fairytale book. He then proceeded to switch to the next bush, before spotting you watching him. You flinched, spewing out apologies for bothering his work time. He shook his head and laughed, beckoning you closer to take a look at the flower bushes in front of you.

They were so pretty, the roses in front of you blooming and neatly pruned. Kaoru took a look at you, your eyes sparkling and your mouth slightly opened from amazement. His eyes crinkled, glimmering in the sun. You never really took a good look at Kaoru, but now that you are, he’s a very good looking person is what you decide. What you subconsciously also decide is that Kaoru should keep smiling and be happy, it suits him very well.

“Hmm? Ah, I bet you weren't expecting me to have a job like this. It’s a very cool job you say? Well look at you being so suave, about to sweep me off my feet~.”

Knights

It’s been quite a long time since you’ve been whisked away to the castle by Rei, months easily swaying by. For some reason, it never occurred to you that yes, Rei does indeed have a younger brother who also lived in the castle. By a miracle you’ve never seen the younger prince, even when Rei invited you over so much that you had a room to stay in.

Speaking of Rei, he’s been taking quite a long time fetching something? He said it would be quick, so he left you alone in the room, but now that it’s been a while you’re starting to worry. Poking your head out the door and looking back and forth, you still don’t see him.

You decide to head out, hoping that you wouldn’t get lost, and if you did, that Koga or Adonis could help you. Turning corners and you eyes flicking around, it doesn’t seem like Rei’s anywhere near close right now. You do however hear voices from a room, so maybe Rei is in there?

Cracking the door open and popping your head in, you’re ready to call for Rei until you realize that A. Rei is not in here, B. There are total strangers here that are now looking at you, and C. Why does one of them look so familiar yet at the same different? You also realize that you have now interrupted an entire conversation, and you were ready to book it until a voice chuckles beside your ear.

You practically jump, turning towards the voice to find...Rei!? He seems to be amused, grasping his hand over yours on the doorknob and opening the door further.

There are four people in the room, one that suspiciously looks like Rei, a guy with grey hair and striking blue eyes, a guy with red hair, and a woman with blonde hair. All of them are looking at you and Rei, yet the guy who looks like Rei only seems to scowl at Rei. He starts to question why Rei is there, telling him to stop bothering their conversation. His eyes flicker to you, and it’s eerily similar how much his eyes look like Rei’s. The man in question turns to you and introduces the four people in the room to you and vise versa.

Oh. So that’s Ritsu Sakuma.....(You can’t help but feel like anyone who saw your obliviousness would be shell shocked..)

You learn that the guy with the grey hair is named Izumi Sena, a knight for a man named Leo Tsukinaga (You are told that recently he has been busy, and that he’s a very eccentric person). The blonde woman’s name is Arashi Narukami, and that she’s a knight for Ritsu. Finally, the red haired man’s name is Tsukasa Suou, and he also is a crown prince like Rei from a different kingdom.

Your head is racking with questions, but you do introduce yourself to them, bowing deeply. You also come to the conclusion that you need to study the kingdoms a little more deeply....

Ritsu Sakuma:

You can tell that he doesn’t seem to want to interact with you. He seems to avoid you like the plague, barely being able to catch a glimpse of him in the hallways. You do suppose that if you haven’t seen him for so long already, that it probably will stay this way for a while.

Okay maybe you were a bit wrong when you had made that statement. You had decided to take a walk in the garden, admiring the flowers that were so vibrant in color. What you didn’t expect was for Ritsu to be laying down on the grass near the roses, seemingly sleeping away. He looked very peaceful, and you were about to turn to leave until a groggy voice called out your name. You turned, seeing Ritsu look at you directly. He waved his hand for you to come over to him, and before you knew it he had put his head into your lap.

You blinked, and then blinked some more. After all of his reactions towards you, you could’ve expected anything but him deciding that you could be in his personal space. Looking down at his resting face, you noticed that he looked so calm, compared to his glaring towards Rei. (You’ve seen some pretty mean glares in your life, but Ritsu’s was one to remember).

Taking a chance, you slowly put your hand on his head, running your fingers through his soft locks. He didn’t seem to mind this, in fact you swore you saw him lean further into your hand. It was quiet, the breeze fluttering through your clothes and leaving a cool sensation on your skin. You continued to run your hand through his air, his breath evening out to a slow rhythm.

You don’t know how long you’ve been sitting there, and before you realize it the sun is already setting. Gently shaking Ritsu awake, he stirs before sighing quietly. He sits up, rubbing his eyes and leaning on your shoulder. You don’t have the heart to tell him that your legs have now gotten numb, but after spending time with Ritsu, you suppose it isn’t too bad.

“Why was I sleeping in the garden? Well it’s a peaceful place, compared to the palace which is too loud. Plus, not many people bother me here, so I like it.”

Izumi Sena:

You almost had whiplash because of him, reminding you of Koga at first. He gives you side eyes when he thinks you’re not looking, and overall he gives off a cold personality. To even try to talk to him, it would require some courage and shielding your ego. Yet you can’t help but think that he looks a little lonely. When he’s with the rest of his group, he seems so in place, like the final puzzle piece. When you see him alone though, his guard is up high with a piercing gaze on those around him.

You didn’t expect him to walk into the kitchen when you were attempting to grab some food, feeling like a deer in headlights. He merely looks at you, tilting his head as to challenge you to talk to him. You don’t know what was in you during that moment, but a fire in your stomach urged you to make a conversation with him. He looks mildly surprised, as if his gaze already would’ve scared you off. Izumi does regain his footing quickly though, responding to your question of what he was doing.

Turns out Izumi is trying to learn how to cook. Being honest, you didn’t expect for that to be the answer to your question. Maybe you were expecting him to also grab something to eat, or to drink, but when he started to pull out ingredients for a dish, you knew he was 100% serious. (Why would he lie anyways? Your mind supplies.)

Izumi.. is a pretty good cook. You’ve now become his taste tester, the plate sliding over to you for when he finally puts the finishing touches onto the dish. Because of him you were able to eat many different foods from his life, all of them being tasty. Sometimes you wonder why he lets you eat his food though, since he does seem to be eying the plate a lot. (What you don’t know is that he wants to make sure that it looks perfect, for you).

You can now say that you have successfully created a bond over cooking with Izumi. The one time he let you cook though was a disaster... (Arashi, Ritsu, and Tsukasa were also trying to help cook with you two, which ended up in chaos and the rest of your boys in the doorway looking concerned.) Although he can be harsh when needed, Izumi is someone who you can rely on for help, and to be a listening ear for when it gets rough.

“Hmph, you say it’s good, but I can tell that you don’t prefer this dish. How can I tell you ask? You face is scrunching up, like you’ve eaten a lemon. Now tell me your real thoughts, none of those sugar coated words.”

Arashi Narukami:

Although you two had never really interacted in the past, you’ve realized that you are seeing Arashi a lot more now! A lot of the times when you happen to pass by her, she greets you with a bright smile and a wave of her hand. Sometimes you can hear her scold Ritsu in the garden, trying to get him to stop sleeping and actually do work. You can tell that she is a hardworking person, and that while she complains about her job sometimes, she does enjoy being able to talk with the people in the castle.

What you didn’t expect was for her to invite you for a day out, claiming that you should get some fresh air and sunshine in the city. You had waited in front of a shop Arashi told you to meet up at, and you could hear your name being called. Turning your head, you could see Arashi smiling at you, and the change of clothes she had went though. Usually you saw her only wearing armor, but now you could see the way her dress made her eyes pop, Arashi looking like the sun itself. It distracted you for a bit, Arashi having to wave her hand in front of you a couple of times to get you back to reality.

Arashi led you inside the small shop, grasping your hand gently and pulling you along. You could smell a fresh whiff of coffee, surrounding the inside with a pleasant smell. Even though the shop was small, you could tell how well liked it was due to the many customers flickering in and out. She sat you down in a chair, asking you what your preferred drink was. You told her to surprise you, you wanted to know what she liked to drink from this cafe. Arashi nodded, telling you that she would be right back.

After waiting a bit, Arashi came back with two drinks in her hands. She handed you one, sliding down into her seat. You took a sip from the cup, the refreshing taste lingering in your mouth. Arashi asked if you liked it, and you nodded immediately, thanking her for showing you a new place to go. She blushed a bit, grinning that you were able to enjoy a shop she really liked.

