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#that if i got deeply into this character that is so embarrassingly my type on such a peak level of weird grubby stoner punk rock loser

tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 4 months

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I am quite bad at recognizing voices, even when I’m familiar with them, which of course is at times an issue in my obsession with audio comedy. I can do it eventually, requiring less time for people with more distinctive voices. But I’m a lot worse at it than most people I know are.

I am currently listening to the Elis James/John Robins radio show (I wish there were an easy portmanteau so I didn’t have to type all that out every time, like Jossell, but to do that here would just make the word jealous, which might be a fitting couple name given their dynamic of John Robins skewering Elis James for crimes such as making money from sitcom acting and getting verified on Twitter, but it would get confusing to try to use that as a name for them regularly), and I got really, embarrassingly far into it – way, way too far into it, before I realized they’ve had comedians calling in disguise on almost every episode I’ve heard. It’s one of the worst voice-based oversights I’ve ever made, missing all those voices until episode 47.

They have this feature called Textual Healing, where each episode, a listener will call in with their problem and John and Elis will offer advice like Agony Uncles. And I did understand, from pretty close to the beginning, that this isn’t a straightforward advice segment. The problems were always really weird, but John and Elis treated them relatively seriously.

At first I didn’t think much about it, just figured that maybe the producers filtered the calls until they found someone with a weird enough problem to be funny. Then I figured the listeners had caught on to this, and some were calling in with fake problems to be funny, and John and Elis were playing along. I continued to believe this until episode 47, when a woman with a really exaggerated Welsh accent called into complain that her cat was classist.

After 46 fucking episodes of me not working out what was going on, they finally tipped their hand, I thought that had to be an actor. It sounded too much like an actor performing a sketch, getting too deeply into character with the weird voice and the verbal tics and the wild problem presented as though it were normal, I did not think some listener was making this up on the fly. Also, I was pretty sure I did recognize the voice but could not, for the life of me, work out from where.

So I went home and Googled it, and it turns out I have been wrong from the very beginning. There’s a spreadsheet online that tells you who the various callers actually are, or at least, who all the callers are that the fans have been able to identify:

Look at that fucking spreadsheet. Everything from before episode 47 is something I heard and did not realize it was anyone besides a listener playing a game. Looking at it again, I’m now pretty sure that none of them were from actual listeners. I think that from the beginning, John Robins and Elis James decided it would be funny to set up a fake listener call-in segment, where they have comedians call in in character, as a parody of real Agony Aunt segments. And I didn’t catch on until episode 47, when Cariad Lloyd overacted just a little too hard. I think the sections of that spreadsheet where the “real identity” is blank are just the sections where no one has successfully identified who they were, maybe they’re non-famous friends of John and Elis.

It all makes sense now, of course. When that one woman called in and I noticed she had the exact same accent as Lucy Beaumont – really, the exact one, and I’ve never heard anyone else with that exact accent before, but I guess I just don’t hear many people from Hull, and this must be some other Hull woman – and she even had quite a Lucy Beaumont-esque problem, of saying she keeps having dreams that then come true. I thought, maybe it’s common for people from Hull to believe in supernatural things, the way Lucy Beaumont does. Obviously, I am now aware that the caller was, in fact, Lucy Beaumont.

When someone who introduced herself as “Isobel from Crystal Palace” called in, and I thought – that’s interesting, because Elis James’ partner Isy Suttie lives in Crystal Palace, her full first name is Isobel and this caller’s accent even sounds a lot like Isy’s – yep, that was Isy Suttie, and actually that barely counts as a disguise, she literally introduced herself with her real name. I… definitely should have got that one. It’s weird that I didn’t get that one. Especially since it was the episode after John’s then-girlfriend, Sara Pascoe, called in as a character named “Sara”.

I think I a bunch of them do this – call in with problems that are in some small way to related to themselves. Like Lucy Beaumont called in as someone with an absurd belief that she has psychic powers, but the real Lucy Beaumont also believes in psychic powers. I’ve just listened to the first of several Tim Key episodes (episode 59), and he has mentioned that one of his problems is related to a reindeer skull. I know Tim Key really did have a reindeer skull in 2015 (when that radio episode aired), because he brought it as a prize on Taskmaster season 1, which aired in the same year.

Looking at this makes me see that it makes sense that I’d initially grouped the Jellis radio show in with Pappy’s Flatshare and Three Bean Salad, on my list of audio comedy things to get to at some point, because clearly those people run in the same circles. All three people from Pappy’s, and all three people from Three Bean Salad, appear on Textual Healing at least once.

That list also contains quite a few people whose voices I know really well, I cannot believe I missed them all. I heard Josie Long and didn’t recognize her! Romesh Ranganathan, who’s got a very distinctive voice. I think I actually did, for the briefest of moments, vaguely think “Oh that sounds a little bit like Ivo Graham,” one time. But not enough to actually realize it was Ivo Graham. I didn’t recognize Matthew Crosby, even though when I listen to the Pappy’s podcast, I always appreciate that I have no trouble picking out Crosby’s voice, since I can’t tell Tom and Ben apart and it would get really confusing if all three sounded the same.

The worst of these by far is I heard Daniel Fucking Kitson and did not realize it was him. Do you know how big a deal that is? I have spent an utterly indefensible number of hours listening to Daniel Kitson talk. I just checked, and I hesitate to even share this information because it’s so over the top, but if I isolate all the audio files in my Daniel Kitson folder and get their combined duration, and then do the same with the video files in there, and add those two durations up, it comes to about 720 hours. And I have listened to every moment of them, within the last couple of years. That number is slightly inflated because it includes both the full versions of his radio shows with the songs still in, and the cut versions with the songs edited out, so some of the content is duplicated. But still.

Also, for the last year I have been an assistant in a similarly over-the-top project to collate all the Kitson radio clips that my friend and I can possibly find, where said friend (the word “assistant” might be too grandiose for me, my friend has done the vast majority of the work and my contributions have consisted of writing down the names of songs while editing them out of some episodes) has uploaded them to a website that I will deny having anything to do with if it ever comes to attention of attention-avoidant man himself, in fact I will deny ever having heard of Daniel Kitson. But the point is that we have scoured the internet for any references to any time in any year that Daniel Kitson may have appeared on any radio station in any form, because this radio archiving project exists to satisfy the relentless completist that runs deep through my entire personality.

And still, despite all that, I heard a new bit of Kitson on the radio – a clip we didn’t even know existed, and I hadn’t just found a reference to it having happened so I could try to track it down, I had the actual clip right there in front of me, and I did not realize it was him. 720 hours were not enough for me to be able to recognize that voice when I heard it out of context. Not even a brief moment spent thinking, “Oh, that sounds like Kitson.” He even called in with a problem that’s slightly thematically related to some stuff that Kitson used to allude to in his stand-up around that time.

I've enjoyed lots of other little cameos by various comedians. They once took a call from Matt Forde once to defend Oasis as the greatest band in history, which furthered my view of Matt Forde as the essence of centrism in every way. They read out texts and Tweets from listeners all the time (genuine listeners, I think, I'm assuming the entire show isn't just a front), and names of people who sent those in have included, at different times, Iain Stirling, Nish Kumar, Pierre Novellie, Gavin Osborn, and Mike Bubbins. But I did not realize that I was hearing other comedians' voices all the time.

Obviously, I need to go back and hear them again, with this new information. I am downloading the episodes that are marked as being an identified comedian in disguise, and going to go through and cut out all the Textual Healing clips so I can put them in a folder. A folder where I clearly mark the episode number and the date and the name of the comedian, because it bothers me that such an archive doesn’t seem to exist already, because it always bothers me when archives with clearly labeled relevant data don’t exist (though I do hugely appreciate whoever created that spreadsheet). Once I finish the folder, I’ll share it on Tumblr in case anyone else would like to hear some comedians call in as various characters.

But in the meantime, I’ve just finished cutting out the first Textual Healing with an identified comedian, on episode 4 – March 9, 2014 – with Sara Pascoe.

Okay, sure, now I get that it’s pretty fucking obvious who that was, when she introduces herself by name Sara, and complains about her boyfriend who’s always playing phone games, and John Robins has talked several times about having an addiction to phone games that’s gone back and forth from low-level quirky to a serious problem throughout his life and ruined his relationship with a previous girlfriend. And when, in those years, Sara Pascoe repeatedly used comedy shows to complain about her relationship with John Robins, with and without his involvement (I’m remembered a particularly awkward episode of her in Dictionary Corner of Catsdown). Yeah, I really should have figured that one out from the beginning.

Then the next episode Isy Suttie calls in with an adorable little story about her and her boyfriend having pet names for things together, which I’d say shows the contrasting personas of the two presenters of the Jellis radio show pretty well.

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chipper9906 · 3 years

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Bound To You - Chapter 13: Reunions

< - - - Previous Chapter

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SEASON 15

NOTE: Pairings and Ratings Will Change As Story Is Updated

Pairings: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester

Rating: General Audiences

Chapter Word Count: 11,456

Overall Word Count: 105,524

Status: Multi Chapter Fic - In Progress (13/15)

Chapter Preview:

To his right is a building. It’s an old building, but not in that desolate, crumbling way an abandoned building would be. It’s well-loved, with many pairs of feet having walked through its front doors. Its aged wooden exterior has stood the test of time, the weathered appearance only adding to its charm. However, the strange thing about this building is… that it shouldn’t exist. It had burned down, years ago now, taking a beloved friend of the Winchesters with it. And yet, the switched-off neon sign situated above the bar’s awning proudly displayed ‘Harvelle’s Roadhouse’ as if that horrid event had never happened.

Castiel doesn’t have too much time to ponder on that, however, as the third thing he takes in is… himself. Sat upon a less than stable looking wooden chair under the Roadhouse’s awning is the spitting image of himself, although this version of him has forgone his usual trench coat attire, instead opting for a simple pair of well-worn jeans and a button-up shirt. The man waves him over and, without really knowing why, Castiel finds himself walking over.

Link To Fic

Click Below To Keep Reading

Character Key For Telepathic Conversations

'Italic Text' - Castiel

'Bold Text' - Dean

* * *

Castiel opens his eyes.

Which, in itself, is unexpected. His last experience in the Empty was one of… nothingness. He had only awoken once he had heard Dean calling to him, but before that… he was lost in a deep, deep sleep. He had assumed that meant the Empty had decided it was better to just throw him as far into the Empty as possible to sleep through his worst nightmares, allowing the Empty to finally go back to sleep itself.

Perhaps this time was different. Perhaps he had escaped the Empty’s clutches one time too many, woken it up from its slumber for the last time, and will now be subjected to the worst torture imaginable by this very ancient, and very pissed off being.

Either way, the sight that greets him when his eyes open is not of the Empty’s infinite stretches of darkness. He is also not greeted to the sight of the bunker’s ceiling, with the worried faces of the Winchester brothers and Eileen leaning over his freshly made body.

The first sight he sees is the sky; Rich blue in color that he’s sure no type of man-made paint would ever be able to match in even the most magnificent of paintings, dotted with beautifully crafted pillow-like clouds which floated lazily over his head. The gentle warmth of the sun above kissed his skin; not that searing heat that has your skin feeling raw and tight, but that perfectly comfortable temperature that can only be made better by – oh, and there it was: a gentle warm breeze that was cool enough to take off the edge of the sun’s rays, but also warm enough that it doesn’t leave him shivering under his trench-coat.

All of this information comes together in one big conclusion: wherever he had ended up…

He was no longer an Angel.

The surface under his back is hard enough that his shoulder blades have begun to ache, a consistent and uncomfortable pressure that forces him up to his feet. Once his body listens to his commands and has him taking in his surroundings, he’s able to take in the sight of the smooth, tarred road he had been laid out on, stretching out in front of him before bending around a corner and out of sight. Most of the road was surrounded by dense forest on either side, the few rays of light breaking through the tangled branches of the treetops shining down on the sun-bleached grass.

“Hello, Castiel,” The man greets him with a welcoming smile as he stands from the chair. His voice is similar to his own, though not of the same grumbly, rough pitch.

“Is this supposed to be some sort of trick?” Castiel asks the thing wearing his skin, unsure whether to keep his eyes focused on his double, or the strange world he had woken up in.

The man’s smile turns almost sad in nature, seeing the expression on his own face rather… jarring to see. “Ah… you think I’m the Empty, don’t you?”

“I’m dead, am I not?” Castiel answers his question with another question. “Where else would I go?”

“Well, I doubt I could convince you you’re not in that place,” The man places a hand on his own chest as he speaks. “But there is someone waiting to talk you in there that might. A few, actually. We’ve been keeping a close eye on you guys; it’s been both stressful and amusing to watch everything unfold, I can tell you that.”

Castiel’s eyes briefly flicker to the closed door of the Roadhouse at the man’s jab of a thumb behind himself, his new ears picking up the sound of soft music, chatter, and laughter emitting from within. “This… this isn’t the Empty?”

“Nope.”

“And… you’re not the Empty?”

“Also no.”

“Then… who are you?”

The man laughs kindly at that – not a mocking laugh, almost more… that he had been expecting for that question. “I was chosen to be the guy that welcomes you up here. Thought it would be nice for you to see a familiar face when you woke up - even if it’s only familiar because you’re borrowing it from me.”

It took an embarrassingly long time for Castiel to connect the dots. To be fair, he had just died, so everything was a little disorienting right now. “…James?”

James’s face twisted in discomfort at the name. “I prefer Jimmy, to be honest with you. ‘James’ feels weird…”

Castiel could only gawp at his vessel; both because of how friendly he was being towards him (especially considering they hadn’t left each other on the best of terms), and because, if he was talking to Jimmy right now, in front of the Roadhouse, basking in the most perfect weather he’s ever experienced, then…

“This… is Heaven?” Castiel finally gets out. “I’m in Heaven?”

“You are,” Jimmy confirms.

“I don’t understand…” Castiel mumbles, placing a hand on his chest as if he would be able to feel the one thing he shouldn’t have. “I… I don’t have a soul?”

“You didn’t have a soul. You do now.” Jimmy corrects him. “One of the few perks to being human.”

Before Castiel could say anything in response to this revelation, Jimmy was patting him on the back with a sympathetic smile. “Look, I know this is all… a lot. First time I woke up here was weird, too. One second I’m watching you throw a Molotov at Lucifer himself, the next I’m being ripped into atoms, and… here I am.”

“Ah…yes…” Castiel ducks his head in shame. “I'm sorry for-,”

“Sorry?” Jimmy cuts him off with a laugh. “Castiel… I had accepted to being chained to you for eternity, remember? Trust me, coming up here was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

“But…” Castiel begins with a frown. “What about Claire? I took you away from her. I made you miss watching her grow up, I-,”

“You did what you had to do to save the world. Which you and those guys down there did. Many times. Because of you, my girl gets to keep on living. I'm proud to have been the one that helped you to do that, Castiel. Even if it’s only by lending you my body.”

“That doesn’t excuse me of depriving her of a father.”

Jimmy sighs deeply at Castiel's insistence on kicking himself while he’s down. “She still had a father, Castiel. Sure, it took you a while, but you got there eventually. Buying her embarrassing birthday presents that she secretly loves? That's what a dad does. But most of all? You protected her, Castiel. You made sure to look out for her. Now, she has a home. And I know that Sheriff will be as protective over my girl as Amelia was, along with all those other girls shacked up in that house. She's safe. She has a chance to live her life. And one day… I'll get to see her again. I can’t ask for much more, Cas.”

Castiel smiled gratefully at his former vessel, diverting his gaze to the ground. “And… how are you, Jimmy? You and Amelia?”

