#eventually John figures out that the kid is mostly using ghost magic

[ew-selfish-art]

Dp x Dc wherein learning magic is similar to learning how to play music. 

So basically, the creation of a summoning spell is like a full composition/song made of smaller components or ‘notes’ for things like gravity shifting, and geolocation, and transportation etc. which is why Magic can be taught and spells can be man-made. 

Danny, however, is the equivalent of having Perfect Pitch. He can compose entire songs of spells without really thinking about it due to his royal titles (ambassador/king/high prince) but doesn’t really know how to be specific which lands him in some trouble with Clockwork. His portals are coming along a lot better with the help of Wulf but its critical that Danny learns how to control the range of his magic *something something, for the timestream something* *blah blah according to the will of the ancients blah blah*. 

So put on the course to learn Magic, Danny decides to hunt down the House of Mystery and study up by himself. He’s doing community college online, what could a little bit of Magic self study really do to his schedule? This place has literally every magic resource he could need! 

Turns out he has a roommate in the House of Mystery- John Constantine does not take well to the fact that half of the spells Danny is creating are causing him issues with the JL. Random shit appearing, random shit disappearing, portals everywhere and don’t get him started on the fucking ICE present on every bloody thing the magic reaches. Not to mention there is no reason a normal human kid should be able to have this much power behind his spells. 

John attempts to teach Danny the basics like a little kid gets stickers placed on the keys of a piano. The problem is Danny has the ability to compose entire scores of Magic all on his own, and absolutely abhors the training wheels John is putting on him. 

Danny: You’re patronizing me! 

John: You deserve to be patronized. 

Just like, Danny learning Magic in various ways that you might teach kids to play musical instruments from the various Magic users in the JLD. Causing chaos along the way, found family, the whole nine. Stickers on the instruments for notes, taking away guitar strings that are ‘more advanced’ and replaying Twinkle, Twinkle little star over and over again. 

Danny can play the Magic equivalent of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake but cannot play Chopsticks. 

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi Steph! How you’re doing? First of all, I wanna say that I love your lists. So, I was wondering, do you have some long Johnlock fics? Like, with a bunch of chapters and all that. Thank you!

Hey Nonny!! 

I absolutely do! And you know what?? I’m gonna be selfish: No one has ever EVER asked me for my shorter long fics, so I’m going to take this opportunity to finally release this list, because it’s been sitting in my drafts for YEARS lol. BUT you can check the list below for the links to all my longer-fics lists! Happy reading!!

NOVELLA LENGTH FICS: 20-25K

See also:

Novella Length Fics: 25 to 50K (Aug. 2019)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K (Nov. 2018)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K Pt 2 (May 2020)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. (May 2019)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. Pt 2 (Aug 2020)

Through the Clouds by Mazarin221b (E, 20,004 w., 6 Ch. || Retirement, Home Improvement, First Time, Romance) – Sherlock takes a remarkably early retirement at 47, and convinces John that a change of pace would do them both good. They buy an old cottage on the South Downs, and exchange their nonstop life in Baker Street for quiet contemplation, bee studies, and book writing. They might go completely insane, but sometimes it takes stepping outside of the life you're living to find the life you want. Part 1 of Through The Clouds

A Life Well-Lived by Kate_Lear (E, 20,121 w., 1 Ch. || Original Male Character, Sherlock Woos John, Jealous Sherlock, Reluctant Bi-John, Past Abuse, Insecure John, Reassuring / Caring Sherlock, Protective Sherlock, Understanding Sherlock) – John got scared off men by an abusive past relationship. Sherlock has to try and woo him while not scaring him off with protective possessive rage.

The White Lotuses by SilentAuror (E, 20,340 w., 1 Ch. || Slow Burn, Domestic, Romance) – One day John realises that he just isn't where he belongs, which is back at Baker Street with Sherlock. So he goes back and Sherlock, in his own way, courts him. Romance.

Out of the Woods by SilentAuror (E, 20,471 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Romance, Slow Burn, Flirting, Drunk Sex, Practical Jokes, POV Sherlock, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Pining Sherlock, Frustrated Wanking, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Virgin Sherlock, Love Confessions, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Bum Appreciation, Hanging out with the Yard) – Sherlock is fairly certain that John has taken to flirting with him of late, but can't be entirely certain of it. At least, not until a case takes them into a forest, along with Lestrade's team and something happens that will change everything about their lives...

You're On the Air by prettysailorsoldier (M, 20,616 w., 1 Ch. || Unilock, Matchmaking, Radio, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Flirting, Bisexual John) – The Consulting Detective and The Woman dominate the airwaves of their university radio station, doling out advice on everything from meeting the parents to sexual positions. When their ratings start to dip before the holidays, however, manager Mike thinks it's time for some fresh blood, and who better to fill in the gaps than rugby captain--and notorious flirt--John Watson? Part 1 of 25 Days of Johnlock

whiskies neat by Ellipsical (E, 20,660 w., 15 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, POV Second Person Sherlock, Slow Burn, One Night Stand, Rimming, Blow Jobs, Anal, Soldier John, Crying, Emotional Lovemaking, Switchlock) – Home and hearth and whiskies neat, or, alternatively, Sherlock Holmes falls in love.

Achieving the Together-Coloured Instant by teahigh (E, 20,776 w., 1 Ch. || Est. Rel, PTSD, Codependency, Fluff & Angst, H/C, Smut, Demisexual Sherlock, Experiments) – John wonders if this is how it’s going to be: A life speaking in code, because they’re both too stupid to figure out how to say, “I love you.”

Winter's Delights by Kate_Lear (E, 21,173 w., 1 Ch. || Holmes Family, Christmas, Fake Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Bed Sharing, Domestics) – Sherlock takes John home for Christmas to meet the extended Holmes family. Part 1 of Winter's Delights

Once More, With Feeling by cellard00rs (T, 21,178 w., 7 Ch. || John’s Family, Fake Relationship, Romance, Fluff, Humour) – To put off his meddlesome, matchmaking mother, John convinces Sherlock to play the role of his significant other. Unparalleled awkwardness ensues.

Love Is by SilentAuror (E, 21,508 w., 1 Ch. || Angst, UST / URT, Post HLV, Romance) – At Mrs Hudson's urging, Sherlock finally decides to tell John how he feels about him. Part 1 of Love Is

echoes through time by chellefic (E, 21,619 w. || First Time, Romance, ACD & BBC, Epistolary) – Mummy sends a trunk from the Holmes cottage in Sussex to 221B. Its contents alter the way John and Sherlock see themselves and one another.

The Real Meaning of Idioms by feverishsea (T, 21,691 w., 1 Ch. || Texting, Humour, Post S2) - After two weeks away, John finally texts Sherlock. He doesn’t expect Sherlock to respond. He doesn’t expect Sherlock to keep texting him. And he really doesn’t expect things to spiral out of control so rapidly.

5 Times John Got the Girl (and lost her) and 1 Time John Got the Guy (and kept him) by LiviKate (M, 21,695 w., 6 Ch. || 5 and Ones, Kissing, Oblivious / Awkward Sherlock, BAMF / Sexy / Stud John, Embarassed John, John’s Scar, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Sherlock) – John has always had good luck with the ladies. He's charming, friendly and funny, not to mention great in bed. However, his usual skill with the opposite sex is constantly being thwarted by Sherlock and his outbursts. How will John ever get a leg over when Sherlock is always cockblocking him?

Brief Conversations with the Woman by May_Shepard (E, 21,906 w., 20 Ch. || Pining, Love Fairy Irene, Filler Fic, UST/URT, Drug Use, Clueless Sherlock, Relationship Advice, Angst w/ Happy Ending) – Sherlock has a puzzle to solve, and his name is John Watson.

When to Let Go by KendylGirl (M, 22,109 w., 8 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, Reverse Reichenbach, Sacrifice, Forgiveness, Angst, Love, Implied Drug Use) – What if it were John who had to die to thwart Moriarty's plans? John's supposed death shatters Sherlock, and when he returns, it will challenge the pair to forge a path of forgiveness, to peace, and to find a way back to each other. Part 1 of When to Let Go

A Shipless Ocean by myswordfishmind (M, 22,135 w. 4 Ch. || Post-TRF, John has a Kid) – Ten years after the fall Sherlock goes back to London to find that John no longer lives there. Instead, he resides in a seaside town, a widower, and the father of a seven year old son. Now, Sherlock must struggle with the fact that there may no longer be a place for him in this new world.

Ghost Stories by SwissMiss (M, 22,256 w., 1 Ch. || Pining, Holmes Family, Christmas, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, First Time) – Sherlock's parents think he and John are a couple. They might be onto something.

The One With the Proposal by kim47 (E, 22,375 w., 3 Ch. || Fluff, Romance, Marriage Proposal) – Proposing shouldn't be this difficult.

Sonatina in G Minor by SilentAuror (E, 22,574 w., 1 Ch. || Case Fic, POV Sherlock, Angst, UST, Sherlock’s Violin, Post-S3, Romance) – John has come back to Baker Street, but Sherlock doesn't understand the strange tension between them, even after he begins teaching John to play the violin at John's request.

Dear John by wendymarlowe (E, 23,031 w., 64 Ch. || Post-TRF, Online Dating, Pining, Epistolary, Cybersex, Long Distance Romance) – With Sherlock dead, John eventually (under duress) makes a profile on an online dating site. And falls into a long-distance relationship with an enigmatic partner who reminds him of Sherlock in all the right ways. (Hint: it turns out to be Sherlock.) Part 1 of Dear John

Knotted by naughtyspirit (E, 23,166 w., 4 Ch. || UST/URT, Cuddling, Sharing Body Heat, Confessions, Kissing, Mastrubation, Frustration, BAMF!John) – John has to cancel a date because of Sherlock's case, which leads them to be tied up in a basement from which they have to escape. They get wet, get tied up close and John has to step up and save them. Because he's pretty. And hot. And just a little bit of a BAMF.

You Can Imagine the Christmas Dinners by ardenteurophile (T, 23,584 w., 9 Ch. || Pre-Slash, Drama, Fluff & Angst, Humour, Romance) – Sherlock takes John along for Christmas dinner with Mycroft and Mummy (And "Anthea", too). Over the course of the evening, John realises that everyone in the room - apart from him - seems to think that he and Sherlock are a couple. Part 2 of Xmas Dinners Verse

Once Upon a Beast Becoming by antietamfalls (T, 24,042 w., 6 Ch. || Beauty and the Beast AU || Magical Realism, Folklore, Celtic Mythology) – An act of pride, a druid’s curse, an enchanted leaf; Sherlock’s torment has lasted an age. Hope arrives in the form of one John Watson, a man uniquely suited to break the spell. But with a single night to win his affections, Sherlock finds his carefully laid plans disrupted by a monstrous killer whose sights are set on the only thing he has left to lose: John.

The Kepler Problem by kinklock (E, 24,270 w., 1 Ch. || Sci-Fi AU, Alien Sherlock, Space Repairman John, Alien Biology, Horny John) – Working in uncharted space exploration was not as exciting as John had hoped, especially when it turned out to be mostly bot maintenance on uninhabited planets. However, the mystery of the repeated, unexplained malfunctions on planet BAK 2212 might turn out to be exactly the kind of adventure he'd been craving.

Maintaining A Personal Life by Gingerhermit (E, 24,284 w., 6 Ch. || Alternating POV’s, Bisexuality, BAMF!John, Jealous Sherlock, Romance / Drama, Sort-of Case Fic, Peril & Angst, Love Confessions, Toplock, Soft Idiots in Love, Post S3) – Sherlock and John discover some interesting revelations about each other’s sexuality, which lead them both to question the assumptions they've made about one another for years. In the midst of their mutual discoveries, a dangerous psychopath looms on the side-lines who threatens to destroy their new beginning.

The Sexual Awakening of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson by suitesamba (M, 24,579 w., 10 Ch. || Post-TRF, Case Fic, H/C, First Kiss/Time) – Sherlock owes Mycroft a favor. Mycroft calls in that favor by offering Sherlock's consulting services in a charity auction. Sherlock and John soon find themselves at the country manor of Mrs. Ives-Patton Smarmington III - not very coincidentally a long-time friend of Sherlock's mother - where they are reluctant participants in her Murder Mystery Weekend. It's a play within a play for Sherlock and John, and their roles for the weekend event bleed over into their real lives, waking the sleeping dragons within.

