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dwonfilm · 2 months

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There’s no life after you. | Dean Winchester x Reader (one-shot)

Summary: Dean felt like he had no other option than to push [Y/N] out of his life completely. When he and Sam find a case in her hometown, he’s hit with all of the emotions he’d tried for so long to bury.

Warnings: swearing, mild-angst, mostly sadness and ending with fluff.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Flashbacks are in bold.

Dean and Sam had found a case in Reno, Nevada—a city that had a lot of memories particularly for the older Winchester. Sure they’d worked a dozen or more cases around here over the years but that wasn’t the type of memories that kept playing on his mind. He only wished it was that simple. Sam had opted to take the backseat, needing some extra rest on the drive and Dean usually drove his precious ‘67 impala anyway. Ever since they’d found this case, the eldest Winchester was uneasy. Not because it was anything special, from the details online it seemed like it was just another vamps nest—maybe even just a handful travelling together.

No, what began to plague his mind was something that cut much deeper than that. All he could think about was you.

It had been roughly two years since he’d last seen you. Every other second of the last year and half had been him fighting the urge to reach out, knowing two things for certain. One: you’d be far better off without him holding you down. Two: even if that wasn’t the case, he’d really hurt you the last time you spoke and despite how much he missed you.. you’d likely never speak to him again—but that’s what he’d wanted right? You to move on, you to live a life that wasn’t plagued by the dangers of all things supernatural. Find a good man, a normal man, settle down.. get married and have kids. Not have to worry about tending to someone who had spent his entire life broken. Shaking his head to try and rid himself of these thoughts, it seemed the universe had other plans.

It seemed at some point in the drive his playlist had changed and delved into the ‘divorced dad rock’ side of things—the first few notes of what he recognized as a Daughtry song began to play. Seemingly just as they’d finally crossed the state lines into Nevada, the lyrics began..

“Ten miles from town and I just broke down, spitting out smoke on the side of the road. I’m out here alone, just trying to get home to tell you I was wrong but you already know. Believe me I won’t stop at nothing to see you so I’ve started running.”

Now Dean knew exactly what song this was and it damn sure wasn’t helping with his desperate need to stop thinking about you. He reached out to change the song but when the chorus hit, he stopped and his finger merely hovered above the button.

“All that I’m after is a life full of laughter, as long as I’m laughing with you—and I think that all that still matters is love ever after, after the life we’ve been through. ‘Cause I know there’s no life after you.”

It was as if the song was delivered down by the hand of God himself, which only made the ache in Dean’s heart that much worse. He’d been in pain ever since he left two years prior, but he had no right to be—he knew that. After all, the reason he didn’t have you by his side was because he left. It was because he walked away. Deeply he’d sigh as the next verse again would line up with the exact thought in his head.

“Last time we talked, the night that I walked burns like an iron in the back of my mind. I must have been high, to say you and I, weren’t meant to be and just wasting my time. Oh why did I ever doubt you? You know I would die here without you.”

Death had truly paled in comparison to how he felt seeing the look in your eyes. All of the pain, the hurt as he watched you break in front of his very eyes. You’d been together three years in total, but what you didn’t know—what he refused to tell you is that his worst fear was becoming a reality. Lucifer had threatened you in order to make Dean comply with his demand. He’d figured out the only way to get to the elder Winchester was through you, seeing as Lucifer himself needed Sam for his own personal vendettas. It wasn’t long after this that Dean knew he had to get as far away from you as possible. All the pain and suffering he’d endured in his lifetime would be nothing if your death was due to him. He couldn’t live with that and more importantly, you deserved more than that out of this life.

Sam began to stir in the backseat, which he’s caught sight of through the rear view mirror and so Dean quickly changed the station. He’d use Metallica specifically to shift the mood before his brother woke up and started asking too many questions. Questions that Dean wouldn’t have the answers to and he was already battling his mind to keep it all at bay.

