#i have no idea how coherent this is but this scene has been living rent free in my head for months
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I have (a lot of) thoughts on KJ meeting Lauren.
The scene opens on a long lens, wide shot of KJ clearly trying to covertly scour the cinema for someone. The use of a long lens and it’s blurring of the background is used primarily to position the audience with KJ and to externalise KJ’s subjective experience; the focus is fully on KJ’s emotional state. The fliers for cinema membership geographically grounding the audience and sets up the expectation of a confrontation between future KJ and KJ – as the audience is fully aware of future KJ’s presence at the cinema. Alongside the till the mise-en-scene serves as a physical barrier between the past and the future; the film iconography a continual representation of KJ’s future. Reinforcing the idea of a confrontation. As the focus shifts, from an emphasis on KJ in the foreground to Future KJ & Lauren in the background, we are positioned definitively with KJ being fully immersed in her subjective POV. Reinforced by the shift from a non-diegetic, tense soundtrack – highlighting KJ’s anxiety – to the emphasis on Future KJ’s and Lauren’s conversation, matching KJ’s focus on the pair.
The use of a close up on KJ’s expression before cutting back to Future KJ & Lauren primes the audience’s attention to the casual touches and intimacy they share, with the lingering touches and the way they both staying reaching for each other even as Future KJ breaks away. It also adds a dimension of voyeurism to the scene, further entrenching us in KJ’s point of view. Notably, the camera remains fixed even as Future KJ leaves, this subverts the audiences’ expectations with the focus staying trained on Lauren. This unexpected focus others KJ from the paper girls, not only in terms of her sexuality but also in her rejection of a confrontation with her future self.
The sense of voyeurism is reinforced by the continual cutting to the close up of KJ, emphasizing her reactions to the audience as she takes it all in and physically psyches herself up before approaching. This is where the performance really shines, as we see these small moments of anxiety: such as the purposefully slow folding and placing away of the leaflet almost acting as an attempt to drag out and delay the confrontation for as long as possible. Gestures like this reinforce the importance of the ensuing conversation and are a naturalistic and subtle way to highlight KJ’s (understandable) fear. The soundtrack builds, aurally representing her rising anxiety & fear which is contrapuntal to the mundane visuals of Lauren browsing for food. This is then immediately contrasted by the cowboy shot of KJ approaching, showing her attempts of feigning confidence. The retention of the long focus showcases how internal KJ is at this moment, how streamlined her focus is on Lauren and nothing else. The tense music also fades away into an ambient diegetic sonic wallpaper, representing her getting out of her own head and back into reality.
The camera then shifts to a wide low shot of Lauren browsing, with the Kubrick film posters in the background a reminder of the importance of this space as a shared space for Future KJ and Lauren. KJ’s physical entering into the scene showcasing a tentative acceptance of her future, however the poster board in the middle acts as visual divide between the pair and symbolises the divide between the past and the future. This framing also allows for an obvious visual parallel between Lauren who immediately softens at the sight of KJ and KJ herself who is visibly tense and on edge the entire time.
The small talk is exclusively about the movie, drawing a greater connection between KJ and her future self as film becomes this shared language they have with Lauren. Throughout the scene Lauren is framed using the long lens, subtly indicating that this is KJ’s perspective still, with the continuous warm hues of oranges contrasting the cooler blue palette behind KJ. This makes Lauren appear softer, friendlier, more inviting, showing how KJ is actively looking for reassurance, guidance and comfort following her realisation – especially as she hasn’t fully accepted everything yet. It’s notable that this warm palette stems entirely from the cinema itself, reiterating how cinema will grow to be a constant reassuring presence in her life.
The use of editing is used to add a poignancy and urgently, stressing different parts of the main question. The use of lingering shots shows Lauren’s expectancy and the patience she affords to KJ, allowing both the time to properly articulate themselves. The cutting of the dialogue between the shots also adds a sense of poignancy to the scene, the breaking up of KJ’s line between them not only adds a more fluid and dynamic feeling to an otherwise static conversation but also adds specific emphasis to different parts of the question. For example, the split of “how did you know”, on a close up of Lauren with “that you were someone who felt this way” as the shot reverses to KJ. By splitting the dialogue in this way, it stresses the importance of specific lines and the relevance to that character. Editing is also used to represent the difference in acceptance between the two, with each of KJ’s close up dialogue reiterating the code word of “movies”, whilst this is absent for the dialogue over Lauren’s close ups as she is comfortable with her identity doesn’t have the need to hide behind innuendo and code words.
Lauren’s adoption of KJ’s paraverbal communication – stressing the word ‘movies’ emphasising its role as a code word - subtly signals to KJ that she knows what they’re on about but also a recognition that KJ isn’t quite at the point to openly acknowledge it. It’s such a small moment of consideration and tenderness that makes the conversation so resonant. There’s also a direct parallel drawn sonically between the pair, with both KJ and Lauren faltering initially to verbalise and articulate their thoughts, with the same amplified breathing and stuttering. However, unlike KJ who becomes physically smaller, withdrawing behind her gestural tick, as Lauren takes a deep breath, she physically becomes bigger, more confident, dominating more of the frame. Lauren’s speech is far more measured than her ramblings before betraying the amount of consideration and importance she’s placing on this – how seriously she’s taking KJ in a way that few others before have. Another interesting parallel between KJ and Lauren is their use of body language, both rely heavily on gestural ticks and hand movements, as if the ideas and emotions are too big, too important to be confined to just words. These small gestures and performance choices give the whole scene an incredibly naturalistic and nuanced performance, allowing for greater emotional resonance. The close up of KJ slowly nodding rhymes with the comic interpretation of this scene – a moment of quiet reflection (“oh that’s why”) - as well as giving both KJ and the audience to decompress and sort out their feelings.
When future KJ is introduced, it’s done in a reversal of our introduction of Lauren earlier – this time with KJ in focus whilst Lauren remains blurry in the foreground - establishing future KJ and Lauren as a complimentary pair. This also creates a moment of dramatic irony and tension for the audience as unlike KJ we are fully aware of her future self approaching, reviving the expectations of a confrontation between both KJs. It also means that the focus stays firmly on this KJ and her emotional headspace. Notably, the background is a lot sharper and more in focus, symbolising how after having had to process KJ is closer to acceptance, more confident, more self-assured. Furthermore, the movement of the two KJs is paralleled with the confident, slow strides of future KJ directly contrasting the more skittish, abrupt movements of KJ as she runs away (this is also another rhyming moment from the comic with KJs realisation being paired with running away from people in both). The cut to the mid shot of KJ abruptly leaving also marks the first time throughout the scene that we as the audience are aligned with anyone other than KJ – instead we’re now aligned with Lauren and her confusion. With KJ’s approach over becoming more focused as Lauren shifts her attention back to her present, this is reiterated by the film posters in the background becoming more prominent once again.
tldr: It's very cute and we see how much Lauren is accomodating KJ throughout the whole scene ((:
#paper girls#kj brandman#ramblings of a fool#i have no idea how coherent this is but this scene has been living rent free in my head for months
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gallavich questions
thanks for the tag (and the questions) @callivich !!
What’s a fic you’ve read more than once? intro to quantum dating by @spoonfulstar, i think i've read it 3 or 4 times now, it's one of my all time favorites
What’s a gifset you always have to reblog? anytime i see a gifset from that one s5 deleted scene, yeah that one, i have to reblog
What’s a headcanon you can’t stop thinking about? i have a very specific headcanon for a tattoo ian gets post-canon for mickey, and i hesitate to even explain it now bc i think one day i do wanna write a fic about him getting it, but whatever--my headcanon is that he gets an M tattooed on his left ring finger and it's a subtle yet sweet nod to his husband. (i could talk about this for 9 hours but i will limit myself and stop here)
What’s a fanart you love looking at? i've spent an obscene amount of time staring at this fanart by @doodlevich it just checks all my boxes (domestic, husbands, fluff, etc.) and it's so well done, i'm obsessed with this pieces
What’s an idea you’d love to create if you had the time/inspiration? listen, i have this idea for a rock band au that lives rent fucking free in my head, and if i can find the time and the inspiration to actually turn these vibes and unorganized plot points into actual words and a coherent story in the new year, then maybe it'll see the light of day in 2024 but no promises. for now, i leave you with this: four milkovich siblings are in a rock band that is rising to success with the launch of their second studio album and subsequent tour, and ian gallagher is lead singer mandy's (fake) boyfriend--at least in the eyes of the public--and he spends some time that summer touring with the band and hooking up with their lead guitarist in secret until the band's manager/father catches wind of what's going on behind closed doors
What’s something you’ve discovered since entering this fandom? A new trope you love? A different analysis of the show? Something else? i've always been a post-canon enthusiast for almost all of my ships, but i think before gallavich i always envisioned them with a very cookie cutter standard american dream family with the house and the careers and the 2.5 kids, which usually fits a lot of my ships, but with gallavich i... don't have that same vision ?? i think they're actually my first ship that i hc more often than not without kids in their post canon life, which is a new vibe for me entirely but i kinda love reading/writing it. idk if that answers the question you asked, but it definitely answered a question
What’s an underrated trope or concept you’d like to see more of? honestly i want more s9/10 prison era gallavich fics (and/or fanart). i think it's a gold mine era with so much untapped potential, and there are very few fics/series/whatever that really get deep with it and get to the good stuff of these two boys who haven't spent any significant time together in years but still love each other like they did way back when
What’s your favourite season? And has this changed after multiple rewatches of the show? it flip-flops for me between s4 and s5, like right now i think it's s5 but idk if i could actually pick one or the other as my absolute favorite
What’s a plot hole you wish had been answered or resolved? i would give my left arm to know how the fuck (and why the fuck) mickey started rolling with his dad again in post-prison s10 era, like in 10x08 he's going to terry for advice on how to protect ian, just for terry to try to kill him again 3 episodes later ??? make it make sense john wells i'm under your bed
What scene or moment do you feel isn’t discussed enough? personally i think the promise ring scene in 10x09 is criminally underrated and not talked about nearly enough, like you don't understand how happy that scene made me (stay with me here) seeing mickey stand up and fight for the future he really wants with ian and not settling for anything less
What line/dialogue/description from something else (a poem, a book, a tv show, a movie, or something else) do you feel describes Ian and Mickey’s relationship? can i do song lyrics? i'm gonna do song lyrics--i've always thought the song godlight by noah kahan was very gallavich, especially the chorus, and especially during s4/5/6 era and it may or may not be a piece of inspiration for my big bang canon divergent fic
What do you think is next for Ian and Mickey post-finale? i think they take a while to really settle into their new place and and make it their own, and it's a bit of an adjustment (for both of them) to fit in with this new crowd and this new environment, but they're learning how to grow and evolve together and at the end of the day that's all that really matters to the both of them
tagging: literally anyone who wants to play bc my brain is tired and i am too tired to try and remember everyone i probably should tag
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This scene has been living rent-free in my head for a month and I have thoughts
"The word you're looking for is unnatural, meaning, not from nature... Freak, or monster, would also be acceptable."
(Dr Bashir, DS9 5x16)
I'm sure it's been said before, but the FEELS of this line-
To me, it sounds like Julian's reeling off a list of things he's been told he is. In any other situation, I'd assume he'd been bullied about his enhancements with these words and internalised them; but his enhancements were secret, so that doesn't fit here.
Which then made me think these are words Julian's collected from hearing about historical enhanced figures and then bullied himself with. Whether he heard them in a lesson, or in a friend's conversation, or even took it upon himself to research views of enhanced individuals, he seems to have learnt that genetically enhanced humans are freaks and monsters, and therefore so is he.
But I also looped back to the idea of his being bullied - (and I haven't watched past this episode so there may be something later to discourage this theory) - and I don't think it's too wild a guess to make that at some point he was. He's presented in the show as someone who just can't stop talking, who doesn't get social cues, who's "annoying"...it's not exactly a stretch to imagine a kid being bullied on those grounds.
(Nor is it a stretch to take these traits, among others, and headcanon that Julian Bashir is autistic. Many have, and it makes a lot of sense. And it works its way well into my little fiction.)
So as a kid, Julian is too smart and too loud and too eager. He has special interests coming out of his ears and learns everything he can about all of them, that's just the way his brain works. (That's what the teachers tell him, anyway, when some other kids call him names. They tell him lots of children are like him.)
((I can't decide if he's told he's autistic or not. On one hand, it's a convenient excuse for his parents to hide his extraordinary smarts behind. On the other, I cannot imagine them meeting the suggestion with anything but disdain and a snide "there's nothing wrong with our Jules", seeing as they're ableist af. But I imagine at the very least - with a little research and a couple of decent teachers - he must have had his own suspicions by the time he was a teen.))
I'm digressing - I apologise, at some point these thoughts became too long and meandering to be completely coherent. Right-
Too smart and too loud, his seemingly boundless knowledge is deemed as unnatural and freakish by his classmates. (When you're 7, any knowledge greater than your own seems pretty boundless.) And of course this was upsetting, and not easily forgotten. But as you grow, you do learn that people can be mean for little reason, and that whatever others think, it's perfectly okay for your brain to work differently.
Until you learn that it's not.
And here's where Julian Bashir realises that his childhood bullies were right about him. His academic abilities are unnatural and freakish (and, he will later learn, make him a monster). Because the line between "being able to learn everything that interests you because that's how your autistic brain works" and "being able to learn everything that interests you because that's how your genetically engineered brain works" is impossible to see. (Especially if your oh-so-caring parents take away the first option because "we made your brain perfect Jules, there's nothing wrong with you".)
Boy, that was a really long way of saying imagine if Julian was bullied for being autistic but ended up believing it was because of his augments and therefore that the bullies were right.
#julian bashir#autistic julian bashir#julian bashir headcanons#the bashirs' a++ parenting#ds9#ds9 5x16#dr bashir i presume#augment julian bashir#genetically enhanced julian bashir#star trek#my trek musings#WSB
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im sorry im sorry im sorry i know it’s been well over a year but i accidentally thought about Short Trips: Deleted Scenes (again) and it’s killing me (again) so i think im just gonna go ahead and post all these stupid thoughts that have been plaguing me about it since i first heard it & maybe that’ll help clear up some space in my head for like, real life things.
Spoilers I guess? It’s like a year and a half old but also high key the most recent 2nd doctor content i believe we’ve gotten which is like, the only negative thing I can say about it
The TLDR version is this:
I literally cant believe how sweet it is? Painful, but sweet. Like. I don’t honestly know what’s more likely - did they set out to write Jamie a nice little straight love interest and just fail miserably at it by constantly likening her to the Doctor AND paralleling the Doctor’s perspective with her ex’s AND putting Jamie’s relationships with both of them in direct tension with each other while constantly letting his with the Doctor win out?
OR - did they do a very 1960s thing and say hey we’re gonna write what’s essentially a story about how much Jamie and the Doctor love each other and release it on Valentine’s Day thinly disguised as a one-off romance with a french lady?
Now, as a general rule, my attitude toward questions like that is usually “don’t know, don’t care, doesn’t matter” - and while I 100% stand by that, I also have to admit that this particular audio seems to pay enough attention to detail that I’d kind of think I was selling it short if I assumed too many of these things were just meaningless coincidences, you know?
Anyway, that’s the most coherent/overarching thought. And here’s a disorganized list of things I absolutely cannot get over about it (they don’t form any kind of argument, mind, they just all happen to live rent free in my head):
- Celine is first taken in by Jamie being an idiot (specifically him claiming not to speak French, in perfect French); likewise, her entrance in the scene where they actually kiss is marked with a little anecdote about her hat getting stuck on a doornail and her scolding it as she attempts to fix her un-tameable appearance, and the narration says Celine “would often clown for Jamie like this” - all of which, while undeniably adorable, don’t exactly strike me as entirely original traits to have been assigned to Jamie’s love-interest (but also Celine is so cool and her perspective on film/media/time is an excellent addition to the long list of dr who characters)
- When they’re in the present, describing Jamie’s relationship with Celine in 1908, they call him her “companion” and highlight his going nearly everywhere with her, which earns a laugh from the 4th doctor (and me as well, though probably for slightly different reasons - but like, is that really all it takes to have a fling with someone in 60′s era who? bc if so...)
- Celine’s ex-fiance is still in love with her and is jealously watching when she kisses Jamie ... and then the Doctor appears beside him, evidently doing the exact. same. thing. They have the following conversation:
“You know, it’s not prudent to spy on people. But then, people in pain can’t be expected to act prudently.”
“Pain, monsieur? You mistake me.”
“Ah, do I? Good, because I rather thought you’d lost something.”
“What would you know about loss monsieur?”
- I’m sorry doc but who do you think you are, saying stuff like that and smiling sadly at the floor to boot? I 100% had to pause it here the first time I listened, just to not throw my laptop across the room.
- Then when I recovered continued, the Doctor closes the door so they can’t watch anymore and explains “Possessing things comes so terribly easily to some men that losing them can feel cruel, intolerably cruel. In my experience, only the very best of men cannot be tempted to answer that cruelty with more - I do sincerely hope that you are the best of men.” (guess who gets described as the best of men by the end of the audio?)