Tomorrow's Song by agirlsname (M, 24,645 w., 5 Ch. || Post-TRF, POV Sherlock, Angst with a Happy Ending, Virgin / Repressed Sherlock, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Pining, Jealous Sherlock) – How can he think a relationship with me would be a good idea? I am the sort of person to take a break from my life and when I come back after two years, I expect to find it exactly as I left it. In reality I find it shattered to pieces. (I actually equate you with my life. When did I start doing that?)

State of Flux by Atiki (E, 24,655 w., 4 Ch. || Sherlock POV, Slow Burn, First Kiss/Time, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Cuddles and Snuggles, Awkwardness, Insecure/Virgin Sherlock, Romance) – John’s marriage is over and he is finally back home (i.e. at Baker Street, where he belongs). Sherlock is awfully insecure and John is awfully hesitant, and they're both awkward idiots, of course, but they figure it out. Many First Times happen.

[aion-rsa]

House of Dark Shadows: The Craziest Vampire Movie You’ve Never Seen

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This article contains House of Dark Shadows spoilers.

In 1970 House of Dark Shadows flipped the vampire subgenre on its head. While certainly a B-horror in the Hammer mold, this chiller wasn’t satisfied with one bloodsucker, or even two. Instead Dark Shadows would turn nearly its whole cast into the ravenous undead, indiscriminately slaughtering beloved heroes and heroines, not caring for a second that they were also the stars of a daytime soap opera—one that was appointment TV for millions of kids across America.

Clearly it was a different time. And therein lies its charm.

When the television series Dark Shadows premiered in 1966, it wasn’t an instant pop culture phenomenon. Creator Dan Curtis was savvy enough to see the appeal in a daytime melodrama draped in a Gothic aesthetic, but he didn’t yet have the necessary hook for his central character as she stepped off a train in New England. Sure, mysterious Victoria Winters (Alexandria Isles) would meet the Collins family, who more or less ruled over the town of Collinsport from their ancestral home of Collinwood, but the reason to stick around only came about a year into the series’ original run.

That eureka moment turned out to be the dapper and effortlessly suave Jonathan Frid. Cast as Barnabas Collins, the Canadian theater actor was initially hired for a single storyline (a set number of episodes) as the heavy: Barnabas was an ancient and forgotten vampire, who’d been buried alive like the family’s dirty little secret after a curse condemned him to drink blood in 1795. Now he was out and wreaking havoc by feasting on the locals and obsessing over Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott), whom he was convinced was the reincarnation of his lost love Josette—a fiancée who threw herself off a cliff in the 18th century rather than become Barnabas’ corpse bride.

It was morbid, obviously, but also romantic at a time when vampires were defined by the coldness of Christopher Lee or the goofiness of Scooby-Doo. Instead here was the most pitiable of creatures, one who doesn’t wish to be a vampire, and through impeccable manners and courtesies revealed a soft love for the Collins family, even when he preyed on them. Rather than create a great villain, Curtis inadvertently invented a tragic hero who audiences flocked to, both the typical daytime target demographic and also, surprisingly, kids and teenagers, who’d rush home from school to be lost in a melancholy land of eternal loves, ancient curses, and of course fangs.

Thus Dark Shadows became a blender for all things Gothic. Following in the success of Barnabas’ introduction, the series would go on to add ghosts, werewolves, séances, multiple stints of time travel, and one particularly devilish 18th century witch named Angelique (Lara Parker). It also appropriated every classic horror trope from Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters, and Edgar Allan Poe, and synthesized them for an audience that was now consuming it along with kid-friendly board games and trading cards.

So why not a movie, too? As early as 1968, Curtis began pursuing the idea of making a Dark Shadows movie, even while the series was still going. Eventually, House of Dark Shadows was the result. Released 50 years ago this week, this toothy amusement was the chance to do everything Curtis wanted with the series, but was prohibited from by Broadcast Standards and Practices censorship, budget constraints… and maybe even audiences’ good taste.

“Blood flows,” actor Roger Davis observed in The Dark Shadows Companion: The 25th Anniversary, which was edited by Scott. “It’s not like the serial. You have a few dabs of blood and the network brass have apoplexy. TV does a mock-up on life. This is in living color. And the vampires really bite.” 

Whereas Dark Shadows, the television show, was appointment TV for those still in middle school, House of Dark Shadows was aimed directly at the drive-in crowd with its emphasis on blood gushing from neck wounds and stakes violently going into almost every character’s heart. As Scott’s book surmised, the film was “entirely the child of its creator,” who would at last have his evil Barnabas. And at a glance, it is an American riff on what had already become kitsch by 1970 thanks to Hammer Film Productions’ seemingly endless line of Dracula movies, plus the knockoffs.

And to be sure, House of Dark Shadows is in many ways a Dracula movie. It’s also insight into how Curtis originally viewed the Barnabas character before Frid went on a charm offensive. Playing almost like a CliffNotes version of Barnabas’ first several storylines on the show, the vampire is awakened during the film’s opening moments because of the foolishness of groundskeeper Willie Loomis (John Karlen). Barnabas then forces poor old Willie to become his living slave and creates a fictitious narrative about being a distant cousin descended from the original Barnabas Collins, whom family lore claims sailed away to London in 1795, never to be heard from again.

Bringing back the “original” Barnabas’ family jewels to ingratiate himself, the Barnabas of 1970 is free to attend family gatherings, fix up an old ruined house on the estate, and even feed on cousin Carolyn (Nancy Barrett), a dear relative who becomes a dead ringer for Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker’s famed novel. Even so, Carolyn cannot displace Maggie (still Scott) in Barnabas’ eyes, who he is sure is the reincarnation of Josette.

It very much has the narrative beats of a traditional vampire movie, but the charm that lingers a half-century later comes in part from seeing these actors, who are intimately familiar with their characters, going through the paces with better production values. That quality also manifests in Curtis’ sense of atmosphere, now liberated from the stage-bound quality of daytime drawing room drama. I would even argue House of Dark Shadows is one of the more satisfyingly atmospheric vampire movies to come out of the 1970s.

Curtis filmed in the upstate New York’s Tarrytown area, mostly on the actual Gothic Lyndhurst Estate, built in the 1830s, and shot much of the exteriors in the legendary Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Whereas Hammer films tended to rely increasingly on sets during this period, and most B horror movies had no budget for evocative locations, House of Dark Shadows was filming its sequences in between tours of the Lyndhurst Mansion and in the same atmospheric cemetery that helped birth the myth of a Headless Horseman.

Regarding the filming location, screenwriter Sam Hall remarked, “It’s a wild house. I’d hate like hell to live in it.” 

This is only accentuated by the fact Curtis knows how to drain a spooky location dry. Images like vampire Carolyn standing in a window, draped in white, beckoning her lover to become one of the damned is a better use of Lucy iconography than any Dracula movie made before House of Dark Shadows. And the film’s ending sequence reaches an operatic opulence rarely seen, even in vampire cheapies. Barnabas, bathed in a blue light and shrouded in inexplicable fog in the interior of his decrepit home, beckons Maggie, now in a wedding dress, toward him as the famous melody of Josette’s music box twinkles, only now in a weeping minor key.

The corruption of that wistful melody is intriguing. An original part of the Dark Shadows television series, Josette’s music box, and Frid’s soliloquies about it, is what first gave Barnabas his soul, distinguishing him from the general depravity of other pop culture vampires. One could even say Barnabas is the first significantly sympathetic male vampire in fiction. In House of Dark Shadows, he has a more sinister mean streak, but the pathos remains.

Hence why the film plays at times like a gonzo delight. It may feature the original, more wicked Barnabas, but it is still derived from the genteel series, and many of those elements carry over. Take Dr. Julia Hoffman (Grayson Hall) spending half the movie trying to cure Barnabas, a subplot that eventually ends happily for the pair on the show, but less so here. It’s soapy pulp, yet it’s given as much stone-faced gravity as the Collinsport Police Department unquestioningly agreeing to patrol around town with standard issue police crucifixes. One might ask if they keep silver bullets in every squad car too?

The overall effect is bizarre, but endearingly so. It’s also fairly influential, as confirmed by what happened after Dan Curtis dropped Barnabas in favor of another vampire.

Read more

TV

Dark Shadows’ Witch Was As Influential As Its Vampire

By Tony Sokol

Movies

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

By David Crow

In 1974, following Dark Shadows’ cancellation, Curtis wrote and directed a Dracula TV movie for CBS that within its opening titles billed itself as “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Far removed from Stoker’s novel, the little remembered television film nonetheless starred Jack Palance as the vampire, and introduced several significant elements to the story by overtly making Dracula an undead version of historical figure Vlad the Impaler (which he is not in the novel) and turning Lucy into the reincarnation of his great lost love.

Curtis was in essence trying to recast Dracula as Barnabas Collins. Like House of Dark Shadows, Curtis even sought to build a Gothic atmosphere by filming in real locations, albeit now Eastern Europe. The result was effective in those scenes, even if the rest of the movie failed in no small part because Palance could never wear the tragic cloak so well as Frid.

In spite of its shortcomings, many have fairly speculated on whether Curtis’ Dracula influenced James V. Hart, the screenwriter of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Hart was certainly more successful at turning Dracula into a lovelorn prince, and Coppola made that idea permanent in the pop culture imagination. Yet, at the end of the day, they were still remaking the pop culture image of Dracula so as to be closer in line with Barnabas Collins, instead of the other way around.

I would even argue that Coppola’s film is closer in tone with Dark Shadows, at least in its romantic moments, than Tim Burton’s big budget Dark Shadows movie was in 2012. Burton of course attempted to avoid some of the mistakes of House of Dark Shadows, namely by keeping Barnabas as the good guy who is trying to save his family instead of ultimately destroying them, as well as retaining the other fan favorite character, the witchy Angelique (who like all other non-vampire elements was omitted from House of Dark Shadows). But Burton also played her and the whole concept as pure camp, making the Collins’ a subject of ridicule, and their problems a punchline.

Admittedly, there is something faintly camp about the 1960s daytime series and its ‘70s drive-in remake; plots turn on ludicrous developments like Julia falling in love with Barnabas, and then intentionally sabotaging his vampire cure when she realizes he loves a younger woman. But they were sold with absolute sincerity, and in the case of Frid, a palatable conviction.

House of Dark Shadows continues that conviction, no matter how batshit things become. Thus the ending where, accepting he’ll never be cured, Barnabas transforms family patriarch Roger Collins (Louis Edmonds) and even the film’s version of Van Helsing (Thayer David) into vampires. And we get to a finale so madcap that it turns “Renfield” into the last remaining hero. Madness, indeed.

Ironically, House of Dark Shadows was blamed by some for the eventual death of the series. Every character in the film, including Barnabas, had to be written out of the show, for some weeks at a time, so the actors could go shoot a movie upstate (another reason Angelique and other significant characters were left out). This correlated with some of the series’ weaker storylines that lost audiences’ attention.

Additionally, it’s believed parents who went with their children to see the movie in October 1970 were appalled by the amount of blood and sensual subtext in the film. As a result, some may have forbidden their kids from watching the series further… with the show getting cancelled in April 1971.

“The TV ratings fell after the movie,” Scott’s The Dark Shadows Companion revealed. “It has been suggested by some that House of Dark Shadows led to the series’ eventual demise. Perhaps it was the audience’s reaction to seeing their hero Barnabas in an evil light. Perhaps it was because parents attended House of Dark Shadows with their children and, seeing the amount of blood spilled across the screen, discouraged their children’s choice of television viewing material.”

Star Frid was even more unsparing in his final analysis.

“[The film] lacked the charm and naivete of the soap opera,” Frid said. “Every once in a while the show coalesced into a Brigadoonish never-never-land. It wasn’t necessary to bring the rest of the world into Dark Shadows, which is what the film did.”

Nevertheless, both the series and movie left a few marks on the throat of pop culture. The series certainly paved the way for more multidimensional portraits of vampires to be explored, opening the door for, yes, the Coppola Dracula movie, but also Anne Rice and True Blood. In fact, even if House of Dark Shadows might’ve been considered too brutal by parents in 1970, decades of pop culture refinement would find a way to make the sympathetic vampire archetype much more tolerable when instead of drinking from his cousin, he sparkled in the daylight and told his prey they needed to wait until marriage.

Without Barnabas, his series, and his slice of bananas role is House of Dark Shadows, we may never have gotten Lestat, Edward Cullen, or Gary Oldman’s Dracula. At least not as how we know them. Fifty years on, that’s a bloody good legacy for a daytime drama and a B-movie you’ve never seen.