Gripping Baby’s wheel tightly in his hands, he’d continue to path to Reno. About fifteen minutes later was when Sam’s eyes actually opened. “Mornin’ sleeping beauty.” Dean said with a (fake) smile on his face. “Ha-ha, very funny. Wait.. how long was I out? Are we in Nevada already?” He asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and noting their desert-like surroundings. “I don’t know, hours Sammy. Yeah we’re in Nevada—about an hour or two ‘til Reno.” Just saying the name of the city was enough to have him nervous again. There was a brief bit of silence between the brothers, Sam had a thought on the tip of his tongue but he didn’t know whether he should say it. Dean’s eyes had fixated on the road ahead and he sensed that his younger brother was gonna bring it up—bring you up, he’d always really liked you. Besides that, he could always seem to tell when things were troubling Dean despite his best efforts to hide it. “You know you could-“ Sam started but knowing it was coming, the elder brother immediately shut it down. “Sam, don’t. Please. I can’t and you know that.” Dean’s voice was shaky and that let him know that he’d already been thinking about things far too long. “You’ve been thinking about it. I know you, man. You think I didn’t see the look on your face when I told you we had something in Reno?” He sighed, knowing that his older brother was struggling with this didn’t make him feel good but he also knew it was making Dean feel worse. “Sammy, please.. I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

Sam would shake his head but he let it go, rehashing this with Dean while he was attempting to drive wasn’t gonna end well for either of them. Not to mention an hour and a half of odd tension in such a small place wasn’t ideal either. Instead, the younger brother’s eyes averted from the front of the car altogether as he turned to gaze out the window next to him. Sighing partially in relief and partially from the lingering thoughts, Dean would fully place his attention on the road and on the directions to this particular motel. They needed to get in, solve this case and get out before he did something he’d been trying for quite some time not to do.

Surprisingly this case was a little more difficult to follow through on, these vampires were incredibly elusive and their nest wasn’t the easiest to find. However, after a couple days lingering around they finally located the nest and were able to kill the three vamps that had been killing the locals. As it had become part of the job, Sam and Dean went out to a local dive bar to celebrate the victory—but Dean was trying to do more than that. He was trying to drown the lingering thoughts of you with whiskey, swallowing the liquid and letting it gently burn his throat. This would end up having the opposite effect and only made him think of you more. Over the first hour and change the brothers spent at the bar, three separate girls tried to hit on Dean but he didn’t really pay them any mind. Around the two hour mark the elder of the brothers decided he needed some air, getting up and walking outside. Dragging his dominant hand over his face he was doing anything to cling to that last bit of pride that he had. You were better off and he knew that, but every day that had been lost it was eating at him slowly. He needed a distraction and so he walked over to his precious car, getting into the driver’s seat and sighing. One flick of the wrist and the lights would come on, the radio coming in clear as day: it was that goddamn song again.

“You and I, right or wrong, there’s no other one. After this time spent alone it’s hard to believe that a man with sight could be so blind, thinking about the better times.. must’ve been out of my mind. So I’m running back to tell you.”

Again it seemed like the universe had intervened and Dean Winchester was far too drunk to fight it. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes and right now, all that he needed was you. He opened up the driver’s side door and got out just to come face to face with Sam, who had been worried when he couldn’t locate his brother in the bar. “What is it Dean?” He asked, noting the emotional state it was clear he was in—confused but not entirely. It wasn’t like him to be so open with his emotions, but you’d helped him with that. “I need to see her, Sammy. I can’t do this anymore.” There was enough emotion in his voice for his younger brother to know what he meant. Nodding Sam would approach the driver’s side door. “I’m driving, we’re not risking it with you.” Dean normally would protest but right now? All he needed to do was get to you. It didn’t matter how, he just needed to fill the void that he’d put there himself.

“All that I’m after is a life full of laughter, without you god knows what I’d do.”

Dean’s eyes were technically gazing out the window, but that’s not what he saw. His mind was flashing different images in rotation—one happy memory with you followed up by something he’d done to chase your memory away after he’d run away.

“All that I’m after is a life full of laughter, as long as I’m laughing with you and I think that all that still matters is love ever after—after the life we’ve been through. I know there’s no life after you.”