- Jamie and the Doctor apparently develop a habit of walking along the river in Paris in silence
- During one such walk, Jamie suggests Celine come with them since she already figured out about the Tardis - and when the Doctor’s worried by this, he says he only allowed Jamie & Celine to grow closer “because of Victoria.” Jamie takes offense at the ‘allowing it’ comment and also refuses to admit he knows what the Doctor means about Victoria, which leads the Doctor to say that he knows how fond Jamie was of her - he was too, of course, but with him, “it was different, wasn’t it?” Jamie only says maybe that’s true and maybe that’s not, but his voice catches until he changes the subject
- Jamie doesn’t see Celine for days both times that she’s recovering from the shock and depression of her work being destroyed. In contrast, when the Doctor’s not well, Jamie’s "afraid” and “guilty” and hardly seems to leave his side at all, if his being there “rushing to embrace him” the second he wakes up - after a period Jamie describes as “at least a week” - is anything to go by, anyway. so either bf writers need to learn how to write a committed straight relationship or admit that’s not what they ever intended in the first place
- Oh yeah, and the Doctor spends that week "asleep” in Jamie’s bedroom - no, there’s no explanation as to if that’s where he was when he first collapsed or if it’s where Jamie decided to take him bc why would they feel the need to explain him being there? why was it even relevant to tell us it was Jamie’s room in the first place?
- The Doctor somehow manages to control the Tardis enough to take Celine on one trip to an alien planet and then return to the correct time & place for her to use the footage she recorded there in her new film - and while the audio doesn’t do very much to explain how that was possible, it does treat this as A Pretty Big Deal, and immediately afterward the Doctor has to spend a week communing with his past self (and/or the Tardis?) debating how likely it is that the Time Lords could use this to trace him. When he decides it’s not worth the risk and they have to stop the film from ever being shown to the public, Jamie asks why he agreed to it in the first place, and all he can say is “Because, Jamie, you asked me to!” earning awkward stares from the crowd.
- Oh, but, lest we forget, that little outburst is also immediately followed by him putting his arm around Jamie’s shoulders, and, shockingly, apparently beginning to actually explain the truth about the danger from the Time Lords - until they’re interrupted, of course idk why exactly but the idea of a 60s dr wanting to come clean with a companion but not being allowed to bc the show demands the war games be something of a reveal hurts me in a very good way
- The mental image of “the Doctor and Jamie, resplendent in borrowed evening wear”
- The audio admitting that Jamie’s not very good at subterfuge, and the Doctor asking if he’s going to be alright with them having to steal the film back from Celine - and Jamie’s little “Aye, Doctor” as he feels a ‘glass arrow piercing his chest’ glad to see bf is reading all my letters about exactly how i feel any time something sad happens to james robert mccrimmon
- The Doctor’s anxious to get out of there for obvious reasons, but he hangs around bc Jamie wants to see Celine again - which doesn’t happen, because of her aforementioned shock & depression, but she does leave Jamie a note that ends “you and that Doctor of yours - look after him Jamie, he loves you dearly, as do I.” yeah, if you didn’t want people to draw a parallel there, you could’ve picked, like, any other wording in the world.
- In case you weren’t fully convinced I’ve been reading too much into this whole audio already, consider this: Celine dies in Long Island in 1968, three days before her birthday - 1968 is when this story would’ve taken place in the show’s history (between Fury & Wheel), and dying three days before/after a birthday in America seems a bit... well I had some deja vu from it, anyway
- Four of all people being the one to bring back the film - I know he does it bc Sarah Jane makes him, but personally, I often feel like despite the length of his run, 4 is the Doctor with which we might’ve gotten the fewest glimpses into his interiority, so the fact that it’s him and not one of the more overtly sentimental Doctors makes it feel like it carries even more weight somehow, to me anyway. I think I wrote a post saying roughly the same thing about 4 & Fate of Krelos/Return to Telos but maybe I only did that inside my own head lol. Still, I’m all for any opportunities for Jamie to be one of the few characters to draw some noticeable emotion out of Four, but in fairness I haven’t touched too much of his EU stuff to really be able to compare the frequency with which this happens with other past companions
- Is Four referring to Two or Jamie when he says he got the film from “an old family friend”? Two did the actual stealing, but he probably means Jamie’s involvement - either way, it’s an interesting way of describing old companions - or selves?
- When Jemima goes to call Jamie a thief, Four is “roused” to defend him: “he really was the very best of men” again, any time four freely shows he cares about someone, im over the moon about it
- Oh ha ha, there’s an audio called “Deleted Scenes” featuring the Doctor who’s most affected by junked episodes. And at the end of it, a character who’s spent her life researching and lecturing about a lost film gets to watch it be ‘rediscovered’ after it’s gone unseen for decades. I feel marginally less stupid for reading into the other details of a story like this when it ends up deciding to be to be clever & slightly meta like that
But yeah
all in all, it’s kind of amazing to me that this genuinely reads like they sat down and said okay boys it’s valentines day, let’s write an audio where jamie kisses a girl, since that hasn’t happened except as a plot device in one story in 1967 - but then when they got down to business they accidentally(?) wrote a story all about how important his bond with the Doctor is and how easily that can be compared to a legitimate love interest (even if the love interest in question is a one off character & the extent of the relationship appears to be like one kiss & then having Jamie spend most of his time around the Doctor instead)
I realize there’s something slightly illogical about writing the words “shipping aside” after a post like this but seriously - no matter how many categories you’re able to see two & jamie’s relationship fitting into, this is 40 minutes of big finish just hitting you over the head with how powerful/special/important that relationship is, and with them being two of my favorite characters, i really haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since
#jamie mccrimmon#second doctor#big finish#Short Trips: Deleted Scenes#yes i am gonna tag this#two/jamie#i think it earned it with the line from celine's letter if nothing else#and quite possibly the doctor's so-called imprudent & pain-driven spying#but i'll leave it at that#in case anyone's looking at the tags to decide if they should actually read this rambling monster of a post#also if you for some reason read this but haven't listened to the audio -#a) that's kind of you to care what i have to say but#b) you could probably have listened to half of it by now lol#did i mention it's a stand-alone audio that only costs $3?#and it's more of a traditional audio book format with one narrator who voices all the characters?#sorry i wasn't ready to do a bf pitch in the tags here#i genuinely dont know why someone who hasn't already heard it would bother to read all this#but if anyone has - thanks?#i'll shut up now so you can get on w ur day :)
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DEANCAS FIC REC
(last updated 7/1)
FINALLY. this is like. just a place for me to rec and write excessively abt the fics i've been reading lately. it won't be organized but it WILL be very earnest and i'll keep it updated as i find/remember more. also i have obnoxiously high standards when it comes to fic so these ARE the cream of the crop, if u will. the god tier. the s tier.
very loosely organized into "newer fic" and "classics." these are subjective categories. do what you will
✨ = new fic on the list
💖 = in my brain rent free!
CURRENTLY READING
these are the fics that i’m currently reading! may or may not get recced. usually i read the first couple paragraphs/lines and if i like the writing it gets bookmarked and put on this list.
lazarus needs a robe of scarlet thread by herrosesneverfall, 90k, canonverse au. dean starts getting stigmata. when i was getting back into spn there were a LOT of religious fics flying around bc that was the Hot Topic of Discussion. this was one of them
Three weeks ago, Dean woke up in a pine box. He thought dealing with the nightmares was going to be the most difficult part of his new life after Hell, but at least they were something he could understand. Something he could deal with. Something he deserved.
Then he began having agonizing visions of crucifixion. Wounds appeared on his body out of nowhere. Wounds that refused to heal and coated his skin with the sickly sweet smell of roses.
Stigmata are said to be the marks of saints, but Dean is not a saint and the wounds are only the beginning.
kingdom come by ahurston, 8.7k, coda to 15x18. cas gets to go home. im gathering all the s15 fix-its to my heart and holding them close
Cas wakes up on the coast of Maine. He makes his way home.
hunger by ellispark, 10.8k, s13 au. dean grieves cas, post s12 finale. perfect writing perfect awful heartwrenching characterization so far on dean’s end especially towards jack. nuanced emotional writing
Dean takes his meal and throws it away, plate and all. He's not hungry. How can he even begin to eat, knowing what he kept from Cas — what he kept from both of them?
They could have had something, and now all Dean has is this gaping, empty hole in his stomach, in his chest, and he has to learn to breathe and eat and move around it.
the law of equivalent exchange by awed_frog, 60.8k, canonverse. cas loving dean in all permutations of humanity, throughout time.
“And what’s the point of it?”
“Of love? There isn’t one. Loving is its own purpose.”
NEWER FIC
“newer” just means “i discovered it in 2020/2021 after coming back to spn fandom” so it very well could have been published before 2015 but really who’s checking. not me that’s for sure.
💖 so says the sword by komodobits, 85k, s4 au. cas guards the michael sword in the beautiful room. this is easily the MOST obvious rec on this entire list but it was the first fic i read when i got back into spn this year and jesus christ it set the bar sky fucking high. the way they create a coherent mythology out of the mess that is spn canon is incredible.
The briefing was simple: ‘Stand guard over the Michael Sword until the battle is ready to commence. Await further instructions.’
Castiel doesn’t mind working security duty; he was briefed shortly after the initial salvation of the Sword from the pit, and again before taking up his position. He knows what to do. However, it’s easy to forget that the green room isn’t real. Time moves differently there, the space ever-changing to make a prison of mountains, cathedrals, salt flats, orchards, and whatever Castiel was led to believe about Heaven’s greatest weapon—Dean Winchester is something entirely unexpected.
assimilation by komodobits, 5.6k, coda to 12x01. mary meets dean and cas and they go to find sam. such good character studies of all three of them. the best mary pov fic i’ve read
Mary always thought you were supposed to be able to tell. That you could just look at someone and know they were – you know. One of that sort. It’s not supposed to happen to her son.
cuckoo and nest by komodobits, 10k, ambiguously canonverse. dean and cas navigate relationship anxiety. cute, in character, and their relationship is realistic and the conflict well-written and emotionally nuanced and really really really good.
For a long time, Castiel thought that every earthly possession other than the immediately necessary was excess to requirement. But Dean – Dean who named his car, who keeps a photograph of his mother in his wallet, some thirty-plus years after her death, who still has the crumpled ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign with a sleeping pelican emblazoned on it from the Microtel outside of Roanoke where he first kissed Castiel, clumsy and unsure, under the unsteady fluorescence of an exhausted bathroom bulb – is sentimental.
It puzzles Castiel, where Dean draws the line between what is meaningful and what it is worthless.
💖 one white lie by komodobits, 11k, au. cas panics when trying to ask dean out and has to fake being a jehovah’s witness. it’s adorable and hilarious and it’s been ages since i actually got butterflies at a kiss in a fic but this did it. it did it. it felt like someone swaddled my soul in a cashmere blanket and kissed me on the forehead
Castiel takes a deep breath and rings the doorbell. He doesn’t need to run through what he’s going to say – he’s already planned and edited and rehearsed it a thousand times. He is going to ask Dean Winchester out to dinner. If it’s not too forward, he’ll say, perfectly charming. You see, I’ve seen you around the neighbourhood and you always seem so earnest and I’d really like to get to know you bette— The door swings open, and Castiel panics.
He intends to excuse himself. He means to apologise and come back some other time. However, in a moment of blind fear, what comes out of his mouth instead are the words, “Could you spare a moment for Jesus Christ?”
a crash course in someone else’s history by annie d (scaramouche), 11.5k, set during s6. cas comes to as his s4 self without any memories of the past two years and has to figure out what the fuck is going on. it’s kind of like so says the sword. you’ll know it when you get to it.
Castiel is captured inside a trapping circle of holy oil set by Dean and Sam Winchester. The brothers call him "Cas", claiming that he has amnesia and that he is obligated to help them take down Crowley to atone for his betrayal of them. It's the strangest story Castiel's ever heard, and one he doesn't have time for because he's only just raised Dean from Hell and has work to get back to.
💖 cas and dean’s adventures in gardening by ahurston, 19k, post-canon au. a series featuring dean and cas living in the bunker, human. cas is very into plants. i read this yesterday actually and it made me smile SO much it’s just so lovely and sweet. i’m also a sucker for any fic where cas has a garden. he deserves a fucking garden okay
In this post-God world, everything is different. A little quieter, a little softer. Cas grows a garden, Dean cooks, and they take care of each other.
tall grass by aeli_kindara, 57k, post-s12. dean and cas live in the bunker on their own, and cas grows a garden. i did say i love fics where cas has a garden. plus domesticity, plus some good case fic, PLUS dean and cas’ relationship is so gentle and good
“I think we should have a garden,” Cas says.
Dean looks up from his beer. He hasn’t had that much to drink, but Cas still has a vague look of unreality about him, a splash of living color that doesn’t fit in the bunker’s echoing stillness. Dean didn’t hear him coming. A lot of the time, Cas is so unobtrusive it feels like Dean has the bunker to himself, with Sam away.
Dean shakes his head to clear it. “A — garden?” he repeats.
in a week by renrub, 2.3k, post 15x18. cas is in the empty. dean saves him. this is genuinely the best “dean pulls cas out of the empty” fic i’ve read so far like conceptually this entire thing just fucks. when cas is cycling through the barn scene. god. SO well written
Castiel is outside a barn covered in sigils. He frowns. This isn’t right. This has never been something he repented for.
i won’t even wish for snow by annie d (scaramouche), 5.6k, college au. cas goes to the winchesters’ for christmas. honestly scaramouche fics belong in the classics section bc she’s like an og deancas writer but whatever. mistletoe! banter! good in-character au! this fic’s got it all
It’s the third year that Castiel’s spending Christmas with his best friend’s family, and he expects it to be much like the previous two. Then mistletoe happens.
convenient husbands by annie d (scaramouche), 39k, canonverse au. cas is a phoenix, dean is a hunter. they get married and have a sick psychic bond. unexpectedly fluffy considering how the fic starts and i love the banter so much and dean/cas’ relationship gets fleshed out and organically developed it’s very cute
"It's only temporary, right?" Dean says. "Just until you're healed up, and then we'll never have to see each other again. So what do you say, Castiel, do you want to marry me or not?"
cinderwings by bendingsignpost, 181k, cinderella au. cas goes to a masquerade ball to save his people from an eternity trapped in a void. he meets prince dean. i can’t tell u how much this fic drew me in - thru good worldbuilding, but mostly thru cas’ social awkwardness. like it works PERFECTLY to his advantage in this fic and reading how expertly he manipulates social situations w/o any fucking idea what he’s doing is both hilarious and inspiring
Under the cover of a masquerade ball, Castiel has five nights to recover the key to his people's freedom. The world has changed greatly in the six centuries since their banishment into the void, but the task isn't impossible. Unfortunately for Castiel, this is going to involve talking to people - especially the Knight Prince who has taken an interest in Castiel and his "costume" wings.
as the crow flies by bendingsignpost, 3.4k, au. dean and cas go on a roadtrip. cas has wings! it’s so dreamlike and meandering and the slowburn is so good. honestly it reminds me of stevebucky/stevesam post tws era roadtrip fics if ur hip LMAO
Cross country road trips with Cas are the best.
long-term relationship by bendingsignpost, 2.7k, au. dean and cas have a Serious Conversation about their relationship.
Castiel says, budging over to make room for Dean on the couch, “I thought we should have a serious talk about our relationship.”
Reflexively, Dean laughs.
Castiel does not.
“Uh, Cas... you know we’re not dating, right?”
all this and heaven too by ftmsteverogers, 7k, ambiguously canonverse. dean is trans. dean and cas are fucking and lowkey hiding it from sam. perfect character study PERFECT trans dean fic it’s so fucking well-written
“Hey,” Dean said. “I’m not ashamed of you, okay?”
Cas raised skeptical eyes to meet his.
“I mean it,” Dean insisted.
“I understand you mean it,” Cas said. “But I don’t think it’s any better if you’re only ashamed of yourself.”
💖 the love story of the runner up by margo_kim, 4.7k, ambiguously canonverse. cas tries dating other men. bear with me here. this is an outside pov fic from an oc named miguel who is WONDERFULLY characterized and very endearing like i find outsider/oc pov to be on Thin Fucking Ice bc it always ends up as fandom/author self-insert but miguel is his OWN MAN. he gets his own lil arc and everything. dean and cas are concentrated perfectly crystallized versions of themselves and the little glimpses we get of them are amazing. ALSO i wrote like 9k of an spn vent fic (basically the same premise but w an oc named marcus) back in like. freshman yr of hs. so when i first opened this fic i was like what the fuck someone’s been in my google docs. very weird experience 10/10 regardless
“So you saw a white man in a trench coat pop out in an alley,” Paul says, “and you thought, what, ‘I want to see where this is going’?”
“If you get hung up on details like that,” Miguel says, “it will take a very long time to get through this story.”