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[pervocracy]

One opinion about almost every episode of Doctor Who that I’ve watched

spoilers, although they’re mostly from like 2005

An Unearthly Child: Whoa, they nailed the theme song right from the get-go!

Rose: The Doctor’s speech about feeling the Earth turning under his feet was chilling, and I think about it a lot in moments later in the series when he’s being goofy and casual.

The End of the World: They spent a lot of money on this one--costumes, effects, even licensed music--to prove to everyone that This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Doctor Who.

The Unquiet Dead: I realize saying “every myth is actually aliens” is kind of the Brand, but this one came off particularly strongly “we wrote a Victorian ghost story but then the boss said it had to be aliens so okay, fine, they’re fuckin’... alien ghosts.”

Aliens of London: “Being the Doctor’s companion will completely destroy your life” is a surprisingly grim running theme in the series.  Every companion eventually brings grief to their friends and families, in one way or another.

World War Three: Rose returning to the TARDIS as a conscious decision, bags packed and ready for adventure, is adorable.  The show implies that certain people are just made to be companions to the Doctor, and Rose is one of them.

Dalek: It was an interesting choice to introduce the Dalek as sympathetic and pitiful, and at the same time one of the most brutal killers on the show.  And at the same time, it’s still a ridiculous-looking thing with a toilet plunger for an arm.

The Long Game: Hey! That’s Simon Pegg!  He looks weird with blond hair!  Hi Simon Pegg!  I’m waving at the TV!

Father’s Day: I only watched this one once.  Couldn’t deal with the feelings.

The Empty Child: Stephen Moffat was so good when he wasn’t allowed to take over the whole show so he actually had to write stories with endings!

The Doctor Dances: And what a glorious ending it is!  Everybody lives, Rose!  Just this once, EVERYBODY LIVES!

Boom Town: The Doctor’s dinner with the Slitheen, and their cold deconstruction of each other’s brutality, is one hell of a scene considering the silliness of the setup.

Bad Wolf: Today on Shit You Did Not Expect: a... The Weakest Link crossover?  Really?  Really.  They play The Weakest Link with a penis-headed robot who blasts people with her laser eyes.  And then they’re on Big Brother!  Hey!  My dad worked on that!  I don’t think he was actually part of this episode though.

The Parting of the Ways: Rose doesn’t look or act like she’d make a fearsome demigod.  Which makes it much more powerful when she does.

The Christmas Invasion: “Who is this weird new guy?  I’ll never get used to him being the Doctor!” -me, for about 5 seconds before falling completely and permanently in love with Ten

New Earth: This one is so much fun! Rose and the Doctor are so adorably playful with each other, and then they get to do some incredibly goofy bodyswap acting, and then even Cassandra gets to have a sweet, humanity-affirming ending.

Tooth and Claw: So you’ve got a Scottish actor who normally fakes an English accent, pretending to be faking a Scottish accent, then pretending to forget to fake a Scottish accent and “slipping” into an English accent again.  Meanwhile I can’t even speak with a Massachusetts accent and I was born here.

School Reunion: “I couldn’t bear to watch you grow old and die” is a bullshit excuse for ditching a companion, coming from a guy whose entire personality essentially-dies every time he has a contract dispute or “creative differences.”

The Girl in the Fireplace: “Every time I travel through the time portals, several years pass for Reinette.  Too bad I have no pattern recognition abilities!”

Rise of the Cybermen: I’m glad Mickey finally gets an episode where he’s not just a barely-wanted tagalong.  He was on the verge of becoming the Xander Harris of this show.

The Age of Steel: Noel Clarke’s “I’m two people” acting is so good!  You can see whether he’s Mickey or Ricky in each shot with a glance, just from his facial expression.

The Idiot’s Lantern: ahahaha look at their hair in this episode

The Impossible Planet: I’m glad they came back to the Ood later, because it’s rather unpleasant how the Doctor in this one kinda shrugs off “so these people are keeping slaves, what’re you gonna do, cultural differences and all that.”

The Satan Pit: Making literal Satan the bad guy here is adorable.  It’s like something you’d see on 60s Star Trek, but no, it’s happening in our modern CGI-enhanced post-irony Golden Age Of TV world.  A man in a spacesuit is yelling at a giant red devil that just growls back at him and it’s all very serious drama.  I love this show.

Love & Monsters: This is the one where a girl gets turned into a paving slab but then her boyfriend announces that it’s okay because they’re still having sex.  Yeah.  That happened.

Fear Her: I think this one’s mostly filler

Army of Ghosts: There’s just way too much going on here.  We’ve got ghosts and Cybermen and Torchwood and Daleks and a parallel universe and... anyway I think the concept of using those flimsy paper 3D glasses as a magical item is kind of adorable.

Doomsday: ROSE!  ROSE NO!  COME BACK!  ROOOSE!!!

The Runaway Bride: Catherine Tate is so good!  I’m so glad they brought her back!

Smith and Jones: I love that Martha immediately distinguishes herself as a potential companion by being excited instead of terrified that they’ve been teleported to the moon.  She doesn’t even know how they have air, but she’s already like “sweet! an Adventure!”

The Shakespeare Code: By theater nerds, for theater nerds, probably insufferable to everyone else, but theater nerds have long been comfortable with that.

Gridlock: It feels a little too Socially Responsible how the Doctor and Martha are immediately and violently anti-drug.  This world has patches that bring you magical joy with no apparent side effects, and instead of being curious about it the way they usually are about future technology, they just go straight to “SAY NOPE TO DOPE, KIDS!!!”

Daleks in Manhattan: Having Daleks use the old-school pepperpot design and robot-screamy-voices in the modern series is like putting nipples and a codpiece on the Batsuit in The Dark Knight.  Which is to say, it’s brilliant and I love it.

Evolution of the Daleks: too much plot, I’m sleepy

The Lazarus Experiment: I cannot believe multiple adults saw the wig Mark Gatiss wears in this episode and agreed that would be okay.

42: I really like these self-contained episodes that don’t set up any big arcs or prophesies or personal dramas.  There’s just a ticking clock, a mystery, a spaceship, and a whole lot of running up and down hallways whilst shouting.

Human Nature: Hey, it’s Jojen Reed as an uncanny psychic child!  And Viserys Targaryen as a sadistic upper-class brat!

The Family of Blood: Man, the Doctor really dicked Martha over with this one.  “You’re going to be a domestic servant, because you’re black!  And I’m going to turn myself into an old-timey racist who doesn’t know who you are!  And yet somehow you’re supposed to be in charge of making sure I carry out all my plans!”

Blink: This is a perfect episode of television.

Utopia:💖😍🥰😘 jack harkness i love you 😘🥰😍💖

The Sound of Drums: “Menacing goofiness” is a strange place for an actor to aim, but damn if John Simm doesn’t hit it.

Last of the Time Lords: “I’ve been traveling around the world, fomenting resistance and spreading hope... in the idea that the Doctor is magic and can fix everything by himself.  That’s what resistance to fascism is, right?  Just throwing all your resources in with a different all-powerful authority-father-savior figure?”

Voyage of the Damned: Giving the Doctor a one-off temporary companion, and expecting people to care about her as much as Rose or Martha, doesn’t really work.  “Oh no, she’s dying.  Not whatserface. Oh no.”

Partners in Crime: I love that they’re giving the Doctor a companion who doesn’t have any kind of psychosexuromantic entanglement with him, but is really just a friend.  I love that they’re giving the Doctor a companion who’s (by actors’ ages, at least) older than him.  ...Oh shit, is it bad that these are the same one?

The Fires of Pompeii: “I wish we could save the people of Pompeii, but I am powerless to change this part of history... oh wait, no, I’ll save this one random family on a whim.  Guess I could change history after all!  Sorry, other 20,000 people who are still getting volcanoed to death!”

Planet of the Ood: “The companion is the Doctor’s conscience” is always true, but Donna really owns it.  She spares no time for pretending that “oh but what if the Ood are supposed to be slaves” is an interesting argument.

The Sontaren Strategem: Another one of those “too much plot for me” episodes.  I’m a simple man; just give me a monster and a hallway to run down.

The Poison Sky: ditto

The Doctor’s Daughter: It’s weird that they got married in real life.  Like, their actual age difference is within the half-plus-seven rule, and she wasn’t even really his daughter daughter on the show, but, like, it’s still a little tiny bit weird.

The Unicorn and the Wasp: I guess if I read Agatha Christie books I would understand some of these references?

Silence in the Library: Holy shit, this one is scary.  I don’t hide behind the couch often watching Doctor Who, but... “Hey, who turned out the lights?”

Forest of the Dead: River’s speech about “when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives” is self-indulgent Stephen Moffat hooey and a blatant repeat from “The Doctor Dances” but I’ve got goosebumps anyway.

Midnight: Wow.  You don’t really expect to be using the phrase “a gut-punch of an episode” about the same series that was just playing Detective Funtimes With Agatha Christie, but this was a gut-punch of an episode.

Turn Left: I’ve rewatched a lot of these, but I couldn’t watch this one more than once because I felt so sad about Wilfred. Something in his performance is just wrenching.

The Stolen Earth: I couldn’t watch this one more than once because it’s hard to summon up the energy to follow the “let’s throw everything that’s ever happened onto the show into this stew” plotline.

Journey’s End: HOW DARE YOU DO DONNA LIKE THAT.  HOW DARE YOU.

The Next Doctor: Hey!  That’s not Matt Smith!  I thought it was gonna be Matt Smith.

Planet of the Dead: The Doctor without a permanent companion is always an uncomfortable dynamic.  Both because he needs a conscience/foil/audience-surrogate, and because otherwise we have to go through the “the Doctor is the perfect boyfriend who always breaks your heart” narrative all over again every damn episode.

The Waters of Mars: I like when the Doctor isn’t a good person.  When he gets all arrogant and inhuman and at moments even sinister, that’s far more interesting than when he’s a straightforward hero.

The End of Time: Look, I loved David Tennant’s run on this show.  He’s my favorite Doctor and my imaginary boyfriend.  If there’s anyone I don’t mind watching get a bit self-indulgent, it’s Ten.  But even from this perspective, I think it was not a good idea to let him spend a half hour dying while crying piteously and also somehow touring his entire history on the show.  It really was not.

The Eleventh Hour:  This feels like the first episode of an entirely new show.  There’s very little in characters or plotlines (or writers or producers) connecting it to anything that happened before.  The sense of a fresh start is nice, but this literally is not the same show I enjoyed before.

The Beast Below: Oh.  It’s a space whale.  That’s cool I guess.  This show is okay and everything, but there’s no way I would have really gotten into it if I’d started watching here.

Victory of the Daleks: Upon reading the Wikipedia summary of this episode, I realized that I had, in fact, watched it.

The Time of Angels: “Blink” was, as I said, perfect.  But not because the Angels are the greatest enemy ever devised; they’re creepy and all, but most of the fun in “Blink” comes from the meticulously satisfying construction of the time loops.  Taking that element out, and just making the Angels into generic boogeymen, was a terrible idea.

Flesh and Stone: Oh god, there’s so many mediocre Eleven episodes.  Don’t get me wrong, Matt Smith is great.  I don’t blame him.  But I’m just not feeling the energy to go through every one of these damn things anymore.

[...]

Let’s Kill Hitler: This is the one that finally defeated me.  I wasn’t really offended, just... tired.  Things had gotten so wrapped up in complicated portentous chosen-savior-of-everything plots and we couldn’t have even one episode anymore that was just a normal time travel adventure.  I think about halfway through here, I gave up on Doctor Who.

Oh well.  There’s still time to come back to it if I want.  And we’ll always have “Blink.”

[threewaysdivided]

Hey, I know this is like a billion years from where you are in YJ:DW, but I had this thought strike me: what if Danny could see and talk to Jason Todd's ghost? (assuming Red Hood isn't YJ canon) There's so much potential for angst there, especially if Danny is the only one who can see him, and decides to try and get Jason to cross over. Or heck, what if Danny had a hand in Jason's revival?

That’s a neat idea that definitely has some good angst potential.  Have to admit though, I’m not entirely sure how it would work within the ghost-lore headcanons I’m using for YJ:DW specifically.  