It seemed fast, but it had probably been about thirty minutes of time that had passed. Not that you lived very far at all, if you were even still at the last address the Winchesters had for you—Sam took a longer route hoping that Dean would sober up a little more before talking with you. Anyone would be able to smell the whiskey on him at this moment, but his words needed to be coherent if there was any chance of you hearing him out. It seemed that he had sort of the same idea because even when the impala had pulled into the driveway, he just sat there. “What if she doesn’t wanna talk?” Dean asked, somber tone to his voice as his eyes remained fixated on the front door of what he hoped was still your home. Mind racing almost as fast as his heart. “Dean, if I know anything about [Y/N], she’ll at least listen—even if she’s incredibly pissed and still hurt.” Sam reassured his older brother. Dean sighed again, not wanting to waste another second and also wanting to see have some alcohol in his system for this conversation. Slowly he opened the passenger side door and stepped out onto the asphalt driveway. Gently closing the door, it had still alerted a dog inside the home who was barking just a little bit every couple of seconds. He carried himself up the few cement steps, turning to see the front door closer than ever. Now more memories of the last time he was here were coming back.

“Dean, please.. why are you doing this? You can’t possibly just have stopped loving me, that’s not..” Her sobs were breaking his heart but he knew this was something he had to do. “Why are you walking away from this? From us? After everything we’ve been through.. after the life we’ve built from the ground up.. you’re just throwing it all away.” She felt as if there was a fire in your chest, she’d been sobbing so intensely for what seemed like forever. Mascara and eyeliner were smudged and made a mess of the space underneath her eyes. “Say something, Dean—please.. why are you pushing me away? What did I do?!” Every word became far more intense and the actual words were hard to discern from the sobs. Dean had just been staring at the floor since the words left his mouth. Three years next to her and he never imagined this day would come, but if you died just so Lucifer could get one up on him? He’d never survive. He’d never be able to carry the weight of your death or your blood on his hands—so this was the only way you got to live a long and happy life without him putting you in harm’s way. “[Y/N/N] I.. I just don’t think we were meant to work out. I’m sorry, I just-“ he was cut off by her intense sobs hearing him saying it again. “Please Dean.. don’t do this.. whatever I did wrong, whatever’s not working we can fix it. Please..” She pleaded, voice already hoarse from the crying and the wailing. “Sweetheart you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me, I’m just, not made out for this relationship stuff.” He’d barely lifted his gaze again to meet her own, but only for a second. Seeing her like that was too hard for his heart to bare. “Why Dean.. please.. it’s been three years. Three years of this and we can talk about it. Whatever it is we can move past it together, don’t you love me anymore?” She sobbed out, arms wrapped around her own chest as Dean looked up to her face and met her gaze one last time. “Honey, I’ll love you ‘til the day I die.” Sighing he turned to walk out the front door, closing it and never looking back. He couldn’t look—his heart had already shattered.

Now here he was again, roughly two years later, taking the last few steps to fully stand at your front door. Lifting his hand which had formed a loose fist, he’d knock three times upon the wooden material of the door. There was no answer and no sign that anyone was home other than the dog barking that he’d heard moments prior. Dean was about to turn and walk back down the pathway when he heard the doorknob turning after the lock clicked out of position. “Do you know how late it is, what do you nee—“ her eyes widened when she realized who had just knocked at her door. “D-Dean.. what are you..” she felt her bottom lip quivering. Dean could tell this was the last thing she’d ever thought would happen. “Hi, sweetheart. I-“ before he could get another word out of his mouth, he was met with a harsh slap to the side of his face. His eyes fell as he collected his thoughts, waiting before speaking again. “I deserve that. I deserve that and so much more. [Y/N/N] I’m so sorry.. I’m so fucking sorry.” He got out, not being able to look back up at her just yet. “You’ve got some kind of nerve showing up here, this late at night.. Dean you broke my heart and you stomped on it to boot. Why do you think after two whole years that I’d listen to whatever the hell you have to say?” It was obvious that there was sadness and hurt laced within her voice, more so than the anger she’s trying to push forward. Slowly his head tilted back into its usual position and his eyes found hers again. “I know there’s no life after you.” It was all he could say in that second and her expression softened, before she’d built the wall back up. “You came all the way to quote a Daughtry song?”