You ended up chatting for a while, talking about both of your experiences with the Sakumas and laughing at the chaos that sometimes happened. Looking at Arashi you realized how good she looked with the golden light shining against her from the window. You tucked a stray hair behind her ear, not realizing that Arashi’s blush had gotten even more deeper with that gesture.

“If you would like to, I know some other stores that you might like! Ooh, maybe we could go to that florist shop across the street from the cafe we went to, how about that!”

Tsukasa Suou:

You’ve actually heard of Tsukasa before while growing up. While you couldn’t recognize him from looks, you have heard his name in the air, even though he was from a different kingdom. The reasoning being that both the kingdom you reside in and his kingdom are in good trading relationships, so many items are carried in and out. The only things you have heard about Tsukasa were only good ones, being that he was a responsible young man who many thought that would be able to rule fairly.

You were able to catch him during one of his stays in the Sakuma palace, talking about opening more possible trading ports. He had accidentally ran into you, but to be fair you weren’t paying attention to where you were going. Tsukasa apologized immediately, putting a hand on your shoulder to stabilize you. Curious to know more about Tsukasa, you asked him on what his plans were for the day. He told you that they were able to get far in their discussions, so he was free for the evening. Looking at his hands, he quietly asked you if you wanted to watch his sword training.

Swinging your legs, you watched Tsukasa train from one of the benches in the courtyard. He was practicing on a dummy stand, gracefully moving with his entire body, yet putting much force into his sword. It amazed you how skillful he was with the sword, knowing that you could definitely not be as good as him. When he seemed to be done for now, you applauded at him, cheering for his practice. Tsukasa scratched the back of his head, giving you a thanks for your words.

He asked if you wanted to try wielding a sword, saying that it was fine if you didn’t want to. Accepting his offer, you stood up and walked over. He placed the sword into your hands, adjusting your hands to grip the sword more solidly. You swore you could feel his breath on your neck, freezing up at the close proximity you two were in. His instructions were clear and easy to understand, allowing for you to be able to land a few good hits on the dummy.

After training with Tsukasa for quite some time, he had lent his arm out for you to link with him. The two of you walked through the corridors, leading you to your room. His eyes twinkled as he said his goodbyes, softly asking you if you wanted to continue getting lessons from him.

“Ah! I apologize for making you wait for so long. The meeting went on longer then I expected... Hm? Why are you laughing? Oh, thank you for taking the leaf out of my hair, I didn’t even notice..”

As you prepared to sleep, you thought about the past couple of months and your time with all of the new friends you have made. You have noticed that they sometimes talk about other people that you can’t seem to recognize the names of. Rei sometimes talks about a apprentice he has. Madara Mikejima, was that his name? Rei seems to speak fondly of him, promising you that you will surely like him. But he did warn you of how intense Madara could be for some people...

He thinks that Madara isn’t telling him something, considering the fact that it’s been a bit hard to keep in touch. Perhaps you will meet him one day though?

There was also Kohaku Oukawa, apparently a distant cousin of Tsukasa that he seems to be good friends with. Tsukasa was apparently supposed to bring Kohaku along on the trip the first time you saw him, but he was very busy during that time. Tsukasa also seems to be concerned that Kohaku might be getting into trouble, due to the fact that Kohaku usually tags along to take care of Tsukasa.

You sigh, tucking yourself into bed. It’s no use to think about this right now. As you lie with your eyes closing, you can’t help but feel like the next couple of months will be eventful.

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welcometololaland · 16 days

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911 lone star tag game

thank you @tellmegoodbye for creating this tag and for tagging me 💜 sorry it took me so long to get to it. thanks also to @lemonlyman-dotcom @rmd-writes @liminalmemories21 @freneticfloetry

@chicgeekgirl89 @thisbuildinghasfeelings for the tags and @howtosingit and @captain-gillian mentioning my name, unfortunately for you i have taken that as a tag.

When did you first start watching Lone Star? Who or what introduced you to the show?

someone (it may have been @three-drink-amy) was yelling about the proposal in a group chat somewhere and i was stuck at home, injured, completely unable to walk, miserable and hating life...so I opened a YouTube video to see what the fuss was about. and then i watched all 3 seasons over the next 2 days.

Which season is your favorite?

three

Who is your favorite character? (Bonus: If you answered TK or Carlos, who is your favorite besides them?)

if you'd asked me a year ago, i might have had a different answer, but now (after over a year of almost exclusively writing carlos), i think it has to be him. i just think that i understand carlos a lot better than i used to. aside from tarlos...it's a hard toss up between grace and paul.

Top five episodes. Go!

you don't write 9 fics about push unless you really love push, so it's 3 x 04 every day for me. i'm actually sick for the pilot (1 x 01). i love a good origin story. my three others would be 3 x 13, 3 x 07 and a fight to the death between 3 x 18 for the proposal and 4 x 16 for soulmates.

If you could pick any character to be given a "begins" episode, who would it be and what would that episode look like?

i think the logical choice is nancy, because we really don't know a lot about her. the more she is on the screen the more i am starting to really enjoy her as a character and i'd like to know more. i'm also obsessed with getting as much reyes family backstory as i can. i'm CONVINCED tia lucy has to turn up somewhere. i need to meet that queen.

What is a scenario or storyline that you would like to see in season 5?

total cop out answer for me - i have no hopes because every time i start clowning i get the fear i might curse it. i'm just here for the ride, kids.

What do you think is going on in this still?

see answer above - i think the obvious answer is something about gabriel's death/the murder investigation but i'm not counting my chickens before they hatch or whatever the saying is. (also, they could def be trolling us and it's some scene in which tk is hangry and carlos is calling up the pizza place around the corner to ask where their order is because it's been 50 minutes and how long does a pizza really take?)

We all know about the elusive 5x05 spicy scene that has been teased, so what is your prediction for how it could possibly top 1x02?

it's no secret that i prefer sexy scenes when there's more at stake - a frantic hook up is hot but i prefer anything with feelings upon feelings upon feelings. so i hope whatever it is, it's emotional.

Where was the Tarlos honeymoon in your mind?

i wrote a whole fic about it, so it's hard to go against my own narrative. but i assume somewhere in texas. it definitely wasn't the under the tuscan sun remake carlos had apparently been dreaming about (but i hope they get there one day).

Shoutout one of your favorite fan creations.

there's actually too many to mention, and somehow even though i've only been in this fandom for coming up two years, i feel like i'm a relic 😂 i have so many personal favourites that have come across my dash (a lot of them due to fic/fandom rec friday which i miss with all my heart). but i do want to say that if you create for this fandom in any capacity, whether that is art, fic, gifs, vids, metas etc., your creations are such a gift. every single one adds something that the fandom didn't have before and makes us as a collective all the richer 💜 also, i think it's important to acknowledge the importance of the members of the fandom who are readers or beta readers, or even casual observers. everyone i've come across on this site or in the ao3 comments or discord has such unique experiences and personalities and adds so much flavour to this fandom! so thank you for being here! and thanks to @tellmegoodbye again for giving me an excuse to just ramble on about that.

an open tag because i'm very late, but if you haven't participated, please consider this a tag for you 💜

#yee haw #911 lone star fandom game #tag game #tellmegoodbye

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findafight · 1 year

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I apologize, you hit another one of my buttons but like I have mixed emotions on the whole basketball/DND thing in season 4. The way the show punishes Lucas choosing basketball over DND, as if other party members don't have interests outside of DND, is so frustrating. Lucas has to realize that "normal is a raging psychopath" when it's really not? He wasn't dropping his friends or interests to play basketball. He just had a conflict on one day. And if the Duffers didn't have an agenda, this is all it would be. Lucas likes two things and once they unfortunately happen to collide and he has to skip one of them. It's not a punishment, but rather something that people have to deal with sometimes. It's just so frustrating that the show punished Lucas for having interests outside DND, when Will has art, and Dustin has his radios!

But as someone who organized events when I was in high school, it is so hard to schedule things so that everyone can attend if they want to. Especially in the evenings. And at some point if you can get most people that you need at a time, you take it. So I can understand where Eddie is coming from, that it might not be worth it to cancel/reschedule the last session at the last minute when only one person can't make it. So I understand why Eddie might not want to move it. But again, they shouldn't have made it seem like it was a punishment for Lucas doing jock things.