I can write a longer post on this if anyone wants but Basically ghosts in the Deathly Weapons-verse break into 2 unrelated categories that get lumped together for looking sort-of-similar on the surface:  Ectoplasmic (the ones we see in DP) and what we’ll call Shades (DC ghosts like Secret, Deadman etc).  Ectoplasmic “ghosts” are their own inter-dimensional entities so they can’t really “revive” in the traditional sense, and “passing on” is pretty much limited to accepting what they are and chilling in the Ghost Zone forever or straight-up discorporealising/ re-dying.  Shade ghosts are the more traditional original-soul-bound-to-the-physical-world; either because external force is trapping them there, or because they were willful/ powerful/ knowledgeable enough to bind themselves.  These ones can potentially be “revived” more easily, and can “pass on” if they’re released from whatever is holding them to this world.

If Jason came back as a Ectoplasmic ghost he’d work the same way DP ghosts do; most likely everyone would be able to see him unless he had some kind of Young Blood-esque visibility condition (in which case anyone who fit the criteria would also see him), and outside of extreme edge-cases revival would be off the table.  (Throw a ‘plasmic ghost into a Lazarus Pit and they’ll just climb back out,  except now wet and mad at you for giving them a skin condition.)

More likely that Jason would come back as a Shade-ghost (especially since he seems intended to revive in some capacity in YJ canon), in which case he might only be visible to certain people.  In such a case though, I’m not sure it would be Danny who sees him. 

I feel like Danny would be the least emotionally and symbolically connected to Robin!Jason of the Wayne-household residents who’ve appeared in YJ:DW.  As mentioned in this post Danny kind of falls in this weird spot of being Dick’s Brother first and foremost where all the other Bat-Kids are Bruce’s Son/Daughter, and he has some personal qualms about Dick handing off the Robin mantle (and how close he feels he can/ “should” be to Jason) to work through because of that.  Outside of the both-technically-death thing, I’m not sure there’d be much reason for Jason’s shade to attach himself to Danny as an anchor compared to Bruce, Dick, Alfred or even possibly Tim or some location of personal significance (unless Danny seeing him is due to the ectoplasm, in which case other ecto-ghosts should see him too).

Although, in this very specific hypothetical, Danny is probably one of the better people Jason’s ghost could attach too.  We’re about a billion years from the end of YJ:DW right now but Grief and Healing is going to be a major theme of the core emotional arc, so by the time Jason comes along Danny’s going to be much better equipped to deal with even his canon death.  Add to that that Danny’s had to work with ecto-ghosts and therefore tangentially-death-related problems since he was 14 and he’d be less thrown by Jason’s “reappearance” and more likely to think “this could be a ghost problem” early on compared to Bruce and Dick whose first thoughts would likely be “this is an illusion caused by losing my mind from guilt/grief”, especially if Danny can’t also see him.  Plus, by that point Dick and Bruce do trust Danny pretty implicitly and let him take point where ghosts are concerned.

If Jason did appear as a Shade ghost, Danny’s process would probably look a little something like this:

Confirm that Jason is, in fact, a ghost and not a product of him going nuts

Work together to find a way to prove this to the others (while also working through any personal feelings and unresolved communication/ conflict issues)

Call in Bruce, Dick and Alfred and let them know

Family drama/ angst ensues

Collectively find Dr Fate/ John Constantine/ any other amenable magic-spiritualist hero who exists on Earth-16 to figure out how best to Deal With This.

As for Danny helping Jason (or other ghosts) to “pass on”, I kind of feel like that’s…. not really his ballpark.  I don’t see Danny as someone who’d compulsively seek out other ghosts and feel obliged to “move them along” unless they were actively in distress or causing damage/ distress/ fear/ pain to others.  Like, Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt through the streets of a town, terrifying the citizens?  Get in the thermos or get out.  Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt down a long, deserted county road?  Fine, just don’t go into towns or bother other drivers.  He’ll leave them alone so long as they leave other people alone.

In that regard I see Danny as sort of the fixer compared to Jazz’s counsellor - if a ghost is acting up because of some problem (or comes to him for help) then he’ll deal with it so that they can leave, or at least chill out.  And if he can’t fix it (because the solution is harmful, the ghost’s nature/powers are too inherently dangerous or they’re just there being dicks by choice) he’ll capture and send them back to the Ghost Zone (or find someone who can exorcise a Shade) to remove the problem that way.  He might gently float the suggestion, but if Jason wanted to pass on then that would be Jason’s choice to explore unless he specifically asked for help or became distressed/ disruptive enough to force Danny’s hand.

Similarly, I think revivals wouldn’t really be Danny’s ballpark either; it’s not a solution he’d like and he has neither the knowledge, interest, skills or equipment to actually facilitate any of the rare reliable edge-cases methods of resurrection.  Danny prefers to keep to the ‘best left alone’ side of ‘Meddling with dark forces best left alone’ as much as is possible.

Personally I kind of prefer the revival stories where Jason isn’t around until his actual return.  I think there’s more easy gut-punch mileage in most of those versions.  That structure forces the other characters to accept that he’s “not coming back” and try to process all the conflict and pain that it brings, only to then sledgehammer the new status-quo by having him reappear, now changed, at point where his death has significantly altered their dynamics with him, his memory and the other characters.  By comparison, having him come back as a ghost and then revive kind of smooths and flattens that trajectory to one where anyone who can interact with him (even indirectly) gets their emotional healing accelerated, and the status quo eventually slips back closer to how it was (with them mostly just having to adjust to physical limitations of the new form he takes), only to reform fully when he “comes back” for real.

But, anyway, that’s part of larger personal nitpick with the use of “ghosts” in stories.  I find that the meaningful thing about death (and that seems to get weirdly missed by a lot of works) isn’t the moment of impact itself so much as the persisting loss and how the survivors cope.  We are haunted by absence more than by presence.  Most cases of bringing the dead character (or at least their mind/personality) back in some capacity tends to soften the weight of that for me, unless the ghost is meant to function as a some kind of metaphor for the healing/ acceptance/ closure process and “move on” when the other characters do.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this long and somewhat tangential ramble.  It probably won’t be happening in YJ:DW or YJ:DW-EU but in a story which took a more hardline all-ghosts-are-dead-people/ horror approach to world-building, I can definitely see the someone-seeing-Jason’s-ghost set-up having a lot of angst and uncanny potential.  (I know there are a couple of fics like that already out there but I can’t remember their titles right now, sorry!)

[sammyspreadyourwings]

U said to talk to u about ur AUs so here I come! Let’s do some more world building yeah? *cracks knuckles* I hope you don’t mind the up-coming long but very incoherent and messy rant about the WITCH!AU because I have MANY thoughts so let’s chat?! :DDD My Halloween loving ass is fucking living right now oh yeah.

World building ??? 👀👀👀

Why did they get rid of my Read Mores on Asks???? Anyway, buckle in y’all long post ahead.

🌠🌠🌠 (01) What if Brian’s presence somehow enhances one’s powers? That’s why he’s always being chased by spirits or other beings and bad witches want him for this and when they can’t have him they want to kill him? (you’d appreciated the extra layer of angst? XD Like do you want me because you truly love me or do you want me because of my Gift that would greatly benefit your own power)

That could potentially be a result because witches that work with spirits because they’re opening up liminal spaces. Not that Brian is aware of it, and is doing it mostly incidentally which is how some nastier spirits get attatched to him and cause some of Brian’s problems.

He does have that moment once or twice, once he figures out how all of this workes.

(02) What hex or spell do you think the witch (or the evil coven? For dramatic movie rivalry effect between sides LOL) cast to kill him? Something related to the hepatitis and ulcer? Disease or other stuffs? (I can’t help but think about the CW TV Series Supernatural witches have so many creative ways of killing someone through hexes, spells and curses)

So I don’t have any names yet, because I am Bad at them. The curse that I currently have in mind is that it’s kind of a paralyzation hex? Like when Brian gets hit with it, it moves more central, so he looses the ability to move and then eventually the ability to speak and eventually breathe.

(03) Imagine how distressed Brian would be because he loves Astronomy and stargazing but during night is always the most dangerous to him? However after meeting the other three they’re always with him (or at least one of them) especially at night? Dragging him out for drinks and all the other fun stuffs that Brian seems to be missing out on. (Freddie will ruffle his hair playfully saying something like you’re safe with us darling we’ll look after you and wink at him but he figures they just want to see him blush so yeah all the usual good old oblivious Brian trope LOL)

Bless oblivious Brian. The insomnia as a kid is what half inspired him to love the stars, because that’s all he’d have to stare at during those long nights. It’s also when those Things He Doesn’t See (his mother’s words) circle around him.

The other three naturally realize what Night means, and how it can affect an untrained Witch especially one that has a Gift like Brian’s. Roger is the one that tends to keep near Brian during the night because he’s simply the best at unnoticable protection charms. And he usually makes a big show of getting into disagreements when he senses that something is Wrong. Because Brian suddenly has a mood drop or John actually feels some kind of spirit (which tend to stay away from him because the dead can’t cross running water).

(04) I imagine the three sometimes turn themselves into animals like cats (witches are so often associated with cats and ravens etc. you know all that) to keep Brian company and to warn off evil beings around him like he’s ours back the fuck off?

Close! They actually use their familiars! Roger’s and Freddie’s are both cats (Roger’s is a maine coon, and Freddie’s is a very sleek looking calico), and Brian usually has to pick them up and put them in the house because “no, kitty, you can’t go to class with me!”

Meanwhile they’re like “dude.”

John’s is usually the one that keeps the best eye on Brian given that it’s a kestrel. She also isn’t fond of Brian because he keeps closing her window! How dare he!

John hasn’t quite managed to convinence her that it’s on accident because Brian doesn’t feel that she’s just not another Bird.

(05) Maybe one night Brian’s having “sleep paralysis” only this time the pressure gets heavier and heavier and help now he can’t breath and he’s panicking but can’t do a thing can’t move a muscle when suddenly he heard a low but cold voice speaking some language (Latin? But not quite there’s an extra edge to it) beside his bed but he can’t understand a word and the pressure just vanished like that. He whines low in his throat and struggles to move and tries to open his eyes but he’s suddenly very groggy and tired and then he felt gentle hands caressing his face and carding through his hair effectively soothing him and the voice is now crooning sweetly, calming him by saying things like you’re safe love sleep now and when he’s about to fall asleep the hands left that’s when he heard at least three different voices conversing with each other outside maybe? One sound worried, one sound furious and the last one seems to be thinking about something but they’re all speaking in some kind of language that he doesn’t understand.

Okay, I dig, I see what you’re doing here nonnie. 

So this is probably when Roger, John, and Freddie kind of figure out there’s something out there trying to get Brian because Drudes (nightmare demons from Germanic folklore) don’t just take a walk about on the prime material plane. Much less someone who isn’t having a nightmare.

Roger is furious, because after chasing the damned Drude away he checked his seals and found that his demonic protection one has been inverted and draws demons to them. He’s screaming his head off, because he doesn’t know why or how some one would know.

Freddie is just worried because Brian hadn’t reacted to it the way anyone else should have. Almost like he accepted that this was a thing that happened and not a literal demon eating his life force.

John is trying to figure out how the Drude got in on the first place, after Roger found out the seal, and why it would come for Brian directly. Freddie’s got the most “magic” out of the four of them, Brian’s being so tightly wrapped away. Maybe Brian is just awakening his powers and because of his Gift the Drude noticed. But Roger is right, Drudes don’t just come on this plane without cause.

Meanwhile, Brian is out cold/out of it for the next 16 hours because the Drude did get a good grip on Bri’s life force before the other three noticed. Which naturally makes the others clingy for like the next month. Roger keeps forcing his weird wood crafting hobbies into Brian’s bag, and John is always hanging around the physics building and Freddie is painting a really weird thing on the wall. Which kind of makes them look like satanists.

(06) Following no. (05) do you think witches have their own languages akin to Latin but maybe they’re some kind of variation? Also will there be different dialects based on uses, regions and powers?

They all have different casting languages, yes! Most are based on latin, while eastern witches tend to stick with very old forms of their countries languages (e.g chinese with china, Hindi). Some are actually symbol based, which Freddie is very adept at because it gives the most versatility.

(07) And you know like in horror movies how people are with Ouija boards and summoning rituals? Brian of course never participates he avoids most supernatural related stuffs like plague but maybe growing up his encounters people who do those type of stuff for fun and he’s kind hearted not wanting them to be in danger so he’d try to dissuade or stop them but once the spirits or evil beings were conjured the beings always go for Brian? The most severe incident is the Bloody Mary one she appears in mirrors and Brian almost got pulled in trying to save his classmate but eventually he was saved by another witch?