“No, I’m quoting that damn song because for the three days Sam and I have been in Reno I’ve heard it everywhere. My car, in a store, hell in my head—[Y/N] I’ve been trying every day since I left to push your memory from my mind. I wanted so badly to forget about you and know that you were free to have a normal life. I also know that I’ve got no right to stand on your doorstep telling you how much pain I’ve been in since the second I walked out this door two years ago when this whole fucking thing is my fault.” He paused, tears slowly falling as he tried to blink them away. “[Y/N] I was afraid. I was so afraid.. I couldn’t lose you like that-“ Again he was cut off but just by her words this time. “Dean you did lose me, you pushed me away—fuck you pushed me out of your life altogether. You’re absolutely correct, you don’t have any right to stand here talking about your pain. I didn’t eat, I barely slept, for weeks after you left. All I did was lay on that couch and sob. Endlessly. After I couldn’t physically sob any more I thought, there has to be some kind of monster or witch doing this and so I researched for weeks and still barely ate and slept only a fraction more. All I came up with was dead end after dead end and so I finally had to realize the truth.” She sobbed out, pausing to try and steady her own voice. “You chose to leave on your own.” She’d opened her mouth to continue talking but now it was his turn to sob out, which caught her completely off guard. “He made me feel like I had no other choice..”

Now you stood with a perplexed look on your face as tears were streaming down your cheeks. “What.. who-“ before the question could even fully leave her lips, the man she loved began to speak again. “Lucifer. He needed Sammy, you know all that one true vessel shit, so he couldn’t hurt me that way. He knew any threat he put to Sam wouldn’t stick because deep down I knew that Lucifer needed Sam alive and well to complete whatever sick and twisted plan he had thought out.” She felt both her heart and her stomach drop, figuring out exactly where this was going. “[Y/N] he said he’d kill you and not think twice. I couldn’t.. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you died all because I love you. I wouldn’t be able to breathe knowing that your death was my fault and I’d never get your blood off my hands.” His confidence had wavered, the alcohol mostly wearing off. You sighed, a silence falling over the two of you as you attempted to process what he’d just said. “Dean.. why didn’t you just talk to me? Tell me what he said and we could’ve talked about it.” She asked, the venom gone from her words and a sadness settling over them. “I was scared. I didn’t know how to admit that I was scared especially to you, I’m the one that was supposed to keep you safe. I know that’s not an excuse and I’m not trying to excuse me hurting you like I did—that image of you hugging yourself and crying the hardest I’d ever seen someone cry has haunted me all this time. I never wanna hurt anyone but I damn sure never wanted to hurt you.. at all—let alone like that..”

Again a silence fell between them, it felt like a lifetime between their words and the action she’d finally take. Stepping forward she used both of her hands to cup his face, both having glassy hues due to all the tears. “I forgive you, Dean.” She said almost in a whisper. He felt his heart racing and he eyes searched hers for any sign that this might not be true. Seconds felt like hours but he couldn’t find any sign of deception and instinctively, he plunged forward to connect his lips with her own. It had caught her off guard but she was returning the kiss with an explosion of passion. They chased the other’s lips in a back and forth motion until they both couldn’t breathe. After pushing the limit a little further they’d separate but remain forehead-to-forehead. “I know there’s no life after you.” She spoke in a soft tone before pulling Dean inside of her home and re-locking the door.

#dean winchester #dean x reader #fanfic #supernatural #dean winchester imagines #spn #spn imagines #dean winchester x reader #fanfics

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wannab-urs · 8 months

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The Spreadsheet Digest - Vol 20

Hi friends!!

Can't believe we're at the 20th week of me doing this rec list! I also hit 400 fics on the Spreadsheet, which is wild. We've got 14 fics this week. It was a bit of an angst fest, but there's plenty of smut and even a few threesomes!

As always you can find the Spreadsheet here and the other Digests here. You can tag me in literally any Pedro boy fic (except RPF) and I'll add it to my TBR! You can also send me fic recs if you want, and even ask me for fic recs. I'll dig through the sheet so you don't have to :)

Fic recs below the Pedge:

Blackmail - a Javi P/Joel series by @milla-frenchy

Javi is the new Fedra officer you have to deal with and he wants something instead of credits to let you and joel go on your supply run... he wants to fuck you! The way it starts with Joel getting cucked and then just.... descends into beautiful smutty depravity. This was so fucking good. I loved how Javi wasn't mean? Idk like the whole experience just sounded good as hell for reader after the initial discomfort of having to fuck someone to get what you want lol.