“Never better,” Jimmy assured him, placing a hand on his back and diverting him towards the Roadhouse’s entrance. “Felt like a blink an eye before Amelia was up here with me. Things are even better with the change-,”

“The what?” Castiel planted his feet firmly, coming to a stop in front of the door. “What change?”

“Heaven, Castiel. Recently, there’s been some uh… well, let’s just say it’s not the Heaven you remember. Trust me - you’ll see what I mean when you get inside.”

Castiel’s gaze was drawn towards Jimmy’s hand gesturing towards the door in front of them, watching Castiel expectantly with a raised eyebrow. Castiel cast Jimmy one last look, praying quietly to himself that this wasn’t some sort of trick as he pushed open the door to the Roadhouse.

The interior of the Roadhouse is bathed with warm light, and filled with people milling about the bar, chatting happily to one another with drinks in hands. Who exactly these people are, Castiel does not know, for he only has a few seconds to take everything in before-

“There he is!” The excited yell comes from somewhere to his left, and he’s only just about able to turn his head towards the person yelling before his vision is overtaken by a small red-headed woman wrapping herself around him, nearly sending him stumbling back out of the Roadhouse.

“Charlie?” Castiel is just about able to get out, having all the air squeezed out of his new lungs by the arms locked around his ribs.

Charlie is beaming up at him just as brightly as the first time they had met, giving Cas an enthusiastic punch to the shoulder that was, honestly, borderline painful. “It’s good to see you, dude! Well, not good in the way that you’re dead, but, uh… you know, it’s just good to see you!”

“It’s good to see you too,” Castiel said, able to hear Jimmy’s amused chuckles at their reunion as he squeezes past the two.

“Told Charlie I had a feeling I’d be seeing one of you guys here, soon,” Another familiar voice appears at Cas’s side, glancing over to see the amused smile of Kevin Tran. “Perhaps not a few minutes after I got up here, but… should I ever be surprised?”

“Kevin…” Castiel breaths out in disbelief. “You… you made it into Heaven?”

Kevin shoots him a strained smile. “Third time’s the charm, right?”

“But… you were sent to Hell…” Castiel recalls, wincing at the reminder of what Chuck had cruelly done. “Damned souls aren’t permitted into Heaven.”

“Yeah… but that was Chuck’s rules,” Kevin said. “New boss in town has made some changes to the rules. No more worrying about going back to Hell, or potentially going crazy wandering around Earth in ghost form… Feels like it’s the first time I’ve been able to relax in… forever.”

“It’s… it’s been some time,” Castiel says awkwardly.

“Yeah, for you,” Charlie jumps in. “Time is funky up here, feels like it’s been… a few hours? For me, at first, I was just at my old home, back when I was a kid. Just me, my mom, and my dad, like the good old times. But something felt… weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know, it was like… it was like I wasn’t myself, not completely. Heaven felt like… like someone telling me what my Heaven should be. I don’t know if that really makes sense, but it wasn’t exactly bad, you know? But it also didn’t feel real. Like I was in some sort of play. And then, it felt like the walls came down. We were free to go where we want, see who we want. It feels like we’re back on Earth, but… if Earth was paradise, you know? No monsters, no worry about money. You have everything you want, the people you love, it’s just… it’s everything we were missing, and we didn’t even know we were missing it.”

Castiel huffs out a breathy laugh of realization. “Paradise on Earth… I thought I had been shown Earth, but it’s not…”

“We’ve been playing catch up, finding out what you guys have been up to down there,” Charlie tells him, giving him a sly grin. “I can’t believe Dean finally told you! It had been killing me to see you guys in person, pretty much a couple already but never crossing over the line. I mean it was bad enough reading about the eye-fucking in the Carver Edland books, but to see it in person-,”

“Chuck’s books?” Castiel interrupted her in horror. “God wrote about me and Dean… like that?”

“I mean… he was just writing what he saw,” Charlie’s knowing look made Castiel want to run away and hide. “Dean might just be the biggest disaster of a closeted Bi I had ever met…”

“Good to know I wasn’t the only one being subjected to that,” Kevin interjects with a shake of his head.

Castiel continues to look on in horror. “You knew that…?”

“One of Dean and mine’s first interactions was of Dean guiding me through step by step on how to flirt with a guy,” Charlie told him with a snort of laughter. “Kinda had an inkling that something was up after that. And then when I saw you guys together during that pizza night… I’ve never found something so adorable and yet so infuriating at the same time.”

“I’m… sorry?” Castiel offered.

Charlie grinned at his unsure-sounding apology, shaking her head at him. “You got nothing to be sorry for, Cas; Wouldn’t exactly expect an angel to be the most skilled in the art of seduction – and Dean was as blind as a bat to miss all the obvious signal you were sending his way. But seems like he got there eventually, right?”

“Yes, he did. Not that I ever expected it, but…” Castiel’s sentence hangs in the air, his warm smile at the memories of the past few weeks fading. “I… I left him again. I’m… I’m dead, and Dean-,”

“Hey,” Charlie stops him from going too far into such thoughts. “You can’t get caught up on that kind of stuff, okay? Trust me, it does you no good. Just… go around, say ‘Hi’ to everyone, catch up with all these guys and… try to enjoy your ticket into Heaven, huh?”

Castiel tried to smile at Charlie’s attempt at comforting him, but it comes out a bit more strained than he intended. “I never even thought I’d be returning to Heaven, but…”

Charlie’s able to read the expression on his face, almost able to feel the pain radiating off of Castiel herself. “It’s not Heaven without Dean.”

“No,” Castiel agreed quietly. “Dean was so desperate not to lose me again… he didn’t want to… to live without me, and I – it’s… that’s not a love I’ve ever known.”

“You’ll see him again one day,” Kevin assured him. “He’ll be up here. All of them will be.”

Charlie’s eyes drifted off to somewhere behind him. The frown that twists across her features helps to distract Castiel momentarily, his head tilting to the side as he asks, “What is it?”

“Surprised you couldn’t feel the eyes burning into your back,” Charlie answers, gesturing with a flick of her chin behind him. “Think he might be sizing you up…”

Castiel turns around, eyes scanning across the room in the direction Charlie had gestured to. There, sat upon a table, was where Castiel’s eyes met the searching stare of John Winchester. He didn’t exactly look upset to see Castiel – but he didn’t look particularly happy, either. This was quite the contrast to the smiling figure of Mary Winchester sat opposite him, whose smile held the same warmth she would direct towards her sons.

Castiel barely feels Charlie’s encouraging pat on his back as he strides over to the Winchester’s table, his gaze fixed on John as he stood from his chair, placing the brown-bottled beer in his hands atop the table, holding his head high as Castiel gets closer.

“So, you must be the guy who-,” Is as far as John gets before Castiel’s fist connects with John’s jaw, sending the older man sprawling back onto the ground. Mary seemed to have been expecting this at least somewhat, jumping up from her chair and racing around to her husband’s side, ready to get involved in case things get too out of hand.

“That was on behalf of Dean – seeing as he could never bring himself to do it,” Castiel spits coldly, glowering down at John.

John spends a few moments on the ground with a hand held against his split and already bruising lip (though that would heal away in mere minutes), looking up at Castiel in genuine shock before the rage kicks in. The fury seems to burn through the hazel ring of his eyes, circles of fire shining around the pitch black of his pupils as he glares up at him from the ground. Despite the fact that John had a good few inches of height over him, he still seemed to show some wariness alongside his obvious desire to jump up and sock Castiel in return. After all, Castiel was a solider of God that has millennia’s worth of battles under his belt; it's not too unlikely that Castiel would lay out this human flat in a fight.

“Who the hell do you-,” John is interrupted once more as, to his surprise, Castiel’s hand appears in his field of vision, held out in offering. It perplexes him enough that his anger subsides momentarily, gaze flicking between the hand in front of him, and the unreadable expression of blankness on Castiel’s face.

“The only reason I have a smidgen of respect for you is because of your son's love for you, and for your sacrifice for him,” Castiel hisses down at him. John nearly has enough pride to shove away the hand in front of his face and stand up on his own two feet, but the warning look his wife is sending his way is enough for him to reluctantly grab hold of the former angel's hand.

Castiel drags him up to his feet, keeping a firm grip on John’s hand as he speaks. “But for the years of abuse to your sons? Of the neglect, of the nights leaving your son to raise his brother whilst you lost yourself to drink? Of sending your children off to hunt monsters when they should have been studying for their SATs, and trying to mold your son into the man you think he should be, forcing your ideals onto him until he became the good soldier you could order around…”

Castiel shakes his head in disgust at John, who looks torn between keeping up his mask of rage or cowering away from the centuries-old being so fervently defending his own son. “For all of that? You deserve much worse than a single punch, John Winchester.”

“Castiel, it’s okay,” Mary assures him, placing a calming hand on his arm - that of which was still wound up tight with his fist clenched. “We had a long talk when I got back up here. Trust me.”

Castiel’s eyes dart between John and Mary, taking a single step back from John – only if to soothe Mary’s nerves somewhat.

“I know what I did to my sons was a crappy thing,” John’s confession takes Castiel by surprise. “I didn’t see it back then. Refused to see it the way it was. In my mind, I thought… I thought I was doing the right thing. That I had to raise my boys as tough as I could because that was the only way they could handle the real, shitty world out there. I was raising them with survival in mind, but I… I never once stopped to consider if they were actually living.”

“It was… a messy situation,” Mary adds in. “It’s not like all is suddenly forgiven. When our boys get up here, it’ll…” Mary paused, casting John a look that had him averting his gaze – probably the one person in his life that could get him to do that. “Some wounds will take time to heal. And some of those scars will always remain.”

“But I’m gonna try,” John insisted. “I’m gonna try and be the father they never had.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes at John, wishing there was still enough grace left inside him to track John’s pulse and see if he was lying or not. “Good…” Castiel finally breaks the silence the three were in. “Because I intend to be by Dean’s side every second he’s here to make sure you do, indeed, try.”

“I fully expect you to,” John replied. “As I was saying - you must be the guy who’s been looking after my boys?”

“We look after each other,” Castiel corrected him. “That’s what family does.”

John cleared his throat awkwardly, looking desperate to return to his seat and continue drinking to get away from the situation he was in. “Uh, yeah… and, from what I hear, you and Dean are… uh… good friends?”

Castiel’s narrow-eyed glare returns in full force, straightening his spine as he leveled his gaze on John’s apprehensive one. “Yes. Dean and I are ‘friends’-,”

“Alright, look, it’s just… it’s weird for me. Back then-,”

“We’re not ‘back then’ anymore,” Castiel cuts him off. “And such discrimination was wrong ‘back then’ too, but you all followed poisoned words and ideals to force people into hiding, and into living unhappy lives where they were unable to be their true selves.”

“I’m just telling you how it was, okay?” John tried defending himself. “We were taught that there were cures for such things and-,”

“-And I’m telling you you’re wrong,” Castiel stepped forward once more, somehow appearing more intimidating when John was the one who stood taller than him. “There is no cure because there’s nothing to cure.”

“John, drop it,” Mary snapped at her husband. “Our son is happy with Castiel. You know that, you saw that. I don’t even want to think about what Dean must be going through right now, and you should know full well what that’s like seeing as you had to go through it with me.”

The fight seemed to drain out of John at that. He looked to Castiel like he was truly seeing him for the first time; seeing in him a different light, Mary’s comparison helping to see something in the former angel that he wouldn’t let himself see.

“You love my son?”

Castiel shouldn’t have to grace such a stupid question with an answer, but he does. “More than you could ever know. And I’ll never stop loving him. Dean Winchester is my soul.”

John’s gaze searched over him one more time before he finally nodded his head in what Castiel could only assume was the best form of acceptance that he would ever get from John – not that he cares for it either way. “Can’t say you’re what I envisioned my son ending up with, but… he found someone who makes him happy, so…”

Castiel chose to ignore the ‘what’ part of John’s sentence, accepting Mary’s apologetic frown with an understanding smile as John plops back down onto his seat. It’s only as Castiel turns away from the table that he hears them enter a heated, whispered argument that Castiel only feels slightly guilty about – and that’s only on Mary’s behalf.

There are six people huddled around the wooden bar that Castiel heads for - two of them with drinks in their hands and engaged in light conversation with the other three behind the bar. Castiel’s tense posture relaxes as he’s met with the motherly smile of the Roadhouse’s owners, taking a seat on the stool she gestures him for him to sit on

“Good to see you, son,” Is how Bobby Singer greets him for the first time in five years, along with a single solid pat to the back that has Castiel jolting forward in his seat. “At least you got to walk into heaven this time instead of sliding in on your back.”

Castiel ducked his head with quiet laughter, glancing back up when a bottle of cold beer is plonked down on the bar in front of him.

“Oh, that’s okay-,”

“Don’t make me force it down you, Castiel,” Ellen warned him, “You’re in Heaven – you can have one drink at least.”

Castiel listened to the warning tone Ellen was sending his way, picking up the bottle of beer from the bartop and taking a swig of the bitter liquid, savoring the way the carbonated bubbles tickled his mouth.

“What happened to the guy who could down five shots of whiskey like it was nothing?” Jo slid up to her mother’s side behind the bar, tempted to go and grab a bottle behind her to see if Castiel could still pull such a feat.

“Really?” Comes a sultry voice from beside Bobby. “Shame I never got to saw that – then again, I didn’t get to see much of anything after I got a glimpse of you.”

Castiel practically shrinks into his seat at Pamela’s words, wincing at the memories that flooded back. “Ah, yes, that… um…”

Pamela’s pearls of laughter broke through Castiel’s embarrassed stammers. “Relax, angel. You gave me fair warning, but I kept poking.” Pamela leaned past Bobby, sticking out a hand for Castiel to shake. “Nice to finally get a good look at ‘ya without seeing nothing but burning white light. Gotta say… I get why Dean wants to tap that.”

“Oh, um… thank you?”

“Technically, that compliment is for me!” Jimmy calls over from his own table, getting a disappointed smack to the arm from his wife next to him.

“Still can’t believe Dean finally made a move,” Jo brings Cas’s attention back to the patrons at the bar. “You guys were the big gossip circulating around the angel radio that Ash hooked us up to,” Jo jabs a thumb towards the mullet-wearing man sat at the end of the bar, tapping away at the keyboard on his laptop with one hand whilst giving Castiel a wave in greeting with the other.

“Sup, man,” Ash looks up from his laptop long enough to take in the sight of Castiel for the first time.

“You… managed to access Heaven’s radio?” Castiel asked.

“Yep,” Ash answered proudly. “Didn’t take me long to tap into Heaven’s systems. At first, it was only radio and then… I had eyes on footage of you guys. Picture ain't great, but… better than just a bunch of angels blabbering away. And, uh… let's just say there aren’t too many angels that can talk nowadays, you get me?”

“But… how did you get any information from angel radio? My siblings would only transfer in Enochian to one another.”

“Balit qaa ol om Enochian,” Ash replies simply with a knowing smile before his attention is diverted back to the computer in front of him. “Oh, and the stuff you were saying to Dean in that beach dream? Raunchy stuff, dude.”

His embarrassment at being heard aside, that was something that Castiel didn’t understand; how exactly was it that they had managed to get access to Dean’s dreams? Multiple people had now told him they had seen his and Dean’s… change in relationship, but he wasn’t exactly sure how.

“How did you see that?” Castiel doesn’t just direct the question at Ash, eyes flickering between those at the bar. “-All of you, in fact.”

“We saw everything go down through your eyes, dude,” Ash answered for them. “Your grace sort of acts like a, uh… an Enochian broadcast. I just had to find the right channel to tune into and bam; angel vision up on display.”

“We weren’t watching all the time if that makes your privacy feel any less violated,” Jo adds.

“It was mostly to check up and see what ya idjits were getting up to,” Bobby said, accepting the fresh beer that Ellen passed over to him. “Make sure you weren’t getting involved in another apocalypse.”