Brian grows up not believing in ghosts, but he can’t deny that’s weird that things happen every time they do mess with Oujia boards. The Bloody Mary thing left him with a permanent inability to walk through hallways in the dark. But he does have the scar on his arm from when whatever it was tried to pull him through the mirror. It was weird. He thinks his friend’s mom stopped it because she game them a really long lecture while bandaging Brian’s arm.

(08) Following no. (07) that’s where my this idea came from: do you think maybe one of Freddie, Roger or John’s family member saved Brian before (when he was a kid? A teenager?) although Brian doesn’t know it? (perhaps he’s passed out during that? Roger and John’s family are more likely to do so simply because of geographic wise?) And that elder witch recognized that Brian belongs in the coven with Freddie, Roger and John so he/she/they got home, told them about this very special boy (girl? person?) that they have to protect one day and proceed to spend years arranging for them to “casually” meet and hopefully become friends or even more?

Never considered this... but this is strangely in line with what kind of Gift I have planned for John.

It would be John’s mom that steps in. Brian accidentally invokes a vengeful spirit while playing in the park. It knocks him into a tree before she can get to him. She quickly banishes it before going over to Brian. Her hands push back his hair, checking his head (only a tiny little bump thankfully) when she feels her son? of all people on his skin. She knows John is a very strong Sympathic but for him to be on someone’s he’s never met.

And for this boy to attract such powerful spirits but existing? He didn’t even know what it was?

Well, she’s never been one to question the whims of the earth. Instead she tosses her hair back and starts yelling for someone to help. Ruth comes over quickly, and Mrs. Deacon explains that Brian fell from the tree. There’s no magic coming from Ruth, not like Brian.

Oh boy, she thinks. This is trouble.

When she goes home John is teasing Julie with a rattle. She picks him up and she bounces him on her hip, “I’ve met a special boy, one you’re going to have to protect and teach.”

(09) I imagine that the other three were waiting for the right time to reveal the truth to Brian while shielding him from not just the spirits or demons’ harm but from evil witch covens as well and maybe one day they just had a very unfortunate run in with some elders who harbor malicious agenda - news travels fast? Very soon EVERYONE and every beings that has connection to the Supernatural world KNOWS (except Brian ofc lol) hence the even more aggressive and violent attacks and the other three were constantly on high alert around Brian (while having to act casually it’s hard work really).

They were trying to find the right time, and there’s never a good time to go “so the dead like you because you’re a good transfer spot between worlds oh and the rest of the supernatural kind of hates you or wants to use you because of that.”

Brian finds out about this entire thing when the witch hits him with paralyzation curse. Well just before it because she basically does the villian info dump.

But just before that, when the attacks were ramping up, the others took turns being on Brian watch, cutting their nights short, sleeping in shifts, etc. Roger is literally running out of grimories to look for seals and protection spells. John has to pratically spell a moat into existence around their flat and even Freddie can’t find something to shield Brian’s presence without hampering his magical awakening. 

They’re all getting exhausted, Brian thinks it’s just stress of recording their first album and school work. Except he’s getting a little stir crazy, he’s literally not had a moment alone since the Drude attack (not that he knows it). So when all three of them invietably crash (between the shortened hours and magic drain it says a lot that they went as long as the did). Brian sneaks out.

I don’t think I have to explain what happens?

(10) Haha I like the idea of Freddie being the wild card in every sense especially when it comes to witchcraft obviously considering his cultural heritage is different from the ones in England so he/she/they dresses differently and casts his/her/their magic differently and it infuriates their opponent so fucking much. XD

Freddie uses a hand gesture, the other witch ????? what in the literal fuck? It bothers Roger too because he’s like, this isn’t going to work *spell works* HOW? WHY? 

John actually starts mimicking Freddie’s way of performing spells and his spells get that much more powerful and chaotic.

(11) Sammy I love you. <3333 *blows you kisses*

❤❤❤❤ Thank you for letting me ramble about things!!!

[advocatewrites-blog]

Into the Unknown Part 3 Chapter 2

Into the Unknown

Fandom: Undertale, Coraline (book), Over the Garden Wall, Paranorman, Gravity Falls (season 2)

Characters: Frisk, Norman B., Dipper P., Mabel P., Coraline J., Wirt, Greg, the Cat, the Frog; Sans, Toriel, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, Asgore,; the Other Mother, the Beast, Agatha P., Bill Cipher, Asriel D., Chara D.,

Pairings: Not the focus. Alphys/Undyne, with mentions of Papyrus/Mettaton, sans/Toriel/Asgore, and Wirt/Sara. Due to the nature of Undertale and the dating segments, there is also interpretable Papyrus/Wirt, Undyne/Mabel, Alphys/Dipper, Napstablook/Norman, Mettaton/Norman, Mettaton/Mabel, Sans/Dipper, Sans/Norman, and Sans/Greg.

Rated a high +K for violence, mild language, horrific elements that may be disturbing to younger readers,  mentions of child abuse and bullying, character death that is sometimes permanent, and mentions of suicide that may be triggering. These elements remain relatively unchanged from their source material, which most all are for children, but discretion is advised nonetheless.

Disclaimer: Undertale was created and owned by Toby Fox. Coraline was created by Neil Gaiman and owned by Bloomsbury and Laika. Over the Garden Wall was created by Patrick McHale and owned by Cartoon Network. Paranorman was created by Sam Fell and Chris Butler and owned by Laika. Gravity Falls was created by Alex Hirsch and owned by Disney. Any other work mentioned or homage are property of their respective owners. This is a fan-made, nonprofit work that only seeks to entertain. Please support the original franchises.

Start from beginning / Previous chapter / Next chapter

Chapter 2

It became clear quickly that Mrs. Babcock was not the only ghost in Blithe’s Hollow. Just stepping out the door, Frisk found themselves in a world of people surrounding in green auras. Most were human. Most wore the signs they carried with them when they died, from skin worn with age or necks still connected to the nooses that hung them. All saw Frisk staring at them and greeted them with a smile and a handshake, especially as Mrs. Babcock approached them.

Most also saw Mrs. Babcock and changed their tone to the kind adults used when they though children couldn’t hear them. Mrs. Babcock responded back and changed her tone to the kind adults used when they were done discussing something and wanted to end the conversation as politely as possible. There was only one person Mrs. Babcock bothered to stop and have a conversation with.  It was another ghost that probably was as old as Mrs. Babcock when she died, but her body was far more wrung and frail.

Frisk did not pay attention to the entire conversation. They changed their tone to the kind adults use and children recognize as not worth their time to eavesdrop. Besides, they had found a ghost dog.

There was a skeleton outside the door of the Ruins. This did not surprise Norman as much as he thought it would. Skeletons were more likely to be monsters than flowers or goats. The skeleton was not as scary as he should be, either. No cracks in the skull, or guts spilling from the ribcage…he was even wearing a turtleneck underneath his hoodie.

The skeleton monster actually seemed to be more surprised by Norman than Norman was of him. A world of emotions passed behind the skeleton’s rather expressive eyesockets before Norman could really put together what he was seeing. By the time Norman found himself able to talk again, the skeleton had beat him to it.

“just one of you this time, huh?”

“Uh…yes?”

“great. let’s see if we can’t get one of those other lamps to work for ya.”

In a lot of ways, Frisk could understand why Monsterkind held the Dump in such high regard. After all, where else would the anime end up? It was the only way they had left to see what was happening on the Surface.

What they could not understand was how one managed to live in a house and a dump simultaneously. Even the old house by Blook Acres was in better condition than the one Mrs. Babcock led them to. It sat on the edge of town, far enough away that nobody would think to find it. It barely stood on its own; wood beams falling off and tarps replaced roofing.

Mrs. Babcock appeared to have the same reservations Frisk did. She appeared for just her moment to wrinkle her nose at the things she could not smell, before looking down at Frisk and giving them an encouraging nod.

Frisk summoned their determination and knocked on the door.

There was an audible thud as the occupant jumped at the sound.

“Who’s there!” A grizzle voice called from inside. “I’m warning you, I already withstood a hummus attack! I’m made of steel!”

“Calm down, John, it’s just us!” said Mrs. Babcock.

There was a moment of silence. The door creaked open. Two bright blue eyes, virturally hidden under thick black eyebrows, stared at the two.

“Elaine,” the occupant said. “Never thought you’d be here.”

“Well, never thought I would need to come in,” said Mrs. Babcock. “Now would you let us in? We’ll catch our death out here.”

The eyes drifted down to Frisk. “And what’s that?”

Frisk waved.

“I literally just had a stroke; I don’t have time for this…thing!”

“Listen,” said Mrs. Babcock. “I know how you feel about me, but you’re the only one left who can help them out. I mean look at them! They’re not even Norman’s age yet!”

The blue eyes focused on Frisk closer. The door swung open, revealing the face and body attached. The occupant looked just as old and ghastly as Mrs. Babcock did. The only thing that stopped Frisk from thinking he was a ghost was the lack of green air about him.

“They can see you,” said the man.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Babcock. “We don’t know how yet, but it has to do something with Norman.”

“And where is Norman?” The man asked.

Mrs. Babcock fell silent at that. Both eyes were on Frisk.

Frisk signed gone with a hesitant shrug.

The man looked towards Mrs. Babcock for confirmation.

“Whatever they did to end up here, they think it sent Norman back,” said Mrs. Babcock. “We need your help.”

The man stopped his staring only to dissolve in a fit of coughs that did not sound like they were natural. “I don’t have any time left. If Norman’s gone…then you’ll do.”

Frisk found themself being pulled up into the air and carried into the house. They were put on a desk before they could complain. A book was thrust into their arms.

“At sunset tonight, take this to the place where the Witch is buried,” The man collapsed into another coughing fit. He fell to the floor, and then he stopped moving altogether.

Before they could move, a fog of green formed where the man had stood.

“Ya got that, kid?” The man asked.

Frisk nodded.

“Good! The world’s counting on you! I’m free!”

The house lit up as the ghost of Mr. Prenderghast laid itself to rest.

When monsters died, their bodies turned to dust. Their souls shattered. There was no real mess to have to take care of. Frisk wished they did not know that.

Humans were different. They realized that as they stared at the body.

“He’s the groundskeeper for the cemetery; he’s bound to have made some sort of arrangement,” said Mrs. Babcock, though Frisk could tell she was mostly talking to herself. “You shouldn’t have to be the one to call him in, kid. They’ll find him eventually.”

Frisk had not thought of that yet. Their attention was on the book that had been shoved in their arms. It was even older than the man, and resembled more one of the books Aunti Whispers had. They opened it up, and were surprised to find illustrations inside. Gorgeous pictures, only slightly diminished by the age of the book, of princes and princesses. The page showed the most signs of use, with dog-eared corners and notes scribbled in runes and chicken-scratch notes that Frisk could not read if they tried. It took Frisk some time to figure out the fancy calligraphy of the title: The Tale of Sleeping Beauty.

They switched the book for the notebook and asked Mrs. Babcock where the cemetery was.

“YOU’VE TAUGHT ME A LOT, HUMAN. I HEREBY GRANT YOU PERMISSION TO PASS THROUGH! “ said Papyrus. “AND I’LL GIVE YOU DIRECTIONS TO THE SURFACE! CONTINUE FORWARD UNTIL YOU REACH THE END OF THE CAVERN. THEN, WHEN YOU REACH THE CAPITOL, CROSS THE BARRIER. THAT’S THE MAGICAL SEAL TRAPPING US ALL UNDERGROUND. ANYTHING CAN ENTER THROUGH IT, BUT NOTHING CAN EXIT…EXCEPT SOMEONE WITH A POWERFUL SOUL.”

“Like me?” Norman asked.

“ LIKE YOU!!!” said Papyrus. “THAT’S WHY THE KING WANTS TO AQUIRE A HUMAN. HE WANTS TO OPEN THE BARRIER WITH SOUL POWER. THEN US MONSTERS CAN RETURN TO THE SURFACE! OH, I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL YOU…

“TO CROSS THE BARRIER, YOU WILL HAVE TO PASS…THROUGH THE KING’S CASTLE. THE KING OF ALL MONSTERS…ASGORE DREEMURR.”

A chill ran up Norman’s back, and he was sure it was not because of the chill of Snowdin. Papyrus’ tone had shifted in a way Norman did not think possible from the happy skeleton.