But like Dustin and Mike! These two chose a game over supporting their friend and then they dragged that Lucas's sister into the game as well, so she wasn't there either! And Dustin and Mike did have a choice to say to Eddie, no, we want to support our friend, you can run the campaign with or without us. Because missing one person is one thing. Missing three is an entire other ball game.

And like all of this could have been resolved if they talked about it but now Eddie is dead so it's just a loose thread and a win for the Duffers in the nerd vs jock battle that only exists in their head.

Seeeeee the thing for me is, while I totally understand trying to coordinate a time to meet with everyone being difficult. It is! Group projects in uni are bonkers. But, Hellfire is directly called a club, meaning it has regularly scheduled meetings, presumably scheduled at the start of the semester (January) if not the school year. So it's not like they have to rearrange their schedule for this particular meeting, it's already ON the schedule. The make up might take work but. Postponing two weeks to do it on regular night isn't the end of the world. If the space is in use for whatever reason, people have basements and dining room tables.

I think it's mentioned that the championship game wasn't scheduled until like, a day or two before? If not it was likely at most a week and a half. With how Eddie talks about basketball, despite one of "his sheepies" being on the team, I don't really blame Lucas for being nervous to ask him directly. So like, there's a scheduling conflict, and literally any other session I wouldnt be upset. Stuff happens, sometimes you're down a player! You work through it with them doing something off screen. It's whatever.

It sucks but it can drum up whatever conflict they want from it I guess. It'd be a dick move to bring Erica (and his best friends) in when she could be supporting her brother at the championship but whatever. (Also. Introducing a new player character is kinda complicated? That's not something I would want to do in a finale?) It can be worked through. But. My experience playing dnd with people is that, y'know. The whole point isn't to beat the bad guy, it's to have fun with your friends? In S3 they sort of address this when Mike and Lucas half ass their way to finish Will's one shot faster! He's hurt partially because winning isn't what it's about! So having a player not able to make a major session for me just doesn't compute. I want my friend there! Who's been there from the beginning! I want to win with my friend.

Listen. I love Eddie! But he's clearly stuck in highschool clique mode, despite his anticonformist talking points, (something that is never brought up! Eddie's like stick it to the man! But as soon as someone steps out from the box he views as acceptable, he doesn't know what to do with them) and thus does things that are dickish. Someone in hellfire is on the basketball team, yet Eddie rails against them, doesn't even try to understand there's nuances. No wonder Lucas got Dustin (Eddie's favourite) and Mike to ask for a raincheck. Dustin and Mike could have stuck up for Lucas and said they couldn't find one, let alone three subs between them and the game. They could have gone! They should have gone! And the fact the didn't isn't brought up when it's already been an issue in S3 with Will, is a shame.

Having to cancel plans you're looking forward to sucks, but honestly it's more fun to reschedule big things (like a campaign finale) so everyone can make it than just. Replace them. Idk that's just me and my experience playing. We don't actually know how hellfire usually goes so maybe it's normal? Idk.

The show has this very bizzare view of jocks v nerds. As though every person who has ever touched a ball willingly is automatically a terrible person and only likes sports. There's sooooo many layers to it. Because people are complex. My brother was on like three teams in school, and a guy he was on football with that had a friend of a friend in common later said that he wasn't a jock! When I would have said he absolutely was. A nerdy one, absolutely, but definitely a jock.

It's annoying that the show just. Doesn't accept that people have many interests and sometimes those interests are sports. Sports are fun! Exercise is good for you! While, yes. Absolutely sports teams can cultivate a toxic environment, they can also be incredibly fulfilling.

It just feels like the Duffers want to punish anyone who dares like sports in any way tbh.

#lucas sinclair #eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things meta #anonasaurus #findaanswers #finda's rambles

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jebewonmorelike · 8 months

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Welcome, Player...

⁺⋆✰ Steal Your Heart; An OT9 + Reader Insert AU Interactive Fanfiction Game

TLDR; In this new ZeroBaseOne interactive AU fanfiction game, the reader plays as the 10th member of a K-Pop group mistreated by their company and on a downward spiral. One day, there's a glitch in the matrix-- causing our reader to enter the "Metaverse", where they receive special superpowers through the birth of their true self in the form of a Persona. What if the members of ZeroBaseOne can band together as the Phantom Thieves to take down their company and save themselves from their fate?

An interactive game featuring hand-edited media, polls, and a points-system that gives the reader their own specially-tailored ending (will determine which love interest they end up with). Will be just as funny as it is angsty, I promise.

⁺⋆✰ Game Score Sheet

⁺⋆✰ Masterlist

⁺⋆✰ Part One Available Now!!

Warnings: PG-13+ Themes, Angst, Drinking, Mistreatment by Company, Slight Suggestiveness, Crime, Mild Violence (Specific Warnings Listed On Each Chapter)

All are welcome to read/play: our reader insert will not be referred to by ANY pronouns (including they/them) -- so that all readers can feel immersed! Reader is the 10th member of ZeroBaseOne, but the group will be referred to as an idol group, not a boy group or a mixed-gender group. It's just fiction, so use your imagination to make it however you like!!

Part One Coming Very Soon (Character Profiles, Reader's Persona Awakening, and the explosive start to our game!!)

Please continue to the introduction below...

Would you like to start a new game?

Excellent! The story in question features the nine members of ZeroBaseOne (well, 10 actually; including you, dear Player!) and their journey both in the real world and the Metaverse to defeat a company that has taken advantage of them for years. But before we get too far into the plot, let me introduce myself. I'm Kara, aka jebewonmorelike and I'll be your Game Master. I'll check in with you at the beginning of every chapter to give you reminders, content warnings, and any miscellaneous info you might need.

Get it, got it, good, Player?

Perfect! I think we're gonna get along just fine.

I'm sure by now you've realized that this is no ordinary work of fanfiction. No, no. It's something a bit different. A bit special, even.

If you choose to continue reading, there's a few things you should know...

You're about to play a game -- a game that's story and ending depends on the choices you make along the way.

Sounds cool, right?

I know! I can't take all the credit, though. This fanfiction game is heavily-inspired by the JRPG game Persona 5. What is Persona 5 about? The great part is that, honestly, it doesn't really matter whether you've had experience with the game or not in order to play the game I've designed for you today...

Don't sweat it! I'm gonna explain everything you need to know right now and it's nothing you should find too complicated. How does that sound, Player?

Wonderful! I had a good feeling about you right from the very beginning, Player.

Our story is, of course, about a group called ZeroBaseOne... Or, well... To be more precise, it's a story about a group that used to be called ZeroBaseOne. A little over a year ago, some sh*t went down and turned their whole world upside down forever.

While all ages and genders are welcome to play this game (our OC is pronoun-free!), there might be some mature themes in this game. Nothing too crazy-- swearing, mild violence, angst, drinking, crime, some suggestive themes, and, above all, bringing justice to a company that mistreats its talent...

Are you okay with a PG-13+ rated game, Player?

Great! And, don't worry: there will be plenty of comedy, too. Comedy, to me, is essential to any plot. I think you're gonna really like this game! I hope. *Sigh*

Aw... Thank you, Player. I appreciate the reassurance. I've been second-guessing my writing for months now and--... Oh, sorry, back to the description of the game!

Like I was saying, ZeroBaseOne doesn't really look much like the one we know in real life. Instead, the members are a bit older, a bit more worn out and, honestly, having a pretty rough go of it at this point. And whose to blame for that?

You're so smart, Player! Of course it's their company. I'd like to just state quickly that this game is just that-- a game. Fictional; a story! No agencies or people in this game are representative of real life things. Especially not their fictional company. *Bombastic side-eye*.

So why did I decide to make this game? Well, we all love reading fanfiction. But wouldn't it be even more fun if the reader had a say in the story? If the reader's choices led to the creation of their own specially-crafted fanfiction just for them?

Maybe, by now, you're wondering just what exactly are you playing this game to win? Well it's what almost everybody wants a shot at in life... Love. Throughout this game, you will make decisions that will give you points towards different group members. Keep track of your score and, at the end of the game, the member who you've earned the most points for will determine your ending (and your love interest).