“Nice surprise to see the only big news was you and Dean deciding to pull your heads out of your assess,” Jo tells him with a grin, receiving a smack to the back of her head from the towel in her mother’s hand.

“Joanna Beth!” Ellen pulled out the full name. “There was a million different ways you could have said that.”

“I know – I went the direct route,” Jo replied, rubbing at the sore spot on the back of her head.

“What my daughter means to say…” Ellen says with a side glance at the woman in question. “Is that the last time we met, you were…”

“A dick?” Castiel offers. “I’ve been called that in the past.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Ellen said. “You were… starting to come into yourself a little more. Dean was starting to bring you out of whatever shell angel life had forced you into, and we were only just starting to get to know you. Then… well, the Hell Hounds happened, and then ten years later I can barely recognize the angel I once met.”

“I’m not sure if you mean that a compliment, or an insult,” Castiel admits.

“Oh, it’s a compliment,” Ellen assures him. “You’ve changed for the better, Castiel. It’s not that we’re surprised Dean fell for you - we’re surprised how long it took.”

Ellen’s eyes glance over to someone behind him, and Castiel glances over his shoulder to see Jimmy approaching the bar from his table. Although, instead of sitting down on an empty stool, he stands next to Castiel, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt the reunion, but… it’s time.”

“Damn, time really does fly by in Heaven,” Bobby curses, sliding the half-drunken beer out of Castiel’s hand and giving him another encouraging pat on the back. “It was good seeing you again, Castiel.”

Castiel was… still rather unsure what exactly was going on. Everyone else at the bar seemed to know, which was frustrating in of itself, and Castiel could only switch his confused frown from the hand on his shoulder to the arm’s owner. “It’s time for what?”

“You’ll see,” Jimmy answers unhelpfully, gesturing with a flick of his head for Castiel to stand and follow.

Seeing as there’s not much else for him to do but follow the instructions given to him, Castiel finds himself standing up from the bar, casting one last look to past friends. They all give him reassuring smiles as he follows Jimmy – even getting an encouraging nod from John, much to Cas’s bewilderment. Jimmy leads him towards the kitchen of the Roadhouse, leading him through past the well-loved ovens, stoves, and cooking utensils before arriving at the back door to the Roadhouse, leading to an outside Castiel has never seen.

“I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again,” Are Jimmy’s final parting words, gesturing with an open hand towards the door before he’s heading back towards the warm-sounding conversation within the bar. Castiel glances over his back to watch him go, a part of him drawn back to the bar, back to the people he knows.

But there’s something else on the other side of that door. Something else that’s calling to him, its pull much stronger than the Roadhouse. Without much of a second thought, Castiel pushes down on the bar across the heavy metal door, swinging it open and stepping out into the comfortably cool afternoon’s air.

* * *

It felt like a bomb had gone off.

It might as well have. The explosion of Cas’s grace – or… Cas himself, Sam supposed – had left them in this state of… numbness. For the first ten minutes or so, ten agonizing minutes, Sam could only stand shocked still where he was, watching as his brother cradles Cas in his laps, calling for him to come back.

After the bargaining came the screams.

That’s the only word he had for them, really. These gut-wrenching, pain-filled cries as the reality of the situation begun to sink in for his older brother. Sam had tried to step around the table in front of him, walk over to his brother, and…

And do what? What could he possibly do to make this situation any better? Cas was gone, and nothing he could say or do would help to ease his brother’s grief. He had only made it around the table when he caught sight of Castiel’s face resting on Dean’s lap, and that was as far as he could go. He slid down onto the floor, resting his head against the table leg behind him, and just… stared. Even when Eileen came around to his side; when she had dropped down next to him, rest her head on his shoulder, and held his hand tightly in her own… he couldn’t tear his eyes away from his brother and his once best friend.

Sam didn’t think there would be anything worst than the screams. The non-stop sobs that had his older brother gasping for air. But, as it turns out, the silence was the worst. When the tears stopped flowing and ran dry, his brother's back no longer shaking with his ragged breaths, there was nothing but silence and stillness. Dean still had Cas in his lap – and Sam didn’t dare try to move Cas from him.

He knew they would have to, eventually. Dean couldn’t stay like this forever… neither of them could. Eventually, Sam would have to pry Dean off of Cas. He would have to drag him, kicking and screaming away from Cas’s body whilst Eileen wrapped him up – because if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t think he could do this all over again.

Wrap up Cas, again. Build a pyre for him, again. Say their goodbyes as they watch his body go up in flames, again.

He was tired of losing friends. He thought it would be over by now, that this time would be different.

Wherever the hell Chuck ended up, Sam knows he’s laughing at them right now.

Somehow, from beyond the grave…

The bastard still won.

* * *

The sight that greets Castiel as he steps out from the Roadhouse is confusing, to say the least. The back of the Roadhouse should have been nothing more than an empty field and a wall of trees. Instead, Castiel takes in the beauty of the Washington mountains, sat pretty in the distance and reflected in the calm surface of the lake stretched out in front of him. Just off the shore of the lake is a cabin that Castiel is very familiar with, having once rented it not too many years ago.

It’s only then that Castiel realizes how strangely quiet it had become; gone was the quiet laughter and muted conversations of the Roadhouse, replaced by the water’s edge gently lapping at the shore and the birds singing as they flew overhead. When Castiel turns around, he’s met with empty space where the Roadhouse had once been.

“It was a beautiful spot, wasn’t it?”

Castiel freezes in place at the voice he hears behind him.

“Tainted by death, but still… beautiful.”

He’s not too sure how he manages to spin around on such shaky legs, but he does. And when he does, he’s met with the calming, grateful smiles of Kelly, sat on a wooden bench that seemed to have been created out of thin air.

“Hello, Castiel,” Kelly greets him, the tears shining in her eyes as she looks up to her son’s father-figure the same as the ones in Castiel’s. There’s nothing he can even say before Kelly has her arms wrapped around him, holding him tight. “You did it, Cas… You really did it. Jack, he’s-,”

“I know,” Castiel tells her – and he really does know. Pride didn’t even fit the description of what Cas felt for how far Jack had come.

Kelly untangles her arms from around his neck, quickly wiping the tears off her face as she does. “You’ve given so much for him, I… I don’t even know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say,” Castiel assured her.

“That’s not true,” Kelly said with a shake of her head. “You stuck by him through everything. Even in the times you thought you would lose your friends, your family…”

“Because I knew it would all work out in the end. No matter what Chuck threw our way… I believed in the vision Jack showed me.”

The puff of wings behind him is a sound he hasn’t heard in quite some time. And, judging by the loving smile that instantly graced Kelly's face, he knew exactly who it was that was stood behind him.

Castiel gave himself a few seconds to take in the beaming smile that always seemed to be plastered on Jacks face before he's wrapping the boy up tight in his arms, letting out a breath of relief as Jacks's arms squeeze him just as tight; part of him having wondered if the acquisition of God’s powers may have altered him somewhat.

It seemed he had nothing to worry about.

Kelly smiled sweetly at the two’s reunion, looking over to Jack as she asks, “It’s time, huh?”

“Time for what?” Castiel asked the two of them, the question eerily similar to Jimmy’s cryptic wording back in the Roadhouse.

“I wanted to talk to you for a bit, if you don’t mind. Just me and you,” Jack answered. Kelly stepped forward, giving Castiel’s hand one big squeeze of goodbye before she was heading back towards the cabin, disappearing through its door and out of sight.

Jack began walking towards the shoreline of the lake, keeping his pace slow as he waits for Cas to begin following him. The two walk side by side along the edge of the lake, moving under the cover of the dense forest that surrounded the cabin. It really was a beautiful place – more beautiful than the other places he’s died in, anyway.

“Does your mother live here now? In Heaven?” Castiel asks Jack as they walk, enjoying the leisurely pace they were set in.

“She does,” Jack confirms. “I come and visit her here when I can, which… isn’t often.”

“…Why isn’t it often?”

The smile Jack gives him in return looks much too old for the boy wearing it. “Being God has its responsibilities. I’ve been trying, but… it's been hard work.”

“I can imagine,” Castiel glances around the world they were in – not really a world, yet also more real than Heaven ever was. “Jack, what you've done here…”

“Do you like it?” Jack asked brightly, still searching for the approval of those he looks up to despite now being God. “I always thought the old Heaven seemed… lonely. When I was in my heaven, I had you, and Sam, and Dean, but… I could always tell something was off. It wasn’t the real you.”

“So you decided to break down Heaven's walls?”

“It was a bit more complicated than that, but…” Jack seems almost frustrated for a moment – not at Castiel, no, but at Chuck's design of Heaven. “Heaven is filled with people; it didn’t seem right that people were left only with their soul mates - if they're lucky enough to have them – and only illusions of the people they loved just as much when they were alive.”

“I… I suppose I didn’t consider it in that way,” Castiel confessed. “The souls in Heaven seemed happy. Content.”

“I think they were. But… that doesn’t mean Heaven couldn’t be made better.”

“So this is what you’ve been working on this whole time?” Castiel asks, gesturing to the beautiful scenery they were walking in. “Opening up Heaven?”

“Partly, yes,” Jack leads Castiel over to a small clearing in the forest where the lake is practically lapping at the trees that sit by the shore’s edge, giving them a beautiful view of the mountains in the distance. “I’ve been doing other work too, though.”

Castiel reaches Jack's side, staring out at the view in front of him. “On Earth?”

“Not our Earth,” Jack answers. “I will, eventually. But, for now, this Earth is at least intact. Sustainable. But… there’s all those other Earth’s out there. The other universes that Chuck destroyed.”

“You’re… rebuilding them?”

“It’s… kind of draining,” Jack admits, although the captivating smile on his face does not give away the tiredness he must be feeling. “Amara’s been helping me.”

That was news to Castiel. “She has?”

“She was quiet at first. Despite everything Chuck had done, I think she still loved him. Still does love him. She started opening up once I got to work on the other Universes, giving what recommendations she can, what she thinks Chuck would have done; I’m trying to recreate them as best as I could in his image.”

“What for?”

“So that the people of those Earth’s come back to the world they remember,” Jack turns away from the mountain view, facing Cas. “Don’t they deserve the same as the people on this Earth? Shouldn’t they be able to return to the homes they know, the families they know?”

Jack’s brow furrows when, for a while after the end of his sentence, Cas is just looking down at him with this small, subtle smile that only begins to display the warmth his eyes are holding towards the boy – this God – he still considers to be his own.

“What?” Jack asks, voice rising in pitch in what was a mix of both amusement and wonder.

“Nothing, just…” Castiel trails off, placing a heavy hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m so proud of you… All of us are. I hope you know that.”

“I know,” Jack said. His face shifted then, the gentle smile on his face sliding away, his eyes dripping down to his feet as he takes in a deep breath of fresh mountain air. “Cas, there’s… there’s a reason I needed to talk to you.”

Castiel tries to catch Jack’s gaze, but the Nephilim’s eyes were firmly fixed on the ground, his sneakers kicking up small twigs as he gouges a small hole into the dirt. “Jack?”

“I need you to know that I wasn’t ignoring you,” Jack says, bending down to pick up one of the tiny pieces of wood he had kicked up. “Any of you. I knew what was happening. With you, and with Dean. His accident and then… what’s been happening to you.”

Castiel didn’t know what to say to that. It was something he already knew – well, maybe not knew, but… assumed, he supposed.

“I wanted to step in,” Jack continues, twirling around the twig that he had pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Every day, I wanted to leave my work and just… fix everything. I wanted to pull you out when you were in the Empty. I wanted to heal the hole in Dean’s back when he saw dying on that pole. I wanted to heal his severed spine after, re-create your vessel and place you back inside.”

Even though he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to hear the answer, Castiel had to ask. “Why didn’t you?”

Jack releases the twig from between his fingers, finally lifting his gaze back up to meet Castiel’s. “The Empty is… not happy. I tried to get you back, Cas. When Chuck brought back my father, the Empty… It… It made threats.”

“What kind of threats?”

“The world-ending kind of ones,” Jack answers somberly. “It told Chuck that, if he tried to take a creature from the Empty… it would storm across Earth and destroy all those in its wake so that it could finally sleep. No one left to wake it up. Chuck, he… he just laughed. Told the Empty to ‘go ahead’, grabbed my father, and was just… gone.”

“That seems risky for Chuck… I would have thought he’d worry about the Empty interfering with his script?”

“I think it was too late for him to care at that point,” Jack replied. “All that was left was to kill you, me, Sam, and Dean. You were… you were already gone at that point, and after Chuck killed the rest of us…”

“Chuck would have wiped out Earth anyway…”

Jack nodded. “Chuck had already killed everyone on Earth. He just… didn’t care anymore. When the Empty made the same threat to me, I just…”

Jack looked away then, tears of frustration brimming in his eyes. “It tore me apart, Cas. I wanted you back, I just… I wanted to be selfish. But I couldn’t doom the world like that… doom Dean and Sam like that, and… I had to leave you… I left you…”

“It’s okay…” Cas stepped forward, placing both hands on Jack’s shoulders and giving them a comforting squeeze. “You did exactly what you were supposed to. If that would have been the price of bringing me back, then it wouldn’t have been worth it,”

Jack shook his head fervently. “It would have been worth it. You would have been worth it, Cas. But it wouldn’t have been right… I wouldn’t be a very good God if I wiped out Earth my first day.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Cas agreed with a breathy chuckle.

“It wasn’t until I saw what happened to Dean, saw you rip yourself out of the Empty that I realized… I didn’t need to do anything. I didn’t intervene because… I needed you to see.”

“See… what?”

“What you’ve always refused to accept,” Jack answered. “Dean and Sam – they tried so hard to bring you back, didn’t they?”

Castiel could only frown at that, trying to figure out what Jack was trying to get across. “Yes, they did.”

“And when they found out your grace was diminishing, that you would eventually lose your powers and become human; when they found out that you could no longer heal, no longer provide your powers to then… they still tried everything they could to bring you back. Everything they did … was for you, Cas. Not for what you can do for them, but because they love you. That’s what I needed you to see, Cas. We don’t love you for your powers. Me, Sam, Dean, Eileen, and everyone that knows you loves you because you’re you.”

It was only once the breeze blew through the trees and into their little clearing that Cas could feel the wetness on his face, a few stray tears having escaped his eyes and slipped down his cheeks without him even noticing.

“I tried to help where I could,” Jack continued, his admission sounding almost guilty, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I… I wasn’t sure whether to bring back Eileen, at first. She had already been dead before, and I… I wasn’t sure whether she would have wanted to rest in Heaven or be returned, but then… then I saw how sad Sam was and… I couldn’t take them away from each other.”

“I think you made the right choice,” Cas tells him, still wiping away the tears that were clung to his face. “And my trench-coat? Was that you as well?”

“And the spell,” Jack said with a slight smile. “I was getting worried you guys weren’t going to find it by yourselves so I, um… I kind of ‘placed’ it where Eileen would take notice.”

Cas let out another breathy laugh at that. Staring out to the mountains, he stepped forward towards the lake, crouching down by the shore and running his fingers through the shore’s sand. It was clumpy, sticking to his hand in a mixture of lake-bed soil and grains wettened by the murky water. It was nothing like the soft sands of Dean’s…

The pain’s too much. He can’t think about him. Can’t think about the suffering he knows Dean is going through.

“So… what now?” Castiel asks Jack, glancing over his shoulder to where Jack was stood, watching him.

“That’s up to you.”

Castiel blinked up at Jack in surprise, slowly standing back up from his crouch as he takes in Jack’s pleased smile. “What do you mean?”