You need to relax, sweetheart - a Joel/Tess one shot by @walkintotheriveranddisappear

You're Tess and Joel's babysitter and they come home from date night and decide to help you unwind from a stressful night of caring for children... ya know... with their bodies. -- TW dubcon/noncon -- also there's some breeding kink in here and Tess is also pregnant. This fic is so good and twisted and delicious and wonderful byeeeee

Shore Leave a Frankie/Santi one shot by @theywhowriteandknowthings

Ok so you're a bartender and Frankie and Santi come into your bar sometimes on shore leave and they always flirt with you. And then this time they flirt with you and you like actively consider going home with them... and then you um find something out... spoilers sorry.... and decide to go home with both of them. And it is wonderful, sexy, and sweet. I'm gonna need a 30 part loose fit series on these 3 immediately <3

Rendezvous in Reno - a Dieter one shot by @theywhowriteandknowthings

AHHH okay so erotica writer!reader has a book signing and the subject of her first published erotic short story walks in knowing full well the story was basically fanfic of HIM. Heavy flirting ensues... then he comes to your hotel. This fic??? It's so sweet and fluffy and like... indulgent? It's like eating dessert for breakfast. There's a lovely surprise in relation to Dieter himself, also. I just love his personality in this and I love the sexy intimate smut and I want to die I love Dieter so much.

An Open Invitation - a Joel one shot by @walkintotheriveranddisappear

Joel watches reader and her girlfriend? fuck buddy? whatever. fuck from his window cause girl has got her curtains WIDE open and she is doing it fully on purpose.... anyway some stuff happens and Joel ends up in her house with her and her friend and then he gets used like a sex toy and loves every second of it and I loved every second of this fic. It's perfect. No fucking notes. 10/10.

Aches!Joel - a Joel series by @toxicanonymity

At the time of this rec, there's four parts. This features virgin!reader and a Joel that shows more restraint than I really expected him to be able to. This fic is sweet and the teasing and the will-they-won't-they throughout is so good. It's like edging but you're reading. And then... ya know. Aches!Joel owns my whole heart. fuckin wanting to wait for a soft bed to fuck her PLEASE... whatta man (the bar is in hell, I know, leave me alone).

Linger On - a Joel series by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin

So you and Joel broke up 10 years ago and you moved on! You moved away from Austin and you got married and you have a kid and everything is great right? It's not. You're soooo not over Joel Miller. And then!!! Some events happen that put you face to face again and not just like.. briefly or temporarily. I don't want to spoil too much of this fic here in the review... just read it. It's angsty and yummy and I love it. (smutty also, who do you think I am?)

Carnal - a Joel series by @pascalsbby

Another camgirl!reader fic because I literally cannot help myself lmao. This one has the delicious twist of also being dad's best friend!joel AND best friend's dad!Joel... how fucked up is that? The correct amount of fucked up. The dirty talk going on in this fic is literally insane. My body went into fight or flight I was so turned on. And then on top of the crazy freaky yummy sex and like perv!joel and dom!joel and just all that going on... the story itself is really fucking good!!!

A Feeling That Never Came - a Javi P series by @theywhowriteandknowthings

You show up to your birthday/engagement party (i will not elaborate on that) and it's all kind of terrible and then your ex, Javi Peña shows up. Which should be a bad thing. Who wants their ex at their engagement party? You do. I promise you do. Desperately. So like... read this lovely bucket of angst as a bedtime story, cry yourself to sleep, and anxiously await the next part just like me.

It's always been you - a Dieter one shot by @alwaysmicado

Dieter Bravo is not a good boyfriend and after a year you are faced with the brutal reality of that fact. This fic destroyed me emotionally for real. Like the way Dieter is so.... pathetic? The perfect depiction of that push and pull where you can't let yourself fall into him but like all you want is for him to hold you because you're upset? GOD DAMN. Perfect. And then the interlude time period and what happens there and the ending? All so fucking perfect. I would love more of these two. They're broken and sad and it hurt and I can't stop thinking about this fucking fic AH

Light Only Shows You Where the Shadow Are - a Max Phillips one shot by @oonajaeadira

You've got this friend that can't take a fucking hint and won't understand you don't want him like that, but thankfully a handsome and unsettling stranger is there to save the day... several times.... and it's a little weird that he's always there and that you can't quite remember what he looks like when he's gone... and he makes you feel a little off. This is such a wonderfully spooky fic and it really captures Max's vibes while, despite the stalker behavior, somehow being more tolerable than the canon Max. I desperately hope you get the inspo to write a full Max series. It would be delightful

I Know Places - a Din one shot by @beskarandblasters

So you're a bounty and Din catches you and he has to take you all the way from tatooine to coruscant. It's a long trip and due to some mitigating circumstances he can't carbon freeze you as you'll probably die and... dead people don't pay their debts so that just won't do. 3 weeks cooped up in the Crest with a tin can man you don't know and who is carting you off to certain death... surely that couldn't be a love story. Or could it? This fic is so fucking good. I love the story and the smut???????? To die for.