For a very weird era in his life, Miguel dates an angel who is in love with another man.
sunshine by northernsparrow, 8k, set during s13. dean and cas have a long conversation about their Profound Bond. the description left me off-balance (it really. really truly says “dean is straight in this fic” like okay bro WEIRD hill to die on) but it pulled through w the relationship study and reassurance and snuggles. a sweet fic
One-shot with a single conversation between Dean and Castiel, set in a late-S13-ish world. Gabriel, Cas, Sam & Dean are all living in the bunker together, Gabe's been cracking certain jokes, Sam's found a certain book, Cas is injured and isn’t healing... and it's all making Dean wonder if his angel friend might have some sort of a "bond" with... somebody? Whatever that means.
Maybe it's time for a talk.
💖 still life by catchclaw, 16.5k, post-s8. cas, newly human, goes to live on his own for a while. he and dean maintain a relationship thru the phone. this is LITERALLY the only first person fic i fucking respect okay like i was skeptical! i really was! but the pov is PERFECT and also my man kevin tran is in this fic and i love him and miss him very much. oh and cas going off to explore humanity on his own..............perfect arc. very much in character we love that for him
Dean'd always thought that falling in love was a capital letter kind of thing, an Important Event you carved into the calendar of your life and never, ever forgot. But with he and Cas, it wasn't that simple.
it’s mostly cowardice, and bad timing by ferritin4, 1.6k, pre-canon. actually this one is just a dean study it’s not deancas but i spent an entire night looking for it and i need someone else to read it too. dean is smart!!! SAY THAT
Dean gets his GED.
a list of reasons the bunker shouldn’t get a sofa by lizbobjones, 5.6k, set during s12. sam and dean and mary and cas haul a sofa back to the bunker. cute domesticity and fluff
Let me count the ways that this is a terrible idea.
no kingdom to come by domesticadventures, 16.8k, canonverse. dean and cas deal with being stuck in quarantine in different ways. this is the one and only quarantine fic i’ve read and it’s really good lmao. dean and cas’ relationship is so organic and tentative in this one
“We should fuck,” Dean says.
Cas looks up from where he sits on his bed, hair still damp from the shower, frowning as he places a finger on the page of his book to mark where he left off.
There are a million things Cas could say here; Dean has rehearsed them. After lunch, his restlessness had given way to a vague panic, a dread that matched his every step and crept along with him from room to room. Eventually, he had returned to his bedroom and spent the rest of the afternoon pacing back and forth, playing out all the possible scenarios. When Cas asks him Why? or Are you being serious? or when he sighs and says, in that way he has, Dean, he knows exactly what he’s going to do. He’s going to shrug casually, like he isn’t invested in the answer, like he isn’t desperate for an outlet, and say, Why not? He’s going to raise an eyebrow and say, What, are you not interested? He’s going to crowd into Cas’ personal space, he’s going to shove himself right up in there and whisper Cas against his ear.
Instead, Cas says, carefully, “Okay.”
till the juice runs by deathbanjo, 8.4k, canonverse. it’s like dean’s being cursed to have bad hookups with men. SUCH a funny fic and the deancas tension is so simple and sweet and GOOD. plus cas is so enjoyably characterized here he’s so human and worn in and experienced in his own unique way. perfect use of rowena too
Apparently whoever drew up the venn diagram of Dean’s sex life decided the circle labelled ‘good sex’ and the one labelled ‘sex with men’ should be kept far apart.
turn of the year by kototyph, 3.9k, canonverse au. sam and dean get stuck out in the middle of nowhere on the winter solstice. what i wouldn’t give for a full 80k of this verse actually. also i went on a kototyph binge after reading shut up put your money where your mouth is and they have a SOLID spn repertoire
Fifteen minutes later, Dean gets back in the car with empty hands and ice in his fucking eyebrows. “Get the map out,” he says through chattering teeth, sticking numb fingers under his arms.
Sam holds up the battered 1995 Rand MacNally they keep in the side pocket, turned to a page of uninterrupted green. “We’re going to die,” he announces.
💖 bullets in the gun by kototyph, 4.9k, canonverse au. cas is a cop (i know. still) who gets kidnapped by dean in an unfortunate turn of events. GOD this fic is SO FUNNY. cas’ canny and strategic escape attempts render him a very active VERY funny pov character plus the hate attraction to dean is PERFECTLY WRITTEN VERY BELIEVABLE. dean’s kindness also shines thru even as he literally holds cas hostage like!!!! PERFECT characterization. both of them are so LIKABLE here. if you read anything on this list read this
“Sorry, sweetheart, but I’m going to need to borrow your car.”
as you will by kototyph, 1.8k, victorian au. cas endures a proposal mishap. it’s cute it’s funny it’s sweet!
"No?" Castiel echoes, dumbly.
and if i was looking too? by kototyph, 2.6k, au. cas is undercover where dean works. this fic is just so cute like. bird angels.................
There are some things Castiel hasn't told Dean, and there are some things he doesn't need to.
the most important thing by northernsparrow, 94.5k, s10 au. amnesiac cas raising claire until he comes across someone familiar. claire is so well characterized here i really loved her arc thruout this fic. she just wants her dad back and u can’t even blame her the author rlly does an amazing job creating realistic and heartbreaking motivations for her. oh and dean and cas (esp cas characterization!) are sweet in this but honestly the highlight IS claire for me
Jimmy Novak remembers nothing of the last six years. Reunited with his troubled daughter Claire, he's struggling to raise her on his own. The most important thing is to make Claire happy. But why does he keep having these dreams of wings, and of two men in a black car? (Canon-divergent from S10E11, when we first met Claire again and Dean was still struggling with the Mark of Cain. Takes places several months later).
there’s only one sure thing that i know by blinkiesays, 20.3k, post-s5. dean goes to help cas out in ohio and they end up building a home together. i love the writing it’s rlly funny and sweet.
Dean doesn't even get halfway through explaining before Bobby starts laughing. When he lets himself think about it for more than five seconds, Dean can almost see Bobby's point: he's faced down demons, witches, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, angels, and Satan himself and now he's been defeated by the God damn Midwest.
💖 to an angel, love and worship are the same thing by geminisage, 10.3k, post s15 fix it. dean grieves cas - and then cas gets brought back back from the empty. i didn’t have this in my bookmarks so i MISSED it the first time around on this list but this was another one of the fics i came back to spn fandom to. it’s so fucking unique?? it actually reads like spn like i think fic tends to soften dean/cas up and makes them more emotional + emotionally intelligent than is ever shown in the show. here the dialogue/characterization adheres RIGOROUSLY to their communication in canon in that dean’s not overtly emotional, and cas is very reserved. they have to negotiate their relationship exactly like they would in the show. it’s all clipped conversation and anger and hurt and (warning btw) LOTS of internalized homophobia on dean’s end but it’s SO worth it. dean navigating his [GESTURES VAGUELY] everything is compellingly written, emotionally true, and PERFECTLY characterized. cas characterization also amazing like u rlly feel the quiet devoted bittersweet love. ok this was long clearly it’s a good fic go read it now
Just as Dean knew they would, the weeks do stretch into months, and then into a year. Grief never gets easier, Dean knows from experience, but you do get better at it. After all, you can get used to anything.
the violin house by teh_helenables, 8.5k, post-s5. dean and cas build a home after stull. so slow and lovely and sweet and gentle. i need to put this here so that i don’t forget it tbh. it’s very much dean as a war wife cas as the husband away on the front
The Apple Pie Life is a slow process, but Dean and Cas are getting there—until Cas is called for battle and Dean is forced to wait.
💖 muscle memory by komodobits, 18.9k, au. amnesiac cas wakes up three years in the future with dean in his kitchen. komodobits DOES NOT FUCKING MISS!!! i CRIED at the end of this i had NO INTENTION OF CRYING the rest of the fic isn’t even SAD i just had to sit there at the end of it w tears dribbling down my face. INSANE work of art
Dear Castiel,
Hello – it’s Castiel. This must all seem very confusing, and I’m sorry for that. Dean says to tell you that this isn’t some kind of ‘time-travel stunt’, although I’m sure that won’t be your first thought. I know it wasn’t mine. I’ve told Dean to leave now, as this is my notebook and I want everything in it to come from me – or rather, from you. I know you think it's the fifteenth of January, 2010, but it isn't. At the time of my writing this, the date is the fourth of October, 2013. Dean Winchester is your boyfriend of a year and a half, and you no longer work at the library, and in early 2010 you were hit by a car and hospitalised. I’m sorry.
a.k.a the 50 First Dates Dean/Cas AU where Castiel wakes up on a day just like any other, except that three years have passed without his knowing, and Dean Winchester is in the kitchen wanting to marry him.
don’t forget the experience points by annie d (scaramouche), 10.8k, au. cas is sam’s work friend, and he and dean get to know each other. genuinely an adorable fic. i adore cas’ characterization in this it’s snarky AND awkward AND confident in a way that i absolutely believe he would be if he had 30 yrs of human life under his belt
It's because Dean was an awesome brother than he took such an interest in Sam's new friend. No, really. What happened afterwards was mostly an accident.
actus fidei by manic_intent, 5.6k, canonverse au. dean’s a priest, cas is still his angel. i was HOOKED from the description alone like That’s Everything I Love in One Sentence. Cool!!!!!!!!!!!!
On the very first time that Castiel manifests in front of Father Dean Winchester, he gets as far as "Rejoice, for you are blessed-" before Dean shoots him with a salt-loaded shotgun.
not with a bang but a yelp by strange_estrangement, 1.4k, canonverse. team free will leave yelp reviews. this isn’t d/c actually it’s just a crack-ish fic but the formatting is cool and the references are SO funny and so well done
What happens when you visit dozens and dozens of motels every year? You leave Yelp reviews.
the courtship of combat by bendingsignpost, 18.2k, medieval a/b/o au. cas is politically coerced into fighting in a courtship melee for prince dean's hand, and he teams up with two unexpected allies to do it. I KNOW HOW THE ABO THING SOUNDS but i swear it's done well - it's by bendingsignpost so ofc he puts his own spin on the premise. im absurdly into it. PLUS jack is in it!!!!!!! it's technically an unfinished series but the first part is so good just on its own
When pressed upon to mate for a political alliance, Commander Castiel dares to refuse his king. As “I do not wish to mate at all” is clearly the wrong thing to say, Castiel takes the other path and lies. “You must know my affections lie elsewhere, my king.”
King Michael studies Castiel’s face long and hard. Then, with a nod, he snaps his fingers, pointing to Castiel. “The Winchester omega.”
“Yes,” Castiel says with no real recollection of who that is.
The ruse of an unavailable omega works well enough, right up until that omega is no longer unavailable. Then, with what seems to be his entire nation cheering him on toward victory, Castiel must enter the melee to win his mate. Backed by allies, training, and his own natural talents, the only question is how well he can contrive to fail.
four letter word for intercourse by bendingsignpost, 194.7k, au. dean calls a sex hotline. OH BOY solid characterization excellent plot/premise like bendingsignpost is so good at turning absurd premises into realistic, believable fiction. also sex hotline fic is usually a BIG turn-off bc of the power dynamics/one-sidedness of a relationship based on sex work but. BUT. bendingsignpost does it well! it’s not weird at ALL i started reading and was immediately reassured abt its intentions and its plot direction
As a grease monkey turned college freshman, Dean's constantly three seconds away from being stressed out of his mind. It hardly helps that he's finally figuring out his sexuality in his thirties.
What might help with that stress is a little phone number (and a big credit card bill). If he can't figure out how to be bisexual in person, he can at least give it a go over the phone, right?
(It's probably a bad idea, but he really can't help himself.)
the tunnel of love by xylodemon, 21.4k, post-canon. case fic! dean and cas have to kiss on a loveboat to solve a case >:)
"We might," Cas starts slowly, pausing like he's choosing his words. "We might have to kiss."
Dean just stares at him.
when you have a future. by firebog, 17.6k, post-s8. dean and sam and cas learning to be human post-apocalypse. reminds me of robotmango’s writing! it’s kind of eccentric and very very sweet and funny.
Sam closes Hell. Castiel closes Heaven. The heroes save the day. There's no Heaven or Hell waiting to cause the next big disaster. There's no more end of the world. There's only a squirmy feeling in his chest that feels a lot like freedom. So, now what?
(Things I promise you in this fic: dog poetry, rabbits, and fluff)
six inch heels by alitneroon, 2.3k, canonverse. dean does drag! excellent fucking character study. prose is fantastic
Dean does drag on a whim, and ends up in way over his head.
sharing is caring by gateskeeper, 2.5k, canonverse. five times dean and cas shared something and one time they didn’t. look. sometimes u just need some saccharine tropey fluff. it’s VERY well written
Sam knows that Dean and Cas have shared a lot together, but ever since Cas became human permanently, it seems like they've been sharing a lot more.
Or: five times Dean and Cas shared something special and one time Dean refused to.
💖 empty spaces by schmerzerling, 60k, au. dean has to take care of his dying father, and takes up running to cope. that’s just the beginning. HEAVY trigger warnings for ED (specifically anorexia) and suicidal thoughts. there is a happy ending, but dean has to fight to make it there. god. okay. this is a dark fic. it’s also one of the most well-characterized fics i’ve ever read. dean’s spiral is excruciatingly accurate and written with the kind of wry compassion that comes from either extensive research or extensive experience. it’s also completely immersed in dean’s perspective - dean’s relationship w his dad, dean’s relationship w food scarcity, etc. it’s incredible. it’s kinda scary. it’s deeply sad. cas is explicitly autistic and it’s ALSO incredibly accurate and loving, and makes cas so true to his canon self. ugh. and i burst into TEARS at some of the accompanying art, which is so sparse and lonely and beautiful. 100/10 experience one of the best fics i’ve read this year
Dean is fine. The way he sees it, things are simple. He had a house and a family and food in his stomach, and now he doesn't. And yeah, that's a downer, but he's not going to let that stop him from being fine, because he's in control of the situation. He definitely doesn't need anyone to save him. And it's not like the weird guy with the nice butt from down the road is the knight-in-shining-armor type, anyway.
broken road by thegeminisage, 109.6k, 14x13 au. dean makes a wish and gets more than he bargained for. a lot of “john comes back” fics are kinda short on nuance, which this author has talked about a lot - and oh MAN does this fic deliver on nuance. john’s abuse is absolutely present, but his pov makes him a complex character instead of a flat caricature for dean to reject. and the way this fic resolves really makes it clear that the priority is dean’s emotional well-being over all else!!! this isn’t about dean taking the path fandom thinks he should take w his abuser (killing john, punching john in the face, etc), this is abt dean coming to terms w his abuse and finding his own emotionally satisfying way of resolving it. also dean and cas are in an established relationship and it’s very slow and sweet.
A 14.13 Lebanon rewrite. When Dean uses a wish-granting pearl to try and kill the archangel Michael before he can escape the cage in Dean's head, they instead wind up with a newly-resurrected John Winchester.
It's been more than a decade since John died, and a lot has changed: Mary is alive, Sam and Dean have what passes for a proper home in the Men of Letters Bunker, and they're living with angels. John doesn't know angels are real, he doesn't know about the fragile new relationship between Dean and Castiel, and most of all, he doesn't know that Dean said yes to Michael, or that Dean's plan to defeat Michael would send him to a fate worse than death.
Now Dean must contend with both his father asking questions he can't answer, and his loved ones learning about the darker truths of his childhood, all while constantly battling the archangel trapped inside him. But Dean coming to terms with his history may be the difference between this being the beginning of a journey—or the end.
home is not a place by imogenbynight, 6.8k, post-s11. human cas struggles with belonging, and dean struggles with their relationship. this reads a lot like komodobits’ cuckoo and nest, but it’s its own sweet little thing. they watch movies!!! very cute
In which Dean is the oblivious one for a change.
love: a retrospective by xylodemon, 40.7k, post-s12. dean tries to deal w cas’ absence after s12 and reflects on their relationship thru the years. this was written before s13 aired, so - no spoilers - but jack plays a different role than he ends up playing in canon. it’s kinda fun seeing ppl’s theories pre-s13 tbh. makes me VERY glad that they took jack in the direction they did in show. anyway this is THEE definitive “they’ve been fucking all along” fic
Pretending Cas is just his friend has been the only thing keeping Dean's head on straight for years. He never realized how much doing that depended on him making himself scarce in the morning ─ not until Cas came back and moved into the bunker.
✨💖 if it all fell to pieces tomorrow by spocklee, 37k, post-s15 fix-it. cas gets broken out of the empty - and he immediately makes a break for it. new fave fix-it!!!! the writing is so understated and so straightforward - SO in character for cas tbh - that every single emotional beat feels like a PUNCH. and there are so many amazing character moments it made my chest seize the fuck up!!!!! perfect characterization perfect relationship moments perfect cas/jack parenting moments. the yearning over the phone is OFF THE CHARTS and spocklee makes the most of that tension!!!! PLUS old canon characters get to make fun appearances!!!!! i cannot recommend this shit enough
After the Empty, Cas has to spend some time alone. Orpheus tries to convince Eurydice over the phone that it’s okay to turn around now.