All game resources will be listed in the description of each chapter, at the top and bottom of this introductory post, and on the Steal Your Heart masterlist. There will be many opportunities to interact with this game and it will include a lot of hand-edited graphics to look at it! I hope you enjoy them, as I've planned them quite tediously.

I wish I could accept the compliment, but alas... I am no angel. I'm just your Game Master. Feeding you the story, presenting you with choices...

It's up to you, Player, to make the story that you want.

Alright-- enough small talk! I think you're more than ready to get started with our game.

So, what do you say, Player?

Are you ready to begin a game where, as a member of ZeroBaseOne, you lead your group members to gain back their inner strength, develop magical powers and defeat the company that has ruined your lives for far too long-- and find love along the way?

Then by all means, Player...

Please Select From The Chapter Menu Below:

Part One ☾⋆⁺₊✧ The Fool ✩₊˚.⋆ The Beginning

Part Two ✩₊˚.⋆ Chariot ☾⋆⁺₊✧ Kim Gyuvin

Part Three ☾⋆⁺₊✧ The Lovers ✩₊˚.⋆ Kim Jiwoong

Part Four ✩₊˚.⋆ The Magician ☾⋆⁺₊✧ Han Yujin

Part Five ☾⋆⁺₊✧ The Emperor ✩₊˚.⋆ Shen Ricky

Part Six ✩₊˚.⋆ Justice ☾⋆⁺₊✧ Seok Matthew

Part Seven ☾⋆⁺₊✧ Faith ✩₊˚.⋆ Kim Taerae

Part Eight ✩₊˚.⋆ The Hermit ☾⋆⁺₊✧ Park Gunwook

Part Nine ☾⋆⁺₊✧ The Empress ✩₊˚.⋆ Sung Hanbin

Part Ten ✩₊˚.⋆ The Priestess ☾⋆⁺₊✧ Zhang Hao

Part Eleven ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ The Finale

Steal Your Heart Masterlist Steal Your Heart Game Score Sheet

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seventeenlovesthree · 4 days

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Greetings! So I've just finished Digimon 02TB and I need to discuss it with someone with legit opinions lmao. So the thing is: how do you tackle the apparent continuity disagreement that Ukkomon claimed he created the Chosen kids when there's lore established since the 1st Adventure that there was a group of Chosen kids (Maki Himekawa's group) before Taichi's group? I'm looking for possible Watsonian explanations since simply saying "it's a plothole / retcon" doesn't satisfy me 😁 So far I got these ideas, feel free to elaborate on them or give some new ones:

First, there's a possbility that Ukkomon was lying (I love how many plot holes can be simply explained by "character X was lying) and didn't actually create the Chosen kids - he just introduced them as Lui's "friends" to make Lui happy. BUT then, if Ukkomon didn't create them, why did the digivices disappear after Lui un-did his wish and BigUkkomon was defeated? Second, maybe when Lui claimed he's the first person to ever bond with a Digimon, he meant "the first person to bond with a Digimon without some divine intervention and/or a mission they were chosen to fulfill", which technically makes him the first Tamer instead of a Chosen child. Daisuke & co. calling him a "Chosen child" was therefore just a misunderstanding Lui didn't correct since he couldn't tell the difference.

What do you think?

Ooooooh boy! I still remember how much my head was rushing when I had watched the movie in cinemas back on launch day and I simply couldn't get home fast enough to write down all my thoughts. I had compiled it all back then here and I believe it already summarizes everything you've been asking and talking about, but I'll still try to put it together again shortly.

First of all, @jamesthedigidestined are currently still trying our best to make sense of the current timeline and the order of when which Chosen Child (or generally "humans partnering with Digimon") came into existence, so I still hope he will post his own ideas himself soon!

However - my theory back then and also today is what you already outlined:

Homeostasis does not have a physical form, so it created its agents like Gennai - and PROBABLY Ukkomon too. Since we know the Digital World has “wish granting” abilities, I can accept there being a singular being that is capable of doing the same thing. So then, a Digiegg gets into the real world in 1995, and Homeostasis gets to scan Hikari, Taichi and the others, discovering the potential they have - since Hikari is the child that enables the hatched Botamon to evolve into Greymon super quickly, Homeostasis sends Parrotmon to retrieve it. Afterwards, in 1996, Ukkomon “would appear who had special connections with [a child] in the real world”. And thus, Rui’s wish was the indirect catalysator of the foundation of the “partnership system”. Basically, Ukkomon’s wish fulfillment powers enabled a system based on the limitless potential (of wishes and the bond between humans and Digimon) that was deemed useful by Homeostasis for the sake of saving the world(s). A system that wasn’t in place like this before, so Rui was basically some kind of “prototype” - as was Ukkomon, kinda testing the waters of partnerships in the first place. And through analyzing the other 8 kids in the meantime, their potential had been discovered, which is why THEY also had Crests created for themselves. Like Ukkomon said - they came into existence to “protect” him, so he wouldn’t have to save the worlds himself. And so would Daigo, Maki and the others between 1996 and 1999 (including Wallace, though we need to still figure out where exactly he fits in there).

On a different note, I like the idea of treating Ukkomon like Menoa in the way of her being an unreliable narrator that led to the whole “adulthood vs. neglect theory” in the first place. So Ukkomon may actually NOT even be aware that Rui WASN’T the first Chosen Child because, either it really didn’t know or was manipulated by Homeostasis to claim that it’s true. The reasoning behind that could be interesting to look at too… Long story short: Never take anything in Digimon at face value!!!

Plus, me and James are also a fan of the idea that Rui was just "a child with a Digimon partner" and NOT a Chosen Child. Again, he has outlined this way better than I have, coming up with different groups of Digimon to be partnered with humans!

Plus, I still think of Rui as an unreliable narrator too, because they're all just speculating about the Digivice origin, even though there has been clear lore for it in the back...

#my two cents #meta #digimon adventure 02 the beginning #the beginning spoilers #personal #dgmn #answered #ask

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itsclydebitches · 1 year

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Anyone else find it odd that we got this whole table of the dead deal when, really, just Penny would have sufficed? Putting aside the fact that Neo shouldn't know half of what happened to these characters (she's reading from the same script that let Oscar know the wording of Weiss' wish), more than half of this group means nothing to Ruby:

Lionheart she met twice, the second time when he was trying to kill her and her friends. Ruby didn't even fight him personally. He dies in another room, out of sight, and last we hear of him it's through Yang's fury that Ozpin didn't rat him out as a traitor to the whole world - an anger Ruby isn't shown to disagree with.

Roman is an enemy from six Volumes ago. Though Ruby was (understandably) shocked when he was eaten in front of her, the trauma of that has had zero impact on her and, as she points out to Neo in this very scene, she recognizes that she wasn't at fault for his death.

Ruby never had a relationship with Clover. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. They might have as team leaders, but they didn't. Ruby sat with him in a truck once, not talking to him, and then she didn't fight him at the end of the Volume because he was busy dying off in the tundra. Does Ruby know he was killed pre-Fall of Atlas? She shouldn't.

Ozpin, technically speaking, isn't dead. Or rather, I should say Ozma isn't. I'd better understand the choice to have him here if we'd learned anything about Ozpin himself - meaning, Ozma's host pre-Oscar - but we haven't. More importantly, I likewise would have bought his presence if Ruby had maintained her wholesome student-teacher relationship with him (RIP I miss those days. Oh my god I miss them!! I might have to write some moreRWBY fic just to have that again 😭), but now Ozpin is just the lying manipulator she only speaks to for exposition.

Ironwood is, you know... the villain? The guy we were supposed to despise by Volume's end because he was a crazy dictator hell-bent on bombing a city? The scene even keeps his ~evil~ prosthetic arm, emphasizing that this is villain!Ironwood, not ally!Ironwood. Ruby lied to him the second they landed, said 'fuck you' over the call to Penny, sent her friends to jump him while she made a wish, and didn't look back as she dropped a city on top of him. Oh, and then Yang reminded her that only #bad people re-think their choices. So, why is he someone whose death she'd feel guilt over?