“HE’S…WELL…HE’S A BIG FUZZY PUSHOVER!” said Papyrus. “EVERYBODY LOVES THAT GUY! I AM CERTAIN IF YOU JUST SAY…’EXCUSE ME, MR. DREEMURR, CAN I PLEASE GO HOME?’ HE’LL GUIDE YOU RIGHT TO THE BARRIER HIMSELF! ANYWAY!!! THAT’S ENOUGH TALKING!!! I’LL BE AT HOME BEING A COOL FRIEND!!!”

Papyrus moved back towards his house in a pattern Norman could not describe with words, laughing along the way. It took Norman a bit longer to process what Papyrus had said and move again.

He would have to fight the King of All Monsters. He was willing to bet it would not be as easy as Papyrus had been.

The new area started abruptly, like he had just stepped into a doorway into another room. It was vastly different than Snowdin, with bare cave walls and an uncomfortable humidity that had him tugging at his jacket.

“hey kid.”

Sans sat at another checkpoint station that looked remarkably like his old one, even down to the snow on the roof. For just a moment, Norman tried to figure out why it was there and how it hadn’t melted yet.

“thinkin’ of headin’ to grillby’s. wanna join me?”

Norman was about to decline when he realized the last decent thing he had to eat was the Butterscotch Cinnamon Pie, and that was a long time ago. If he was going to get close to the King of All Monsters, he would have to eat something.

“Uh, sure…”

“great. c’mon, i know a shortcut.”

It did not really feel like it took them long to get to the cemetery. It felt a lot longer to Frisk.

The Cat was there waiting for them. He rushed to Frisk in a move that looked a lot more like he wanted to get his paws off the damp earth rather than greet them, growled at Mrs. Babcock as the specter took shape, and jumped up onto Frisk’s shoulders. Never once did he speak. Frisk was not sure if they should expect him to, since he only spoke when there was no one else to listen, but it was strange nonetheless. They would have preferred another voice.

It did not take them long to find the graves that Mr. Prenderghast was talking about. It was sunset, time to read the story.

They opened up to the book to the heavily marked paged and looked up. What were they supposed to do? Read it aloud? They knew their voice was not going to work, even if they tried.

“What is it that you’re doing?” The Cat asked.

They didn’t exactly have time to explain. They held the book up for him the way they would their notebook.

“I really don’t read your language unless it’s you trying to say something,” said the Cat. “And I would prefer not to unless you tell me what’s going on.”

Frisk turned around. Mrs. Babcock was not there to read it for them.

The sun dipped below the horizon, and sets of skeletal hands shot from the ground.

Norman was not entirely sure how they had gotten to the bar, only that they were as they turned the corner.

“pretty neat shortcut, huh?” sans asked.

Norman did not have time to answer. Everyone in the bar had taken to greeting sans. He followed sans sheepishly towards the bar and took one of the stools.

“so what sounds good, kid?”

“Uh…a burger?”

“alright. grillz, two orders of burg.”

The bartender, who looked like his entire body was made of fire, gave the two a scrutinizing look before disappearing into the back.

“so, kid…”

The atmosphere of the bar grew heavy.

“do you know anything about a talking flower?”

Author’s Note: I am unusually proud of that anime line. That is the best thing I have ever written.

[drsilverfish]

John Winchester’s Ghost and the Haunting of S12 cont...

The resurrection of Mary Winchester has brought with it the ghost of John Winchester, as the S12 writers’ room snakes the narrative back on itself to disinter its origins.

Here is his journal, as Mary reads its pages in The Foundry (12x03)

And here is his wire-wrapped baseball bat, which Dean had apparently been using in 12x15 Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell - ”Man! Dad loved that thing.” (Also, apparently, a reference to Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character on The Walking Dead).

It’s interesting, and deliberate on the part of the writers’ room, that Dean name-checks one of his father’s favorite weapons at a point in the story when, in working with the BMOL, Sam and Dean are taking a step backwards towards their father’s black and white view of the supernatural. A view which they have themselves evolved away from over the years, thanks to friendships and alliances with supernatural beings, from Amy the Kitsune (Sam was always ahead of the game in this regard) to Benny the Vampire.

As well as John’s diary and John’s baseball bat, we’ve also had Mary’s silent recollection of making out with John in Baby in 12x01 Keep Calm and Carry On.

If John has been physically manifest in objects imbued with his memory - journal, base-ball bat, Baby; Dean and Mary’s confrontation in 12x14 The Raid brings his less than stellar parenting close to being named in an actual conversation:

Mary: “I am your mother but I am not ‘just a mom’. And you are not a child.”

Dean: “I never was...” 

Meanwhile in the mirrors and parallels of S12, John’s ghost is everywhere.  

In The Foundry (my favourite episode of the season to date) we meet Lucas, the ghost boy murdered by and tethered to vengeful spirit Hugo Moriarty. The name Lucas recalls the kid Lucas from 1x03 Dead in the Water whom Dean had a special affinity for. Lucas was mute with grief after losing his Dad and Dean tells him that he was that way himself for a while after his own Mum died (Mary).

Hugo Moriarty is (in part) a mirror for John. Hugo lost his daughter in a car accident and went mad with grief, walling himself up in the house and starving to death then murdering children and tethering them to him. John lost Mary to Azaezel and he also went “mad” with grief, walling up himself, and his kids, in his obsessive revenge quest. 

In 12x04 American Nightmare (with its deliberate callback to 1x14 Nightmare, as signalled by Sam and Dean disguising themselves as priests on both occasions), Magda’s parents, fanatically religious and living off the grid, also mirror John Winchester (likewise fanatical, about revenge, and living off the grid with his kids, raising them as hunters on the road). 

 Magda is both a mirror for Sam, as a kid with special, supernatural powers (just as Max Miller mirrored Sam in 1x14 Nightmare) and for Dean (another layer of subtext down) as an abused queer kid. This second parallel is invoked by depicting Magda as a kid being punished by religious parents attempting to “cure” her (read “conversion” therapy). Like Sam’s parallel, this Dean mirroring in American Nightmare also invokes the old parallel from its twin episode, Nightmare, of Dean with Max Miller, whom we find out was beaten regularly throughout his childhood by his father and uncle. Remember that this (1x14) is the episode, where we get a hint that Dean may have protected Sam from a lot more than Sam knows regarding John’s drinking and (possible) violence. 

Back in our present, Sam and Dean set Magda free (a giant metaphor for being, or needing to be, on a path towards setting themselves free of some of the psychic baggage of their childhood) but, and here comes another John mirror, Mr. Ketch swoops in and murders her.

Mr. Ketch is a John mirror (although that’s not his only function in the narrative) in that we have seen him seduce Mary to the BMOL and attempt (and partially succeed for now) to seduce Dean likewise (12x14 The Raid). That’s partly why there have been two references to Sirens this season, because that particular supernatural creature works by seduction and thus provides an excellent metaphor for the BMOL and their seduction of the WInchesters.

Dean hero-worshipped his Dad when he was younger, Sam never did (which is partly why Ketch (semi) works on Dean, but not on Sam - his bike evoking the Easy Riders soundtrack Dean and Mary both share a love for, for instance. 

Moreover, we learn Mr. Ketch used to date Lady Toni Bevell in 12x14 The Raid, so, as others have pointed out, her kid might be his. Another neglectful / monstrous parent this season? Hmmmn.... hello John Winchester. 

Demonic father-to-be Lucifer is also, this season, paralleled with John. Not only is he on his way to becoming a Bad Daddy, but his minions want to “Make Hell Great Again”. He is an authoritarian and he is a purist (he hates humans) in the same way that the BMOL are (they hate the supernatural). Both mirror John’s black and white perspective, the one he raised his boys in, and against which they have come to rebel (Sam before Dean).

Here is Lucifer looking all corpsified and gross in 12x07 Rock Never Dies (hello corpse ghost of John Winchester:

In 12x05, The One You’ve Been Waiting For, we meet Nazi necromancer Nauhaus and his son Christoph, who have the following exchange:

NAUHAUS: “You were supposed to be my heir. Instead, you're an inconceivable disappointment.” CHRISTOPH: “You know, I used to look up to you. You conquered death. You did so many things. But now? (Sighs) Now all you wanna do is relive your glory days with Hitler.” NAUHAUS: (scoffs) “Your generation – you millennials – are too weak to steward the future. It needs a stronger hand. The world is divided and inflamed....”

This mirrors something of the history of Sam and Dean with their father - his insistence they call him “Sir” from the early seasons, Dean’s anxiety about living up to his father’s expectations, Sam’s rebellion and John’s anger (because Sam wanted to go to college), the way Dean used to look up to his father. Additionally, once again, we see a father-figure with an absolutist view of the world. What would John make of the grey area Sam and Dean now inhabit? Dean’s relationships with Benny, Cas, Crowley??

Nauhaus tries to have his son killed (remember when Dean was dying in 1x12  Faith and John didn’t show up?) and Dean actually refers to Nauhaus sarcastically as “Father of the Year”.

Here is “Father of the Year” Nauhaus-Hitler.

Nauhaus donates his body to Hitler (there’s a sentence) re-animated by Thule blood magic and Dean (it’s important it’s Dean) kills him. 

From a Winchester family psycho-drama perspective (the underlying theme of S12) Dean needs to kill the ghost of his father in his psyche. Particularly Dean, because Dean was the “good son” who repressed so much of who he was in order to be a care-taker to Sammy (a role his father persistently neglected as part of his obsession with hunting and revenge for Mary’s death).

Sadly, Hugo Moriarty is also a Dean mirror, because Dean’s co-dependency (the lesson he learned in childhood that his self-worth comes mostly from his role as family caretaker) means that he has some unhealthy patterns around trying to tether the people he loves too tightly to him and then watching them endlessly slip away.      

 Dean lost his childhood and he adopted a bravado, a machismo, in imitation of his father, which closeted his own more complex self (signalled by, for example, his secret love for soap operas like Dr. Sexy MD and for chick flicks). Dean felt the need to hide his appreciation for “feminine” coded thngs, that his Dad would likely disapprove of. Hence his continued anxiety about openly liking things like the fancy cucumber water in 12x07  Rock Never Dies.

This is why we get an episode titled Regarding Dean (12x11) which strips away what SPN meta fandom calls “performing Dean”. Memory-wiped Dean (regressed Dean, psychoanalytically) is soft with bunnies, exhibits a child-like quality and wants desperately to ride Larry the bull (in subtext - dick - i.e one of Dean’s represssions as a result of his father’s macho hunter upbringing is the repression of his bisexuality).

Here is Dean free of his father’s repression....

Another deadbeat Dad lurks at the edges of the narrative - namely Chuck - as Cas returns to Heaven with Kelvin on a promise to speak to Joshua in 12x15 Somewhere Bewteen Heaven and Hell. This reminds us that Joshua was the gardener angel Sam and Dean met in 5x16 Dark Side of the Moon, back when they all hoped that if they could just reach God he would intervene to stop the apocalypse.

That’s an interesting reference, Dark Side of the Moon, at this point, given that Dean’s Heaven back then contained an idealised vision of his mother feeding him pie, one he is now having to painfully deconstruct as he meets the real Mary, a woman who reveals she didn’t cook and who is all too ready to become obsessed with hunting in the way John was.  

We can now, looking back, explicitly parallel the BMOL’s supernatural genocide plan with the revived Nazism we revisited in The One You’ve Been Waiting For (Dabb’s political parallel to contemporary America also being at work this season). 

As Sam and Dean and Mary continue to work with the BMOL, eventually a clash of values will come to a head, between the old Winchester way (John’s) and the new one (that of his sons). 

In facing this conflict, the ghost of John Winchester, still lying mostly unspoken between Mary and her sons, will certainly manifest (whether spoken out loud or continuing to haunt the narrative in a variety of mirror guises).

We’ve had the return of demons with yellow eyes like Azaezel, namely the other Princes of Hell - Ramiel, Dagon and Asmodeus. 

This can’t help but (deliberately) remind us of Azaezel’s narrative in the early seasons. Remember his possession of John in 1x22 Devil’s Trap, and how Dean figured out that his Dad wasn’t in the driver’s seat, because the demon said “I’m proud of you”? 

John was a flawed man - he wasn’t literally Hugo Moriarty or Nauhaus or Hitler or Lucifer or even Mr. Ketch. However, this haunting of the S12 narrative by his ghost, in a plethora of dark mirrors, is about his effects on the psyches of his children. What a dark lake of unspoken things lies between the resurrected Mary and her sons in that regard. 

And in that sense, we can understand why John’s ghost looms so monstrously at the heart of the Winchester family psycho-drama this season, in tandem with the resurrection of “Mother Mary”.  