You Shook Me All Night Long - a Joel series by @macfrog

You are Joel Miller's assistant and he's the CEO and he is... handsy. But it's not making you uncomfortable, at all. This starts at the official work party, moves over to a bar, and then keeps going after that. I really loved this. Joel was the perfect amount of rich corporate asshole and possessive sexy man.

Plaited and Braided - an Ezra one shot by @bonezone44

Ez wins a bullwhip and learns to use it on a tree... then he learns to use it on you. This is so delightful. It's a little dark there for a bit, but it's much much sweeter than you'd expect a sadist!Ezra bullwhip fic to be. I would very much love to see more of these two.

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Here's some art I saw this week

Joel and Ellie by @vickisigh

Din by @gaytedlasso

Frankie and his shifter form by @littledozerdraws (commissioned for SNAFU by @theywhowriteandknowthings)

Pedro by @bonezone44

Pedro as popular raccoon memes by @iamasaddie

Joel Miller Apologist badge by @sin-djarin

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My Masterlist

My Kofi

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Happy Reading!

#fic recs #the spreadsheet digest #fanfiction recommendations #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro fics #pedro pascal character fanfiction

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vigilskeep · 8 months

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The line Astarion says during combat: “I shot a svirfneblin in Menzoberranzan just to watch him die.” Is a reference to Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues song where the line is “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”…

i have no IDEA why they’d pick him to reference Johnny Cash but its funny to think that Astarion is a fantasy Johnny Cash fan

astarion canonically a fan of fantasy edgar allan poe and fantasy johnny cash

#and is he wrong

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eebie · 8 months

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i shot a man in reno just to watch him die

#my rambles

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blackswaneuroparedux · 1 year

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I sat with my pen in my hand, trying to think up the worst reason a person could have for killing another person, and that’s what came to mind.

- Johnny Cash

This is how Cash explained how he came up with the line ‘But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die’ in his iconic song ‘Fulsom Prison Blues’.

In 1953, Johnny Cash recorded ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and two years later included it on his album Johnny Cash and his Hot and Blue Guitar! Cash was inspired to write the song after seeing the 1951 movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison while serving in West Germany with the United States Air Force at Landsberg in Bavaria. The location, incidentally, of another famous gaol and where Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf when he was incarcerated after the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1924. After the war it was re-named War Criminal Prison No. 1 and kept war criminals convicted at the Nuremberg trials.

Folsom Prison Blues cleverly combined two folk idioms - the train song and the prison song. For decades Cash nearly always opened his gigs with Folsom Prison Blues after greeting the audience with the same introduction each time: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,”. On 13th January 1968, Johnny Cash and June Carter, the Statler Brothers, the Tennessee Three, with Carl Perkins on guitar, recorded a live version of the song before the prisoners of Folsom State Prison, Folsom, California. The performances - one in the morning, another in the afternoon - can be heard on the album Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison.

#cash #johnny cash #quote #music #singer #composer #lyrics #song #fulsom prison blues #american #icon

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blubushie · 2 months

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do you think engineer listens to country music

Oh, without a doubt. And he loves Johnny Cash. Everyone gets nervous because he gets REALLY into Folsom Prison Blues and gets that thousand yard stare at "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die." He sings it like he did so that. And then he's back to all southern politeness and cheer immediately after the verse is over. No one can make heads or tails of it but it certainly makes them wonder.

#blu whos #engineer tf2 #tf2 #abad

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boringkate · 6 months

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hi, can you tell us about the first time you killed a person?

When I was just a baby, my mama told me

"Son, always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns"

But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die

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sleaterkinnie · 1 month

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Anyone ever think about how I shot a man in reno just to watch him die

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imsodishy · 2 years

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thinking more about Max and Billy military brats and they could have done such a fucking awesome early season reveal.