The ONLY people who make sense here are Penny and Pyrrha, with Penny taking center stage as the death Ruby just found out about. She alone would have been enough: a magical, semblance Penny who reams Ruby out for letting her die, again, too busy getting her ass kicked by Cinder to be of any use. We might have even done something interesting with Penny's sword. You know, the real one Ruby had for all of ten episode minutes before she let a bratty Prince throw it away? Give me Ruby wielding her dead friend's weapon - because clearly the show wasn't willing to commit to a Crescent Rose aversion. Just have it be lost all Volume. Why was this armorer introduced again? Shouldn't she have done something with a lost weapon?? - until fake!Penny horrifically calls her out on it. How dare you use that? How dare you use it against me? Give me an actual battle where Ruby is torn between defending herself against something she knows isn't real and flinching from hurting the friend she just lost, taking hits she would have been able to block if she was putting forth her all, a bloody, Maiden battle that goes on long enough that it makes sense when her semblance breaks.

Then, suddenly, Penny grows kind... it's okay, Ruby... if you just let go, drink the tea, we can be together again. Wouldn't that be nice?

The issue of this suicide metaphor aside, we could have gotten something legitimately impactful. Instead I'm scratching my head over this suddenly using Crescent Rose again, fiery "If you're looking for an apology, you've wasted your time!" still a prodigy, didn't fight in the last battle, didn't even walk very far Ruby collapsing because she fell from a chandelier. Meanwhile, the emotional kicker is that she's getting beat up by... people she hates? Who she barely knew? Who aren't even technically dead? Oh no, I've slashed Oscar, who I KNOW is back in Remnant, presumably safe in Vacuo. I know Ruby is at her breaking point, but the combination of 'Come fight me, Neo, I'm perfectly able to see that I'm not responsible for Roman's death!' and the lack of connection between her and 5/7s of the guilt crew really falls flat. Either give me a Ruby who illogically, but honestly believes that her presence makes everything worse - 'You're right, Neo... I could have saved Torchwick... done something, but I just sat there...' - or a Ruby who is still able to distinguish between reality and guilt... up until the copy of her newly dead friend drags her to emotional hell and back. Now that I've been able to think about it for a bit, what we got feels downright weird to me - an excuse to bring back characters/get them in the new engine, rather than any compelling reasons for why they're there.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas #I *do* love the screenshot I grabbed though #aesthetically this is on point #Neo's eyes in each of their faces and her creepy little smile?#love that #too bad it's attached to such a bad scene

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the-rewatch-rewind · 10 months

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I love Poe Party too much to feel like any words will do it justice, but I keep trying.

Script below the break.

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies of the last 20 years. And today I will be discussing number 13 on my list: Shipwrecked Comedy and American Black Market’s 2016 mystery comedy Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, directed by William J Stribling, written by Sean Persaud and Sinéad Persaud, starring Sean Persaud, Sinéad Persaud, Mary Kate Wiles, Sarah Grace Hart, Joey Richter, Lauren Lopez, Ashley Clements, Tom de Trinis, Blake Silver, and a whole bunch of other incredibly talented and underrated actors.

Edgar Allan Poe (Sean Persaud) wishes to impress the beautiful Annabel Lee (Mary Kate Wiles), so he enlists the help of his ghost roommate Lenore (Sinéad Persaud) to throw a murder mystery party for Annabel and a group of famous authors. But then guests start actually being murdered.

So, first of all, I realize that this isn’t technically a movie; it’s an 11-episode webseries available to watch for free on YouTube, which you should absolutely pause this podcast to do if you haven’t seen it yet (link in the show notes). But there is a feature cut that’s about an hour and 45 minutes long, and that’s what I counted as a movie. If I’d kept track of the number of times I watched each episode, I’m sure that even my least-watched episode would easily beat number one on this list. But as for the feature cut, I watched it 12 times in 2017, three times in 2018, four times in 2019, twice in 2020, and three times in 2021. To a certain extent, every movie on the Rewatch Rewind has changed my life in some way, but this one has changed my life to a degree that I would never have believed possible. Every single day of the last seven plus years of my life would have looked different if not for Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party. All of the guests I have had on this podcast who are not my siblings, I met either directly or indirectly because of this show. So fasten your seatbelts: this episode is going to be a ride.

My journey to Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, or Poe Party for short, or Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Invite-Only Casual Dinner Party/Gala for Friends Potluck for long, began years before the project itself was even written. In the late 2000s-early 2010s, my sister was relatively plugged into the YouTube scene, at least compared to me, and she first introduced me to a group called Team Starkid around 2009-2010-ish. At the time, they were a bunch of college theater kids who had put together a Harry Potter parody musical and on a whim posted it to YouTube, where it went viral, so they started making and posting other musicals – which they are still doing. I feel like I might still have discovered Poe Party if I hadn’t been a Starkid fan, but that definitely helped. A more crucial step on my road to Poe Party started on April 9, 2012, when my sister posted a link to a new YouTube video on my Facebook wall, with the message, “Fictional vlogs by Lizzie Bennet. (actually Hank Green.) There’s only one so far, but I’m kind of crazily excited for this!” Hank Green, of course, along with his brother John, is basically one of the fathers of YouTube. I don’t think I’d seen a ton of their videos at that point, but I was familiar with and liked them. And of course, I knew Lizzie Bennet was the main character in Pride and Prejudice, a story that I loved very much – more on that in a future episode. So I was also very excited for this new show, called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, but I could not have imagined the intense emotional journey it would take me on, through two short episodes a week (plus spinoffs) for almost a year. There had never been a TV show that I was more invested in than LBD. I was double majoring in college and working part time, but the main thing I cared about was these modern Pride and Prejudice characters. The show was clearly very low-budget, but I was blown away by the writing and acting. I was particularly impressed by the person playing Lizzie, Ashley Clements, and the person playing Lydia, Mary Kate Wiles. And, like, it wasn’t just me – LBD had a huge following for what it was. Not, like, millions of fans, but hundreds of thousands by the end. As the finale approached, the producers launched a Kickstarter to release the show on DVD and – ostensibly – pay significantly more to the cast and crew who had been incredibly underpaid. If you’re at all interested in hearing more about that, I highly recommend checking out The Look Back Diaries on Ashley Clements’s YouTube channel; she just did a whole deep dive into the show and its aftermath in honor of its 10th anniversary that I found fascinating. But anyway, coincidentally, right around that same time, Starkid also launched their first Kickstarter, since most of them had graduated from college and no longer had access to the same resources but wanted to keep making more musicals. So they were raising money for Twisted, a Wicked-style villain redemption retelling of Aladdin, which sounded interesting. I had never pledged to a Kickstarter before, but I backed both the LBD DVDs and Twisted on the same day: March 25, 2013, according to my emails.

After that, I kept following Starkid and some of the cast members of LBD, but not particularly closely. In early 2014, Mary Kate Wiles was in a webseries called Kissing in the Rain that I think I watched part of at the time, and I thought it was fine, but I wasn’t particularly into it (imagine, me, an aromantic, not particularly into a show about kissing!) and there was a lot of other stuff going on in my life so I honestly can’t remember if I saw all of it when it was first coming out. I definitely couldn’t have told you that it was on a channel called Shipwrecked, or even the name of the actor she was kissing. But in May of 2014, a new Kickstarter launched for a series called Muzzled the Musical, which was going to feature several cast members from LBD as well as Joey Richter from Team Starkid (Lauren Lopez also ended up being in it but I don’t think that was known during the Kickstarter). And I thought, whoa, cool, worlds colliding, and backed it. And promptly all but forgot about it.

A lot of strange, confusing, and rather upsetting things happened in 2015 that I don’t really want to get too deep into here, but I will say that in hindsight most of them had to do with a combination of amatonormativity and heteronormativity, and I started feeling pretty bad about myself. Before then I had managed to convince myself that I was too young to seriously fall in love anyway, but suddenly I was 25 years old and had never had any interest in dating anyone, and I felt like there was definitely something wrong with me. I didn’t exactly want to change, since I liked not dating, but I had always thought that that would just automatically change when I got older, and facing the fact that it wasn’t changing meant facing the fact that I didn’t know what the point of my life was. I liked my job but I didn’t want it to be my sole purpose. I loved movies, but that didn’t feel like it mattered. All my life I had taken in the message that finding a spouse and creating a family was what made the struggle of life worth it, and I felt lazy for not even trying to pursue that. I remember hearing at some point in my late teens that if you didn’t find your significant other in college, you needed to look online, but I didn’t even know what I would be looking for. And I truly don’t know where this line of thinking would have ended up if it had gone on much longer uninterrupted – I may have discovered my identity a bit sooner, or I may have ended up hurting someone by trying to pursue a relationship I ultimately didn’t want, or I may have just continued to spiral – but what actually happened was I got an email in late October that that random fantasy musical series I had backed on Kickstarter a year and a half earlier was being released on YouTube.