“I wanted to give you the option to choose,” Jack continues. “I know that, for most of your life… all you’ve ever done is follow orders, Cas. Then, once you broke free and chose to live a life of free will… the choices you made still weren’t entirely your own. Every single choice you’ve made… none of them were ever truly for yourself, were they? They were always for the greater good. For someone’s else behalf. Making a deal to save my life… sacrificing yourself to keep Dean safe…”

“They were still choices I wanted to make, Jack.”

“Choices that cost you too much,” Jack argues back. “Now, for once… I want you to choose for you, Cas. Not because you think it’s best for me, or for Dean, or for anyone else. For you.”

Castiel could hear his own blood rushing through his ears, his heart up in his throat as it pounded relentlessly. These weren’t nerves. They were… anticipation. Hope.

“If you want to… you can finally rest. You can stay here, in Heaven. Live in peace, with no pain and no worries, surrounded by those you love. And… if you wanted to, you could help me.”

“Help you? With… rebuilding Heaven?”

“And everything else,” Jack confirmed. “You would have your grace back, of course. It would be nice to have you with me as I rebuild all that Chuck has destroyed.”

Castiel nodded slowly, letting Jack’s offer mill about in his mind. If there was one thing life on Earth had taught him… it was that he liked to help in any way he could. If there was a way for him to make life better for the less unfortunate, to correct the damage his father had inflicted upon billions upon billions of innocents…

It felt like what he was made for.

“And… what’s the other option?”

Jack answered Cas’s question by raising a hand up and tapping his fingers to Cas’s forehead. Castiel felt that familiar rush of the Universe rushing past him as the two moved at immeasurable speeds in the blink of an eye.

The sight that greets him upon landing is one he never wants to see.

“…Dean?” Castiel knows Dean won’t be able to hear him, but he can’t stop himself from uttering his name at the sight of Dean collapsed on the floor of the bunker, cradling him in his lap as his body shakes with silent sobs that had long since dried out. Though they no longer exist, Cas can feel his back muscles twitch as if his wings were still there, instinctively trying to wrap themselves around the grieving body of the man he loves.

“He’ll be okay,” Jack’s words almost escape Cas’s notice, so focused on the heart-broken figure of Dean Winchester. “He won’t be at first, and it won’t be easy, but he’ll heal. Your death will always leave a part of him empty, but… he will carry on, Cas. Dean will live out the rest of his life, and he will one day pass and reunite with you in Heaven.”

Cas barely registers as Jack steps up to his side, barely feels the steady weight of Jack’s palm pressed soothingly into his back. “I’ll be okay too, Cas. Okay? Don’t choose to come up to Heaven and help me if you feel like it’s what’s right, or that you’re worried I’ll need you. I can do this, okay? I can. All of us will be okay. You choose for you, Cas.”

Castiel dragged his tear-filled eyes away from Dean’s form, meeting Jack’s understanding ones. There was no judgment behind Jack’s eyes, no secret hope that he would choose to return to Heaven and continue his work for Heaven.

The truth was that, the second he laid eyes on Dean, he knew what his choice was going to be.

Jack knew, too.

“Dean,” Castiel answered in a hoarse whisper, and the knowing look on Jack’s face grew all the more stronger. “What I want… it’s always been Dean.”

It was a relief to see the beaming smile that spread across Jack's face at his answer. There was no hint of disappointment on his face, only genuine happiness that Castiel has chosen his own happiness. For once, Castiel had gone for what he wants.

“Live a long, happy life Cas,” Jack said what he intended to be his parting words, raising his hand once more to tap his fingers against Castiel's head.

Before he could so, Cas caught Jack’s hand midair and pulled him into what he hoped wouldn’t be one last hug between father and son, holding him tight as he buried his head into Jack’s shoulder. “Will… Will I see you again?”

Jack pulled away from Castiel's embrace, keeping a hand on his shoulder. “I'll be around, Cas.”

Castiel shifted his gaze over to Dean, still collapsed on the floor staring numbly at his body, when an idea struck him. “Wait… what about Dean?”

“What about him?”

“His spine…” Castiel answered, turning on the begging eyes that Dean once told him he's sure he learned from Sam. “You've already done so much for us, but… do you think you could heal him?”

Jack only smiled at that, an odd reaction to Castiel's request, and then his last words were left to echo around Cas's head as his fingers once again brushed against his forehead and plunged the world into darkness.

“There's nothing for me to heal, Cas. You’ve already taken care of that.”

* * *

Dean wasn’t sure how long he'd been sat on the floor now. Did it even matter how long? And why should he care?

Cas was gone.

That's all his mind could produce. The only thoughts his treacherous brain graced him with. Cas is dead. Cas is dead. Cas is dead. Cas is dead.

Over and over again, on a loop. He doesn’t even feel the deep aching pain of his loss anymore. There’s nothing. His body has just… shut off. No more emotions. No more caring about anything.

Cas was dead. That's all there was.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice is hesitant, unsure. Dean can barely hear it. Sam had, eventually, managed to get his feet under him. He had walked over to Dean, but wasn’t stood by his side. There was a few awkward meters of space between them, an invisible line that Sam couldn’t bring himself to cross.

Dean knew what Sam's next words were going to be before Sam said them. “Dean, we need to…”

It was as far as Sam could get. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought Dean was dead, too. His face was just… blank. Unmoving as be stared down at Cas's still form. Sam braves one look at Castiel's face cradled on Dean's lap, sees the pale color of skin without a supply of blood, sees the closed eyes of his best friend he'll never get to see again and-

“Sam?” Eileen's voice is like an anchor, bringing him back to reality.

Sam clears his throat, looking away and up to the ceiling to try and blink away the tears that were burning in the corner of his eyes. “I can't, I-,”

“Yes, we can.”

Sam looks down at Dean in surprise. He was still just as frozen in place, face still just as empty, and for a moment Sam wondered if he had actually heard Dean speak at all.

“We'll do it for him,” Dean croaked out, raising a hand that wouldn’t stop trembling and placing it down on Cas's chest. “We can’t give him much, but… the least we can do is give him a proper fucking goodbye this time.”

Sam miraculously managed to crouch down next to his brother without his legs giving away, placing his hand atop his brother’s back. “Yeah… yeah, we can uh… I'll go and see what we have to wrap him up in. Maybe… maybe the sheets from his bed? Or we could-"

Dean was listening to Sam anymore. Because there, underneath his hand, he could feel Cas's heart beating steadily in his chest. It had started out of nowhere, one big ‘thump’ that he put down to his grief-riddled mind. The second one he thought that perhaps the injury to his spine had worsened when he fell from his chair, and was starting to get false sensations in his hands.

But then the third pump of Cas's heart came. Then the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the back of Dean's head nearly collided with Sam’s face hovering over his shoulder as his head reared back.

“Sam, there's a pulse.”

“He…what?!” Sam exclaimed. He desperately wanted to believe his brother, but… “Are you sure?”

“Am I-,” Dean huffed in irritation, reaching around to grab his brothers’ hand and place it against Cas's neck.

Sam’s furrowed brow straightened out to an expression of slack-jawed dumbfounded as he felt the rapid flutter of Cas's pulse against his fingertips. “Oh my God… Oh my God, he's alive!”

Eileen dropped down on her knees next to them, picking up on their sudden fanatic movements but unable to hear or read the brother's panicked words. “What?! What is it?!”

“Cas is alive,” Sam told her breathlessly as Dean bent over to place an ear against Cas's chest, able to hear the rapid thuds of his heartbeat. Except… Cas's chest didn’t move under his head.

“Sam, he’s not breathing,” Dean got out in a panic, framing the sides of Cas's face with his hands. “Cas? Cas, can you hear me? C'mon man, I need you to say something.”

Dean whipped his head back around to face Sam and Eileen. “What the hell do we do? Do we give him CPR?”

“I-I- I don’t know,” Sam blurted out. “His heart is beating fine, right? Is there something blocking his airway or-,”

Then it happened. Cas's chest inflated with one big inhale of air, catching all three of their attention just in time to see his eyes snap open, greeted by crystal blue eyes that never seemed quite so human in their dazed and panicked blown-out appearance.

As it turns out, having your lungs inflate for the first time as you take your first breath is quite uncomfortable. Cas's lungs were racked with harsh-sounding coughs as they tried to adjust to the sudden change. Dean jumped into action and helped pull him up into a sitting position, Dean's hand tight around his arm like he might drop back to the floor in a lifeless heap if he let go.

“Cas?” Dean leans his head down as Cas folds over himself, trying to catch his breath after his coughing fit. “You okay?”

Castiel pulled himself back up, placing a hand on his chest as he took another deep breath in, this one – thankfully – not sending him into another round of coughs. “I… I think so.”

Castiel’s eyes swiveled around to meet Dean’s, then over to Sam and Eileen’s bewildered faces, then settled back on Dean again. Dean's eyes were about as wide as they can go, watching Cas warily both in fear that Cas might drop down dead again and second, and that this could all be one cruel trick… Another lazy laugh from Chuck perhaps, some asshole demon jumping into the free body like Belphagor did with Jack, hiding its true identity until the moment it-

“Hello, Dean.”

Nope, never mind. That was his angel, alright.

“Hello-?” Dean cuts himself off with a huff of laughter that sounded more like a sob of relief than anything, pulling Cas into him and grabbing hold of the trench-coat wrapped around him so tightly that it seemed moments away from ripping.

“You're alive… Oh, you’re alive, you're okay… You're here…”

“I’m okay,” Castiel speaks softly into the crook of Dean’s neck.

“You've gotta stop dying on me, Cas,” Dean tried to joke, but the tears brimming his eyes gave away the illusion of a care-free attitude. “I don’t know how much more of you dying I can handle.”

“I'll promise if you promise,” Cas replies, and that at the very least gets a laugh out of Dean.

“Hey-,” Is all Sam says before he’s moving towards Cas, wrapping him up in one of his signature bear-hugs at a very awkward angle, considering Castiel was still mostly seated on Dean’s lap. “You have no idea how good it is to see you, man.”

“I can assure you, the feeling is mutual,” Castiel replies, releasing his grip on Sam only to have his arms filled seconds later by Eileen, who squeezed up beside Sam to get her own hug in.

“Please don’t do that again,” Eileen said, pushing away from the hug to give Castiel a stern look. “I don’t know how you guys handle this…”

“We don’t,” Dean answers. “We make stupid deals that get us or the world into trouble.”

“Speaking of…” Sam mumbled, the change on his face from relief to an analyzing and calculating look aimed at Castiel making Dean’s stomach drop. “Cas… how is it that you’re here? You were dead. For a while. Then… you were alive again. Did you… did you make another deal with the Empty?”

“I didn’t even go to the Empty,” Castiel answered, one of those rare gummy smiles breaking out across his face. “It was Jack.”

“Jack?” Dean said. “Jack saved you?”

“He gave me a choice,” Cas replied. “I didn’t go to the Empty, because… Jack had permitted me entry into Heaven, instead. When my grace was destroyed during the spell, there was a short time that I was human. And in that time… Jack had gifted me a soul.”

“Huh… well I’ll be damned,” Dean mumbled under his breath. “All this time, huh? He was helping us the whole time?”

“Where he could, yes,” Castiel said. “Dean, Sam… I wish you could have seen him. He’s… he’s everything Chuck should have been. He’s still him, he’s still the boy we knew, and… he cares so much. All he wants is to make the world a better place. The world, the other worlds, Heaven… he’s already done so much work.”

“Way to go, kid,” Dean spoke up towards the ceiling, voice beaming with pride. He turned his proud smile back down to Cas, glancing down from the tender smile Cas was giving him in return to Cas’s current choice of wardrobe – or, more accurately, the lack thereof. “C’mon, Cas. Let’s, uh… let’s go get you some clothes.”

“Oh,” Cas said in surprise, looking down at himself as if he hadn’t realized he had been sat here stark naked for the past few minutes. “Yes, that would probably be for the best…”

“I think I got some spare sweats you could borrow,” Dean mumbles as he pushes himself up to his feet, bending down to offer a hand to Cas.

Cas doesn’t take his hand. He remains seated on the floor, eyes wide as they can go and mouth dropped open nearly to the floor. Dean frowns at the astonished look Cas was giving him, glancing over to Sam and Eileen only to find they two were staring bug-eyed at him.

“What?” Dean asked. “Why are you all-,”

He was standing.

Holy Fuck, he was standing!

How the hell had it taken him this long to realize? How the hell had he not realized that he was able to feel the warm weight of Castiel on his lap? He had gotten back up to his feet without a second thought, so focused on helping Cas up that it just… hadn’t occurred to him that it was something he shouldn’t be able to do anymore.

“Dean, you’re arm-,” Sam manages to get out through his mask of shock, pointing to Dean’s arm. “It’s… it’s glowing.”

Dean looks down to his left shoulder where Sam was pointing, already able to see the faint blue glow under the sleeve of his shirt. Dean makes quick work of pushing the sleeve up, seeing the last few glowing pulses of Cas’s handprint on his arm before it reverted back to its usual faint red color.

“You’ve already taken care of it…” Castiel mumbles to himself, the realization hitting him like a bag of bricks. “My grace…”

Castiel’s eyes snap to the mark on Dean’s arm, jumping up to his wobbly feet and very nearly falling straight back down again. Dean shoots out an arm to catch Cas before he can fall, wrapping his hands around Cas’s biceps to steady him in place.

“Cas… how am I standing?” Dean asks.

“My grace,” Castiel repeats himself. “I asked Jack if he could heal you, Dean. But he told me there was nothing for him to heal, and that… that I had already healed you. I just… I hadn’t even realized I had done it.”

“But… how?” Sam asks. “I thought you used the last of your grace in the transfer over to your body?”

“I did,” Castiel confirms. “You have to remember that Grace is nothing but pure energy. Volatile energy. When the spell failed, the last of my grace, myself, I… there was a release of power. An explosion of my grace. I think that when this occurred…”

Castiel trailed off, tearing his gaze away from the expectant faces around him back to the scar of his handprint on Dean’s shoulder. “The sudden surge of my grace caused a reaction within the ebb of grace inside the mark. It would have momentarily powered up the last of my grace, and…”

“And it healed me…” Dean finished what Cas was leading to. He looked from the mark on his shoulder over to Cas, a sharp burst of delirious laughter escaping him as he pulled Cas into what felt like the hundredth hug of that evening -not that he was complaining. “Remind me to tell you how amazing you are, Cas. Every day if you have to. I don’t say it enough, you magnificent bastard.”

Cas’s light chuckles next to his ear only made Dean’s smile grow wider. Cas pulled away from their embrace, and then right there, his soft eyes looking to Dean like everything had fallen into place was when it sunk in for Dean.

Cas was alive. Right here in front of him, alive and warm under his hands. His future was back, looking right at him, and for once in his damned life it felt like everything was going to be okay.

He didn’t care that Eileen and Sammy were right there next to them, didn’t care if they knew or not. He was done with the hiding, the pretending, the worry over what others would think of him. All that mattered was he had Cas back, the had another chance to do this right.

So, right in front of his brother, he kisses Cas for all he's worth. He kisses him like it might be the last time he’d ever get the privilege, like one of them were going to die at any second – which, with them, is a very real possibility.

“That was real…” Dean whispers against Castiel’s lips. “Not a dream… not in my head… you’re real.”

“I’m real,” Castiel mimicked Dean’s words. “And you kissed me.”

“And I kissed you,” Dean agrees, his breathy laughter brushing across Castiel’s face. “Uh… I think we might have an audience.”

Dean peeled himself away from Cas, glancing anxiously over to his brother. Not that he had anything to worry about, of course. Sam didn’t even blink at the two of them, too wrapped up in the euphoria and relief of getting his best friend back that he could only stand back with Eileen, watching their well-earned reunion with a smile of pure relief.