Keep Neil and the kids totally separate at first, no indication he's connected to them at all. Call him Colonel Hargrove and have Max be introduced as Maxine Mayfield in class and just let the audience make assumptions about Billy’s last name. Whatever. Go light on the details for the kids, there’s lots of rumors flying about the new kids but they will neither confirm nor deny.

Neil is totally wrapped up with the lab and the gate, butting heads with Owens, maybe he wants access to Will, all sorts of shady shit, but he’s established as a baddie firmly contained in that story-line.

Until Max is getting up to something with the Party she definitely shouldn't be, maybe when Dart gets lose at the school (what was that, end of ep3?).

~~Cut to Billy talking to someone (imagine that Billy gets to talk to someone) obviously I'm gonna say Steve but whatever.

Anyway, Steve’s asking about the rumors, "So which is it? I've heard you're in witness protection, I've heard you're secretly a prince-"

"Heard I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die?"

"Yeah, something like that." Steve laughs.

Cut back to the Party, there's someone watching them but they don't see yet.

~~Billy, "Nah, the truth is boring. I'm just a military brat. My dad's a Colonel-"

The watcher is approaching the Party.

~~"He’s here about some big SNAFU last year. Cleaning up the mess."

"Maxine!" snaps Colonel Hargrove, "Time to go home."

#billy hargrove #neil hargrove #me rewriting season 2? more likely than you think #max mayfield #stranger things #dishy writes #netflix give me a billion dollars! im not gonna make a show for you or anything i just want the money #military brats au

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yesterdays-xkcd · 5 months

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Did you shoot a man in Reno? Now, I don't mean to pry.

Reno Rhymes [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball and Black Hat stand facing one another. Black Hat is on the left.] Black Hat: You know, I once shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. Cueball: Really? Well, I once shot a man in Reno, but I couldn't tell you why.

Black Hat: I once shot a man in Reno, then I went home to cry. Cueball: I once shot a man in Reno, then I watered his cacti.

Black Hat: I once shot a man in Reno 'cause they cancelled Firefly. Cueball: I once shot a man in Reno, him and all his succubi.

Black Hat: I once shot a man in Reno and a bunch more in My Lai. Cueball: I think we're done.

#xkcd #reno rhymes #xkcd 206 #2000s #2007 #2000s edginess #johnny cash #folsom prison blues

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cy-gogglin · 5 months

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Welcome to Johnny Cash’s world of whiskey, sin and lyrical doom

Johnny Cash is a Mount Rushmore figure in American music. He had a voice as deep and ancient as the wellspring from which his folk and country heritage sprang, and a face that might well have been carved from a mountainside. Across seven extraordinary decades as a recording artist, from his debut single Hey Porter (1955) to his 67th and final album American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), Cash wrestled with love, hate, crime, punishment, forgiveness, redemption, death and salvation. He was the God-loving sinner who could deliver his most famous line, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”, with the same conviction he brought to a gospel spiritual.

“I have a feeling for human nature in difficult situations – don’t know why, but I always have,” Cash told me during an interview in 2003, the year before he died at the age of 71. We spoke via a transatlantic phone call, and I can still recall the thrill of hearing him come on the line with the four words he’d uttered at thousands of concerts: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” That famous gravel voice was instantly recognisable, if a little shaky with age. When I asked him whether, looking back over his long life, he had any regrets, he laughed. “None that I’d really like to publicise. I don’t cry in my beer – or milk, for that matter.”

Cash was then in the midst of a late-career flourish, releasing a series of stripped-back albums produced by Rick Rubin. More than just a coda to a rollercoaster career, the American series framed Cash as an immensely complex figure, embodying and embracing the many contradictions of being human. “Truth is what ties it all together,” he told me of his vast recorded output, almost all of it featuring sparse productions that made no concessions to fads. “I never thought about doing it any other way except the simple, straightforward bare-bones way that felt right in the beginning. It carries my message in the song without a lot of adornment. I try to keep it down to earth – play it as it lays and say it as it is.”

Standing 6’ 2”, and with an incomparable gravitas, Cash was a big man in every sense of the word, and it takes a big book to do him justice. The Life in Lyrics is a proper doorstopper, a large-format hardback of 374 pages that weighs in at 4.5 lbs. Structured partly chronologically and partly thematically, it attempts to tell a life story in songs and pictures, packed with 125 lyrics – from the 600-plus Cash composed – plus hundreds of photographs, handwritten letters and memorabilia from his personal archive.