So I watched Muzzled, and it was very fun and silly, but the main thing I got out of it was, man I miss the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. So I finally opened that DVD set I’d gotten from the Kickstarter, and I binge-watched the whole show (I didn’t count it as a movie because there’s no feature cut, and also it is very long). And then I re-watched the whole thing with the DVD-exclusive commentary. And then I thought, I wonder what this cast has been up to lately, so I started searching for them on YouTube. And that’s when I learned that Mary Kate Wiles had been posting two videos per week on her channel for years, and I had been missing it. As I got caught up on her videos, I learned that I had just missed a Kickstarter for a musical she was going to be in called Spies are Forever, made by the Tin Can Brothers, which were a group of people who were also involved with Starkid, and that she seemed to be getting ready for a new Kickstarter with a group called Shipwrecked Comedy, the same people who had made that kissing show. They had also made a show called A Tell Tale Vlog about Edgar Allan Poe and the valley girl ghost Lenore who was haunting him, in which Poe had been played by Sean Persaud (the guy from Kissing in the Rain, who was apparently dating Mary Kate in real life) and his sister Sinéad (who was in the second half of Kissing in the Rain, which I definitely hadn’t watched before). Mary Kate had made a brief appearance in A Tell Tale Vlog as Annabel Lee, and this new show was going to be related to that, but bigger. I was so intrigued by this new project that I started supporting Mary Kate on Patreon to ensure that I didn’t miss any updates about it.

The Poe Party Kickstarter launched on February 2, 2016. By then, I had watched and enjoyed everything on Shipwrecked’s YouTube channel, but that Kickstarter video was my favorite thing they had made. I initially pledged the same amount that I had given to the Lizzie Bennet DVDs, thinking that would be my final pledge, but I ended up giving almost six times that much by the end of the campaign. Every $5,000 they raised, they revealed a new character and cast member with a poster, and each reveal made me more excited. Joey Richter was playing Ernest Hemingway?! Ashley Clements was playing Charlotte Brontë?! Lauren Lopez, who frequently played male characters, was playing George Eliot, a woman with a male pen name?! They got Jim O’Heir from Parks & Rec?! And then, as if the reveals weren’t enough, they had weekly 4-hour livestreams that I found incredibly entertaining. It had become clear that Shipwrecked Comedy now consisted of four people: Sean, Sinéad, Mary Kate, and Sarah Grace Hart, who had played Emily Dickinson in a stand-alone video and would be reprising that role in Poe Party. Various other cast members showed up in the streams with the Core Four, and I distinctly remember thinking, if these people are this entertaining to watch when they’re just hanging out, this show is going to be so amazing! In the second livestream of the campaign, they started writing people’s names on papers to stick on the wall if they pledged or raised their pledge during the streams, which was an excellent incentive, but I would have kept raising mine anyway, because I was desperate for this show to get made. Apart from a few weird troll messages, the stream chat was full of lovely conversations between people who seemed like my kindred spirits. I had never felt more at home in a community. And I had never been more excited than when the Kickstarter exceeded its goal.

And I’m telling you all of this because I need you to understand how astronomically high my hopes and expectations for Poe Party were. Some of the movies I’ve talked about so far ended up in my top 40 partly because I had fairly low expectations going into them and was pleasantly surprised, but that was absolutely not the case here. I had seen excellent work from several of the people involved before, and they seemed particularly dedicated to this project, and I knew they were going to make something incredible. I also desperately needed something in my life to go really well, and this seemed like it might be it, although I knew it wasn’t fair to put that kind of pressure on these independent filmmakers. I tried to temper my expectations, reminding myself that they had only raised a little over $72,000, and Kickstarter was going to take a chunk of that, and some of it had to go to perk fulfillment, so they weren’t going to have nearly enough to make anything super fancy. They released some prologue videos that were very fun but also very small, and I tried to tell myself that the actual show was also going to be small. And I kept reminding myself how long Muzzled had taken to come out, and that I was probably going to have to wait a while for Poe Party too, so I needed to chill. But then in late July – only four and a half months after the Kickstarter had ended – Shipwrecked released a trailer for Poe Party, which said it was starting in less than a month, and there was no tempering my expectations after that. The trailer looked fabulous. It was witty and clever and dramatic and intriguing, the music was perfection, and, shockingly, it looked like an actual studio movie. Not like a super high-budget one, but like they had at least a million dollars. Certainly way more than $60k. My already-ridiculously-high expectations soared to new heights. Part of me was sure I was setting myself up for disappointment, but I couldn’t help it.

And then it was August 22 and the first episode (Chapter 1: The Bells) dropped and it was so much better than I was hoping for. First of all, the look set the tone perfectly. The lighting was exquisite, and the location – incidentally the same house where Muzzled was filmed – was perfect. And then there was the writing. One thing the Persauds had mentioned during the Kickstarter was that they were inspired by the movie Clue, which will be featured in a future episode of this podcast, so I was expecting similar vibes to that, but I was not expecting there to be so many direct references to Clue. All of them made me extremely happy. It felt like the show was made specifically for me. It was like Clue, but even better. I already loved every single character and knew I would be sad to see some of them get murdered. It was also very clear from even just that first episode that this was going to fall into the “everybody was having way too much fun” category of film that I love. But while most movies like that tend to have pretty weak stories and just overall mediocre scripts, and the cast having fun makes up for that, Poe Party was different. The writing was fantastic, AND the acting was perfect, AND it looked gorgeous, AND everybody was having fun. Again, I tried not to have unrealistic expectations, I tried to tell myself that not every episode could be quite the banger that the first one was, but I was still incredibly excited for the rest of the show. And I was not at all disappointed. Somehow it just kept getting better. The running joke about everyone forgetting Emily Dickinson was there or who she was just kept getting funnier. Ditto the joke about George Eliot thinking she needed to convince everyone she was a man when everyone was clearly fine with her being a woman. I remember at one point, when around three or four chapters were out, Mary Kate tweeted that they were working on editing her favorite part of the show, and I thought, surely it doesn’t get better than what I’ve seen already. But it turned out she was talking about chapter 8, and yes, it absolutely was better. The constables, Jim and Jimmy – played by Jim O’Heir and Jimmy Wong – and everyone else trying to fool them, are so delightful to watch. Even though chapter 8 features probably the second saddest death in the series, it’s overall the funniest episode. This show touches an incredibly wide range of emotions and moods, especially considering it takes place in one house over one night.

I want to make it clear that I would still love Poe Party even if I’d stumbled upon it years after it came out, and even if I didn’t recognize any of the actors. The show is excellent enough to stand on its own. But being part of it from the Kickstarter, being familiar with some of the actors, and being online as it was coming out, certainly enhanced my enjoyment of it. Shipwrecked had a weekly “competition” of sorts where they would give a vague prompt and people would make fan art or write fan fiction and post it on social media (#PoePartyFTW), and each of the four members of Shipwrecked would pick their favorite to re-post. I wrote a fic after each of the episodes, and several of them got chosen by Shipwrecked, and I hadn’t felt that good about myself in years. I loved the show so much that I couldn’t confine it just into weekly fics; I was shouting about it on every social media platform. I also started weekly speculation Tumblr posts, using Clue references as my guide, many of which led me astray – I was convinced there must be a secret passage between the kitchen and the study that didn’t turn out to exist – but I did figure out part of the solution relatively early on. While the mystery aspect of Clue is ultimately nonsense if you think about it too hard, Poe Party actually tracks. And if you’ve listened this far and you still haven’t seen Poe Party, please go watch it now, because I’m going to start getting into story specifics and spoilers, and I think everybody should get to see it once without knowing what’s coming. (I’m also going to spoil some of Clue, so you could go watch that too if you want, although I don’t feel like Clue spoilers matter that much.)