✨ before and after breakfast by spocklee, 10.5k, post-canon. dean and sam and cas tackle a monster of the week case with unexpected consequences. perfect pov perfect relationship moments SUCH GOOD TENSION. again this writing style just lets the tension dial up to 1000% every word is meaningful and it makes my chest hurt!!! spocklee SHOULD have blown up during the spn renaissance and i STAND by that
The monster of the week is a ghost who hates meat, alcohol, and feeling yourself. Guess who it is during the commercials.
CLASSICS
isn't it cool how every person has diff fics they consider "classics?" anyway these are required fucking reading. if u've been around these will prob be old news.
💖 asunder by rageprufrock, 23k, au. dean and cas go to sam's wedding. i reread this once a year like a religious ritual.
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Matthew 19:6)
💖 the girlfriend experience by rageprufrock, 15k, set during s5. dean teaches cas how to be human. mostly the sex part. literally the gold fucking standard of s4-5 era deancas fic and for deancas fic in general, personally
While it's not like Dean hasn't had a couple of truly regrettable hit-and-runs in his sexual history, this is probably the saddest fucking thing that has ever happened to him.
okay, cupid. by orange_crushed, 4.5k, au. dean tries to sign up for an ok cupid profile and has a revelation. as soon as i put this entry down i realized this entire fic rec was an exercise in futility, because if i could i'd literally just rec everything orange_crushed/robotmango has ever written. still one of THEE best authors in this fandom. go read all her fics. i’ll put the highlights here
"The dating thing?" Dean frowns. "Online dating is for weirdos. Robots. Dudes hanging out in their basements."
"You hang out in your basement."
"I have an air hockey table down there,” Dean says, icily.
💖 pwp: pie without plot by orange_crushed and majorenglishesquire, 82k, post-s8. sam and dean and cas quit hunting for a little bit to open a bakery. this is my comfort fic. i love it so so much.
he is in the kitchen with flour on his hands and an apron and there is flour on his forehead and cas leans across the counter and wipes it off with his thumb and dean says "thank you" and cas says "you’re welcome" very seriously and later dean makes apple turnovers and he only ruins them a little and sam realizes it’s not a real hunt like four days into it and he lets dean stay undercover for like a week and a half or longer maybe way longer because he is such a good everything
💖 la cucina by orange_crushed, 4k, post-s8. dean gets into cooking for a newly human cas. it's so gentle and loving and kind and makes me tear up every time. YES food is a comfort item and expression of love for dean. no i don't want to talk about it
Dean turns around and Castiel is picking through the jars, turning them over carefully to read the labels, totally engrossed. Dean watches him.
"Is there," Dean says, "uh, anything in there you like?" Castiel looks up at him and then back at the apples, sitting in a basket on the counter in their golden skins, ripe and pretty. Castiel smiles up at Dean.
"I don’t know yet," he says.
today, your barista verse by orange_crushed, 13.6k, coffeeshop au. a series of short sweet lovely fics where cas is a barista and dean is a smitten customer. literally the only coffeeshop au i respect
"Is that-"
"My number," says Dean, because he's a fucking champion, he's cool, he's collected, he's Captain Smooth of the USS Smoothtania, that's right. He is definitely not leaning against the counter for moral support. Cas doesn't looked seduced or impressed, though. He does not look like a dude who just met Captain Smooth and wants to ride the loveboat. He looks puzzled.
fata morgana. by orange_crushed, 6.6k, post-s9. dean is the king of hell. bela and cas team up to find him. bela pov. yeah you fucking heard that right BELA POV. BELA AND CAS!!!!!!!!!! makes me lose my mind i love everyone in this stupid desolate fucking hell wasteland.
The endless asphalt and broken road, the empty land and piles of human garbage, the unwanted ends of life, the cracked toys and broken screens and burning cars and gravel. Dean Winchester is the king of hell.
"Oh," says Bela.
That changes certain things.
💖 gran fury. by orange_crushed, 5k, pacific rim au. sam and cas pair up in a last ditch mission to save the world. permanently damaged me at age 15 and i've never recovered. major fucking angst warning.
They sit in silence and Castiel passes him the bottle. There’s not much left to say. Sam takes a gulp and it burns going down, like the cheap shit it is. He holds the bottle up against the light. He can see the Fury through it, distorted like a funhouse mirror. She’s a tomb but Sam loves her. Loves everything that’s left.
"To the end of the world," he says.
"To the end of the world," says Castiel.
💖 shut up (put your money where your mouth is) by kototyph, 24k, au. dean and cas get drunk married in vegas. dean renovates cas' house. this fic is SO MUCH BETTER than i remembered/expected and the entire series is fucking adorable go read it RIGHT now
Dean's done some pretty stupid things, but getting drunk-hitched in Vegas to a colleague he barely knows might just take the cake. His surprise husband, Castiel, is a little weird but likable despite that, and Dean figures they’ll go back to Boston, get a quiet annulment, and go their separate ways. Six weeks later, he’s still married to one of the strangest, most genuine and definitely most dangerously lov-- likable guys he's ever known. Dean doesn't know why or really even how it’s happening, but it’s getting harder and harder to remember that he has divorce papers to file.
not part of the plan by annie d (scaramouche), 338k, arranged marriage au. cas is slated to marry a noble from the winchester house. things spiral out of control. if you’re looking for an extensive well-developed political au, this is fucking it. i love reading about political machinations so this was FASCINATING to me.
Castiel's spent most of his adult life keeping his head down and staying out of trouble. This is a deliberate choice on his part, because as a cousin of the King, he'd rather stay unimportant and forgotten. This changes abruptly when King Michael decides that he has a better use for Castiel: he is to be wed to a noble member of the neighboring Republic, as part of an agreement between their two nations.
Castiel knows he has to obey, but that doesn't mean he won't rebel in what small ways he can. Unexpectedly, his actions end up having far-reaching consequences.
💖 all things shining by askance and standbyme, 142k, au. sam and dean and cas go on a hunt that's not really a hunt, and against all odds good things happen. it's beautifully written and has scenes that literally make my heart leap out of my chest with joy and awe it's just WONDERFUL it's a wonderful fic. incredible mythology too omg i found that the authors actually created the myth the entire story is based on - like they don’t pull a random one from history, they made one up THEMSELVES. they even self-published it on amazon if ur curious
Something in the world is waking up.
It isn’t long before it’s brought to the attention of the Winchesters and Castiel: miracles are spreading across the country, the paranormal seems to be shrinking back on itself—and it all has something to do with the missing prayer book of a traveling preacher who died over a century ago.
Dean is convinced it’s all the lead-up to another Apocalypse; Sam and Castiel aren’t so sure. Regardless, it sends them out on a less-than-typical road-trip, following the Mississippi and remnants of a very old story that seems increasingly to call to them. And along the way the trio learn much more about themselves—and the consequences and origins of love—than they’d ever have anticipated.
💖 broadway musical by griftings, 12.4k, crack. romcom where cas is supposed to play matchmaker to dean and jo and well. you know. it actually made me cackle out loud when i read it again so you know it's still good. absolutely one of the funniest fics i’ve read
This is the day that marked the Holy and Blessed Union of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle.
The merging of prominent bloodlines is always a grand occurrence, but breeding pedigree hunter families like Winchester and Harvelle is something to be rejoiced. It is also something to be meticulously planned, which thankfully the Host is very good at.
Or, the romantic comedy where Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle are destined to get married, Castiel is given the task of playing matchmaker and fails terribly, the entire Heavenly Host becomes a sitcom audience, God warns against male pregnancy, and Jimmy Novak is incredibly unimpressed with angels in general.
the five people you meet in heaven by chevrolangels, 22k, ambiguously canonverse. dean dies and goes to heaven and meets five people from his life. NOT a post-finale fic but still horrifically sad. i remember sobbing hysterically when i first read this so
Heaven is white.
Well. Isn’t that fucking stereotypical.
Dean isn’t really sure how he got here. Or even why he’s here. And hell, for all the times the Winchesters have died, he thinks he ought to know the drill by now. But what he doesn’t know is when most folks go, they find something different.
There’s a system God put in place. That when you’re gone (for good), there are a couple things you gotta do first. There are five people waiting for you.
They are the five people you meet in heaven.
any port in a storm by microcomets, 53k, post-s8. dean and cas go on a haunted cruise for a case. you know what happens next. also the art is by anobviousaside and it's gorgeous
The angels have fallen, leaving Castiel graceless and Dean with, well, more of other people’s problems. When a string of couples goes missing on the east coast, Dean and Cas decide to investigate—and find themselves trapped and hunted on a couples’ counseling cruise. Although battling monsters at sea is dangerous enough, sorting through emotional baggage proves to be far more deadly. (And, in which Cas embarks to find his missing grace and Dean is put out. Not necessarily in that order.)
a turn of the earth by microcomets, 95k, pre-canon au. cas is on the run from the empty and crash lands in dean's life. at one point he punches john in the face. a fucking beautifully written character study of pre-canon dean, honestly.
Dean’s your typical half-orphaned, monster-killing 22-year-old until a trenchcoated stranger crashes into his back windshield one September night, claiming he’s an angel that knows him from the future and that he’s on the run.
Frigging fantastic.
(Or, in which Castiel gets stuck in Dean’s timeline preseries and Dean kind of hates it—until he doesn’t.)
unfinished duet by microcomets, 5.8k, canonverse. sam observes dean and cas throughout the years. i remember this breaking my heart back in 2013!
Sam watches Dean and Cas over the years and notices a few things. (Or, Dean and Cas unscripted.)
💖 ergative/absolutive by glassedplanets, 8k, college au. dean and cas are best friends who meet in an astronomy class. i'm never not thinking about this fic it's so sweet and the friends to lovers is so soft and believable
He really shouldn’t be thinking thoughts like this about his best friend who literally just broke up with his girlfriend, but he knows he’ll blame it on sleepiness in the morning. He always does.
a certain light by flightagain, 24k, au. cas works at the gas n sip. dean is a customer. this author’s writing style is so lonely and heavy but it’s very lovely
Castiel works at the Gas-n-Sip. There are half-price nachos and flickering lights, there are office-workers and werewolves stopping by for snacks. Dean is a frequent customer, and his office might be haunted.
the one thing you can’t lose by majorenglishesquire, 5k, ambiguously canonverse. dean can pull cas around and it’s adorable. character study-ish. very sweet.
You know what I like a lot? The thought that Dean can just tug Cas anywhere at any time and Cas, who can lift tons without effort, who can demolish things with the light of his grace, who has battled and gone to war, has defended and broken, will just let Dean do it.
brother lover by twentysomething, 4k, set during s4/s5. dean’s jealous of sam and cas’ budding relationship. this fic is so tropey but it does it well and it’s funny as fuck
However- and it doesn't happen a lot- they have to invoke 'I saw her first.’
his fucking kids by 8sword, 3k, canonverse au. dean and cas raise claire and emma together. yes, claire novak. yes, emma of 7x13 spice girls fame. this was the first kidfic i read for spn i think. obvs written before jack or claire actually came back into the picture but it was the TEMPLATE of kidfic for me for ages
Jesus, the school should just have a parking spot labeled, “Reserved for the Novak-Winchesters,” because Dean’s getting sick of having to cruise around the parking lot looking for a spot every time he gets a call from the principal about Emma.
💖 what has eight tentacles and isn’t allowed to eat pie? by annie d (scaramouche), 16k, post s8. dean gets turned into an octopus. another fic that was SO MUCH BETTER than i remembered i fucking love when that happens. it isn’t even about dean being an OCTOPUS like NO. NOT EVEN. it’s ACTUALLY about the bunker and building a home and a community and a family and about PHYSICAL COMFORT and you can actually feel the world expanding at the end of this fic like a gusty sigh of relief it’s SO WONDERFUL. kevin is in this fic. ellie is too and i had to look her up but THIS is her!!!! danay garcia u were too hot to stay on this show but i love you and miss u
Dean watched an anime porn about this once, but real life turns out to be way less interesting.
Or, the one where Dean gets turned into an octopus.
💖 a beginner’s guide to communing with the dead by suspiciousflashlight, 77k, canonverse au. dean is a cop who summons a powerful entity to help him solve a cold case. oh my god i can’t believe i didn’t put this on here i love this one so much. the writing bowls me over it’s so confident in its worldbuilding like you’re IMMEDIATELY plunged into dean’s pov (FLAWLESSLY executed throughout the fic btw) and you just learn about the world as you go!! and it’s such a fascinating world!!! i love the magic i love the typical bureaucratic red tape procedures i love normalizing the supernatural. i ESPECIALLY love monsters as normal people in a society. at one point there’s this exchange
“Monsters,” says Cas finally. “Beyond the Wall there are monsters.”
“You mean, like, vampires and djinn and stuff?”
Cas shakes his head. “Those aren’t monsters, those are just people.”
those lines have stayed with me for years. i think about them every time i rewatch an episode of spn.
Maybe it's the little girl whose disappearance turned into a murder, and whose murder turned into a cold case, and who has now apparently decided to move in with him. Maybe it's the unacceptable hole left in his life when his dumb best friend and partner in (the prevention of) crime decided to go and get himself killed. Maybe it's his brother, whose high-profile career and fantastic girlfriend and first-child-on-the-way are steadily leaving Dean in the dust. Pick one. Pick all of them. The why doesn't matter so much as the what, and the what is this: Dean is pretty sure he's going completely, certifiably insane. Sure, he hasn't started wearing all his clothes inside out, and he still showers on a regular basis (anyways, that's not crazy, just a little eccentric); but there's no getting around the fact that he just threw away his life, his career, and his reputation by dragging out his mom's old necromancy book and summoning a Class A Forbidden Entity to his attic. A cranky one, too. With horrendous bed-head.
dean’s list by almaasi, 3k, canonverse. dean makes a list. short and sweet. i read this so much in 2015 that it literally got engraved into my brain line by line and rereading it caused synapses to fire that havent felt anything in years
Dean writes out a list of men he would go gay for. Sam has a suggestion to make.
💖 the path of fireflies by museaway, 63.7k, post-s8. dean and cas open a charming bed and breakfast in vermont. no, literally. another CLASSIC. i think about the food in this fic all the time...........maple bacon baked french toast......the cinnamon rolls.....it literally sounds so good
After his humanity is restored, Dean wakes up in bed with Castiel, a wedding ring, and no memory of the past twelve years.
long nights in cold months by pyrebi, 2.3k, au. dean’s an insomniac and cas works at walmart. i forgot i had this fic ALSO basically memorized. holy shit. pineapple in the fruit aisle.....................anyway it’s short and sweet and the “plot” resolves in such a satisfying way
When you're an insomniac, you get used to the "what the hell are you doing up, man?" look. Dean just hopes the guy who's stocking the shelves will stop giving it to him long enough to help him find some damn pineapple.
incredibly single & ready to mingle by imogenbynight, 3.6k, au. dean and cas meet on facebook. short cute au!!!!!!
Sam uses Facebook like the social media junkie he is. He's befriended literally every person he's ever had a conversation with since he got an account, which means that approximately—Dean checks—eight hours ago, he shared this horrible photo with something in the vicinity of nine hundred people. The caption below the picture reads “incredibly single & ready to mingle ;)” and roughly half of them have liked it.
Dean has never been so embarrassed in his life.
💖 unknown quantities by xylodemon, 8.5k, post-s8. after a post-case tryst, dean has to figure out his and cas’ relationship. human cas fics hold a special place in my heart. funny AND good dean pov AND a misunderstanding that i actually think works!!!!!
No one ever tells Dean anything.
(or: Dean Winchester and the not-relationship crisis of 2014)
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Life is Short
LIFE IS SHORT by capthamm
Emma Swan and Killian Jones make the most of how short life truly is. **Inspired by the song Cecily Smith (Acoustic) by Will Connelly**
**WARNING: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH**
read on ao3 / 2378 words
”I’m just headed for a walk and probably a slushie.”
As she got herself ready, Emma decided that she’d rather get a disapproving look for buying another slushie than have to explain to Mary Margaret that she’s going on a date. She turns her head, avoiding said look, as she walks out the door.
Emma doesn’t go on dates but a drunken download of tinder and 3 right swipes later (Storybrooke’s bachelor scene leaving much to be desired), she finds herself walking towards the harbor. The closer she gets the more she realizes maybe telling MM that she was meeting up with a stranger wouldn't have been the worst idea.
Storybrooke is small and she reasons to herself that, if something nefarious did happen, they’d find her eventually.
Killian doesn’t seem to have a nefarious bone in his body… at least through tinder messaging. What the fuck have you gotten yourself into, Emma?
She walks up to the water’s edge, finding peace in the solid ground beneath her feet. While she’ll admit the view is nothing to scoff at, Emma doesn’t particularly see the draw to spending an entire day aboard a rickety boat or getting soaking wet at the beach. If it’s someone’s thing, more power to them, but she prefers solid, dry land.