Cash with his son John Carter Cash in the mid-1970s - White Rabbit

The photos are glorious. In shots from 1969, a year in which Cash saw off the challenge of Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel to be named the biggest-selling recording artist in America, his hands are bony and rough-skinned, testament to a poor childhood spent picking cotton and fights. His face looks whip-thin and dust-blown, brow deeply furrowed, eyes sunken and haunted. Those were his wild, mean days of amphetamines and whiskey. “I always thought somebody was trailing me,” he told me in 2002. It may have been the ghost of his beloved older brother Jack, who died, aged 12, in a horrific chainsaw accident. “I probably never did get over it,” Cash admitted.

But he certainly worked through it. Among the classic songs that Cash composed, and are reproduced here, were the deathless romantic ballad I Walk the Line, the bitter confessional Folsom Prison Blues, the epic Big River, the tragicomic flood narrative Five Feet High and Rising, the careworn lament Don’t Take Your Guns to Town, and the stark protest song All of God’s Children Ain’t Free. At their best, Cash’s lyrics are carefully wrought, with the basic structures and rhyming schemes of folk poetry underpinned by rough-hewn wisdom, sharp observation and quick wit. His signature song, The Man in Black, from 1971, remains an enduringly powerful statement of empathy for his fellow man: “I wear black for the poor and beaten-down / Living on the hopeless hungry side of town.”

These songs were written to be sung, however, and in The Life in Lyrics, without that inimitable voice to sustain them, their essential simplicity can appear trite. The accompanying text, written by authorised Cash biographer Mark Stiepler with dewy-eyed contributions from Cash’s son John Carter Cash, is informative but hagiographic, with a tendency to exaggerate achievements and gloss over failings. Cash’s brave 1969 anti-Vietnam war song, Route 1, Box 144, which describes a dead American soldier being returned to his family, may offer genuinely touching commentary, but is it really “the greatest argument for peace ever devised”?

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There’s also an unfortunate tendency to brush over or excuse the darker elements of Cash’s life, the drug addictions, infidelities and appalling behaviour – despite the fact that these gave his music so much depth. The 1964 hit Understand Your Man is a song of spectacular bitterness directed at his soon-to-be ex-wife Valerie while he was already having an affair with future wife June Carter, yet it warrants only a brief, glib paragraph. I could have done with fewer stories about the deeply pious impulses behind Cash’s gospel hymns, and more tales about, say, the time he smashed every crystal chandelier in a hotel lobby in a drug-fuelled rage over his amorous rejection by a friend’s widow. The Man in Black accepted the darkness within him: it’s a disservice to try to whitewash his image now.

As well as being a songwriter, Cash was an interpreter who could make a song completely his own, but this aspect of his art is inevitably missing from a book of his lyrics, so there’s no commentary on such Cash hits as Ring of Fire, A Boy Named Sue, The Ballad of Ira Hayes, Highwayman or his definitive cover of Hurt (originally by the industrial metal group Nine Inch Nails). We do, however, learn of the genesis of one of his last and finest songs, the mysterious, apocalyptic The Man Comes Around. Composed in 2000, it was apparently inspired by a dream about Queen Elizabeth II, who told him: “Johnny Cash, you’re like a thorn tree in a whirlwind.”

In the last song Cash wrote, Like the 309, he imagined being carried away by a heavenly train, and viewed it with anticipatory relish: “Take me to the depot, put me to bed / Blow an electric fan on my gnarly old head.” As we reach the end of this mighty book, with the cumulative impact of Cash’s sincere words, the photos of his creased face changing over the years, his clear and consistent love for June and family and, indeed, his fellow man, the final pages become incredibly moving. Blind and weakened, Cash awaits his inevitable end, still embracing life with humour and pathos.

When I spoke to him that day, he was stoically suffering ill health, and in such constant pain that, having kicked his pill addiction, he was required to take painkillers just to function. Yet, when I asked what was the best advice he had ever received, he didn’t miss a beat. “Don’t sleep with your whiskey bottle by the bed,” he said, laughing deep and low. “That’s a piece of advice that has probably kept me alive this long.”

Johnny Cash: The Life in Lyrics is published by White Rabbit

Story by Neil McCormick || The Telegraph

#Youtube

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