In her episode of A Tell Tale Vlog, Annabel mentioned that she had started seeing a banker named Eddie, and then in the Poe Party Kickstarter video, she asked Edgar if she could bring Eddie as her plus one to his party. So Eddie (played by Ryan W. Garcia) shows up late to the party with Annabel, and then becomes the first murder victim. EXCEPT, spoiler alert: he’s actually NOT DEAD, and is, in fact, one of the murderers. And from the very first episode, I recognized Eddie’s similarities to Mr. Boddy in Clue, who is also not dead when you first think he is, and I was therefore suspicious of him from the get-go. But I was still very much open to any possibility (or so I thought) because the Persauds had done an excellent job of making everyone at least somewhat fishy. But there was one thing I was not prepared for, and that was the end of chapter 9. Because it absolutely never occurred to me that Poe’s beautiful Annabel Lee would die, and I’m honestly still kind of devastated about it, even understanding why it had to happen, and at the time I was almost inconsolable. Mary Kate Wiles had led me to this brilliant show, in which she played the kindest, most likable character, only to be brutally murdered? Some fans at the time had thought Annabel might be the killer, which I never did, and honestly I would have been kind of angry if she had been because we need to have more genuinely nice characters in things. I was upset that she died, but I would have been more so if she’d turned evil. (Not that I have anything against MK playing villains – I’m all for it, under the right circumstances. And thankfully the Persauds know when the right circumstances are.) And like, okay, I know I complain about too much romance in stories, but Annabel’s “It was always you” as she died in Edgar’s arms – that got me. Annabel had been planning to marry Eddie because he was more respectable than the unhinged poet she actually loved, and I think that that whole trying to fake the life you think you’re supposed to have thing spoke to me. I had been so tempted to try that, and this was almost as clear of a message as the constables’ “Don’t Do Murder”: Don’t Fake Romance.

At that point, I was pretty much convinced that Eddie must have had something to do with this; why would anyone else kill Annabel? Also, chapter 9 reveals that Annabel wrote the invite list, and I thought it made sense that Eddie, her boyfriend, could have told her whom to include, especially since it had already been established that most of the guests had some connection to Eddie. The prompt for that week’s Poe Party FTW competition was “Confession,” so I decided to try something different from the short stories I’d been submitting, and I re-wrote the poem “Annabel Lee” from Eddie’s perspective as if he was the murderer. And I know this episode is already longer than most of my solo episodes and I have a lot more to say, but I’m still proud of this poem (even though it’s not completely accurate, since it turned out that Eddie didn’t kill everybody), so I need to share it with you:

It was many and many a month ago,

In her cottage by the sea,

That I first read the words that Edgar wrote

For my girlfriend Annabel Lee;

And he said that she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by he.

“He’s just my friend and I’m just his friend,”

She quickly explained to me;

But we loved with a love which was worse than love –

I and my Annabel Lee –

With a love that was founded on secrets and lies,

Fueled by jealousy.

And this was the reason that, later on,

Faced with opportunity,

I took advantage of an offer made

To innocent Annabel Lee;

For when Lenore asked whom to invite

To that cad’s dinner party,

Annabel deferred to my input

Which I gave most willingly.

All authors, not half so worthy as bankers,

Who had e’er quarreled with me –

Yes! – they were the ones (no one would know;

I’d met them all secretly)

That Edgar would invite to his house that night,

At the behest of “his” Annabel Lee.

For our love it was weaker by far than the love

Of vengeance I carried in me –

Of justice toward those who’d wronged me –

And neither the psychics who bring back the dead,

Nor the cops fresh from Academy,

Can hinder my murderous plan; no one can!

No, not even my Annabel Lee.

As I watch them point fingers I find my gaze lingers

On the beautiful Annabel Lee;

When they mention invites, she suspects, knows she’s right,

Out the door runs my Annabel Lee;

Can’t let her get away: who knows what she might say?

So I kill her – I kill her – my eleventh kill today.

Instead of revealing me,

Her last breath says it was always he.

So yeah. I was deep into this. But then nobody in Shipwrecked chose it that week, and I thought, okay, maybe it wasn’t that good, or, maybe my theory is laughably far off the mark. Maybe Eddie’s too obvious. Maybe he really is dead. Then in chapter 10, Charlotte Brontë confessed, and revealed that her sister Anne had been there the whole time helping, and at that point I was pretty sure Eddie was also involved again. We clearly saw that Annabel’s killer was wearing pants, unlike either Brontë sister. And then it was Halloween and the finale finally arrived, and I was right about Eddie, but I was still completely unprepared for how awesome that final chapter would be. I think there was still a small part of me that didn’t believe it was possible for the end to live up to the buildup of the first ten incredible chapters. But it absolutely did. The finale was everything – everything, I say – that I wanted it to be and much more. The evil slow clap. The revolving villain trio of creepy neck touching. The flashbacks. The fights. The pet rock’s revenge. The literary references. And of course, the surprise reveal of Jane Austen, played by Laura Spencer, who had also played Jane Bennet in the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. The episodes were posted at 9 am on Mondays, when I was at work, so I couldn’t watch them right when they dropped, but after the first one I couldn’t wait until I got home either. My work’s wifi blocked YouTube, and I had an extremely limited data plan at the time, so on my lunch break I would walk to the McDonald’s down the street and watch the new episode using their wifi. And when the camera panned to Jane Austen, it was all I could do not to yell “OH MY GOSH IT’S LAURA SPENCER!” in that McDonald’s. I definitely audibly gasped, but I don’t think anyone noticed. The thing is, I would have still been blown away by the finale without that extra surprise. But that’s what Shipwrecked does. They make things that can appeal to a wide audience, and then they sprinkle in some extra treats for people who have been following them for a while. Of course, LBD was not a Shipwrecked project, but finding Shipwrecked through LBD is a fairly common path. And I’m still so impressed with how well they kept Laura as Jane Austen a secret. As a Kickstarter perk, I’d had a video chat with the Core Four that summer, and I’d mentioned that Jane Austen was my favorite author, and I was disappointed that she wasn’t going to be in Poe Party, and they were just like, “Yeah, we thought about including her, but we figured she would be too similar to Charlotte Brontë,” and betrayed not a SINGLE HINT that she was, in fact, in the show. Which is another thing Shipwrecked does: make a very specific, deliberate plan about what to reveal when, and stick to it.

As another example of that, the Poe Party Kickstarter had reached a stretch goal to produce an epilogue. I had completely forgotten about that, but other backers remembered and started asking about it after the finale. Shipwrecked was pretty cagey with their answers, but then directed us to a mysterious Twitter account that was dropping strange clues. I watched as the Shipwrecked fan Facebook group decoded them and ultimately unlocked the epilogue a day before it was released publicly. The epilogue is not included in the feature cut, and now I don’t really think of it as part of the show. Chapter 11 ends so perfectly – Poe stares at the floor as the heartbeat grows louder, a floorboard creaks, fade to black: chef’s kiss. But at the time I was feeling so many overwhelming feels about this show that I desperately needed that epilogue. I was so utterly relieved to see Annabel and HG thriving as ghosts. And I was so thrilled to be surrounded by such a great fandom, who all worked together and helped each other to solve the puzzles – it was a beautiful weekend. And it was also the last weekend before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States and I had to face the fact that the country was more broken and divided than I’d wanted to believe, which definitely adds to my nostalgia for that epilogue adventure.