Eileen nudges Sam’s arm, gesturing to the two in front of them. “How about a new bet?”

Sam grins down at her, making sure Dean and Cas were otherwise distracted; not that it took long -the two always seemed to have their attention drawn to one another – before signing, “Is that even a question? What you got?”

“I’d give it six months before we’re stood at their wedding.”

Sam takes the bet.

He gives it three months.

Next Chapter - - - >

#destiel #destiel fanfiction #destiel fanfic #destiel fic #destiel fix it #destiel fix it fic #fix it fic #castiel/dean #castiel/dean winchester #casdean #supernatural spoilers #season 15 spoilers

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bitnotgood28 · 4 years

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Thank you @hometothecanyonmoon for tagging me!!

1) When did you become a Louie?

Embarrassingly late. I’d say around mid-April 2020, since that’s around the time I learned about Larry and joined the 1D fandom. I focused mostly on Louis and Harry and whatever they got up to, so during that I just noticed little quirks and started to pick up on their personalities. Harry is sweet and dorky and I adore him, but I love Louis’ wit and his sarcasm and his compassion, basically his character in general. Afterwards, I learned that Louis has recently released LT1, so I downloaded the entire album to give it a listen and have not stopped listening since. His whole album is a blessing, all of his music is so meaningful and touching; you’ve heard his songs and lyrics, yeah?

2) Why did you become a Louie?

Multiple reasons, the two main ones being his music and his personality. I’m not greatly interested in the type of music that’s mostly being released at present (no offense meant), and Louis’ voice is just incredibly unique, something I really like in artists. Everything that he’s written has been sincere and expressive, like a touch of rawness in them, especially when he sings. There’s just so much emotion behind every word and note, and his voice!! It has the sweetest rasp to it and his voice has gotten stronger and more powerful over the years, yet it can still be soft and light like during the bridge in Defenceless. He is also such a sweetheart, treating everyone kindly and with understanding unless he thinks they’re undeserving of it. The way he socialize with children and animals makes my heart melt, he looks so happy and excited during those interactions with his crinkling eyes and his smile-goodness, he is truly God’s gift.

3) One thing that drew you in specifically?

Easily his charisma and satire. His humor and jokes always stood out to me during interviews, his quips are just hilarious, that sweet boy. He draws attention to himself and leaves an imprint on you, and you get attached to him and his personality and his cheekbones-essentially his entire being. I was also kind of irritated with the amount of lines he and Niall were given compared to the other boys, so I paid more mind to the two of them (along with Harry) at the beginning. I think it’s also because I tend to notice those who aren’t as noticed or not quite under the spotlight-is that they proper description? Anyway, between Louis and Niall I wound up taking more of a liking to Louis with his sass and his cheek and his eyelashes. Man, is he even real? He’s so sweet and genuine, he’s endured so much and has continued to stand strong after each blow; it’s as heartbreaking as it’s inspiring. I just want to wrap him in a blanket and take him far away from all the cruelty present in the world, maybe feed him some tacos and stroke his hair until he falls asleep. He can still joke around and enjoy life while also doing his job and doing it brilliantly, might I add. I feel like he’d be a wonderful best friend to have, empathetic and supportive, someone you’d be able to stir up chaos with but also who’d keep your moral compass pointing in the right direction. Honestly, I’m quite certain that God created him with the thought of sunshine and sunflowers in His head.

4) Favorite song on Walls?

Oo, that’s difficult. I love Always You, its tempo and it’s tune are just really lively and upbeat. I’ve also got a special place in my heart for the lyrics of Fearless (God, that second verse and chorus and first verse - the whole song), Defenceless (“I come running to you like a moth into a flame,”? “I’m too tired to be tough, just wanna be loved by you,”???), Only For the Brave (“It’s a church of burnt romances and I’m too far gone to pray,” “All the lonely shadow dances from the cradle to the grave,” this song is so lyrically poetic and I love every second of it), and Two of Us (the bridge.. God it’s so melancholy yet somewhat hopeful[?]). Kill My Mind also has this great indie rock sound to it, I’d gladly listen to it for hours. I.. am realizing that this absolutely does not answer the question, but I hope you now understand how good Louis’ songs are and how much I love them <333

5) Who would you want Louis to collab with?

Okay, I took a bit of time on this and I think one would be Alessia Cara. I’d really like to hear how they would sound together, considering how unique and distinctive both of their voices are individually, and how the music they produced would mesh with each other. Another would probably be Ed Sheeran, lyrically I think they’d be quite powerful like Louis and Alessia, but I’m not sure how they’d sound as a unit. It’d be interesting to hear though, I’m sure. Last is Harry, and if you’ve heard edits and that duet in the chorus of Truly, Madly, Deeply, you know what I’m talking about and you know how good they sound together.

6) Favorite Hairstyle?

Peaky blinders is one, he looked like a sweet little hedgehog during that time. Cinnamon swirl is also high on the list. He looked like actual royalty (I mean when doesn’t he, but this is god tier princely) and everything was right in the world. He was just- the living embodiment of delicate. His messy quiff and messy fringe back in 2013-2014 were just.. so attractive? Those hairstyles also make me miss seeing his full face :((

7) Back to You, Just Hold On, or Miss You?

(where is the Just Like You option)

I love the lyrics and meaning behind Just Hold On, it’s all really hopeful and motivating. The whole song was really well done, Louis and Steve Aoki did such a good job. Miss You also has a great sound to it, and you can really hear his accent throughout the whole song (fook, luv, anova, need I go on). I also love the bit of violin (I think it’s a violin) they added in the second pre-chorus and final chorus? It adds kind of like a lighter factor to the heavy guitar and drums already present in the song, and some sort of assurance that everything will be okay (I’m bad at describing things I’m sorry akdjsjdj). Back to You, God the notes they hit during that song.. beautiful (“We don’t know how to make it stop,” and “I love it, I hate it and I can’t take it,”). Can I also just say that Louis and Bebe both looked really, really attractive during that music video? Like damn please hold back on the extra chili, it’s already hot in here.

8) Louis in suits or sweaters?

Louis in suits is just.. all his assets (ha) are accentuated and he looks so sharp and beautiful, his shoulders just a bit broader, and his curves more defined. Then when he wears blue suits, his eyes are just that much more blue. Louis in sweaters, on the other hand: sunflowers incarnate, sunshine and kittens, a soft heated blanket with socked feet and a fireplace while snow falls softly outside the window. He looks so, so warm and huggable and sweet with his sweater paws- imagine being his friend and being able to cuddle him? Just snuggle and chat about what he’s got prepared for LT2, maybe watch a horror movie. God truly has His favorites. In conclusion: Louis in sweaters.

9) Favorite tattoo?

I think the compass was really well made, like the shading and the contours make it look almost lifelike. Then it points to HOME, which I think is so sweet and personal, like he already knows what ‘home’ is to him and he’s sure that that’s where he’d want to go back to, every time without a doubt. I also like the “It Is What It Is” tattoo, it’s written elegantly, kind of like a Ballantines font and it’s definitely an eye-catcher, displayed on his chest. The stag one also isn’t bad, its right eye is just a bit more bugged out than the other. It makes it a lil more special though, it’s easily identifiable as Louis’ tattoo because of that and the antlers are sort of majestic.

10) Favorite Louis photo (currently)?

I am going to pretend I read that as ‘photos’ because I am an indecisive little shit :))

(HELLOOOO HE LOOK LIKE THE SWEETEST HEDGEHOG // He is just- in his element, he is living up there)

(He makes the tousled hair look so good what the hell // Does this need elaboration, I mean, his smile literally powers everything on earth, and the crinkles by his eyes, and his sweater, and his lil canines, and-)

(Please God he is. Ethereal. Stunning. Perfect. In both photos, his eyes are just. Bright. And the cinnamon swirl, I- I’ve ascended to a higher plane of existence. He’s just so beautiful. Gorgeous really.)

11) Random extra?

When one is given the opportunity to express their love for Louis Tomlinson’s accent, one must accept.

His accent is like. Familiar, a bit like home (no, I’m not English), and I love that he’s been able to keep it even after years of living abroad. He has one of those accents where you can tell it’s present even when he sings, and when he uses endearments, God, it’s just so charming and sweet. It’s also really strong and distinctive, you can tell who he is by the first syllable or word he says. It’s a part of who he is and I love it so much and I love him so much, Jesus Christ akjskjd

I had fun being able to talk about Louis in this, there’s so much to him and every bit of it is another ray of sunshine <333

I tag @adorelou-28, @makethebestofwhatyouget, @28-oops-hi, and anyone else who wants to do this, no compulsions :))

#thank you Rae!!#i swear its been weeks since ive been tagged to do this and i am so sorry aldjakdjjd #tag games

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smallestbrown · 4 years

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Hey what initially drove you to get so deep into timsasha? Just out of curiosity :0

ohohoho man tbh I had to think about this a sec! I fell so headfirst into liking this ship that I didn't even give it any thought

Tim's character type (charismatic, clever and really deeply caring, but with a layer of almost ruthless darkness to them) is ALWAYS a hit with me. And Sasha's is like, who I'd want to be: smart, driven, self-possessed and ~emotionally repressed~ Embarrassingly accurate disclosure is that my ships are all basically "character type I like or that is my type" X "character I can project onto," which is always a gimme, but with THESE TWO it's interchangeable. Spins wheel who of the two of them do I relate to more on a given day. my heart is in their tiny dead hands (they're also holding hands)

The POTENTIAL of Not!Sasha in terms of relationships is also super compelling. The way that fucks with your memories about a person you care about, and especially for Tim who's got such a history with the Stranger--it really throws him off the deep end after the s2 finale and there's ahhhh just a lot you can do with that. (Consider: they hook up in s1, (fwb, pining, what have you) and continue on s2 unbeknownst to Tim, and it absolutely rips him apart at the s2 finale reveal...) Just the idea of having someone you love taken from you, and not getting to properly mourn them... sad hours

BUT thinking about that makes me super sad and we all need Good Things rn so I've just been making sweet fix-it stuff so far, lol. I'll probably get to the angst eventually. For now I am just letting them Be Happy.

this got a bit long-winded oops. But thanks for the ask!!

#textin #or should I make a tag for asks uhhhhh #askin

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nightwang96 · 4 years

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Everybody Hurts (Part 2)

Fandom: Batman

Rating: Mature

Prompt: Attempted Rape

Characters: Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth

Warnings: Past Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Vomiting

Summary: “I know how it feels,” Dick said softly. He looked up then, meeting Jason’s gaze steadily. “It’s scary. It stays with you.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason said, voice thick. He didn’t know what to say. His mouth felt weirdly numb, his tongue too big for his mouth.

This is a sequel to my badthinghappenbingo requested by @bearly-writing so I would suggest reading that first but mind the warnings! :)

Read it on AO3 here!

Read the first part here!

It felt strange to be waking up in his old room. For a moment, he didn’t realise where he was, a sharp gut fear before recognition kicked in.

The last vestiges of a nightmare still clung to his skin, leaving him feeling sticky and gross. He was no stranger to nightmares. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d woken with the taste of earth in his mouth or the phantom ache of broken bones or the sickly green tinge of the pit.

The details of the dream were already fading but he could still remember the sharp tang of fear and the crawling sensation of hands on his skin.

He had to swallow thickly against the salty burst of nausea, digging his fingernails into his inner thigh where finger shaped bruises lay.

He shuddered. It had been a long time since he’d felt this fucked up about something. They hadn’t even done anything really. Touched him a bit. Waved their dicks near him.

Raised skin beneath his fingertips. He’d touched the Y shaped autopsy scars without even thinking about it.

That had fucked him up bad. Coming back to himself - the thick burning anger of the pit fogging his brain - and finding the long neat scars across his chest.

Knowing that someone had cracked him open, had slipped their hands inside him and touched all the parts that should never be touched, had felt deeply violating in a way he didn’t think he’d ever experience again.

The brush of hands on his skin didn’t even come close. So why was he still thinking about it? Still feeling the phantom weight of a body pressed against his back?

The crack of his knuckles as his fists clenched was almost gunshot loud in the dark quiet of his room. It startled him out of the morbid spiralling and sent his heart racing in his chest.

He sat up and pressed his palm against the soft cotton of his shirt, feeling his pulse pounding against his hand, the base of his throat, his eardrums.

He’d wanted to slip out without having to talk to anyone. The talk with Bruce last night had been short but emotional, and Jason wanted nothing more than to escape back to his safehouse and process everything in peace.

It was early enough that he thought he’d gotten away with it, moving through the dark corridors silently - well, almost silently, the cast on his leg made it pretty hard.

When he made it down to the cave though, Dick was waiting for him. He was in the chair by the batcomputer, legs slung over the arm, slouched in a position that looked truly uncomfortable. He was spinning himself slowly, staring down at his lap.

Jason seriously considered just sneaking past him, but at that moment Dick looked up and spotted him, jerking out of the chair like he’d been electrocuted. He looked awful, pale with dark circles under his eyes, his hair flattened on one side and sticking up on the other. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all last night.

“What’s up Dickface?” Maybe if Jason kept this light, Dick would keep the sap to a minimum. He wasn’t getting his hopes up.

“Jay,” Dick started, face pained. “Can we talk?”

It took an almost physical effort for Jason not to roll his eyes. He didn’t even get to reply before Dick was continuing, wheeling the chair over so that Jason didn’t have to stand on his leg.

“Are you okay? Well I mean obviously you’re not okay, I’m really sorry. How are you doing? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Dick breathe,” Jason interrupted. Dick was wringing his hands, looking flustered. “Sit down as well, I don’t want you looming over me like that.”

Dick grabbed another chair and plopped down into it with a heavy sigh. It felt uncomfortable, sitting opposite each other, weirdly intimate. Dick was jiggling his leg, eyes fixed intently on Jason’s face.

“Jay,” he looked like he wanted to reach over and take Jason’s hand.

“I’m fine,” Jason interrupted, before Dick could launch into another tirade. “Honestly, nothing happened.”

Dick grimaced. “It’s okay to not be alright Jay,” he hesitated, “this kind of thing messes with you.”

Irritation scratched its way up Jason’s throat. He didn’t want to be having this conversation, wanted to just go home and be left in peace.

“Yeah well how would you know?” He snapped.

Dick looked down at his hands, rubbing them across his thighs.

“I- I was-“ he swallowed hard, his mouth twisting like he’d eaten something bitter. Jason’s stomach dropped, cold dread prickling across the back of his neck.

“I was raped,” Dick choked out, sounding strangled.

It was like someone had dumped ice down his back. White hot anger roared to life in his chest and scorched his throat till he was breathless with it

“What?” He said. His voice was tight, an iron band around his ribs. “When? Who?”

Dick was chewing on his bottom lip. “I’ve never told anyone before,” he said quietly, “she- she’s not a problem anymore.”

Jason’s heart was pounding, beating against his sternum. An all too familiar green tinge of rage blurring his vision. His knuckles ached with how tight his fists were clenched.

“I know how it feels,” Dick said softly. He looked up then, meeting Jason’s gaze steadily. “It’s scary. It stays with you.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason said, voice thick. He didn’t know what to say. His mouth felt weirdly numb, his tongue too big for his mouth. “It’s not really the same though.”

Dick frowned. Jason cut him off before he could say anything.

“What I mean is, I didn’t get-” he found he couldn’t even say the word, was suddenly oddly proud of Dick for managing it. “They didn’t get that far with me.”

Dick shut his eyes tight and blew a sharp breath out of his mouth. “Jay,” he said, low, quiet. “It doesn’t matter okay. They still hurt you.”