She’s lost in her thoughts when she hears someone walk up behind. She turns to meet him and is pleasantly surprised at how accurate his profile picture is— let's just say Leroy wasn't 6’2” and blonde. Emma’s about to comment on his honesty when he puts out his hand expectantly, “Killian Jones and I hope you like sailing because I may or may not have bribed my brother to allow the use of our co-owned vessel for tonight’s date.”
He smiles so brightly and confidently that she can't help but get wrapped up in his warmth, and he’s so perfectly British that even Emma can’t resist swooning a bit. All of these things would’ve been great to comment on, but before she can form a coherent thought she hears herself say, “I hate sailing.”
Somehow his smile gets wider. “Well lucky for you you’re with Killian Jones. I’ve never met a lass I couldn’t win over with a taste of the sea.” He must sense Emma’s hesitation and continue, “Life is not the things that we do, but who we’re doing them with.”
The quote catches Emma off guard— poetic and eloquent in an overall casual conversation. Although, she’s pretty sure he could make the phonebook sound poetic with his accent. She nods slightly and gives him a soft smile before he leads her towards the ship with a wave of his hand.
It turns out sailing takes a lot more effort than Emma thought. She’s currently just enjoying a glass of wine on the faux leather bench behind the captain’s wheel, but Killian has been running rampant as he steers them out of the comfort of the harbor. She tried to tell him they could just stay docked, but he insisted on the view from the horizon line. While Emma is amused by his childlike wonder, she figures nothing will come of the night if he has to be this attentive to the ship the entire time. It’s that mindset which has her sink down in her seat and close her eyes. The steady rhythm of his breath and the slight rock of the waves could lull her to sleep in no time.
She wakes up to his fingers threading between hers and has to stifle the gasp which fills her throat. Her gut instinct is to clock him for being so forward, but when she turns to face him, his face is radiating joy and she can’t find it within herself. They spend the rest of the night like that, chastely intertwined while he details countless stories told by the constellations. “Upon seeing Andromeda bound to the rock, Perseus falls in love with her. Perseus kills the monster and they are married for many years. It is said that Perseus is Hercules’ grandfather. Now they are up there side-by-side with Cepheus and Cassiopeia as a reward from Athena for Perseus’ bravery.”
Emma hums contently and without thought before realizing her head has found a resting spot on Killian’s shoulder. Besides the odd question here and there, Emma has been more than happy just listening to him talk, but at the sound of her hum she feels him tense beneath her. “Am I boring you, love?”
She can’t help but chuckle to herself before somehow finding it in herself to be blatantly honest, “This is the best time that I’ve ever had.”
Even in the dark she can see the slight blush on his ears and the smile that forms. He gazed at her intently for a moment before standing up.
The sudden lack of his touch is startling.
“I suppose I should get us home, Swan.” She wants to argue that they aren’t children but when she checks her watch she realizes it’s almost midnight. It’s not like she’s going to turn into a pumpkin, but MM thought she was just going for a slushie and is probably pacing a hole into the floor.
Emma nods reluctantly and Killian smiles at her, softer this time, but the sparkle still present in his eyes. “Lucky for you, I own this beautiful vessel and we can take her out whenever you’d like.”
She wishes she could say she was shocked at her answer, “I'd like that.”
At the beginning of the night had you told Emma Swan that she’d be willingly agreeing to a second date on the water, she would’ve assumed you were from some alternate universe. As they say goodnight and he kisses her softly on the cheek, Emma is all too aware of the magnitude of the evening.
Her world has been changed forever by one Killian Jones.
. . .
The rest of their 57 years together are split almost evenly between time on land and time aboard that ship.
When Emma asked the kids for help with their dad’s final voyage, she expected a crowd— grandkids and spouses alike— so when they showed up alone with a picnic blanket and a star map, just like “old times”, she couldn’t help but let out another round of tears.
Now as she walks the rusting ramp, Percy helping her and Cassie jogging ahead to get started undocking, she swears she can still hear him laughing. It’s as though the fibers of the sails kept each moment spent beneath them tucked safely away and she can’t imagine a better place for him to rest.
Cassie expertly navigates to the exact spot Killian anchored them in that first night so long ago. They’ve sailed here many times, so it’s no wonder it’s second nature for her. After making sure the ship was sturdy, Percy and Cassie head below deck leaving Emma alone with her memories.
That first date was on a night not unlike the one she’s wrapped in now, but everything else has changed monumentally— very little of the lost girl who boarded that ship remains. She found herself in Killian Jones. His cheery disposition and outlook on the “adventure” that is life pushed Emma out of comfort zones she didn’t even realize she was living in.
The sound of her tear hitting the ceramic vase is what brings her back to the reality of the moment. She’s unsurprised to find her tear a bittersweet one, Killian always assuring her there was no use in spending what little time we have on this planet in despair.
“Oh, how much I miss you, Killian Jones.” She whispers softly to herself as she finds her footing and heads to the railing of the boat. She slowly uncaps the urn and carefully empties the contents into the sea her husband loved so deeply. She clutches the necklace he directed Percy to have made, telling their son that his love of the sea was only matched by his love of their mother. It’s a long chain, and etched into the pendent somehow made of his ashes is a quote from the night they met: Life is not the things that we do, but who we’re doing them with.
She kisses the necklace softly before looking to the stars, Perseus and Cassiopeia shining bright as ever, “Killian Jones, how fortunate am I to have done life with you.”
. . .
“It doesn’t matter why I need her, I just do.” He levels with Liam, slightly rolling onto his toes to meet his brother’s height.
“Not good enough. You never insist on taking the ship so there has to be a reason.” Liam steps back a tad before crossing his arms.
Killian is not getting away with this one.
“I have a date.” Liam’s eyebrows skyrocket into the curls covering his forehead. Killian practically winces waiting for the slew of questions which will no doubt follow, but finds his fear unfounded.
Liam simply nods before turning away, “Fair enough. She’s all yours.” Killian is left alone in their living room completely dumbfounded but also entirely grateful. Liam is fully aware that he hasn’t taken anyone out on the ship since Milah’s passing and his brother’s lack of probing tells Killian the gravity of the action is not lost on Liam.
He never doubted his brother would let him take their ship, but it would be like Liam to rent it out or take Belle out for a last minute excursion without so much as a second thought at Killian prior request.
Any other night, he wouldn’t have minded, but tonight feels important.
He’s only chatted with Emma for a week or two through Tinder— Ruby assuring him he needed to get laid before setting up his entire account for him. The pair hit it off almost immediately, but he could tell she was skittish so Killian let her lead despite his immediate fascination with the woman beyond her good looks.
His outlook on life shifted dramatically after losing his Milah. Many men would have spiraled into a deep depression and the bottom of several liquor bottles— Killian would be lying if he said he didn’t try that route at first— but one day it hit him that he’d been given (albeit in the worst way possible) a brilliant life lesson. Life is short. And that’s the first time everything changed for Killian Jones.
As he walks up to the dock and spots her long blonde hair, his feelings are startlingly similar to that night— the one where his life changed for the better. He takes a deep breath, shaking out any final nerves, and repeats his mantra to himself: life is short.
Typically his date falling asleep before they’ve even reached their anchor point would be discouraging, but to Killian he can’t help but find pride in the comfort Emma feels in his presence. He reasons with himself that surely she would’ve been consistently on high alert had he flown any red flags.
It’s that self talk that gives him the courage to sit beside her.
Bloody hell, is he glad he did.
They spend the night detailing myths of the cosmos and time scurries away from them. He feels every minuscule movement she makes as they lean against one another and Killian is a goner by the time they get to the Big Dipper. Not only is Emma Swan the most stunning woman he’s ever seen— thank god her profile was of the honest sort— but she’s also bloody brilliant. He revels in every syllable she says, each moment tattooing a little more of her into his heart.
He’s worried he’s fallen too deep too fast, when she agrees to a second date— on the water no less— and all nerves dissipate immediately.
Before he knows it, Perseus comes along and makes him a father— Cassie following closely behind. Of course there were more dates, a wedding, two houses, and some fights in between, but when he thinks of the compression of time between their first date and the birth of their son, he can’t help but be flabbergasted. Time slowed eventually, retirement and being a grandparent bringing a new sense of purpose to their shared life.
But life is short.
The cancer comes a lot like his love for her did— at full speed and in full force— and it’s course seemed to speed up time once more. Killian knew his time was nearing the end, but couldn’t find it in himself to be sad.
Why waste what little time we have in life in despair? (Emma swears he said that to her one day, but he’s pretty sure she taught him that.)
It’s a chilly May afternoon when he asks Percy to join him for lunch. His son has grown into a fine young man, a father himself three times over, and he couldn’t be more proud. While he’s also proud of Cassie, Killian knows Percy will do what needs to be done with little rebuttal of “don’t talk like that” and “you’re going to make it”. Cassie feels with her heart and soul, but Percy has always been rational and dutiful. He knows Percy will have the necklace made and he’s positive it will be more beautiful than even Killian could dream up.
Killian is slightly surprised when Percy goes to protest Killian’s reference to his own impending doom, but one tweak of his eyebrow and his son clamps his mouth shut. Percy listens carefully for the rest of the meal, taking notes and assuring Killian he’ll do what needs to be done.
Killian has no doubt.
When the day comes, Emma doesn’t leave his side— he never doubted that she would. She hadn’t for 57 years so why start now? He gets to say goodbyes, which is more than most and he goes out looking into his wife’s eyes— strong, ready, and full of love.
Killian couldn’t have pictured a life half as wonderful as the one he got to lead, and he attributes every ounce of that fate to the woman who he got to do it with.
Life is not the things that we do, it’s who we’re doing them with. - Michael Mitnick “Cecily Smith”
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Cornelia Street about Karlie Kloss or Joe Alwyn?
Frankly speaking, I don't feel comfortable to put such title knowing Taylor once said her song lyrics are not like a 'paternity test'.
I agree completely to that, cause I pour my heart out when writing poetry - it contains grand idea yet it also bring so much complexity that none could actually able to translate the literal meaning out of it. For me, what's more important is about how the reader could grasp the emotion behind the words string - and as for musician/song writer like Taylor Swift, she may wish that her song could move people sonically.
Nonetheless, Taylor also remarked that only through her lyrics we could understand her. And yeah, we all want to get to know the deeper truth about this brilliant lady, right? Who wouldn't?
So let's talk about Cornelia Street for now.
I know a lot of Kaylors love this song because they are so sure that this one, in particular, is about Karlie Kloss.
I guess we better re-visit the song to find out...
***
Aside from Taylor, as per her own testimony, like to use metaphors in her songs, but I think that one line has a literal meaning - and yes, Taylor did once rent a place in Cornelia Street.
Ok, should we settled on that part that Taylor Swift did rent a place in Cornelia Street, let's now find out "when about" she was there:
Okay look like Tay Tay had rented the place around 2016 to 2017. If we go back to the song lyrics again:
"I rent a place on Cornelia Street". I say casually in the car. We were a fresh page on the desk. Filling in the blanks as we go
This seems like a story about someone reminiscing on how she first met her counterpart. When she was notifying her new acquaintance the place where she lived.
So who would fit best to the timeline?
Did Taylor meet Karlie in 2016 - of course not. And if we take everything literal, it also unlikely that Taylor, who have been friend with Karlie since late 2013, suddenly saying 'casually' in the the car's backseat, being smitten (drunk on something stronger than drinks in the bar): "hey, I got a rented apart in Cornelia Street, wanna coming?"
Joe Alwyn, as the popular narrative by now, clearly more suitable for the role in the song. We've been informed that their relationship sparked at the same timing as to when Taylor Swift did rent a place in Cornelia Street.
***
Another interesting fact about Taylor's house in Cornelia Street is the speculation surrounding the words: "at the roof".
Here the view from master bedroom:
Since we have cleared the timeline and the place in Cornelia Street, let's continue with the consecutive lyrics:
And baby, I get mystified by how this city screams your name
And baby, I'm so terrified of if you ever walk away. I'd never walk Cornelia Street again.
"....the city scream your name!" ==>seems to scream Karlie, to us Kaylors, right?
However, if we speculate that this song about Joe Alwyn, then the context of the lyrics could also be seen as a different timing in relationship - during when they were being apart and Taylor was missing him badly in New York. And with the memory being built up already over the course of time where they spent togetherness in New York, privately - it is apprehensible for Taylor to feel that the city scream Joe's name.
But, pssst, can I be honest? For me, picturing Joe Alwyn instead of Karlie Kloss on the scene with Taylor Swift kinda de-mystified the magic of Cornelia Street (lol). But yeah, we have to be fair on this, if its more likely to be about Toe relationship.
***
Shall we continue again then:
Windows swung right open, autumn air
Again, the timeline suit Joe's. Cause they were supposedly started the relationship in autumn 2016 (at the exact time when Taylor still lived in Cornelia Street).
Jacket 'round my shoulders is yours
Kaylors are reaching with this photo:
Unfortunately.... Those photos were taken in 2014 (not when Taylor rented place in Cornelia Street).
***
Jacket 'round my shoulders is yours. We bless the rains on Cornelia Street. Memorize the creaks in the floor
So again, I think, the above lyrics nothing more than Taylor being sentimental, reminiscing the time when they both "hidden" inside the apart in Cornelia Street - enjoying the autumn breeze while "Sat on the roof, you and I"
The rest of the lyrics seems depicting the emotional imbalance and trust issues - Taylor suffered during that period. Something that caused her to withdrawn from the relationship before then getting back together again with more assurance and security.
"I thought you were leading me on. I packed my bags, left Cornelia Street. Before you even knew I was gone. But then you called, showed your hand. I turned around before I hit the tunnel..."
It continues with Taylor describing their playing "hide & seek" with the media/public with:
Back when we were card sharks, playing games
Now that we've come so far, do you think this interpretation make any sense?
Is it possible to put Karlie Kloss inside the frame of Cornelia Street's song?
=> If we want to be coherent with the timeline in which Taylor rented Cornelia Street apartment (while her Tribeca's house under renovation) then nope, KK is out from the picture according to the lyrics.
But hey, there is always possibility for different interpretation and Cornelia Street may not literally about Taylor's real story/relationship.
Still, do we really need to force a different notion right now? Why is it so important to persevere with Cornelia Street being about Karlie - if the lyrics almost a de-facto describing a relationship that started at the timeframe when Taylor rented a place in Cornelia Street?
***
Final thought:
Despite the above findings, I still prefer to imagine Kaylor 'running barefoot in the kitchen' - even if its only within my wildest imagination. As the quote:
We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay.
-Lynda Barry-
;)
#debunking kaylor#kaylor#cornelia street#taylor lyrics#taylor swift#album lover#taylorswift#taylor and joe#toe#toes#joe alwyn#karlie kloss#taylor swift's song analysis
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The Inheritance Isn’t As Good or Important or Meaningful or Deep As It Thinks It Is
the disappointment of the year!
To play off of a quote from the play, one might as well begin with the reviews of the women sitting behind me during Part 1.
“It thinks it’s Angels in America but has nowhere near the amount of depth Angels has.”
When talking about The Inheritance, it’s inevitable that Angels in America comes up as well. Both are very very long plays in two parts that are about gay men in New York. Both deal with the AIDS crisis, but while Angels in America takes place in the 80s, The Inheritance takes place in 2016. Angels in America is a modern classic and expertly tackles a multitude of themes in ideas, hence the subtitle of “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” The Inheritance, well, it wants to tackle some issues.
The Inheritance really really wants to be a big important play. It wants to be the Angels of this generation. You can literally feel how bad playwright Matthew Lopez wants this play to be Meaningful and Deep and Important. However, this play is as deep as the shallow end of a pool. Throughout the play, I kept coming back to a moment in Angels in America where Louis is telling Prior how much he is hurting and how much he loves him and Prior says “he loves, but his love is worth nothing.” Belize has a similar moment with Louis where he tells Louis that he is talking quite a bit but not actually saying anything.
The Inheritance talks enough to fill six hours but ultimately says absolutely nothing.
I had read The Inheritance a while back and wasn’t a fan of it but thought that seeing it would be like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which I ended up loving despite not liking it very much when I just read it.
Alas.
I think I need to tackle this play in two parts because both plays could easily stand alone and my thoughts on each were a bit different.
**some spoilers throughout**
Part 1
I actually enjoyed Part One. I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoy Gossip Girl. It’s a bit of a mess but I had a good time. At least Part 1 is coherent. To be honest, Part 1 could’ve been a stand alone play and while it would not have been a great play, it would have been good. Part 2 ruined it BUT we’re not there yet.
It’s hard to explain what The Inheritance is about without getting too spoilery and getting into a long winded ramble but it’s kind of an adaption of Howard’s End in the sense that E.M. Forrester (who other characters call Morgan) is a narrator who narrates sometimes (this is inconsistent) and it kinda follows the plot of the book but the important part is the main characters are Toby Darling and Eric Glass. They’ve been together for 8 years and live in Eric’s awesome rent controlled apartment. They’re kinda sorta close with this gay couple that lives in their building named Henry Wilcox and Walter Poole. They have a close friend group. Toby turns his novel (called Loved Boy) into a play, which stars Toby and Eric’s protege who is a rich kid named Adam. However, as Toby and Adam grow closer, so does Eric and Walter. There aren’t many stakes in this play but I guess drama ensues.