The show may have ended, and the world may have been falling apart faster than usual, but I could not have gotten Poe Party out of my head even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. For over a decade I’d been searching for something that felt like a classic movie, but with some modern sensibilities, and these independent filmmakers had made exactly what I was looking for, zillions of times better than I’d imagined it. That clever, witty dialogue, perfectly delivered by quirky characters, almost felt like it came from a 1930s screwball comedy. But it also felt fresh and new and different from anything I’d seen before. It had so many similarities to Clue – in fact, I taught myself how to make gifs, or [other pronunciation] gifs, in order to highlight specific parallels between Poe Party and Clue – and yet remained unique. Where Clue was mostly just comedy, Poe Party was comedy, tragedy, romance, and intrigue, and absolutely nailed all of those. (Sadly no ravens, though, they didn’t have the budget for that.) Anyway, the series held up shockingly well upon rewatch, and I could not get enough of it. And despite the socially anxious part of my brain that remains convinced that everyone always is annoyed with me, that I have nothing worthwhile to say, that I should just shut up and stop bothering others with my existence – people seemed to like what I was posting about Poe Party. Other fans would engage me in conversation, and I started making internet friends for the first time. And, shockingly, the members of Shipwrecked seemed to genuinely appreciate what I was saying as well. After the finale had aired, Mary Kate reblogged my Annabel Lee poem on Tumblr and said, “I legitimately thought this was brilliant, and only didn’t choose it that week because of spoilers. Every single fic Jane wrote for this ftw has been wonderful, and I have so enjoyed them all, but this was above and beyond.” And maybe it sounds like I’m just boasting at this point, but the reason I’m sharing this is because a year earlier I had felt like a failure of a human who had no place in the world, and now this incredible actress/producer I greatly admired, who had just made my new favorite show, was saying that I had enhanced her experience of releasing it. People were liking and appreciating me, just for being myself and enthusiastically enjoying a movie. And I no longer felt like I was supposed to change who I was.

In early 2017, I got the rest of my Kickstarter perks, including behind-the-scenes goodies that featured not one but two fabulous commentaries. I love them both, but the second one is particularly chaotic in the best way. Ashley Clements and Ryan W Garcia, true to the villainous characters they played in the show, keep derailing the conversation and it’s incredibly amusing. The commentaries are over the feature cut, so many if not most of the views that I counted were with one of the commentaries. And I also bought the feature cut without commentary so I could show it to other people and still count it on my list. Now I tend to watch it episodically because I want the Shipwrecked YouTube channel to get more views for the algorithm, although I’m not sure that actually helps. But anyway, the feature cut and commentaries and other bonus features are still available to rent or buy on shipwrecked.vhx.tv, which I will also link in the show notes, if you’re interested.

Also in 2017, the first episode of Poe Party was shown at a festival near me, so I got to meet the Core Four members of Shipwrecked and some fans in person. That was very exciting, but I was also extremely nervous, although I didn’t need to be. The Shipwrecked people were so lovely and actually wanted to talk to me and the other fans who were there. And then I got to see Poe Party win some awards, which was awesome. And then a few months later, Shipwrecked launched another Kickstarter, and I pledged even more to it than I had to Poe Party even though the goal was lower, and then they kept making more stuff and I kept supporting it, and also continued to love everything they made (yes, even the Fart Feud with the Tin Can Brothers). I continued to support Mary Kate on Patreon, and I also started supporting other cast members on Patreon, like Whitney Avalon who had played Mary Shelley and does a lot of her own stuff on YouTube, and of course Ashley Clements, as I’ve mentioned previously, and as soon as Shipwrecked finally got their own Patreon, I was all in at the top tier. And, like, I don’t want to go on about this too much, because I do truly believe that I would love their work even if I’d never interacted with them, but I don’t know that I’d be quite the die-hard, take-all-my-money-to-make-more-things Shipwrecked fan that I am, if I hadn’t had so many wonderful interactions with the members of Shipwrecked over the years. I didn’t set out to become friends with them, but I kind of have – although I still feel a little weird and presumptuous to claim that. I feel like this will sound to some people like an out-of-control parasocial relationship, but like, it’s not that, because they do know me. Other people in my life have referred to Shipwrecked as “the people you pay to be your friends,” but it’s not that either: I give them money so they can keep making things, and we also happened to hit it off as friends – which again feels like a presumptuous label, but I can’t come up with a more accurate word. They make what they love and I love what they make, so it’s not that surprising that we’d get along. And for similar reasons, it’s not surprising that I’ve made so many very close friendships with other Shipwrecked fans. Our love for these projects brought us together, and then turned out to be far from the only thing we have in common.

I feel like I’m talking way too much about my own personal experiences, I’m so sorry if this is boring. Back to Poe Party itself. I’ve hinted at it already, but I need to emphasize again both how incredible the script is, and how amazingly the cast brought it to life. The story was so well thought out: every scene, every character, every moment was there for a reason. Like, I thought George Eliot disguising herself as a man was just a nod to female authors having to use male pen names, but then that turned into an important clue that led to the Brontës. Yes, you can poke plenty of holes in Poe Party if you want to – not all of the characters based on real people were actually alive at the same time, some of the technology is anachronistic, etc – but none of that stuff really matters. It’s clearly meant to be silly and fun, so you don’t really need to know what year it is. But the fact that they managed to write something silly and fun that didn’t completely devolve into absolute nonsense is so incredibly impressive. Sean and Sinéad wrote an absolutely brilliant script, and then they assembled the perfect cast for it. Every actor is on the exact same page about what this project is, and they each know exactly how their character fits in. Even when they’re in the background, everyone is giving 100%. I want to especially shout out Joey Richter, since Ernest Hemingway is drinking all night, and Joey did a tremendous job of tracking how drunk he was supposed to be. By the finale he’s having to slap himself to stay awake in the background, and it’s hilarious. Everyone else is also a delight to watch, and I feel like I’m still noticing little background moments I hadn’t clocked before. There aren’t very many close-ups, which I think was mainly because they didn’t have the budget for the time it would take to shoot them, but it works perfectly because a lot of the funny moments become even funnier when you can see multiple characters’ reactions at once. If you’re watching the background acting closely enough, you may notice a few instances of people almost breaking, but personally I just choose to interpret that as the characters finding it difficult to keep it together when other characters around them are being silly, and who can blame them? I appreciate that the writers and director trusted the cast enough to let them play around and improvise, because some great ad-libbed lines ended up in the final cut, and many more went into the best blooper reel ever, which is 24 minutes long and I love every second of it. There are some moments from the bloopers that I find myself saying sometimes when I’m watching the actual show – Ashley’s “Don’t be mean to me!” is probably the one I quote the most.

There is definitely romance in Poe Party – the whole reason for the party is because Edgar is in love with Annabel. Lenore and HG Wells develop feelings for each other over the course of the evening…until he dies. And several other characters flirt with each other. But none of the romances end well, and throughout the story, there is a lot of emphasis on friendship, and acquaintanceship, and other types of relationship. And that’s a running theme in most of Shipwrecked’s projects. There hasn’t been a kiss in any of them since Kissing in the Rain. Of course, much of the Poe Party fandom was, and is, into shipping characters with each other – for any listeners who may not be terminally online, shipping characters means that you want them to be in a romantic relationship with each other. I joined in somewhat, mostly because I felt like I was supposed to, but I couldn’t have articulated that at the time. And, as I mentioned earlier, I was particularly fascinated by the Eddie/Annabel dynamic, but I was only able to fully comprehend how much I needed the “don’t fake romance” message in hindsight. This show and its fandom made me feel less alone and adrift, but I still didn’t figure out I was aroace for a few more years. Although it was friends I made in the Shipwrecked fan community who first really helped me understand and accept that part of my identity, so I can still say that Poe Party was an important step on that journey.

I want to say so much more about this utterly brilliant show – I don’t feel like I’ve even come close to doing it justice here – but there truly are no words to adequately express my love for it. It still holds up nearly 7 years later, but Shipwrecked has come a long way since then. When their most recent webseries, Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story, was about to come out, they said it made Poe Party look like it had been done by a bunch of kindergarteners, and I was upset at the Poe Party slander, but once I watched that series, I understood what they meant. Headless is so far above and beyond, but unfortunately it came out too recently to make it into my top 40. Currently they’re releasing an audio narrative called The Case of the Greater Gatsby, which should be on the same platform you’re listening to this on. That is a sequel to their short film The Case of the Gilded Lily, which I will be discussing in a future episode. I really hope that someday Shipwrecked gets the level of recognition they deserve – their fandom is still relatively small, although we are mighty and devoted. At the very least, I hope that the current strikes will help enable them to make a living from writing and acting.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched movies, or at least attempt to. Following this will be a two-way tie of movies I watched 25 times, both of which feature Cary Grant, my favorite leading man apart from Sean Persaud. As always, I will leave you with a quote from the next movie: “Hi! Mellow greetings, ukie-dukie!”

#poe party #edgar allan poe's murder mystery dinner party #shipwrecked comedy #the rewatch rewind

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