It was an echo of what Bruce had said to him last night. He shook his head, made to stand up. He couldn’t listen to this anymore. He didn’t want to be coddled and comforted, he was fine. He hadn’t been-

Hands on his shoulders, pushing gently to keep him in his seat. They were gone in a moment, but embarrassingly, Jason’s breath still hitched.

Dick had sat back down, looking guilty and painfully soft. It just added fuel to the fire already burning in his chest.

“You know,” Dick started before Jason could say anything, “when I was- when she-“ he screwed his face up, puffed his cheeks and then blew the air out in a stream.

Jason stayed quiet. For a long moment the only sound in the room was Jason’s racing heart. He wondered if Dick could hear it too.

“Right after she- raped me I kind of- dated her for a bit I guess?” He laughed but it was humourless, cold in a way that made the hairs on Jason’s arms stand up. “I was going to marry her.”

That sent a jolt through Jason. Dick had been going to marry his rapist?

“Dick,” he said. It sounded strained to his own ears. Dick held his hand up to quiet him.

“I guess I thought that it wasn’t really rape, that it was just… non-consensual,” he grimaced, like the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Jason felt like he was going to be sick. His stomach rolled over uncomfortably, throat working as he swallowed against it.

Dick looked down at his lap where he was twisting his fingers together. Flushed, eyes damp, expression haunted.

“I enjoyed it,” he whispered, so quiet that Jason almost couldn’t hear him, “I must have done I mean I- I- got hard.”

Salt burst across his tongue, prickling at the back of his mouth. His stomach bucked. He breathed in deep, pushed himself to stand just as Dick said, a whisper breath.

“I came.”

Jason managed to turn his head to the side in time to throw up on the floor instead of himself. Stomach aching, acid burning up his throat, he coughed. Groaned. A warm hand was resting lightly on his back, rubbing soothing circles.

“I’m sorry,” Dick said when Jason leaned back, panting.

“Don’t apologise,” he croaked. Dick pulled back and Jason turned, catching his fingertips. They were hot between his own.

“I upset you,” Dick murmured, tugging Jason back over to sitting.

“Not your fault,” he grunted. He tried catching Dick’s eye but he was looking stubbornly at his lap. “You know that not how it works right? Just because your body...reacts doesn’t mean that you wanted it.”

Dick smiled. It looked wrong, like he’d borrowed it from someone else and it didn’t fit quite right on his face.

“Yeah, I know that now,” he didn’t exactly sound convincing but Jason wasn’t going to push the point.

“This wasn’t supposed to be about me,” Dick said eventually. “I just meant-“ he looked at him, caught his gaze. Dick’s eyes were red.

“I told you this because for ages I felt like I had to be okay, that because it was a woman and that I didn’t fight back and that I- I enjoyed it, then I didn’t have a right to feel bad.”

Sweat was forming between their joined fingers, clammy and uncomfortable. Jason didn’t know what to say to that.

“I know now that it’s okay to feel upset.”

“I get it,” Jason said gruffly. Dick rolled his eyes.

A quiet cough, polite but purposeful. Jason snatched his hand back, embarrassment flushing his cheeks.

“Hey Alfie,” Dick said, looking as flustered as Jason felt. God how much of that had Alfred heard? He didn’t seem like the type to eavesdrop but still, neither of them had heard him enter.

“You’re still here Master Jason,” Alfred said, stepping closer to lay a warm hand on Jason’s shoulder. He looked pleasantly surprised, like he hadn’t expected Jason to stay, but was happy to see him.

Guilt curdled in his aching stomach. Even after all these years upsetting Alfred still made him feel small.

“Yeah, I think I’ll head out now though,” he said. His voice sounded rough to his own ears, thick with emotion. The hand on his shoulder tightened briefly, like Alfred wanted to keep him there, before he let go.

“Master Jason, I insist that you stay for breakfast, when was the last time that you ate?” Alfred’s tone was no nonsense, but Jason knew that if he really wanted to leave Alfred wouldn’t stop him.

He hesitated. He’d missed Alfred’s cooking, had missed Alfred. He didn’t want to have to see anyone else though, could do without the Replacement and Demon Brat asking questions. He also, desperately didn’t want to see Bruce. Even though their conversation last night had been brief, it had been...emotionally draining.

Jason was used to fighting with him. Even now, with their improved relationship, they mostly argued or just ignored each other. Bruce was never going to approve of Red Hood’s methods, even if Jason was trying not to kill people now.

This tentative peace, the genuine concern Bruce had shown, made Jason feel weirdly wrong-footed. Sitting at the table with him and Dick like the old days, with Tim and Damian like one big happy family was not going to happen.

“Everyone else is still in bed,” Alfred said, like the mind reader Jason suspected he was, “I made waffles.”

Damn, how was Jason supposed to turn that down. Dick was grinning at him, the smug bastard. The previous tension had bled out of the room and looking at Dick’s stupid face, Alfred a solid presense beside him, Jason felt a sudden fondness settle in his chest.

“Fine,” he said rolling his eyes. “Help me up Dickface.”

Alfred’s pleased smile made it all worth it.

#badthingshappenbingo #batman #prompt: attempted rape #dc #Jason Todd #dick grayson #alfred pennyworth #fanfiction #my writing #sequel #past rape tw #implied rape tw #vomiting tw

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love-letters-cast-into-the-sea · 4 years

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Umineko Episode I - part 1

This rambling covers the beginning of the episode up until the group arrives on the island and is full of spoilers for EVERY episode of Umineko.

When I first started reading Umineko, all I knew about it was the Higurashi guy wrote it and it was a murder mystery. The beginning of Umineko has so little in common with what I remembered about Higurashi that it took awhile for me to get into the story and -- as a consequence -- missed out on a lot of important details at the beginning.

I’m not very good at reading things on a first pass.

The opening scene is Kinzo, Nanjo, and Genji in Kinzo’s study as he receives his poor prognosis from Nanjo. I believe this scene (or one close to it) happened as depicted, just without the melodrama turned up to 11.

Kinzo is a man who’s living with deep regrets and resentment to his family, even Nanjo’s urging that he should leave some final words for them fall on deaf ears. The only bright parts of his life were with Beatrice and through fate (Bice’s early death) and his own monstrous deeds (HI BEA2 AND SAYO) he destroyed any remnants.

This is not to necessarily say that Bice’s life was brighter with Kinzo in it (and I’m still not sure how she felt about the whole situation, I’ll come to that much later in the re-read), but Kinzo thought so and he’s got the spotlight this scene. He’s desperate to see his lost love even one more time and he is at once a terrifyingly imposing figure and a broken, sad man. Nanjo and Genji stand by as two men who know everything, but except for Nanjo’s gentle pressure that he should write a will (i.e. come clean, even in death) they don’t push back on him as he wallows in his own grief.

To back it up a bit, Episode 1 (and 2) are penned by Sayo and even if she didn’t have a relationship with him beyond “employer and servant” until near the end of his life, she still would have been privy to a lot of his behaviors. While I do think she’s hamming up his performance a bit, she was likely drawing from a long memory of things he’s actually said. I’ll have to keep this in mind and compare him with the Kinzo of Episodes 3 and 4, though.

Moving ahead and it’s time to introduce the family as the prodigal son returns. Battler’s been gone for six years and everyone has something to say about that.

Eva teasing Battler that he must have broken some hearts with his charm and good looks, right?

Ouch.

Kyrie and Battler act a lot alike and Rudolf is awful for preventing Battler from having a genuine relationship with her (I guess it’s extremely debatable whether Kyrie’s half would be genuine, given what she says in later episodes).

Obviously this whole scene serves as a way to introduce the real-world readers to the characters, but I think you can place it in universe as Sayo basically figuring out Battler’s 18-year-old characterization. She’s taking what she remembers of him and maybe bits and pieces she’s heard from the other family members and trying to flesh that out into a more fully realized person. Battler still greatly admires George as this cool big brother type (and George is still low-key jealous of Battler, lol, get over yourself dude), Eva and Hideyoshi tease him, Jessica still tries to wrestle him... in short, they all pick up with him exactly where they might have left off six years ago.

Because that’s the last real impression of Battler that Sayo has.

What a fun, light-hearted introduction!

Ahem.

On the boat ride over, the reader is given another big indication that something is very different about this family conference with the shrine being gone. The cousins start talking about incoming inclement weather and it just breaks my heart that Maria’s response to all these feelings of unease is her “uu uu” happiness spell, but there’s no one there who knows what it means.

I admit on my first read, it took an embarrassingly long time to pick up that Maria is coded as neurodivergent in some way but it’s so obvious on a re-read. She echoes people around her, the narration draws attention to her normally expressionless face, she’s lagging behind socially in school, and she instantly believes anything anyone tells her. I’m really looking forward to re-reading her scenes with Beatrice in future episodes with a better understanding of the scope of Sayo’s relationship with her.

Jessica praising Battler for managing to remember the shrine was there despite not having been to the island for six years is a dark lol.

Rosa remembering to bring Kumasawa a blend of tea after a whole year and the narration praising her with --

“Kumasawa seemed deeply touched, not only that Aunt Rosa had remembered this year-old promise, but that she would bring a gift to a simple servant like her”

-- is an even darker lol.

Welcome to Rokkenjima!

#umineko #umineko no naku koro ni #episode 1

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pescado-diabolico · 5 years

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eiichieiichieiichieiichieiichi

you joke but whenever i see him that’s the only coherent thought my brain can muster

Send me a character and I’ll tell you how hot I think they are

Look. Look.

it’s late so i’m not gonna try and justify myself and my bad taste but Eiichi is My Type. i love his weird fluffy layered hair, it’s so dumb and anime and i love it so much (not to mention the two pieces that stick up on top and fall back, they’re very cute). i love his eyes, they’re v pretty and purple and look good with his glasses (and his bottom lashes are so prominent i love it!!). he’s got a piercing stare that makes me weak. his mole is v charming as well. he’s tall (which again doesn’t mean much to me and my 5 foot ass but You Know) which is a plus. overall his intimidating, confident, mature charm just. it just gets to me. makes me blush and cheer when i see him on screen.

and his voice Oh My God his voice. it’s sexy as hell and i love listening to it, i’d go so far as to say it’s one of my favorite voices in utapri (it has a sort of nasally timbre i enjoy)

and ultimately, i love a good bastard. eiichi is prime bastard material. i like it when he acts weird and kinda creepy, i think it’s funny. i love that he does the typical anime glasses shine thing (that plus him blushing and saying his catchphrase is just mmm *chef’s kiss* love this weird man). but what really won me over was his softer side. he cares so deeply about his fellow group members. eiichi really is the dad of heavens and he loves them all so fucking much. i like seeing “bad” characters have loved ones, feels more natural.

also, not to further expose myself, but i have a crush on him. like embarrassingly so. i want him to whisk me away to the bedroom and raw me all night. i think he’s very sexy and i love him So Much. fave heavens member all the way

#ask #follow for more eiichi thirst posts

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clairekatswritingcorner · 6 years

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His Control

Word Count: 1,540

Summary: One of the worst places one can find themselves is on the bad side of a demon’s jealousy.

*Author’s Note*: I did another small batch of comms for @bad-blue-moon-rising! This time I got to work with her character and a character that her friend @heartstringsymphonies made for her to smooch. Everything I learned about this couple just made me love them more, so I really enjoyed getting to write these! I hope you enjoy!

Despite his murderous tendencies, Enoch considered himself quite a reasonable man. Well, as reasonable as a human devouring demon could be. But among others of his kind, he stood out as a paragon of poise and patience, a demon that calculated his killings, and who carried them out with caution and grace.

On occasion he would succumb to his instincts, overwhelmed by bloodlust or the fiery emotions raging within him. But for the most part he maintained his composure, presented himself as a perfect (if not slightly pretentious) gentleman, and upheld a reputation of restraint and carefulness. He would never be caught dead ransacking a city block with reckless abandon, even though he couldn’t really be caught dead anywhere in the first place.

However, there was one aspect of his life where his self-control was dictated less by his own set of values and rules he’d established for himself. He was affected so deeply, so powerfully, so surprisingly that sometimes it felt like this particular influence reached straight through to his core. A core made up of fire and brimstone and malice that had been forced to make room for a certain type of feeling that he’d never experienced once in all of his immortal life.

Sure, he’d had his fair share of frivolous dalliances with humans throughout the millennia, but most of them had ended in a scenario fitting of being compared to that of a black widow. Once his temporary toy had worn out its use, he would utilize it in a more horrific way. Such was the cycle of existence for a demon; he was just living the way he and many others like him always had.

When it came to her, he’d never been tempted to exploit her in such a way. It was a confounding mystery to him, one he’d had yet to solve despite the past few months he’d spent in her company. Usually he would have determined what he was feeling by now, what his next action would be, but with her it just wasn’t that simple. It seemed like nothing was going to be simple where she was concerned, and for all his consideration and deliberation, he couldn’t find any answers to the mind-numbing dilemma he found himself in.

It was bad enough that she’d wormed her way into his heart, if you could even say he had one. Her influence extended beyond the barriers of what even he’d expected to encounter. He found his thoughts straying to her at the most inopportune of times, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t seem to shake them. Her existence was a plague to him, but not in any negative sense. Well, he may not have considered it an advantage, but he also couldn’t find it in himself to reject the emotions she’d unearthed from the depths of his condemned soul.

On the contrary, his every action began to revolve around them. He wouldn’t have called himself obsessed, but he definitely had a fond spot for her, and that fondness came with a particularly dangerous brand of jealousy. Although he’d spared her life and would continue to do so for reasons that were beyond his comprehension, he still went about his nightly human harvesting as usual. He was still a demon that needed to feed, after all. But the demographic of his victims began to shift from those he carelessly came across, doing with them what he pleased before completing his final act, to ones that had some sort of connection to her.

They were connections that he deemed inappropriate, that he found positively unbearable. Even the most minor interaction with a passing stranger whose eyes lingered just a tad too long on her beatific form could get them added to his list of potential targets. He’d never been a messy or indiscriminate killer, but the rage that overcame him when he thought about just how irritating, how infuriating those foolish individuals were was all encompassing.

He could practically taste their blood on the back of his tongue when he observed them, his fingers aching to tear them to shreds on the spot. He would never commit such an atrocious act before her eyes, of course, but there were times when he’d seriously considered it. Disposing of a threat, protecting her from the judgmental gaze of strangers that were simply trying to determine whether or not she was a subject worth pursuing.

No one was fit to pursue her but him. No one was fit to caress her face, or hold her hand, or kiss her lips but him. He knew things had gone beyond the scope of his experience when he realized he would have done whatever she wished of him. If she wanted him to leave her alone, he’d vanish from her life without a trace, perhaps even stealing away her memories of him while he was at it. If she wished for him to stay by her side, he would stay bound to her until the end of her days, providing her with all the support and comfort that he could.

She’d humbled him so completely, so embarrassingly, part of him was determined to avoid as many of his kind as he could for the next several years to come. He didn’t know if he’d be able to face the shame and retribution from others should the true nature of his feelings be revealed. But then again, demons weren’t well known for being especially close with one another. They mostly acted in solitude, lived out their days submitting to even the most passing whim, and enjoyed all that humanity had to offer them with little concern for the consequences.

Unfortunately, right now he wasn’t enjoying himself very much. Although he’d sufficiently adapted himself to her schedule and adjusted to mingling with her friends as much as his attitude would permit, strangers received less than no mercy from him. His fists were clenched almost tight enough for his nails to pierce his skin, and he was sure his eyes projected a murderous gaze that could have killed if he’d imbued it with just a little more of his otherworldly power. He prided himself on being calm, reliable, dignified, but when it came to Alexys it was as if he regressed to his most primal and possessive of instincts.