The play is very oddly hypocritical. The characters are CONSTANTLY talking about wanting to be truthful and authentic and how they hate what is fake. However, this play feels very fake and very inauthentic. Characters go on long diatribes about things that do not matter. There is a very very long scene where a group of characters talk about what it means to be gay in America today and they say nothing new or important, even though they think they are. They talk about things that ultimately mean nothing. They often say “we need to talk about *insert something actually important*” but never actually talk about it. They don’t even argue with each other. Everyone generally agrees with each other and they are mostly speaking to have their voice heard.
This play does a lot of telling instead of showing. I liked the use of characters talking about things in the third person/narrating themselves (and I liked it a lot less when Morgan did it because I had no idea why he was there but loved when Eric and Toby did it) but they would often tell us things instead of showing us things. For example, we are told like 10 times through Part 1 that Eric is so special and so important and so remarkable. However, I have no idea why. He’s a very nice guy but there is nothing that warrants this level of praise. Likewise, instead of characters actually growing and learning, it’s explained away with narration. Characters even get out of tricky situations simply through Morgan saying that they did.
Toby Darling writes a play and the reviews for his play are that the acting is amazing but the play itself leaves much to be desired. Crazy how Matthew Lopez reviewed his own play already!
To put the writing aside for a bit, I thought a lot of the acting was really wonderful.
The three standouts were Sam Lilja (understudy for Eric Glass), Andrew Burnap (Toby Darling) and Tony Goldwyn (Henry Wilcox).
I thought Sam Lilja was absolutely amazing as Eric and I loved every moment he was onstage. He brought this warmth and care to the role that I really enjoyed. He has an amazing stage presence and even though I have problems with how Eric Glass is written, I loved his performance and thought he was the highlight of the play. His Eric Glass gave love to whoever would have it and you could see his heart absolutely break in two when he (SPOILER) has his big break up with Toby. I’m sad he’s the understudy because he absolutely deserves a Tony nomination for this performance. The way he ends Part 1 was truly beautiful and will stay with me for a while.
Andrew Burnap was 85% wonderful and 15% Prior Walter impression. I’ll go more into my thoughts on Toby Darling as a character later but for the most part I really loved Burnap’s performance. He has this certain kind of energy that makes the theatre filled with electricity whenever he was onstage. I missed him when he wasn’t there. Toby Darling can very easily be played as a one note kind of person but Burnap gives him layers upon layers. I loved watching him onstage. However, there were also some moments where I could very clearly tell he’s watched the National Theatre Live’s recording of Angels in America too many times and was emulating Andrew Garfield as best as he could. He even does the same voice a couple times. However, overall I thought Burnap was great.
I had forgotten Tony Goldwyn was in The Inheritance for a while because Henry Wilcox doesn’t show up until the end of Part 1 in a very intense scene so when he did finally appear I was a little shocked to see him and was briefly taken right out of the scene cause in my head I was like “Oh look it’s Tony Goldwyn!” And my brain has a very good reason to have that reaction because he’s great! Henry Wilcox is a tough character because he’s awful but you must root for him. He stands for all that is bad but at the same time you have to like him because (BIG SPOILER) Eric loves him and you trust Eric because Sam Lilja is so good. Somehow Goldwyn balances all of this. His scenes with Lilja and Paul Hilton (Walter Poole/Morgan) were especially good.
Speaking of Walter, there are two very great parts in Part 1 that are probably the parts you keep hearing about if you’ve looked into this play in any capacity. There’s a moment about halfway through Part 1 and then at the end of Part 1 that are very truly beautiful moments that have to do with Eric and, to an extent, Walter Poole. At the top of the play, Walter is Henry’s partner who becomes good friends with Eric and teaches him about what it was like to be gay in the 80s and how he owns this big house upstate where he (SPOILER) housed people dying of AIDS and took care of them and essentially ruined his relationship with Henry because of it. There’s a moment where Eric makes a comment about how he has no idea what living through the AIDS crisis must have been like and the following moment that ensues is one of the highlights of the play. I’m not going to say anything else about that because it’s heartbreaking and really takes you by surprise. The other great moment ends Part One and again, this is the moment you’ve probably already heard of because it’s the moment people seem to be talking about the most. I will say, Beautiful Theatrical Thing That Occurs At The End aside, this scene is sold on Eric’s reaction to it. And again, because I feel like this review is turning into me talking about how great Sam Lilja was, his acting in this moment was super lovely.
Stephen Daldry’s directing was... interesting, I guess. I liked its simplicity and all but there were times that it felt kind of haphazard. I don’t really understand why no one wore shoes. I’m sure there’s a great explanation for it but for the life of me I couldn’t understand why. Henry Wilcox wore shoes. Walter Poole/Morgan wore shoes. In Part 2, Lois Smith’s character wears shoes. Even Eric wears shoes for a bit in Part 2 before taking them off again at the end. When Eric did it I knew they were ~ symbolic ~ of something but i just couldn’t get it. I did like how simple the staging was. There’s a lot of plot going on so I appreciated a very straightforward approach to the staging. There were some neat stage pictures too. The monologues in this play are very long but they were staged in a way that I was with them through it.
There is only one directing bit that I took real issue with (and I’m putting this on the writing too) but there’s a part towards the beginning of the play where Eric wants to have sex with Toby to avoid bringing up an issue with his apartment and Morgan will not let the audience see the explicit details, resulting in a really weird dance that is played entirely for laughs. For example, they do squats and twirls around each other and fake moan and whatnot. In a play that wants to be groundbreaking and important, why not let your characters actually be intimate with each other? Plays with straight characters do it all the time! Take Linda Vista for example! And it doesn’t even have to be as wildly explicit as Linda Vista’s sex scenes were! The weird sex dance was honestly really offputting and I heard many “what?” and “what is happening?” complaints from the audience. A lot of moments that had any emotional weight were quickly played off for a laugh, but this was the one that made me cringe.
So in all, I liked Part 1. I really like Toby and Eric and for the most part their scenes were the best parts of the play. Part 1 ends in a very nice and emotional way that’s a bit emotionally manipulative but ultimately felt like a true ending and I was emotionally satisfied. There’s some truly beautiful moments in Part 1 and a semi-clear focus that kept me engaged and liking the characters for the full three hours and fifteen minutes. Again, as I’ve said before time and time again, I really loved Sam Lilja and thought his performance was marvelous. He also looks strikingly like Rhea Butcher. Take that as you will.
To go briefly into the ticket logistics: I got to the box office at around 12 on a Friday and there was no line and they had plenty of rush tickets available. I had a wonderful front row side seat with a lot of leg room. The theatre wasn’t terribly full. I didn’t stage door but someone I was talking to after the show said most everyone comes out and signs.
Part 2
Oh boy.
I really didn’t like Part 2.
Like I didn’t like Part 2 so much that it almost ruined the entire play for me.
This is going to be a lot of spoilers because I have no other way to process the mess that was Part 2 of The Inheritance.
I was talking to the guy at the box office and he was telling me how Part 2 sells a lot better than Part 1 because they do Part 1 five times a week while they only do Part 2 three times a week. They do Part 1 Wednesdays - Sundays, but Part 2 only on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday nights. Thursdays and Fridays are both Part 1. I wondered why they didn’t have a system in place like Angels in America had, until I saw Part 2 of The Inheritance and understood why the producers want to do Part 2 as little as possible.
Guys, Part 2 of The Inheritance is really really bad.
All the heavy handed writing in Part 1 that I was willing to forgive just becomes even more heavy handed and even more cliche. The whole play feels completely different, partly because they mostly give up on the E.M. Forrester as a character bit until one random scene towards the end where he returns. Even the characters have given up on Howard’s End! Where in Part 1 the characters constantly talk about Howard’s End, which I guess makes sense because the entire play is an adaptation on it, in Part 2 they strictly talk about Maurice. And that is the least of my problems with Part 2!
Part 2′s fatal flaw is that the play suddenly becomes about a boy named Leo. Who is Leo? Well, to talk about Leo we first need to backtrack to Part 1 to a boy named Adam.
As I briefly touched on before, Adam is an actor (with a very privileged background) who Toby meets and puts in his play. SPOILERS but Toby falls in love with Adam. Adam has these monologues about how he was adopted when he was two weeks old by billionaire parents so he knows what real struggle is. This bit of character info is often repeated and it becomes more and more laughable but the play took this very seriously, which was strange. Adam has this other monologue about hooking up with a lot of men in a bathhouse in Prague and almost getting HIV. Bigger Spoiler but this monologue has a moment where the actor playing Adam (Samuel H. Levine) reaches into his underwear and when he pulls out his hand, it’s covered in blood and he tells Toby about how he had sex with so many men that his ass was bleeding.
Leo has a very similar monologue, bloody hand and all. He’s even HIV positive. Check out Louis Peitzman’s article which I have linked at the end with more on that.
Anyways, Adam won’t sleep with Toby so Toby self-destructs and ruins the one good thing he has aka his relationship with Eric and hires a prostitute named Leo who looks EXACTLY like Adam. He looks so much like Adam that Samuel H. Levine also plays Leo. Leo is in exactly one scene in Part 1 and it works because it ends Toby’s arc in how he can’t what is real (he thinks it’s Adam but it’s actually Eric) so he chooses to live in what is fake (drugs, alcohol and Adam’s prostitute doppleganger). This is messy and not handled that well but at least I see where the dots connect.
However, in Part 2, Adam basically disappears and the play very suddenly becomes all about Leo.
And it is so horribly handled.
Adam is very rich and stands very tall and talks very confidently. Leo, on the other hand, is very poor and stands hunched over and talks like he’s constantly crying. There’s a very strange amount of poverty porn going on in Part 2. We are constantly hearing about how poor Leo is and all the things he’s had to do for food, shelter and drugs. There’s a moment where he’d huddled on the ground and eating peanut butter out of a jar while the ensemble tells you for like the tenth time how destitute he is.
Oh yeah and there’s a scene between Adam and Leo that is staged so oddly I have no idea how it made it past previews. It’s as horribly handled as you think it is - with Levine going from standing up straight to hunched over repeatedly for like five minutes.
The worst part of the play is the weird scene where Leo meets Morgan in a dream and tells him to become a writer and then at the end Leo reveals that the play you’ve been watching is a book he wrote called, you guessed it, The Inheritance.
Yikes.
Also, for some reason Leo talks like he’s ten years old. There’s actually this strange recurring theme in Part 2 where Matthew Lopez thinks the next generation doesn’t know what AIDS is. There’s a whole moment where a doctor has to explain to Leo what HIV is. Eric also explains it again to Leo for good measure. Likewise, there is a scene where Eric has all of his friends over and his friend/boss Jasper brings his young artist boyfriend and the topic of the AIDS crisis comes up and Jasper’s boyfriend talks about how he doesn’t know what that is and how he doesn’t know what T cells are. Tristan, who is literally The Inheritance’s version of Belize (same mannerisms and one-liners, basically the only person of color in the play and a doctor to boot), then explains it to him. However, Jasper’s boyfriend not knowing literally anything is purely there so Lopez can make a long winded analogy about America being a body, democracy being T cells and Donald Trump being an embodiment of AIDS. Does Matthew Lopez think this next generation doesn’t know what AIDS is? It’s so condescendingly explained and it seems that any character under thirty doesn’t know what it is, when, in an age of smart phones with limitless information, it seems like more people would know what it is now than ever.
But I digress.
Somewhere in all this Eric’s plot line goes down the drain because he decides to marry Henry Wilcox. This could have worked if Henry wasn’t a billionaire republican who is friends with Trump and if the play didn’t so heavily establish that Eric works for a social justice nonprofit and is a passionate activist. There is no chance in hell someone like Eric would so willingly marry someone who is literal friends with a literal demon. He marries Henry because the play tells him he has to. And again, much like in Part 1, we hear so often from various narration about how wonderful and important and remarkable Eric is, without giving us any reason why.
Much like Part 1, there aren’t any real stakes in this play and no sense of any ticking clock or whatnot. Things just kinda happen at the pace they do because the various narrators (and Morgan in Part 1) say they do.
There’s one good scene in Part 2 when Toby shows up at Eric’s wedding and tries to save him from Henry and Eric has a breakdown and yells and yells at Toby about all the terrible things Toby has done and put him through and it’s a really delicious moment that I wish the play had more of.
From there to the end, the play horribly mishandles each of its characters. However, Part 2 of The Inheritance could have been very good. The solutions to all the bad things in the play could very easily have been implemented, but, instead, the play just spirals. So I want to go into that for a bit, because the rest of the play is a shit storm.
For starters, Leo needs to go because his plot just doesn’t work. At all. The play was originally about Eric and Toby, and, to a lesser extent, Walter and Henry. With Walter (spoilers) dead, the play does shift more of its focus to Henry, who I’ll start with first.
Henry Wilcox’s big problem is that he refuses to let go of his past. He pushed Walter away because he couldn’t deal with the AIDS crisis. He shut down and focused on his work, which made him bitter and jaded and warped his sense of love. The past haunts him so much that he refuses to sleep with his HUSBAND Eric because of it. That’s not a good reason and the fact that he expects Eric to deal with a sexless marriage is one of the more wildly unrealistic parts of the play. But you know what, this is a play so I’ll roll with it for a bit. Henry’s problem is the most clearly defined and has the clearest solution. He needs to move on from his past. This play talks constantly about needing to move on from the past. What happens is Eric and Henry get divorced and the ghost of Walter tells Henry to live before they walk off into a ghostly sunrise. That isn’t a solution. A ghost cannot tell you to be better and then you suddenly become better. Eric needs to help him through this, as well as Walter’s big house upstate. The best physical representation of Henry finally being able to move on from his past would be him sleeping with Eric. If Stephen Daldry wants to continue with this weird dance combo being the equivalent of sex, then they can do this beautiful waltz. You can even have Toby narrate it, especially because the Henry/Eric relationship hurts him the most. Henry and Eric don’t even need to ultimately stay together - and they shouldn’t - but Henry cannot finally move on from his past in the literal last minute of the play because a ghost magically cured him. The easiest solution was literally sitting right there. Literally. Eric sits next to him a lot.
This play has a big Toby Darling problem that it loses its grip on and lets flop on the floor like a fish. Toby has a big personality and a nasty self-destructive streak. The foundations for Toby are fantastic. He’s flawed yet funny and breaks Eric heart while simultaneously breaking his own. Toby, like just about every other character in this play, needs to move on from his past. Toby’s past is one he keeps close to his chest and is so unrealistically traumatic that it doesn’t even make sense. But again, this is a play and not the real world so let’s just accept this for a moment. Toby is constantly talking about how he wants to be loved. He is, by both Eric and Leo, but of course he doesn’t see that. He thinks Adam is the answer to all of his problems. Toby knows how “fake” he is and thinks he can bury that feeling with Adam and fame and fortune and all the drugs in the world.
However, and this is the biggest SPOILER of them all, when he is finally forced to confront his past, he decides he cannot do it and kills himself by driving into a concrete wall. This is shown onstage with Toby standing in a spotlight while the little kid version of himself jumps into his arms. The beautiful way this is staged gives off the idea that Toby made the right decision when this is not only the most unsatisfying way to end Toby’s arc but also the laziest. And, of course, a really disturbing message to send to your audience. You cannot have a six hour play with a static main character! You cannot have a six hour play where said character kills himself and have the scene immediately after be Walter telling Henry he must live. Toby’s death is also super jarring because it very much feels like he died because the playwright wanted him to die. Going back to Toby’s desire to be loved and how that’s connected to his past, I think he needed to realize that the way to move on from his past is be better than his past. He wants to be loved, and he is loved, but he needs to give love as well. Eric very clearly loved Toby, but he didn’t often feel like Toby loved him as much as he did. We know from Toby’s narration how that isn’t the case and Eric meant so much to him. The Inheritance as a whole has a scene towards the beginning where Eric proposes to Toby and Toby says yes but it isn’t all that romantic, with Toby later telling Eric that he was purposely trying to trap him. In my opinion, I think The Inheritance needs to end with Toby making a grand romantic gesture towards Eric. We don’t even need to see if Eric accepts it or not. It’s better if we don’t. We just need to see that Toby has changed, or at least is trying to. It’d be better than the terrible ending we got anyways.
Toby can’t just die without any change or even an attempt at change (writing a sequel to his play doesn’t count) because it’s a six and a half hour long play. If it was a simple 90 minutes, I could accept that more but if you’re writing a two part epic, you need to give the audience a reason to be there.
Interestingly enough, Andrew Burnap keeps playing Toby like Prior when he’s really a Louis.