Thanks to Supernatural’s SuperWiki and to Home of the Nutty for most of the screen-caps.

www.homeofthenutty.com  and www.supernaturalwiki.com 

[nyxelestia]

What I Didn't Write in 2016

Plotbunnies that I never ended up writing (and, if I'm going to be honest with myself, probably never will).

Ghost Allison - Death wasn't enough to stop Allison from protecting her friends. (ETA: Never Mind.)

Jordan and Derek, Guilty (BR)OTP Fic (Unrequited Marrish and Sterek) - Jordan and Derek hate themselves for loving Lydia and Stiles. >:)

Post Season 2 Allison/Lydia, with Pregnant Lydia - Jackson impregnated Lydia just before he died in the Season 2 finale. Allison steps in.

West Wing Sterek AU - Stiles as the First Son, and Derek as the President's assistant. They are basically Zoey and Charlie. That's it, that's the plot.

Stiles-Centric AU (Witch!Claudia -> Warlock!Stiles) - A completely plot-less AU/idea about Claudia having been a powerful witch, and Stiles having inherited some magical ability from her.

Sheriff Stilinski Was Once Johnny Cage (Stallison or Gen) - altered to fit the Teen Wolf universe, the events of the Mortal Kombat movie were the manipulations of the nogitsune, before it was re-imprisoned back in California. When it escapes again, it intentionally possessed "Johnny Cage's son".

Avatar Scott AU (Sciles) - Scott is the Avatar, and Stiles is his non-bending best friend who he doesn't go anywhere without and who helps him learn. The Swamp Tree is called the Nemeton, and the academic fox spirits at the library are getting corrupted, which leads to one possessed Stiles.

Werewolf!Sheriff (Sterek) - The Sheriff gets Bitten, comedy and angst ensue. Let's be real, if I wrote this, it would mostly be angst.

Teen Dad Stiles (Pre/Post Sterek) - Babies don't make everything better, and in fact can ruin your lives, especially if you're a teenager.

Chris/Melissa/John Fic - What was originally a farce just to fuck with Rafael blossoms into an actual relationship. Their kids...try not to think about it.

"Seraph Stilinski" (Gen) - Claudia was a demon, the Sheriff is an angel, and all the forces of Heaven and Hell are deadset on making sure the world never finds out they had a kid together - the best way to do that being to kill the kid.

Stiles Number 7 (Clone AU, Derek & Stiles, Derek's POV) - Stiles is one of several clones, who are all based on Dylan O'Brien's other acting roles.

Trans Scott Fic (Scott & Stiles - Possible Sciles?) - Scott was born female, but is a boy. Stiles was his first and fiercest advocate, which is why the nogitsune acts like a transphobe the moment it possesses Stiles.

Details below!

Ghost Allison

ETA: So I ended up not only writing a fic for this one, but making a fanvid as well. Go figure.

Exactly what it sounds like: Allison is a ghost. I play around with various ghost mythologies, but the end result is that the pack realizes that Allison never left and she's been with them all along (which is why no one in the pack ever died after 3B). She sent Scott back after Theo killed him, she nudged Lydia in the right direction when she was in Eichen House, and she intentionally made Scott think of her when her own ancestor, Sebastian, tried to claw him for the memories.

This one, though, I'm actually not writing because I have an idea on how to make it a fanvid, instead. ♥

Jordan and Derek, Guilty (BR)OTP Fic (Unrequited Marrish and Sterek)

Basically, a fic which takes the age differences seriously. It's a lot of Jordan and Derek slowly realizing the other one is also, like themselves, attracted to a teenager (who, even while "legal", they just do not feel comfortable trying to start a relationship with, for many reasons, age merely being the biggest one).

It oscillated between humorous (the boys commiserating over the snarky teen geniuses they're in love with) and dark (the boys sleeping with each other and openly using each other as a "distraction" from the kids they are in love with). It was going to end with these two working behind the scenes to set up Stydia, figuring that Stiles and Lydia were better off with each other than with them, and then Derek and Jordan kinda parting ways and moving on, better able to love their respective teenagers from afar.

Post Season 2 Allison/Lydia, with Pregnant Lydia

Inspired by this gifset. Jackson actually died in the Season 2 finale, and Lydia found out she was pregnant with his baby soon after - and with Jackson dead, she refused to abort it. My twist is that Lydia's pregnancy is progressing against the backdrop of canon (though in an AU where, because Allison stayed to help Lydia through the pregnancy, she helped find Erica and Boyd, meaning they lived, and the Hale pack was more cohesive by the time Deucalion made his move). Lydia is explicitly targeted by the alpha pack because of her pregnancy (since the pack is an actual pack in this AU, practically everyone sees Lydia as family, and thus her baby as their future niece/nephew). The nogitsune tried to make her miscarry - though thankfully, it failed, if only barely. The fact that it was distracted attempting to cause the miscarriage meant Allison survived, though also only barely. Lydia was with Derek when Kate attacked, so the baby was born prematurely. Allison - at this point fully in love with and dedicated to Lydia and the baby - is furious, so when the pack goes to rescue Derek, she kills Kate for hurting Lydia and potentially killing the baby. Luckily, the pack comes back to Beacon Hills to find Lydia and her baby daughter are safe and on the path to recovery. The baby is named Jackie, after her lost father, and everyone loves her and all the bullshit of Season 4 never happened. The first full moon even reveals that the baby is actually going to be a werewolf, which Lydia is - much to everyone else's surprise - delighted by. Lydia is grateful to have the power to protect her friends, but being a banshee is traumatic and she's glad to know that her baby won't have to suffer through it. The epilogue is Satomi introducing herself and her pack to Scott and his pack - not from the fear and death of the deadpool, but to celebrate the new arrival to Scott's pack.

West Wing Sterek AU - First Son Stiles

Derek comes to the White House looking for a mailroom job, needing to support himself and his sisters after the rest of his family is killed in a brutal housefire. Due to a series of shenanigans, he gets hired as President Stilinski's body-man/personal assistant, instead. He eventually ends up dating the First Son, Stiles, and life seems good for him...until the First Family, the staff, and Derek are shot at by Neo-Nazis, because they object to the First Son being in a gay relationship. They stick together through that, though they split up later for personal reasons...yet Derek still loses his mind when Stiles' new boyfriend's stupidity gets Stiles kidnapped. As such, they eventually reunite (with only a little bit of meddling from Stiles' dad.) (This based off the Zoey/Charlie arc in The West Wing. Charlie's mom was a cop killed in the line of duty, and the Neo-Nazis attack because Charlie is black while Zoey is white. After they split, Zoey's new boyfriend gave her some E despite her already saying she didn't want it, and while he had no nefarious intentions beyond that, this made her vulnerable and led to her kidnapping.)

Stiles-Centric AU (Witch!Claudia -> Warlock!Stiles)

AU where Claudia was actually a very, very powerful witch. Stiles and the Sheriff have known about the supernatural world all along (Scott only found out after he was Bitten), and this somehow nebulously led to no real change in the events of Season 2, but after it, Erica and Boyd were saved from the alpha pack, and Allison stuck around town instead of leaving, so come Season 3 - when the story starts - the pack is a more cohesive pack, Allison is rebuilding her Hunting group/"family" with a new code, and Stiles is formally training to become Derek's emissary (and then Scott's, once Derek gives up his spark to save Cora, while Scott becomes the True Alpha). This one, I chose not to write because while I had some individual scenes and such planned out, I had no actual plot in mind.

The closest was some weird rom-com bullshit in which a coven comes into town and accuses the pack of breaking into their stuff/breaking some old wards of theirs. It's about to turn into a fight until Scott and Stiles show up and recognizes "Stiles's mom's book-club friends", and the witches recognize Scott and Stiles. They have trouble believing that the little boy who used to play with Stiles is now a True Alpha, but they do realize Stiles' "breaking" the wards/shields were genuine accidents - those shields were originally set up by Claudia, and the only thing more powerful than them are talismans she gave to Stiles and the Sheriff (made out of the Sheriff's old dog tags). They actually want Stiles to come with them, but they shrug it off when he declines and chooses to stay with his pack. One of the witches who is new to the coven tries to instigate a fight, but they're all like, "we can't fight them, we helped potty train them!" That's quite literally the extent of my planning for this fic. :P

Sheriff Stilinski Was Once Johnny Cage - Mortal Kombat (Stallison or Gen)

AU where "Stilinski" is actually Claudia's family name, which the Sheriff changed his name to in order to escape the fame of his movie days - he was actually born as Johnny Cage. Kitana was 'merely' a thousand years old, and a kitsune (halfway through the story, we find out she's Noshiko's older sister). Liu Kang is like Deaton, a Spark/Emissary/monk/user-of-magic (he grew up learning it, ran away from it, and the events of the movie were him coming back to that heritage). Sonya Blade is a Hunter from a Russian/Russian-descended family that has a testy relationship with the Argents (though she's not the leader yet in the events of the Mortal Kombat movie). The events of the Mortal Kombat movie were altered, so that it turns out the sorcerer Shang Tsung wasn't working for some other-dimensional demon, but the nogitsune (which Kitana accidentally released in the process of looking for her long-lost sister). The "tournament" was an elaborate human sacrifice ritual to superpower the sorcerer (and then/thus the nogitsune). Luckily, this original badass quartet managed to put a stop to the preceedings, and put the nogitsune back in its prison in California. Unfortunately, they were not able to capture Shang Tsung (which is why he later turns up leading a Yakuza ring right under Johnny Cage's nose in Beacon Hills - the actor playing Silver Finger is the guy who played the evil sorcerer in the Mortal Kombat movie). The story starts a few decades after that, though. Stiles is still very much the guy we all know and love, except that he grew up learning martial arts from his dad, his godfather "Uncle" Liu, and his godmothers "Aunt" Sonya and "Aunt" Kitana. (It's mostly just a hobby for him, something he does with his dad on the weekends.) The Sheriff and Stiles are both attempting to figure out or solve the supernatural drama, but from different directions. Both are attempting to protect each other from it, so neither of them know that the other one is involved until Matt's attack on the station, when they both know the kanima when they see it. Stiles learns the truth about his Uncle and Aunts, with Liu and Sonya even coming to town (though they don't really make it until after the Season 2 finale). Liu helps Stiles get started on learning how to be an Emissary, while Sonya (now the leader of her Hunting family) helps Allison clean up the Argent family and its mess. Kitana doesn't show up until the events of Season 3B,  which is when it comes out that she and Noshiko are estranged sisters. Since Stiles genuinely sees Kitana as his aunt, this leads to him and Kira viewing each other as something akin to long-lost cousins. The joy of newfound family is short-lived, since the nogitsune has escaped yet again - and it wants revenge, which is why out of all the people it could've taken, it chose to possess Johnny Cage's son. >:) This fic was going to have a lot fun parallels between two quartets - the "original" quartet of Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Liu Kang, and Princess Kitana, against the "new" quartet of Stiles, Allison, Lydia, and Scott. However, it wasn't a fic I could really write about a single event or short period of time. Conversely, I didn't want to start yet another long, drawn-out, and heavily involved AU, when I'm already writing three of them.

Avatar Scott AU (Sciles)

From this post. Avatar AU, where Scott is the Avatar, and Stiles is his non-bending best friend and companion. Scott had many earthbending masters, though his most valuable lessons came from Stiles' father, the metal-bending Chief of Police. The Fire Nation hasn't attacked yet, but aspirations for world conquest are simmering in its royal family, the Argents.

Allison - a Yu Yan archer - has been exiled, ends up befriending the Avatar, and finds him the best fire-bending teacher possible: Kira, a lightning-bender. Monk Deaton teaches him airbending, as well as how to take care of the air-bison and all the other creatures of the Avatar world. (He is also an avid Pai Sho player, and taught Stiles how to play - and gave him a White Lotus tile when the boys finally left the temple after Scott mastered air-bending.) The Hales are the chiefs of the Water Tribe, who have always lived by the moon, and Derek is the one tasked to teach Scott water-bending.

Scott's first "mission" as the Avatar is to find out who is trying to attack the most spiritual tree in the world, the Nemeton. Before he tries, though, he has to go to The Library to learn about it. Unfortunately, something has been corrupting the fox spirits there, which no one realizes until one takes Stiles away from Scott. This was a premise, but there no actual plot to this, hence why I didn't write it.