“I’m going to kill him,” he murmured under his breath as he and Alexys resumed their stroll. Enoch knew they’d been stopped because the stranger wanted to talk to Alexys, wanted to get better acquainted with her in a way that made Enoch’s blood boil away. He’d read it in the stranger’s posture, in their expression, in their voice. If Alexys hadn’t been there to lead him away, he would have finished the job right then and there with no hesitation.

“Enoch, darling, are you alright?”

She’d heard him mutter something, but she hadn’t been able to make it out. She hadn’t been paying enough attention to do so. But when she turned to ask him to repeat himself, she saw a truly terrifying gleam in his eye. The malevolent air of a demon that was out for blood, human blood, and who wouldn’t be sated until he’d consumed enough to have his fill and then some. But something about his demeanor also told her that he wasn’t hungry for just any human, and she hugged his arm before rubbing her cheek affectionately against it.

“You know I’ve never had eyes for anyone but you,” she reminded him in a soothing voice, feeling his muscles stiffen under her grip. “And I won’t have eyes for anyone else for the rest of my life. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”

“It’s not about who you have eyes for,” Enoch replied, his tone laced with spite. “It’s about who has eyes for you. And the fact that such heathens deserve to be taught a lesson.”

“They won’t learn much if they’re dead, you know,” she added in a lighthearted tone, hoping to quell his fury even a little. She knew all about her boyfriend’s special diet, and what it entailed, and she also knew that there was nothing to be done about it. As long as he chose his targets carefully, and didn’t kill haphazardly, she didn’t ask questions and let him carry on as he always had.

“Then they don’t need to learn anything, they just need to be taken care of,” Enoch spat, and Alexys pulled him to a stop.

He gazed down at her, and as he did so a tender look took over his expression. He couldn’t stay mad when he was with her; he never felt anything but happiness upon glimpsing her radiant face. He gave her hair a careful caress, tucking a few pieces behind her ear as he cupped her cheek. He continued by leaning down and giving her a gentle kiss, one that ignited a flame in both of their hearts. With her in his life, he could see the magnificence life had to offer and feel real happiness again. And with him in her life, Alexys knew she’d never feel the sting of being abandoned or unloved for as long as she lived.

#self insert #selfinsert #self ship #selfship #oc x canon #self insert fic #self insert fanfiction #selfship fic #selfship fanfiction #my writing #claire writes #one shot #heartstringsymphonies #bad-blue-moon-rising #commission

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violetosprey · 6 years

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TDDUP My thoughts on Aria

Doing one of these for each of the 5 stars in TDDUP (yes, even the ladies). This is incredibly subjective, so I decided not to call this a review. Rant sounds too negative to me, it’s more a mix of gushing and analysis here. Anyways, MAJOR SPOILERS ahead because I may talk about stuff not revealed until the very end of a play through. In fact I’m probably going to talk in a way that just assumes the person reading this has completed TDDUP. Kinda like, “Oh I won’t give the whole story of this scene because you know what I’m talking about.” Without delay, let’s talk about Aria.

Alright, I’ll get right to the point on this one: Aria scares me. In the BTD series and TDDUP, there are a lot of scary characters who do horrible things. And honestly, I’ve been pretty good with all the characters. I kind of think of it at times like when I went to see the new 2017 “It” movie. The only thing that scared me in that film were the brief jump scares. The rest of the time, it was just exciting to watch (gets your adrenaline pumping). I loved the movie! I definitely would not categorize it as anything but horror, but I was having fun watching the events unfold. It’s not like the subject matter is light-hearted either. So I guess I kind of always thought of the BTD and TDDUP characters like that.

You know that disclaimer about the beginning of these games though? The one that mentions “This game was built to thrill,” and “If you’re feeling overwhelmed, close the game and take a break?” Aria is the ONLY character in the entire series the made me physically take a break from the game to get my composure back. I could not go back to her route or the game at all for several hours (and this was when I was all hyped up after the release). These games are a choice to do and I really encourage people to take their time and not push their boundaries to an area that’s beyond their comfort level.

I did manage to recover and actually got all of Aria’s endings. But I don’t think I will ever be able to play her route again. It’s funny, we’ve had endings and characters involving snuff films, getting your head sawed off, being burned alive, getting ripped apart, having your soul stolen, getting turned into a living doll, getting shot, being dismembered, being left to die alone in a creepy forest, being forced to eat yourself, getting eaten (which happens more often than you think in these games), being boiled alive, being beaten to death, being chained up, being forced to observe necrophilia, being mind broken, being caged, and having insects put in your ears just to name a few. All that stuff? Been fine with. The endings for me have ranged from being “meh” to “oooh that was so dark I love it.” Not to mention I start to embarrassingly even gush over some characters (especially a certain yandere *sweats*).

But go figure that the one person to freak me out, is not only one of the completely human characters, but probably the one who...is the least threating honestly. There is no way Aria could take on ANY of the other cast with the exception of maybe Ellen (only because...I don’t know who’d win in a fight, they’re really different).

First off, I guess I need to say what DOESN’T bother me about Aria before anyone starts to think anything: the incest angle. To be perfectly honest, I feel pretty neutral about her having feelings for her brother. Actually from a story standpoint it kind of helps a little better for her to have that to explain why she goes so far. Because when I think about it, if she didn’t have those forbidden feelings, she’d come off as overprotective of her brother still yes...but I think this gives her character a better dark edge believe it or not. Incest in real life, not a fan of. Incest in fiction though I have a different view entirely. I have both shipped incest pairings, as well as cringed and nearly vomited at them in fiction. The problem is I can’t distinguish what causes me exactly to ship or hate an incest pairing. I’ve tried to write the notes down, but there’s really no consistent criteria. All I know is it STRICTLY depends on the the characters themselves and I think how it affects the story. In this case, I don’t really feel like Aria and Chris would make a good pair, but I think Aria having feelings for Chris gives her more character.

So then what does bother me? One ending. ONE ending out of all five shook my core and made me legitimately afraid of this character: “Aria walled you in.”

It’s weird because I’m not claustrophobic, though I do cringe at the thought of someone sewing a person’s mouth shut. But this ending really managed to get under my skin and I had to think for awhile why exactly. Horror is indeed meant to scare you, and I finally found something that did scare me in these games. But it not only scared me, but disturbed me.

I think the key here is the entire scenario for the route. Remember, the MC in Chris’s path is a verbally abusive spouse, and Aria is a VERY mad sister-in-law. She’s there to give you your comeuppance. So while Chris was violent, Aria tortures you while keeping you in her basement. MC starts to realize towards the end of the path that what they’ve done to Chris is wrong, and they want to make things right. The thing is though when you look at all of Aria’s endings...she never planned to let you redeem yourself from the very start. The only ending where she doesn’t kill you...she sells you (fun fact: I actually liked this ending because it’s a tie in to Gurobob’s “The Hunt” game for the future- so cool!). Chris in his endings, if he doesn’t get furious and kill you...either leaves you alone (sometimes even turns HIMSELF in) or you compromise. This is what makes Chris a good person (just the violent snap was a bad decision).

However, I think the kicker with the ending where Aria walls you in, is the fact that you hear Chris and her talking upstairs. You’re listening to him moving on without you and the two of them laughing happily. Meanwhile, your mouth is sewed up, and you’re left trapped in the walls of the basement. Aria’s not coming back to torture you. As far as she’s concerned, it’s better if you just disappear. So you have to spend the rest of your days, unable to scream, unable to move, listening to Chris and Aria live happily without you there. You can never apologize to Chris. Inevitably you’ll die of starvation and/or dehydration.

This ending doesn’t just scare me for the claustrophobia and the “I have no mouth but I must scream” trope; It’s disturbing because it’s also very sad. Someone finally told you off for your behavior all those years, gave you your punishment, and then you are left to die. And this is where you have to ask the question: Did the MC indeed deserve this fate? It’s actually a question that scares me to think about because I’m not sure I know the answer to it. Is it pretentious to think that I as the MC would be entitled to fix my mistakes after years of abuse to Chris? Or is there indeed a limit to how far a person like Aria should go when someone has hurt their loved one?

I think the key here is WHO is giving you punishment: Chris vs. Aria. You have Chris, who has been the victim in all of this and is a very sweet guy. He gets violent when he snaps, but can realize his mistake later. Aria is not the direct victim here but a sister who cares very deeply to her brother (too deeply even). Of course most people like Aria would want to smack Chris’s spouse in the face. But is she entitled to kidnap and torture you? I don’t know...The problem here is I actually don’t know all that much about Aria as a character. She loves her brother a lot, and she helped Marcus out with his divorce because he was a friend of Chris’s. So she’s good and loyal to some. She’s also incredibly smart. Beyond that though, how does Aria even act around the average every day person? Is she like Marcus, who is “generally” a good person and a good cop, just one minor flaw (his obsessive love with MC). Or is Aria actually more of a cruel, even sadistic, person naturally? That’s not stuff we learn about, so it really makes me wonder if she’s the type of character that deserves to torture you.

When all is said and done though, I need to thank ElectricPuke here. Of course Aria scares me legitimately and she’s my least favorite character in the series because of it. But I’m really glad she’s there actually. Listen, these are all FICTIONAL characters. No one needs to really get up in arms about who likes what kind of dark material as long as it’s enjoyed in a safe manner (and the atrocities are not replicated in real life). As long as people know their own boundaries and don’t push others into something they don’t enjoy, everyone can coexist peacefully. Creating a villain character doesn’t making you a villain either (If it does, we might need to keep an eye on Stephen King :P). There was a tiny part of me going through these games though that wondered “Gee, there’s a lot I let slide in fiction. Is this still sane or healthy?” So when Aria actually spooked me, I felt better. It’s good to know that yes, I do have limitations. They’re not easily apparent, and this game caught me off guard by the scenario. But it’s nice to see I can recognize a stopping point for myself.

Please be respectful then to people who say “Character A in TDDUP I love, but I’m afraid of Character B.” Everyone has their own tastes and their own thresholds. Sometimes for reasons they can’t even explain. By the way, I’d bet good money that Jack freaked out the most people for his hobby :P

So yeah if you read this post vs. the one I wrote about Marcus...completely opposite ends of the spectrum here, haha. Also like Marcus, I’m not sure if I can probably judge if Aria is a good character or not because I’m so afraid of her. I don’t hear people talk about Aria or Ellen as much as the guys, so I don’t know what the general public thinks either. I’d be curious if people actually liked Aria and thought she stuck it to the MC well, or if people got creeped out like I did.

For any future games likes these, just remember to watch the warnings guys! Enjoy yourself, but don’t push yourself. I’m still looking forward to more of Puke’s character’s for sure.

Only one more character to go now!

#own post #credit source material to owner #electricpuke #tddup #aria king #horror

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brilliantorinsane · 6 years

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Thank you for the tag, @thespiritualmultinerd !

1. First things first, what is your MBTI type? I’ve gotten both INFP and INFJ at different times; but on the whole I think the INFJ description fits me best.

2. When did you learn to read? According to Mom I was reading on my own at four, but I’m not sure with what level of success—the story seems to shift slightly every time!

3. What languages can you read in? Only English, embarrassingly. I can fudge along a bit with Greek, and I’m currently learning French

4. What book are you currently reading or most recently read? Fingersmtih by Sarah Waters (also periodic Sherlock Holmes stores—I’m still working through the cannon)

5. Name 3 books you never finished: Oh gosh, I know there are some, but I’m blanking on them. Generally speaking I’m too stubborn about finishing books for my own good …

6. What are your favorite books from childhood? The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis- my Dad used to read at least a few of these books to me and my siblings most summers, so there are a lot of good memories attached to this series. And I still haven’t gotten over wanting to ride on Aslan’s back and bury my hands in his mane. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery (Yeah, spiritualmultinerd!) - as a child I was basically a quiet version of Anne, so I really connected to this series. I think it was especially important to me because few of the books I read had relatable female leads, although I hadn’t observed that fact at the time. Little Women - for similar reasons. The Phantom Tollbooth - Even though the premise (“Learning is fun and good!”) is simplistic, this book is endlessly clever, and I got no end of entertainment from it as a child. The Lord of the Rings - My Dad read this one to my siblings and I, too, and I really connected to the intensity of the friendships and the characters’ endless endurance and hope despite impossible odds. Honorable mentions: Emma by Jane Austen, The Magic Treehouse series by Mary Osborne, Twenty and Ten by Claire Bishop, The Lost Princess by George McDonald. I should probably just stop now …

7. What are your current favorite books? Anne of Green Gables and Little Women still make the list - I returned to them recently and discovered that they are just as good as and significantly more feminist than I remembered. Middlemarch by George Eliot - Eliot is amazing at creating characters, and her portrayals are realistic and critical yet deeply compassionate. The Sherlock Holmes stories, naturally. Paradise by Toni Morrison - it’s a tough read, but Morrison has incredible things to say about oppressive social system, abuse, and recovery. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell - a lovely story about a bunch of old spinsters which manages to be sentimental but not sappy. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - okay, I haven’t read enough for this to be definitive yet, but its an award-winning novel about lesbians in the Victorian Era (my area of study) so honestly. It’s gonna make the list.

Multiple Choice (bold as many as apply to you & add your own choice if you must)

8. Your favorite genres:

Mystery/Sci-fi/Fantasy/Chick Lit/Young Adult/Horror/Nonfiction/Memoir/Dystopia/Poetry/Self-Help/Historical Fiction/Fanfiction/Realistic Fiction/Biography.

9. Your opinion on rereading books:

I do it all the time/It has to be a really good book/I can’t stand it/I haven’t done it since I was a child/I only reread my favorite sections.

10. How long does it take you to read one book on average?

1 to 3 days/a week/a few weeks (it depends on how busy I am and the length of the book)/about a month/several months

11. How do you typically read?

Every opportunity I get, in transit, while waiting, etc./Before bed/On the go by audiobook/When I can truly relax/When I remember to.

12. How many books do you typically read in a year?

None or 1/About 1 to 3/Maybe 4 to 10/At least more than 10/ At least 50 (but I’m in uni studying English Literature, so I’m cheating)/ Too much. I can’t keep track.

13. For school assigned books, what type of student are/were you?

I read all the books in detail/I read all but sometimes skimmed/I nearly read all, I may have skipped a few because they were too boring/I only read the interesting ones/There’s a reason why Sparknotes was made!

Thanks again for the tag :)

We’ll see if my tags actually work this time :P

@unicornglitternutellacookie @look-at-us-both @i-am-gaylocked@authordrawingmusic @missallainyus @a-reocurring-dream@theveryunnecessaryfeelings @wssh-watson

#reading #books #not sherlock

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mbii · 7 years

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Mission Possible: Bison in Vegas, Brotherhood, and “The Upset”

I just wanted to run.

I wanted to run away from all of my problems, either self-made or world-made, and bathe in a shower of shoulder slaps and full body hugs. I wanted to go a place where I wouldn’t judge or be judged, or have to measure up to some illusory standard, or have to wear the mask or play a character for their delight or my survival. Orange Julius Caesar was still in office, and I was still reeling from Charlottesville.

I wanted to run. I needed to run. I’d promise to return and fight for oceans of justice and rivers of fairness, but for now, I needed to escape to my alma mater in the interest of self-preservation.

I wanted to be a lovable goofball. I wanted to sport an embarrassingly honest smile that spanned the width of my contiguous country, wear some ill-fitting alumni gear, and throw my arms around complete strangers while singing the aggressively long song of my university. Winning the weekend for me wasn’t about SCOREBOARD. It was about family coming together at a Kairos moment to share love when we all needed it the most.

But I’ll take the W.

HOWARD OVER UNLV! YA HEARD! WHAT WHAAAAAAAAT?

According to the sports books, this was the biggest upset in college football HISTORY.

The prediction? PAIN. We were supposed to lose by 45 points. $100 dollars on Howard with the right bookie would’ve gotten someone out from under a year of school debt.