On to Eric, who, as we are told in every other scene, is just so remarkable and special and important. Why? I guess because he’s a nice person. I still don’t know why this information is so often repeated to us. Something else that was strange was that we found out the intimate details of everyone’s past, except for Eric. We know that he’s on good terms with his parents and he lives in his grandmother’s rent controlled apartment and that’s about it. Eric isn’t really given any flaws. On paper, he’s perfect. Luckily, in performance, Sam Lilja gives him more layers than that.
Eric is given the worst ending of all, and by that I mean in an extended narration sequence/epilogue, he is quickly married off to a nameless/faceless character we have not seen and is told he lives happily ever after. The fact that Eric is married off to someone we’ve never even heard of doesn’t fly with me. This is a long play and for Eric’s entire life to be wrapped up into a neat little bow in the epilogue was the most unsatisfying way for this play to end. Leo had a similar ending - becoming a writer and marrying a nameless/faceless character we’ve never seen. For this six hour long play to end with a quick and easy narrated monologue wrapping up literally every plot point was one of the most disappointing endings to a play I have ever seen. Everything was resolved with a quick wave of a hand because the characters say so.
Ultimately, this play says absolutely nothing new or important. It briefly starts conversations on a lot of interesting themes and ideas but never explores them in any meaningful way. There are tear-jerker moments for the sake of wanting the audience to cry because there isn’t a single organic thing about this play that otherwise would. Likewise, for a play that keeps talking about putting the past behind you, it is utterly obsessed with the past and not moving forward from it. The cognitive dissonance in this play was astounding.
The most compelling story in The Inheritance is between Eric and Toby and yet Matthew Lopez suddenly turns it into a play about Leo. These characters are constantly circling each other, both metaphorically and physically. The dynamic between the two of them is where the play feels its most honest. How they both grow and change in each other’s orbit is where the play has the strongest legs. If only Matthew Lopez let it walk.
But the real problem is, The Inheritance really believes it’s saying important and meaningful things and there is no moving past that.
I made a separate post about this but I’ll bring it up here too but every main character is played by a straight person. The actors who play Eric Glass, Toby Darling, Adam/Leo, Walter Poole/Morgan and Henry Wilcox are all straight. I get it, you cannot ask someone if they’re gay during the audition because that can easily lead into a Lee Pace situation where someone is forcibly outed when they don’t want to be. I get that.
However, this is a play about gay men in NYC with a cast of actors who are not particularly famous. This is also New York City. It’s not like there’s a lack of talented gay actors out there. I know that Andrew Burnap is friends with Matthew Lopez and you often cast the actors you work with a lot in your work, but really not a single gay actor amongst your primary characters? As much as I loved Tony Goldwyn, he was certainly cast with the hopes of bringing in a bigger audience and they could have easily cast a well known older gay actor. The Boys in the Band did it, so why not The Inheritance?
Anyways that was a review almost as long as the play itself (if anyone actually reads this whole thing I will be shocked) and I still feel like I haven’t sorted out all my feelings on the play. So I guess the thought I’ll end on is I was really disappointed in this play as a whole. I wanted to see something very profound and important. I so badly wanted this play filled with gay characters and huge hype from London to be really outstanding.
I like these reviews too so I’ll link them below is you want to check them out:
Kyle Turner
Louis Peitzman
Isaac Butler (who thinks the play is about Eric but honestly after Part 2 I don’t think so)
**part of me wants to go see Part 1 again (with that ridiculously easy rush) just to see Kyle Soller, who is the main guy who plays Eric Glass because if Sam Lilja was so good, imagine how good Kyle Soller is! But there’s no way I’ll sit through Part 2 again.
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Hi there, it's the anon who saw Gandía on the subway!
You're completely right, it had been kind of haunting me for days... My brain just travelled towards it every now and then, like "you saw Gandia in the subway, have fun dealing with that bout of knowledge". I'm glad you liked my trauma story!
Are you MAGIC? I truly am gay bike anon!!! I don't think I am why are annexes anon? But honestly, I am not sure, and I can have forgotten?? When I'll see the ask again, I'll probably know and I'll tell you whether that was me or not. I love how you realized it was me by the sheer weirdness of the asks, I love how my chaotic energy apparantly radiates even through the internet ehehehe
Your description of Gandia made me snort and then laugh so hard, I had to actually stifle my giggles so everyone in the train I was in whilst reading this wouldn't go "???" (I literally clasped my hand in front of my mouth, then realized how futile that was because of the face mask hahahaha)
So, I googled Promising Young Woman, and I directly knew who you meant, and he does look a lot like Moscow! Also, the movie looks great and I'm definitely going to watch it soon (after I finished my exams, or, y'know, to avoid having to study for those sksksk)
YOU'LL MAYBE WRITE ME A ANDRÉS X GANDÍA FIC??!!! AHHH I WOULD LOVE THAT!!!! I truly thought I was crazy when I realized that there was such weird energy between the two of them in that scene, with the way they were eyeing eachother, the way Gandía walked around Andrés, but turns out I'm not the only one who thought so :) And indeed, "gay bike anon" is not my birth given name, but I'll gladly take it as my second name/ as a nickname :)
Oh no! I hope you're okay and that you're not slowly melting away behind your computer... We've been having hot temperatures here as well, nothing close to a heatwave though, even if everyone acts like it is. (It has been around 26-27 degrees Celsius for a while, and everyone was going crazy about the national plan for heatwaves on Twitter...Like, no, just don't... For a nationality often portrayed as brutally honest and very matter-of-factly, we can get incredibly dramatic sometimes sksksk) It's colder now, though, we've had a few days with rain and now I think we're back to normal temperature for the time of the year.
I'll let you know! That is such a good idea, I'm going to practice Martín's speeches in the mirror right away, the eyepatch would make an interesting look... I'll wear my black suit and shirt with black brogues, my father probably has a dark gray tie which I can borrow. I'll just have to find a cane somewhere. Oh, and fill my bag with muffins. I'll practice my chaotic screaming (well, tbh I don't think much practice is necessary anymore) to channel my inner Martín. Maybe I'll even bring my Berlín funko pop, tell him "remember Alfredo Kesmann, you know, the risk analyst you looked at as if you were a lion and he was your prey, huh? Well, look at who he turned out to be..."
By the way, I just read you Little Mermaid AU and it was just so beautiful, so cute, whilst they still remained the assholes interesting characters they are <3 Martín thinking a fork looked like a weapon made me laugh so hard, because it definitely is a weapon to another version of Andrés sksks. Also, I was listening to MIKA on shuffle and when I was reading your Little Mermaid AU, 'Underwater' came on and ugh, the song was fitting so well for them, poetic cinema.
Gay bike anon ❤️❤️❤️ To quote some Motion City Soundtrack: It had to be you // I knew it was you. I'm happy you saw my stray ramblings @ you. Should you choose to continue talking to me (you should, I love you, gay bike anon, please continue to be my friend), I'll continue to tag them under # only love for gay bike anon. There, that is you.
I'll be surprised if you're not why are annexes anon [if you are a separate person, humble apologies, come @ me for my crimes] but I'm also going to gatekeep that ask for x number of weeks or months because prompts are hard to keep the mystery alive. I love how you say you'll maybe recognise it, if it is you. I also sometimes look at things I've said and I'm like "well it's my account so it must be me, but I could swear I am not me--" I'm so glad you're gay bike anon because it's literally your name now so if you weren't them??? It'd be like naming a child something peaceful and the child turns out to be everything but. Which almost happened to yours truly, I'll have you know. Dodge that bullet, I did. Also, if you were not gay bike anon, you'd be like "¿¿qué?? what does that even mean??". (I was so delighted by the ask that I sent a screenshot to my friend and since she didn't watch the semis, this was her reaction.) You have the perfect chaotic energy, dear friend. Recognisably so.
I love your phrasing, by the way. "My brain just travelled towards it every now and then". I can perfectly envision this scene, you're just trying to live your best life (travelling by the subway, buying cookies, that sort of thing) and your brain is just like hey guess what???? SUBWAY DRIVER GANDÍA!! thanks brain, that's nice, I guess. The plot twist is that now this story also lives rent-free in my head, but I truly do appreciate it. Thank you again for sharing it.
I'm glad you also feel me re: lawyer guy in Promising Young Woman!! I'll take all the reassurance I can get that I'm not simply too LCDP-obsessed. I really do recommend the film, it was really good and so nicely filmed. Her hairstyles? The outfits? The colours and the framing??? Gorgeous. Come @ me with your thoughts once you've seen it, please. ✨ Also, bestest of best luck for your exams!! I have all the faith in you. Do your best and reward yourself accordingly afterwards, the reward part very important! Maybe you can buy yourself a tricorne. This is foreshadowing for how you're going to be a pirate, by the end of this reply. And for the record, I'll consider myself prompted to write this subway driver! Gandía fic, and some day I will absolutely consider actually writing it. Just you wait.
We had like an entire week of 30+ degrees (and I'm from Finland, you know, so that's definitely illegal temperatures here) and it was just, ugh. But it was actually raining yesterday - I'm sure it started around the time you sent me this so I'll credit it to you, thank you for the rain, dear friend - bless!! everything was so dry. I'm glad to hear your temperatures are normalising too!! Climate change can go away, thanks.
I absolutely lost all coherent thought when you said "I'll practice my chaotic screaming" hgjrfkpfjeghr yes you do that, it sounds 100% legitimate. You'll make the perfect Martín, hanging out with your totally super platonic best friend in Funko pop form. Hissing at Gandía, should he come too close. Threatening him with the Funko. Leaning on your cane but like, menacingly. You might also need a Denver to lead you around, should the eyepatch impair you depth perception.
Also, after you've had all this practice with the eyepatch, you can become a pirate. Or a privateer, first, and then through a series of unfortunate events, you can be drawn to a life of crime. The money is just so much better. And guess what? Yeah, you bet the captain of the ship is the spitting image of Arturito. Good luck, you. :) At least you can mutiny.
Ahhh I'm glad you liked the Little Mermaid thing! Martín absolutely gets that the pointy thing look exactly like a weapon, even if he's not necessarily imagining Andrés to stab someone with it for insulting his clothes. You know, one of these days I was tagged in a tag thing and I mentioned about how much I currently love Underwater?? (mandatory shout-out to @es-imposible because I'm stealing her taste in music for my own) Manifestation. Or one brain energy. Poetic cinema.
I hope you'll have a great week, gay bike anon!! Take care of yourself!! Drink lots of water, eat lots of cookies, stay safe from Gandía / any lookalikes. Best of luck for your exams for a second time! All the best, dear friend. See you around! 💌
#only love for gay bike anon#so happy to see you again friend!!! thank you for sending this!!#this is now a Conversation I don't make the rules (I absolutely make the rules and they say we're friends now)#take care friend <3 see you around <3#asks#anon#mystery friend#I've decided you like cookies let me know what's your favourite kind#and buy yourself some with my permission#or if you don't like cookies - an apple or a banana will do
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Inazuma Rewatch Episodes 1-11
This begins my adventure in canon reviewing for Genda to roleplay him on dreamwidth. The thoughts are shotgunned and mostly written as they came to me with no coherent fashion. Also most of these are live reactions that I did in plurk hence the format of them. Also fair warning I do curse so that’s in there too.
Canon reviewing just makes me look up at the sky within the first seven seconds because how did I forget how Try Hard they were in making Teikoku out to be the villain of the show
I will also never be over this fucking tank
ah Kidou you had dignity for like half an episode
After this begins your slow descent into never being dignified ever again
oh no
I forgot how cute the bitty soccer team Endou plays/practices/coaches is
why didn't we get like an arc with them growing up and joining Raimon or such that would have been adorable
jesus christ I forgot Gouenji has a sick ass guitar solo bgm when he shows up
also I like how none of the teachers in this school are at all phased by endou
like how long did it take them to get used to this child being who he is
there it is
the exact moment Kageyama fucked up
he challenged Raimon to a game
that was like poking the sleeping dragon
you know better then to do that Kageyama you have a history with this school
dramatic shadow effect over Teikoku up to like three now
where the fuck do all of these tires come from?
Endou do you have a dimension to pull those from?
I still am in love with the fact the only reason Endou's grandfather's techniques have remained a secret is because of horrible handwritting
not due to super fancy code or hidden messages
nah bruh
he just sucked at writing and explaining himself is all
and Someoka with the first "Soccer isn't a game" one liner
what weather wizard did Teikoku pay to cause that storm cloud effect as they roll on in with their fucking tank bus
part of me is not even shocked anymore over the honor guard, only with soccer balls and not rifles, and red carpet dramatic moment of Teikoku arriving
but a part of me is still just Fucks sake Teikoku chill
kids you are fooling no one with your "practice" that is straight up showing off on the highest tier
there it is
the moment Kidou's fate was sealed
Endou being Endou despite the fact that shot was a deliberate attempt to hurt
Genda's first line in the entire show and it's basically code for "Here Kidou kick their asses I'll hold your earrings"
I'm pretty certain there is a mercy rule in soccer like there is in baseball so I know this score is just ridic really
oh wait
that's right this game will not end until Gouenji shows himself
my mistake
Oh Max I have missed your blunt destroying of self confidence that you accidentally do trying to be helpful
also this entire scene is so disconcerting because it shows that Endou really is knowledgeable about this sport and how to be a captain
which flies out the window when he does a Stupid in the name of soccer and I'm just like Endou please
god Someoka and his anger issues over Gouenji
all this anger in this episode
and then the awkward that is Endou and Gouenji before Gouenji just gave in and joined this soccer team
meanwhile back on the ranch:
Kidou gossips plots and shares intel with Hemni regarding Raimon and what this is causing regarding schools taking notice
and basically rents a fifty foot neon covered billboard to tell us that Domon is going to arrive soon
how did I ever take these kids seriously they try so hard to be edgy it's ridic
I have finally reached the episode in this slow as hell canon review to meet the character that deserved so much more then he got
Domon deserved a better soccer husband then what he settled for
he put up with so much both as a double agent and as someone having to suffer constant exposure to a Raimon still learning how to stand on its own
ah yes the moment we first really learn just how much of a douche the teacher/coach for Raimon really is
Endou's father is still the purest of the adults in this series
...the fucking secret fort is still horrible no matter how I look at it
children please that is not how we share secret information
/wheezes at how everyone but Gouenji and Domon are shocked at Endou reading the secret notes
those two just look so proud
I also forgot how up in the personal bubble Kazemaru is regarding Endou in the early season
like Kazemaru pls
fuck
Kidou and his hiding behind lampposts
I keep forgetting he does this so much
child
child please
ah the start of the Gouenji Endou friendship is so awkward as Gouenji is still realizing what he has signed himself up to follow
Kabeyama tries so hard for this team technique with Gouenji
I also keep forgetting Gouenji and his socks that are such a different color from anyone else
like who let you do that? Are you one of those types of sports people that have lucky items they have to wear while playing a sport?
Kabeyama's fear of heights is so real
excuse me as I sit here and laugh brokenly as I remember how naive I was thinking that these episodes right here was the gist of the show despite all of the giant hints they keep doing with Kageyama
I want to know how many of those kids collecting data on Raimon were being paid by a different school then they one they actually attended for that data
like you can't tell me with how sophisticated that equipment was that they weren't being paid by several schools for that data
meanwhile Kidou and Sakuma are just like 'amateurs' considering they legit stalk and have an inside man on the team instead of just filming and observing the practices
good christ I forgotten how much Kidou just dunks on the cyborg team over them thinking a computer simulation is good enough to figure out Raimon
like bitch please he can't figure them out what makes you think you can?
I keep forgetting episode 8 is the start of Endou's leaving the fucking goal open
episode ten is just full on, no stops at all drama
when they decided to start the pain train for Kidou they just shot it out like a bullet
also goddamn Kageyama
just spell it out in fine detail you see these kids as mindless puppets for you to control why don't you
god how many horrible backstories can we cram into one episode
Inazuma Eleven: Teikoku kids must suffer
Don't be related to a Teikoku kid and def don't be a friend of one that way leads to being part of a painful backstory
also I repeat Domon deserves so much more
look an episode with the one I'm actually canon reviewing for!
I best savor this as I won't see him for like ten more episodes after this
Genda: /standing next to Kidou and has no idea wtf to say that isn't soccer related, praises the rest of the team instead of actually saying anything else.
Kidou: /stands silent while intensely gazing into the distance
this is it
this like forty second conversation is 90% of this social link
how they have achieved the "Will die for you" level on the s-link rank is a mystery
well okay Genda pretty much had that as level one/two for Kidou because it's Kidou
all of Teikoku would die for Kidou because this disaster apparently has a +50 modifier when it comes to Teikoku
wait
no
NOPE
NOPENOPENOPE
this is the episode where Kageyama basically destroys an already emotionally compromised Kidou even more
no
#ProtectKidou2018
Kageyama even calls Kidou a "perfect being" not a perfect human being just a being
also who the fuck picked this particular piece of music for this scene
this is not a nostalgic happy moment anime
this is a man brutally destroying a kid's sense of self and self worth in order to keep him in line
fuck
god
the magazine scene is still horrifying to watch as you see that dawning realization that Kidou Made A Mistake when he reacted to Kageyama going for that magazine
jesus christ it just hit me how fucking insanely watched and scrutinized Teikoku is
just it only now hit me that during the entire talk between Kageyama and that minion Kageyama has multiple screens from various angles all watching the practice fields in real time as the team practices
and we know that the team knows this is a thing considering in episode 11 when Kidou decides to create his rebellion with the team he makes sure to plan it in a random hallway and not on the field where someone could watch and listen in on this whole thing
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On Revolutionary Discipline
Nestor Makhno
Pictured; The Revolutionary Military Soviet of the RIAU.