Werewolf!Sheriff (Sterek)

In an AU where Erica, Boyd, and Allison all lived, and Isaac, Jackson, and Cora never left. Stiles has been instrumental in training all of them (especially once he sees what a disaster at it Derek was.) Werewolf shenanigans leads to the Sheriff getting Bitten by some rogue alpha, so now he has to learn how to be a werewolf. There are some good sides - he's loving how useful his new, enhanced senses are in his investigative work, and Stiles lets him eat whatever he wants. Unfortunately, he doesn't react well to the news that he can never drink again, and his first full-moon is trauatizing for everyone.

It was a lot of themes about how growing up can change your relationships with your parents and other parental figures around you. A big part of the story is that the Sheriff largely sees Scott as something akin to another son, but Scott has to be the Sheriff's alpha in order to protect him and everyone around them - and Stiles often unwittingly follows suit, as the Emissary. So their relationships kinda get flipped on their heads. And remember all the psychological nastiness of Scott's first full moon, and the physical violence of several other characters' first full moons? Yeah, imagine the Sheriff doing that, directed at his actual son and his adoptive son. >:)

(Despite not having enough of a plot to bother writing this, I did somehow develop plans for a sequel where this happens all over again because Melissa gets Bitten, too. However, in her case, she just asked Scott to Bite her, so she made an active choice to become a werewolf, well-aware of all the strife that would come with it.)

Teen Dad Stiles (Pre/Post Sterek)

Stiles and Malia didn't exactly use protection when they screwed in the basement of Eichen House in 3B, and Malia gets pregnant. In this AU, though, she never wanted to stay in the human world, so after she gives birth to the baby (toward the end of summer, just before senior year), she regains her coyote shift and returns to the wild - for good. Stiles is left with a baby, and the whole pack is supportive, and Derek in particular chips in a lot, since the baby is family (via Malia), and he's feeling a little bit responsible (for a variety of reasons). However, this isn't a feel-good fic where babies make everything better. Even with all the support in the world, being a parent is tough, and being a teen parent especially so. Stiles struggles with being a teenage father, and affects his social life, his ability to handle supernatural problems, and his grades - and with them, his career aspirations. He resents being a teen father, and slowly starts to resent the baby. Babies not only don't make everything better, but Stiles starts to feel like the baby ruined his life. Derek - seeing what could happen to the baby if she were raised by someone who resented or even hated her - demands full custody, and even threatens to sue for it. Stiles is resisting mostly because of what a massive blow to his pride and his sense of self this is, though also because he feels like Derek taking the baby out of obligation wouldn't be much better. (His resentment of being a teen parent is so deep, he doesn't realize that Derek - in a much better place in life to raise a child - actually looks forward to having a kid to take care of.) Derek is about to force the issue, but everyone remembers that while Stiles is the father, he is still a teenager, which is why the final say/official custody actually fell to the Sheriff - who saw the same thing Derek did, and thus agreed that the baby should go to Derek instead of staying with Stiles. The fic ends with the epilogue, which takes on the baby's first birthday, and when Stiles is getting ready to head off to college. There are no promises that Derek will wait for Stiles, nor that Stiles will ever "come back" or reclaim the baby. But Derek will always be there for Stiles, and while Stiles may not raise the baby, he will still be a big part of her life and try to do right by her in his limited capacity.

You can probably see why I didn't write this. Look, I'm sorry, but no matter how cute they are, sometimes babies not only don't make things better, they really do ruin people's lives.

Chris/Melissa/John Fic

This was a pretty cutsey fic idea, set in some nebulous post-S4 world, but where Allison lived and Isaac never left - and where Rafael McCall did, indeed, come back to Beacon Hills like he said he would in Season 4. However, he seems to be trying to 'reclaim' his place in the McCall family, refusing to see that Melissa has no interest in reuniting with him or that Scott neither wants nor needs him. (I consider this to be very OOC for him, though, which is a small part of why I didn't bother writing this.) The story actually begins after some minor supernatural scuffle results in Chris and the Sheriff crashing at Melissa's place for a night while the kids are out and about. The next morning, Rafael happens to barge into the house unannounced, sees Melissa making breakfast for Chris and the Sheriff (with Chris and the Sheriff in boxers and tee-shirts, since Melissa didn't have anything that could fit them), and jumps to the wrong conclusion. Rather than disabuse him of the notion, though, the three pretend they did, indeed, have some kind of threesome, leading to Rafael to storm off in disgust. They actually continue this facade for a while, much to the kids' amusement - it seems like the perfect way to throw people off their tracks, while making Rafael (and a few other interested parties) not think twice about some strange behavior. However, the fake relationship eventually grows into a real one, the three of them banding together to take care of and protect the kids in the face of all the supernatural crazy that is Beacon Hills. Their kids do find out that this "fake" threesome has become a real one. They struggle with it at first, for different reasons, but eventually come to be glad for their parents. (Mid-way through college, the two men knock up Melissa. The kids' reaction mostly boils down to teasing the parents for getting into an accidental pregnancy after having spent years lecturing the teenagers on practicing safe sex specifically to prevent something like this from happening. But when their baby sister is born, they spoil her to bits.)

"Seraph Stilinski" (Gen)

A kind of very dark Good Omens crossover/AU, with a lot of Saga undertones to it. Heaven and Hell have long been at war with each other, a conflict as old as humanity itself. One of the most powerful Arch Angels and another very powerful demon left their respective sides after falling in love with each other. They became human, which hid them from their former comrades, and spent multiple lifetimes together like this. Eventually, they even had a child together, taking great pains to make it look like that child was adopted, should someone unfortunately discover them. However, they realized too late that the process of having a child would doom the mother - which led to Claudia's human form deteriorating. She probably could've been cured just by undoing the human body and returning to her former self, but to do that would've been to reveal her location to the depths of hell, and possibly the truth about her child, so she died rather than put her husband and Stiles at risk. Supposedly, the Stilinski family happens to have been in Beacon Hills for a long time, and have passed down some uncanny resemblances, which is one no one questions it on the rare occasions they could swear they see John (or, I guess he's Noah, now?) in some decades-old photograph or century-old painting. However, some things aren't adding up, and by the end of Season 2, Stiles knows his father isn't human, and is a lot older than he looks. But the Sheriff is keeping remarkably tight-lipped about it all, which doesn't make sense until Stiles is possessed by a demonic fox-spirit...who the Sheriff says is, in the closest approximation to human terms, Claudia's brother - and thus, Stiles' uncle. And to think Derek thought he had it bad!

I also didn't write it because it was sprawling into some multi-million year angelic/demonic conspiracy. The reason why Claudia and John tried to hide that Stiles was their kid was because a angel-demon child was taboo, due to myths that such a child would be tremendously powerful. They were very confused when their baby was human, though relieved to see this would make him easier to hide. However, various "higher ups" in both Heaven and Hell still want this kid dead, and eventually, everyone figures out why. It's not that Stiles is particularly powerful, but that all humans are - they are not bound to any concept, object, element, or natural entity like angels, demons, spirits, and most supernatural creatures are. Things that devastate other creatures - iron, salt, silver, etc. - humans cloak themselves in, and powerful roots or herbs like mountain ash have zero effect on them. Despite humans being so physically weak and slow and their senses being so dulled, they've taken over the planet, and they can even leave it, a concept that up until recent was deemed impossible by everyone on and around Earth. In the purely physical sense, humans are "weak", but from the supernatural standpoint, humans are tremendously powerful (and/or rather, invincible). So why to the "higher ups" want him dead, if all humans are powerful? Well, Stiles is proof that all humans - all of humanity - are descendants of angels and demons. That thing about the conflict between heaven and hell being as old as humanity? Well, Heaven and Hell - angels and demons - predate humanity. Stiles - a confirmed child of an angel and a demon - is living proof that they weren't always at war, and that in fact there was so much fraternizing/uniting between these two sides, they created enough "demon/angel children" to create a whole new species: humans. Stiles is living proof that angels and demons can coexist peacefully, so of course everyone wants him dead before word of this gets out. This got very convoluted and extremely Sheriff-centric (with surprisingly little of Stiles or the pack in it), so I never bothered writing it. The Sheriff is popular, but not that popular/not on his own, so I doubted this would get read much, and if it's just for myself, why bother writing it when I can enjoy a story in my head?

Stiles Number 7 (Clone AU, Derek & Stiles, though surprisingly not necessarily Derek/Stiles)

A Clone AU, loosely based off of the tween novel series Amy Number Seven (which is like the middle school version of Orphan Black, but focused on the character coping with the clone background after finding out about it, rather than the clone mystery itself). Mostly Derek's POV. Basically, Seasons 1 and 2 are largely unchanged, except there are multiple implications that Stiles was kidnapped as a child and only recently returned home, but Derek doesn't know or figure out the details. Meanwhile, throughout these events, Stiles and Scott make a lot of references to Stiles getting help from mysterious "cousins" and "brothers".

After Matt's attack on the police station, Stiles calls in those mysterious cousins. Derek meets this AU's version of Minho, Brenda, Theresa, and Newt when Stiles goes missing after the Championship Game in the S2 finale. They are Stiles' "cousins", and despite the fact Stiles has been kidnapped, everyone agrees Stiles was kidnapped by "someone local", so the problem isn't big enough to warrant calling in Stiles' "brothers" just yet. Derek still had no clue what the fuck is going on, but not only are Stiles' cousins clearly child soldiers, Stiles himself actually manages to disable Gerard in that basement, and he's the one that frees Erica and Boyd. The warehouse battle still happens,  and Stiles' mysterious cousins vanish soon after, and Derek is still very confused - even more so because Stiles is disturbingly competent and militant when it comes to finding and rescuing Erica and Boyd. (And also because Stiles disappears to "go help his cousins/brothers" once or twice throughout the summer.) However, the nogitsune is a BIG problem, which is when Derek gets to meet Stiles' "brothers" - clones.

These clones are all basically OC's inspired by/based on Dylan O'Brien's other roles. In this universe, the kids were made by some evil organization trying to produce soldiers, and these kids were the experiments/subjects. They survived, escaped, etc. - and now this story is about their lives afterwards. (The "cousins" were various experiments in how to amplify certain human strengths, while the "brothers" were just an experiment to successfully clone human beings. The next step was basically to "combine" these two experiments - clone people with those amplified traits - but these kids escaped and destroyed the organization doing this before that could happen.)

This was going to be fun once Stiles' "brothers" roll into town, because neither the pack nor the "cousins" are willing to kill Stiles - but his brothers are, and in fact are setting out to do that, leading to the clones working against the pack and the "cousins". The clones are all completely normal humans, while the pack are obviously supernatural, and the "cousins" have some superpowered traits (amplifications of hints of what we saw in the books), not to mention they've got the law and Hunters on their side (via the Sheriff and Allison). Despite this, the two sides are pretty evenly matched. Later, Stiles thinks that his "brothers" should very easily have been able to kick everyone else's asses, so he thinks they just didn't try hard enough because they didn't want him to die, and doesn't believe they were actually outmatched; some of his "brothers" are...not disagreeing. :P

Trans Scott Fic (Scott & Stiles - Possible Sciles?)

A fic where Scott had been born genetically female, but is transitioning to male - and has been for quite a while by the time he is Bitten. There is a lot of dysmorphia because the werewolf Bite interferes with the transition process, but Stiles learns magic specifically to counteract these problems. There was also a big plot arc where this interfered with Scott's ability to completely turn into a wolf (but once he does, the wolf form is male). To be honest, there wasn't much of a plot, just a lot of smaller ideas or scenes I had in mind. The ones I originally came up with - and at the center of the story - are something which I expect would be extremely controversial at best.

Stiles has always been Scott's Number One advocate, and his first defender in the face of transphobia. Where Scott tries to assume the best of people and educate everyone, Stiles thinks Scott shouldn't waste his time and that transphobes should just go die in a fire. Stiles was the first person Scott ever told, and he was the one who helped Scott talk to his parents to get the transition process started, when Scott was too scared to.

So when a thousand year old chaos spirit intent on causing as much emotional pain as possible possesses Stiles, what does it do? Deadnames Scott, constantly calling him by his birth name and intentionally referring to him with female pronouns as much as possible. This is directly parallel to Scott's transphobic father coming back into town and doing the same thing, insisting that Scott is his daughter, deadnaming him and misgendering him. What Rafael is doing to Scott out of transphobia, the nogitsune is doing because it knows how much it hurts Scott (and Stiles). What transphobes insist is "natural" or "right", the nogitsune is using as a weapon in its psychological warfare - because it's just that bad, that painful, and that devastating.