YEP. THAT HAPPENED. Howard went ahead and became a football school. AND I WAS THERE.

Los Angeles is an urban sprawl. The numbers will tell you that it’s full of black folk, which is true, but we’re spread across this coastal city like a drop of grape jelly across two slices of white bread. I knew this was something to keep in mind as a DC transplant and native New Yorker, but even still, I was caught way off guard. Out here on the Left Coast, melanin just ain’t connected to each other like that.

Needless to say, I was eager to meet up with my HU family. I didn’t know anyone else going to Vegas – and part of me liked this, since I had quickly created a highly imaginative alternate reality where I would sneak into Vegas, act totally out of character for 72 hours, and jump back in my Prius for home (because why not save money on gas?). Walter Mitty would’ve been proud. But I caved to my better, more responsible self and invited two of my new LA friends to keep me in line – Gipp and Silk.

Gipp was a four-letter athlete at Howard, a starting wide receiver for our forlorn franchise for as long as his academic scholarship allowed. Gipp came from South Carolina as a two-sport guy in his high school days, but ditched his sprint spikes for a college career in cleats. Although Gipp and I didn’t attend Howard at the same time, we became fast friends through our shared Los Angeles church community and an equal zest for life and faith. He’s also the perfect Goose to my Maverick, unlike most sloppy husband types who forget what it is to navigate the perilous waters of young adult male singlehood.

Gipp and I added Silk later, after running into him at the Whole Foods in Playa Vista. He’s the hyper intelligent black computer engineer friend who writes code for dating apps that everyone should have. Silk lives a sneeze from new Silicon Beach (which is how he got his name), has forgotten more about cryptocurrencies that I’ll ever know, and is addicted to CrossFit. No lie. Silk may not have Gipp’s football pedigree but he’s built like an Olympic decathlete. This, of course, made me the fat guy of the group.

Once the group was set, weeks felt like days. Gipp’s wife said YES, I snagged a room at Aria, Silk rented a gluttonously large Ford Explorer, and we piled in and zipped across the Mojave Desert to Vegas.

After sleeping across the middle row for nearly the entire drive, I yawned like a hibernating bear, rubbed my eyes with my fists and looked through the front windshield at the fast approaching city. Las Vegas is quite charming from a distance, like watching a handful of middle-aged uncles proudly march into church on Easter Sunday with neon suits. Vegas’s skyscrapers touched the sky like Babel’s towers, but exist as nameless and faceless trophies until you get in range. Mandalay Bay. Tropicana. Luxor. Planet Hollywood. This was Las Vegas, in its marvelous splendor, standing as a symbolic affront to restraint.

We parked the Explorer at Aria, opened our doors, and got smacked in the face by the heat. It was God’s reminder that we were still in His desert, and we hightailed it for the hotel lobby. We checked in, inhaled three burgers at Gordon Ramsay’s, and strolled through the adjacent indoor mall like conquering heroes, analyzing the Labor Day horde that we were about to share our weekend with.

You see, Las Vegas is a city without duplicates. You’ve got your red hats, your coastals, your warlocks, your hookers, your fixed incomers, your derelicts, your grandmas and grandpas, your fiends, your infants, your sultans, your tycoons, your hipsters, your dancing girls and your degenerates, of all colors and shapes, crammed along one long strip of concrete, baking in the desert heat.

Not one person looks the same in Vegas. Gipp and I walked past a six-foot-three black man in the middle of the mall wearing a black welding visor that covered his face down to his mustache, a second golf visor above the first that stretched horizontally from his forehead (presumably, to shield the sun), a black fishnet shirt, and pink marina shorts that squeezed his quads like they were pigs in a blanket. And the man stared at us as if we were out of place.

After a Friday night alumni event catered by the good folks of HUAA (free food!), a superb community service project that I hear went GREAT! (we, umm, overslept), and a full day of soaking in poolside rays and Top 25 football games over family-style meats (although the food at the book left MUCH to be desired)…we made our way to Sam Boyd Stadium, home of the Runnin’ Rebels.

Yes, we were late. In our defense, we were afraid of getting barbequed by the Vegas desert. So, from the parking lot, we heard the public address announcer yell the first score of the game at us:

“TOUCHDOWN! FIFTY-TWO YARD RUN BY CAYLIN NEWTON! HOWARD UP 7 TO 0!”

I looked at Gipp. His mouth had already hit the asphalt like a grand piano.

“Wait, WHAAAAAAAA???”

We darted into the stadium, looked for our seats, and scanned the field turf for clues. The alumni section murmured politely, with a select few engaging in cautious celebration. Let’s keep it 100. We were pretty, pretty confident that this was a fluke. I remember the Jay Walker tales, but come on man: this is Howard football. We had to crumble sooner or later, right? Right?

For starters, UNLV’s QB was a cool six-foot six-inch black Randall Cunningham clone who could get seven yards a snap. UNLV also had a running back who I derisively called NUMBER 3. Dude moved like a Create a Player in Madden whose speed and agility were maxed to 99. And our diminutive defensive front made their offense look like The Monstars from Space Jam.

But, to our surprise, our defense bent without breaking. They were the unsung heroes. UNLV would hit a big play – like a monster play-action pass at the end of the first quarter to put them in the red zone – and our Bison would burr their noses into the goal line and hold them to chip shots.

A long run by College Randall Cunningham. Only 3.

A short field after a short punt. Still 3.

Later, a HUGE mistake by their QB…he was rushing to the line after another one of his backbreaking downfield plays…fumbled inside our 30-yard line, and our senior linebacker Rollins scooped the loose ball (he bobbled for a second in our line of sight and we GASPED) and rumbled down the sideline with an envoy of his comrades to pay dirt. 21-9. BISON.

UNLV quickly got some of it back, but the halftime score told no lies. In the face of open disbelief, Howard football was WINNING. 21-19 after 30 minutes.

It was a short halftime show. Showtime marched with a skeleton crew and UNLV danced their pirated moves. Meanwhile, the winds at Sam Boyd picked up to Dust Bowl levels. The debris blew so much that I watched most of the third quarter through my sunglasses like a freshman at his first nightclub.

The third quarter was rough. The Rebels ran out like dogs with their tails on fire, scoring two quick touchdowns and sending some of our alums straight to the strip. 33-21, UNLV. We got the ball back and Philyaw – our ex-quarterback-turned-running back and runner-up for Player of the Game – quickly scored on a short run from three yards out. 33-28, UNLV.

Throughout the half, the wind was catching kickoffs and pulling them directly to Earth. On our ensuing kickoff after the score, the wind forced the ball into the hands of a clumsy UNLV up man, who promptly fumbled the ball right back to our squad. Short field. Back to Philyaw. Touchdown. Go for TWO? Why not!

36-33, BISON.

Now, it was the fourth quarter. The wind flipped to our backs and our kicker booted the next kickoff into the UNLV end zone. UNLV started their drive at the 20, with a healthy dose of NUMBER 3, their all-Madden man. Six handoffs later, he was dancing in the far end zone, giving UNLV a 40-36 lead with just over 10 minutes left in the game. Gipp groaned, I stared deeply into the cement stands, and we began to prepare for the inevitable.

And then, Caylin Newton went to work.

Cam’s little brother is a tidy 5 feet, 10 inches. He looks and plays like a miniature version of the 2015 NFL MVP minus the alligator shoes and Popeye arms. Still, Caylin’s deft handling of the offense – read optioning, audibling at the line of scrimmage, jump passing, and getting to the edge on designed QB runs – proved far too skilled for the Howard program I knew. How did we get this guy? Did his family owe a pound of flesh to the Merchant of Venice?

On this go-ahead drive, Caylin picked apart UNLV’s defense like a NASCAR pit crew mechanic. Handoff. Handoff. Run. Handoff. BIG PASS. PLUNGE. SIX! Howard up by 3, with a half quarter to burn.

UNLV got the ball back, Howard held, and UNLV decided to punt into the wind. BAD IDEA. Only 10 yards in net distance, and we braced for the kill. Lil’ Cam got us to their goal line, but finally: UNLV’s d-line held firm. Turnover on downs.

Clone Cunningham got the ball in his hands at his own 2-yard line with a vendetta, firing a deep in route across his body to a streaking Vegas WR. His man caught it, had the angle on the Howard corner, slowed down for no apparent reason, and FUMBLED. HU with another recovery. Time to milk the clock.

Penalty. Run. Run. Run. Pooch Punt. Touchback. And UNLV got the ball back, 19 seconds away from becoming an opening weekend trivia question.

I stood up. My hands were on my head like a sprinter after interval training. I had done no running.

Pass one? COMPLETE for 19 yards. UNLV now on their 38. Could Randall throw a Hail Mary from here?

Pass two? Incomplete. My heart was beating out of my chest. Why is our defense so far back? MOVE CLOSER. OHMYGOD. SOMEONE TELLS ME WHEN IT ENDS.

13 seconds left.

Pass three? CAUGHT. By speedy NUMBER 3, my personal nemesis.

He made his first man miss, and sprinted across the 50. We had men on his tail, but he was just FASTER.

To the 45. SOMEBODY STOP HIM.

To the 40. WE CANNOT LOSE LIKE THIS.

Down. Tackled at the 30.

GAME OVER.

HOWARD 43, LAS VEGAS 40.

You remember the scene from Goodfellas, when Henry Hill is showering while listening to the radio for details on the Lufthansa Heist, hears the juicy goodness, and begins to shrill like a banshee?

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! JIMMY!”

That was me, in the backseat of our rental, yelling and pounding the mats with my feet like a rebellious toddler.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! HOWARD! THE REAL HU! LET’S GOOOOOOO!”

We arrived back at Aria still delirious with excitement, cackling as black men do when richly enjoying the company of their own, sauntering into the casino at Aria like three sumo wrestlers after a buffet. We were using our outside voices inside, but we didn’t care. Something unbelievable had happened, and we were chosen by God as Las Vegas’s first apostles. And the whole world needed to know.

The tomb was empty, and our football program was alive.

MISSION POSSIBLE.

- mb

#howard #football #upsets #vegas

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ecoamerica · 1 month

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Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

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filmsforthought-us-blog · 6 years

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Lady Bird

Lady Bird , 2017, is a film that will truly stand the test of time, by viewing high school in a new light. Those of us who did grow up in the 90’s and graduated in the early 2000’s only had stereotypical high school movies to watch. They taught us to fear the meathead football jocks, to steer clear of the catty cheerleaders, and to not get caught dead talking to anyone involved in the science club. Unfortunately, this did not prepare us for what high school was really like, the way it’s so accurately portrayed in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird. From the struggle of getting accepted into an out of state college, to the journey of finding one’s self, Lady Bird is without a doubt one of the most telling coming of age stories of the decade

Lady Bird was written and directed by Greta Gerwig, conveying a semi-autobiographical documentation of her early adolescence. While Gerwig herself never jumped from a moving vehicle or vandalized a nun’s car, she developed the main character around how she viewed herself internally during her late teen years. Gerwig grew up in Sacramento, California. She never actually went to film school, rather she studied philosophy at Barnard College. She got her feet wet in film studies by making observations while on set during various productions as a self made actress and writer.

Lady Bird showcases amazing talent from Saoirse Ronan, who stars as the main character, Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson. Ronan is a well-credited actress, performing in several other extraordinary films such as, Atonement , 2007, Lovely Bones , 2009, and my personal favorite, Hanna , 2013. The role as Lady Bird is easily one of the first semi-comedic roles Ronan has accepted, being mostly known to portray rather serious characters in consequently serious films. Ronan does an exceptional job depicting a senior in high school, whose journey is a true coming of age story, stumbling along life’s path in efforts to discover who she is. Alongside her is her mother, Marion, striving for her daughter’s best, played by Laurie Metcalf, and her best friend, ride or die until the end, Julie, played by Beanie Feldstein. The trio of actresses put on an astounding performance.

Marion works in the medical field, which any of us who have parents in the medical field know require long hours and late nights. With her husband unemployed and two children in their young adult stages of life, she has a lot on her plate being the primary bread winner to the family. Marion’s struggle is to remain afloat within the middle class, but the ebb and flow of everyday life seem to be dragging her down. A.O. Scott of the New York Times agrees, “ The McPhersons are hardly poor, but the daily toll of holding onto the ragged middle of the middle class is evident in Larry’s melancholy and Marion’s ill humor.” Although Marion appears difficult through Lady Bird’s eyes, others can see her for who she truly is. When discussing whether someone can be scary and warm at the same time, Danny tells Ladybird, “I think you can, your mom is.” We also hear approval from her brother’s girlfriend, who throughout the film doesn’t have much to say before or beyond this point, “She has a big heart, your mom.” This helps the viewer understand that Marion, while appearing bitter and unsympathetic, actual has positive motives.

Lady Bird wants nothing more than to go to college out of state, get away from her embarrassingly middle class family, and venture somewhere new where she can finally feel the independence she’s been striving for. While chasing this dream, Lady Bird, a young lady without a filter, tends to say hurtful things without the intentions of causing such pain.

A devastating point in the film is when her boyfriend, Danny, comes to pick up Lady Bird from her house. He’s given the ritualistic, awkward, living room talk with her parents when he says to Marion, “Lady Bird always says that she lives in on the wrong side of the tracks, but I always thought that that was like a metaphor, but there are actual train tracks.” Upon this one, simple, seemingly innocent comment, Marion’s heart drops into her gut and we can see it. Before this, Marion has always known in the back of her mind that Lady Bird wasn’t content with her living status, but at this moment there’s a heavy weight of dread heaped onto Marion’s already troubled mind. Her thoughts flutter with disarray. How many people has Lady Bird said this to? Does she even notice the struggle Marion goes through day-to-day to support her family? Is it not enough? This is just skimming the surface of what a mother must think when her daughter trash talks her own home.

They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and this theme rings true when analyzing the first and last scene of the film. We begin with Lady Bird and her mother driving home through Sacramento after looking at colleges. Lady Bird can hardly listen to another word her mother has to say and abruptly ejects herself from the moving vehicle. Although the scene wasn’t realistic in the way that Lady Bird resurfaced with nothing but a broken arm, it served it’s comedic goal well. The last scene we’re shown Lady Bird driving through Sacramento again, after having moved to New York for college. She’s shown driving under a voiceover, a message to her mother. She finally sees the beauty in Sacramento after all, and although she doesn’t ever say it, we can feel that she finally understands all that her mother did for her.

Lady Bird also goes through a transition in this film between friends. She dumps her faithful, non judgmental best friend, Julie, for a cooler, more rich, popular girl, Jenna. Julie and Lady Bird’s friendship is thick as molasses. They have the type of relationship that doesn’t require much work to uphold. They know each other better than they know themselves, and love one another as deeply as they would if they were biological sisters. Feeling unfulfilled, Lady Bird befriends Jenna, someone who needs a little sweet talk and impressing to get in good with. Lady Bird finds herself acting out more than usual, and putting up a front in order to seem cool for her newly found friends. The entire act of losing Julie and gaining Jenna is cringe worthy to watch, especially for those of us who went through similar situations. We pray Lady Bird will make smarter decisions than we did in high school and make amends with her true best friend, Julie. Fortunately, this transition is short lived when Lady Bird realizes where her heart and friendship truly belong.

In conclusion, I don’t think it’s fair to call Lady Bird perfection, in the way perfection is defined. The world within the film is a chaotic mess. From the offbeat relationship between Lady Bird and her mother, to the indecisive jumping between friends. However, perhaps Lady Bird could be categorized as perfect in the way that it’s not perfect at all. It’s disorganized entirely, quite similar to our real lives. It’s overwhelmingly relatable, and that alone can leave a lasting impression.

#LadyBird

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