The following (very) short piece was written by Makhno in December 1925 and published in Dyelo Truda (Workers Cause), a Russian language anarchist magazine published in France.
In Makhnos typical style it is a no nonsense calling out of the erratic, incoherent nature of the common 'practice' of anarchism that is far more influenced by liberal and bourgeois ideas than revolutionary practicality.
For context; Makhno was born of a peasant family, had been a long time member of the Guilay Polye Anarcho-Communist Group, was a foundry worker, union leader, chairman of a local soviet, and spent many years in jail for revolutionary activity. But is most famously known as partisan fighter and commander in the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine.
The influence of anarchists in the development in the Ukrainian struggle, as compared to the Russian is not insignificant. In many cities the Anarchists were the most popular political force. For example, in the Ekaterinoslav Province the 'Nabat' (The Ukranian Anarchist Federation) even shared the same building as the Bolsheviks, with their offices next door. Perhaps one key to the influence of the Anarchists in the Ukraine is they had overcome one of the key theoretical weaknesses of the broader movement - they had already seen the need for a specifically anarchist organisation to influence events and co-ordinate efforts.
The Nabat was to play a significant role in the Ukraine, helping co-ordinate unions, the building of schools and hosptials, and running in conjunction with Maximalists and Left SRs the cultural section of the RIAU. However, the Nabat was what we would now call a 'synthesist' organisation, meaning libertarians of disparate tendencies tried to co-operate in the one political organisation. This is probably even less coherent than having Trotsyists and dedicated 'Stalinists' in the same party, and was to have severe limitations. It was in reaction to this political quagmire and general ineffectiveness of the broader Russian anarchist movement that Makhno, Arshinov and Ida Mett wrote 'The Platform', in an attempt to theoretically clarify the mistakes they had seen. Part of that obviously, to someone as dedicated a revolutionary as Makhno, who wore the scars of a revolution, (his nurse in the 1930s described his body as 'a cocoon of scar tissue') was to address questions of what makes for genuine revolutionary activity, and not just revolutionary posturing.
None of the issues addressed by Makhno, Arshinov and Mett have been fully answered today, though certain Platformist and Especifist currents around the world have made significant developments.
In a personal capacity, I would add that I feel the concept (or lack thereof) of revolutionary discipline is a plague upon the house of anarchism. In Australia today, anarchism does not play even a minor role. It is utterly insignificant. The ghosts of past political and theoretical mistakes still haunt us. Individualism, lifestyle politics and immature 'insurrectionism' predominate rather than the tendencies which have had actual historical significance (anarcho-communism and syndicalist strategy). I don't claim to be above this and in my time in anarchist organisations have made grave mistakes in the lack of discipline. I would also reflect that the broader milieu rubs off on any individual who has coherent politics, and that organisations who attempt to build something serious can be dragged down by the complaints of individuals and the general swamp of the 'anarchist scene' with no stake in organisation.
That our society is at once so individualised and that the majority of libertarian organisations draw their membership from universities (students lives are in direct contrast to the working class whos responsibilities and life being disciplined by the demands of capital make inherently for a much more serious and practical revolutionary politics) is not insignificant either. The material realities of society dictate what is possible, and shape the implementation of our ideas. However organisation and depth of theory and practice can overcome something of this shortcoming.
Breaking through this barrier will be an uphill battle, but escaping from anarchisms ghettoised form and restoring the social vector of anarchism will mean addressing the practical needs of Australias exploited classes. In turn this will help us move back towards effective conceptions of anarchist revolution and organisation.
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"Some comrades have put the following question to me: how do I perceive revolutionary discipline? Let me answer that.
I take revolutionary discipline to mean the self-discipline of the individual, set in the context of a strictly prescribed collective activity equally incumbent upon all. This should be the responsible policy line of the members of that collective, leading to strict congruence between practice and theory.
Without discipline inside the organisation, there is no way of undertaking any consequential revolutionary activity at all. In the absence of discipline, the Revolutionary vanguard [note: 'Vanguard' was a commonly used term by anarchists in this period, it has different theoretical connotations in anarchism to Leninism] cannot exist, for in that case it would find itself in utter disarray in its practice and would be incapable of identifying the tasks of the moment or of living up to the initiator role the masses expect of it.
I envisage this question against the backdrop of observation and experience of consistent revolutionary practice. For my part, I take as my basis the experience of the Russian revolution, which bore within it a content that was essentially libertarian in many respects.
Had anarchists been closely connected in organisational terms and had they in their actions abided strictly by a well-defined discipline, they would never have suffered such a rout. But, because the anarchists "of all persuasions and tendencies" did not represent (not even in their specific groups) a homogeneous collective with a well defined policy of action, for that reason, these anarchists were unable to withstand the political and strategic scrutiny which revolutionary circumstances imposed upon them. Disorganisation reduced them to political impotence, separating them into two categories:
The first made up of those who hurled themselves into the systematic occupation of bourgeoise properties, where they set up house and lived in comfort. These are the one I term 'tourists', the various anarchists who beetled around from town to town in hope of stumbling across a place to live for a time along the way, taking their leisure and hanging around as long as possible to live in comfort and ease. [Note; isn't this ironically reminiscent of todays lifestyle anarchists and their obsession with squatting! Rather than organise side by side with the mass of workers in renters unions or tenant assosciations, they seperate themselves by bizzare lifestyle choices. The irony today being 'revolutionary' squatters rarely live in comfort, they would rather take up insecure housing in decrepit shitholes than paying rent and getting a job where they can organise.]
The other category was made up of those who severed all real connections with anarchism (although a few of them inside the USSR are now passing themselves off as the sole representatives of revolutionary anarchism) and fairly swooped upon the positions offered them by the Bolsheviks, even when the authorities were shooting anarchists who remained true to their revolutionary credentials by denouncing the Boksheviks treachery. [Note: while hardly a betrayal of the same magnitude, this is reminiscent of a certain trend in Australian anarchism of more organisationally minded anarchists to join The Greens or various socialist parties because of vague arguments around 'access to resources' or the 'absence of anarchist organisations' rather than struggle to build one.]
In light of these facts, it will be readily understood why I cannot remain indifferent to the nonchalance and negligence currently to be encountered in our circles.
For one thing, it prevents the establishment of a coherent libertarian collective that would allow anarchists to assume their rightful place in the revolution, and for another, it leads to a situation where we make do with fine words and grand ideas, whilst fading away when the time comes for action.
That is why I am speaking about a libertarian organisation that rests upon the principle of fraternal discipline. Such an organisation would lead to the crucial understanding between all of the living forces of revolutionary anarchists and would assist in its taking its rightful place in the struggle of labour against capital.
In this fashion, libertarian ideas can only gain a mass following, and not be impoverished. Only empty-headed irresponsible chatter boxes could balk at such an organisational set up.
Organisational responsibility and discipline should not be contraversial; they are the travelling companions of the practice of social anarchism."
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Bonus content!
Makhno met with Durruti and Ascaso before the Spanish revolution. After their meeting they returned to Spain where they politics took a very obvious turn from insurrectionist-bank robber types to much more sober revolutionaries who would have siginficant impact upon the Spanish revolution. I have my suspicions that Makhnos ideas greatly influenced the two Spanish libertarians, and I believe this quote from Durruti on revolutionary discipline illustrates that well;
"I believe, as I always have, in freedom. The freedom which rests on the sense of responsibility. I consider discipline indispensable, but it must be inner discipline, motivated by a common purpose and a strong feeling of comradeship."
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you and me, take tomorrow off
The sound of the phone ringing jolted me wide awake from halfhearted slumber. Our landline pumped the bedroom with shrill bursts of sound. John slept through it, oblivious as ever.
I glanced at the clock. 1:30 AM. Had to be one of the children calling. I mentally steeled myself for the worst and picked up the phone, “Hello?”
“Meredith?”
“Abby?”
“Yeah!” Her tone was excited and bubbly and she wasn’t slurring on her words so I immediately ruled out any possibility that she was drunk and in trouble.
“Meredith — we’re engaged!”
I paused, the wheels in my head frantically turning as I tried to wake myself up and say something coherent back. “Who’s engaged?”
Strike one.
“Uh, Marc and I are.” Abby said slowly then laughed, “Who else?”
“Oh. Oh! Well, that’s nice honey.”
Strike two and I was on my way to striking out entirely. In the history of being the mother to my daughter, I had never had the type of relationship with her where we could refer to one another as “honey.” I guess you could say our relationship was best summed up with the discussion I had with her as she was entering the first grade. That was the year where I encouraged her to call me by my first name, Meredith, when addressing me. It was also the year I got dragged into a parent/teacher conference at the school where the teachers were horrified by the thought that my child would not call me mom. I sat and smoked a cigarette, assuring them it was fine because it was a lesson to teach her early on that we were going to be on the same playing field as one another.
John, my second husband and Abby and Noah’s father, had a different take on it, “You don’t want them to call you mom because you never thought you would be a mom.”
Maybe he was right. Deep down, I never understood why I had to let go of who I was for kids. In my mind’s eye, I sat at 3 AM awake outside with my wine glass and books. I had wanted to curb a traditional motherhood from happening so I placed the rules early on to both of my children that ours would be a different relationship together.
On the other end, I heard Abby going quiet. I cleared my throat and tried again, hoping for something better to come out of my mouth, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean... Are you sure?”
Strike three and I was out. As the words tumbled out of my mouth, I wanted to take them all back but knew I couldn’t. They lay scattered before us in a messy heap everywhere.
The next thing I heard was Abby scowling and muttering in a whisper, “I’m in the bathroom now. You’re lucky I didn’t have the phone on speaker!”
“I’m lucky?”
“How dare you say something like that to me! You, the same person who has been badgering at me for years with the same boomer lifestyle rhetoric — get into a relationship, get engaged, get married, have a child! I’m finally doing it and all you can say back to me is ‘are you sure?’ What does that even mean?“
“Abby, it’s 1:30 in the morning you have to realize that you’re not catching me at my best right now.”
“Why would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know! I’m barely even awake and you’re screaming at me for something I mumbled when I was tired.”
“You knew full well what you were mumbling!”
“I did not — you know what, let’s not with this discussion. Hooray for your engagement, we’re thrilled for you, clap, clap, clap.”
“That was the FLATTEST congratulations I have ever heard!”
Next to me, John rustled awake and sat up yawning, “Is that Abby?”
“Hold on, your dad is waking up.” I covered the phone and turned to him, “She’s engaged.”
“Oh yeah? That’s great news. I’m gonna go to the living room and see what’s on HBO.”
I uncovered the phone, “Hello?”
“What did he say?” Abby asked.
“He thinks it’s great news.”
“Really? Can I talk to him?”
“No, he’s going to the living room to watch TV.”
“What?”
“He wants to see what’s on HBO.”
“Okay that’s just great then! Your ONLY daughter gets engaged and I have my mother asking me if I’m sure about it and my dad opting to watch TV instead of talk to me.”
“What can I say, we are who we are.”
“You know what? I bet Facebook and Instagram will be way more receptive to this than you both have been!”
“Yeah well, Facebook and Instagram don’t have to pay for a wedding either. Which reminds me, unless you want to do this shindig in the backyard of our house we can’t offer you any financial assistance in that department.”
“And the nightmare just keeps getting worse.”
I started laughing, “Silly girl, don’t you know your parents don’t have any money? Also, this reminds me that your creditors keep calling here about your student loans.”
“Did you tell them I died?”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t you just make a payment?”
“Can’t do that. Not on the level they want money anyway. Better just to fake my death at this point.”
“Dead girl walking and planning a wedding. You could blog about this.”
“Actually that reminds me. For a wedding present, I think instead of buying me stuff from a registry everyone should put their money together into a coffer to pay off my loans.”
“Abby, knock it off.”
“I’m serious! Paying that loan off will take me further in life than silverware and a couch ever will.”
“We’re not paying off your loans before ours get paid off first. How about you do this wedding up shotgun style? Get married at a chapel in the middle of nowhere and hit the road on a lam to avoid your debt? Then we can finally do the one thing parents dream of and fake our daughter’s death before her student loans destroy her.”
“You know what I’m going to hang up and call you tomorrow morning so we can talk like adults. This is the one thing you wanted me to do my whole life and I’m doing it and it’s still not enough for you!”
“Sounds like a fabulous idea. I’ll have had my coffee then and I can indulge you in your fantasies of having an expensive wedding that will never come true.”
“Meredith!”
“Just start looking in your local Goodwill shops for a cheap wedding dress.” I started laughing on the other end of the line, “And maybe... Maybe we can send you a twenty dollar bill in the mail to front a Funfetti cake.”
“I’m hanging up!” Abby huffed and I kept laughing, “Good night and congrats, Abby. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
She hung up without saying goodbye and I smiled at the phone a little bit affectionately. It reminded me of another parent/teacher conference I had to go to once in the second grade when I got in trouble for letting her watch a rated-R movie which she recapped the entirety of to her class.
“What is wrong with you?” I remembered one of the teachers chiding me, “She is a child. A child should not be discussing the plot points of Thelma & Louise in front of her classmates. That movie has a sex scene and violence!”
I tapped my shoe on the linoleum and sighed, “They’re kids, not stupid. Better to give them a taste of the world early on so they know what they’re getting into.”
I gathered my robe around me and walked out into the living room where John sat on the couch with the TV on.
He grinned at me, “She’s getting married.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Oh who knows?” John grimaced, “But I’ve never met a more cocky guy than Marc Schuart and I knew your first husband!”
“I want to be more excited about this, I really do.” I sighed, “But it’s a whole new world out there for people getting married today. She’s just got this vision of how she wants her life to be.”
“Yeah well, that’s most millennials for ya.”
“But you and I know how it really is out there. I’m just afraid that the vision and the reality won’t match up. And I get worried sometimes that she’s missing out on all the good, simple stuff out there.”
My mind shifted to recalling leaving that second grade classroom after talking to Abby’s teachers. Outside of the room, Abby sat in a plastic chair, her legs dangling in the air, still too short to touch the ground. “Hey kiddo.”
“Did I get in trouble for talking about Thelma & Louise in front of everyone?”
“Kind of. They weren’t thrilled that you got a class of 25 kids begging their parents to rent the movie from Blockbuster.”
“I should never said anything like that out loud. Next time, I’ll be quiet.” Abby looked down at her uniform skirt.
I knelt down next to her, “Abby, look at me.”
She lifted her head and I saw her eyes were lined with tears, “I’m sorry, Meredith.”
In that moment, I swore I saw a piece of my daughter disappear right before my eyes. A part of her that resisted the urge to be wild because it wasn’t the norm. My heart stung and beat hard, furious at the world for trying to damn her already.
“Don’t be sorry.” I whispered, “Having a pop culture inclined brain is nothing to apologize for. In fact, it’s an asset. It’ll keep you surviving while everyone else dies a little bit more and more inside every day.”
“Why don’t we do this?” I continued, “You and me, take tomorrow off and have a Hollywood day. Drive up the coast, go shopping on Robertson, listen to some cool music, get lunch at a cafe, and go to the movies together. I’ll take you to go see Interview with the Vampire.”
“I’ve been DYING to see that one! I read the Anne Rice book you gave me!”
“I know you did because I found it dogeared in your bed the other day when I was making it! High five!” We high fived each other.
“Just so you know,” Abby said as she hopped off the chair, “I’m VERY mature for my age. I can handle vampire movies.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice that you’re mature, lady. I know this about you!”
“Meredith?”
I was jerked into the present as John stared at me, “Hello in there?”
“Yeah, I’m here I’m here. Uh,” I thought for a second, “Well, you know if this is a thing that Abby wants to do then all we can do is support her through it. She can learn her own lessons in time. I’m sure it will be good for her. He’ll be good for her. It’ll all work out as she wants it to.”
I smiled at him. Suddenly, I began to feel excited about the prospect of seeing my only independent daughter get married to a man who was the most financially self-assured person I had ever met in my life. “This is her dream and I think we’re here to try to make it a reality.”
“Even though we don’t look anything like Marc’s family.”
“Hey, it takes all kinds!”
“So, we’re doing this then? We’re on the wedding track for our girl?” John grinned, “I’m all in if you are.”
I laughed, “Let’s do it. Let’s get this girl married and hooked onto a financial lifesaver!”
“His name is Marc, he is a person too.”
“Whatever. You know what I mean.”
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