#hell meta

[dyed-red]

What are your thoughts on how much time Sam’s soul spent in The Cage? If we go by established time lines in the show, 18 months = approx 180 years. But Lucifer is an arch angel and we know angels can manipulate time so I think it could have been longer, or least made to feel longer. I also believe that Sam would have been fluent in Enochian after spending that much time with Lucifer and Micheal. Thank you for answering if you have time! And I hope you enjoy and holiday time you have :)

welp - you did it.

you asked a question i’ve been thinking about for over a decade and unleashed the full fury of my brainworms in action. this is the type of meta i expect like 4 people total to be interested in, but i’m going to spend days working on because I Have Thoughts.

the short answer: somewhere between 180 - 5000 years, with my personal headcanon landing just over 700 years, or 1400 for maximum whump.

The behemoth long answer is under a cut because long and math and meta. Skip to the end if you just want the math. The tl;dr is that SPN canon implies that hell has layers and that time distorts more the deeper that you go, and we can build an equation for that distortion and get to basically whatever number suits our purposes depending on what assumptions we make going in.

Time Distortion in Hell

The length of time Sam’s soul felt/experienced the cage is a function of two factors: how long he spent there in earth terms, and the degree of temporal distortion hell creates.

The first piece is easy if we assume Sam’s soul spent 18 months in the cage* (footnotes at the end).

The second piece... Dean spent 4 months dead (time in earth terms) which was 40 years on the rack in terms of his experience/perception. If we take this assumption that 1 month = 1 decade, we get to use some very simple math to say that Sam spent 180 years in the cage.

But.

I’ve always personally interpreted Hell’s time distortion to run a bit different than a static 1 month = 1 decade. This headcanon derives from some hints in canon (or at least, this headcanon is not actively contradicted by moments in canon) and from other pieces of media.

I believe that the deeper you go into hell, the greater the temporal distortion is.

This is basically like the move Inception, I’m not even gonna try to pretend otherwise. There, the deeper you go into the dream within a dream, the more time dilation there is. It makes sense to me that SPN’s Hell canon works the same for several reasons.

For starters, when Sam's wall is breaking in s6, he has flashbacks where 2-3 minutes is equated with what feels like a week in the cage (episode 6x14). We can take this at perfect face value (meaning that Sam’s soul experienced about 5000 years in the Cage). Or we can interpret this to be a function of the episode he is experiencing, where temporal dilation is exaggerated because of the nature of his flashback, or we can say he is speaking in hyperbole.

I think it makes sense for the truth to be somewhere in the middle - Sam is speaking off the cuff, not entirely literal or exact about how long those 2-3 minutes felt like, but nonetheless honestly that they felt like days, felt much longer than our formula of 1 month = 1 decade allows. And I take that as a realistic reflection of his time spent in the pit.

Another, and far more overt piece of evidence comes in Season 11 when Sam visits ‘the Cage’. In 11x09 (O Brother Where Art Thou), we see Rowena, Crowley and Sam in Hell whereas Dean is on Earth, and there appears to be little to no temporal distortion occurring between the events below and the events above. This remains true in the following episode (11x10, the Devil in the Details) when Crowley phones Dean and when Dean comes down to join them in Hell (and Cas as well shortly after).

So - what gives? Is there temporal distortion occurring in Hell or not? Did they retcon that, forget about it, what?

Well, Crowley explicitly refers to this area of Hell as ‘Limbo’, which brings us to an understanding of Hell’s temporal distortion through the lens of the circles presented in Dante’s Inferno.

Circles of Hell

It’s fair and frustrating to say that canon doesn’t give us much in the way of understanding the structure and hierarchies of Hell. That gives us a lot of leeway, but I like to anchor my headcanons to canon if and when I can.

Thankfully, there is at least some reason to believe that Hell in this universe is structured at least somewhat similarly to Hell in other popular works of fiction that derive their conceptions of it from Dante’s Inferno (which itself is the popular mainstream view of hell that even a lot of Christian/Catholics have adopted, often without realizing at this point).

Dante’s Inferno provides a view of hell that has 9 circles, or layers, each one deeper into Hell than the last. SPN implies the same.

We get this from the use of Limbo, as stated above, since this is the term in the Inferno for the first circle. Crowley refers to Limbo as the “furthest reaches” of Hell, whereas in Dante’s Inferno, it’s the top layer. SPN plays fast and loose with what it takes vs. leaves from real-world mythos, but I take this to mean that “far” or “furthest” not in the sense of depth, but as a place which may be vast and largely empty, and which few demons can enter (since, as per the Inferno, it’s not a place where guilty souls actually end up, so possibly has quite restricted access to demons).

We also get evidence of these circles from Word of God through Sera Gamble, who has apparently said that the Cage is “At the bottom of the lowest depths of the ninth circle of the worst bit of Hell.” That’s pure Dante’s Inferno, ba-bey. (/mcelroy voice)

More evidence comes from Season 8 when Sam rescues Bobby’s soul from Hell, since he goes through Purgatory as a sort of back door to Hell, being told that Purgatory is “Hell adjacent”, which is true as well in the Inferno.

Another within-canon indirect hint of this is the association between Lucifer and ice. Dante’s Inferno keeps that the ninth circle of Hell, reserved for treachery, is a large frozen lake. And in the Inferno and in SPN canon, this is where the Devil is kept, in the Center of Hell, in the deepest frozen depths of the pit, the frozen lake in the ninth circle.

Also remembering that in early seasons, Lucifer and his Cage were buried so deep in Hell that most demons weren’t sure if he even existed. His existence was a matter of faith, no different than humans believing in God, according to 3x04 (Sin City).

Based on all this, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to surmise that Hell is vast, but potentially its vastness manifesting in the way in which it is layered, and that there are regions, planes, or depths that most demons do not or cannot tread to.

But okay, even if you’re on board so far, why do I believe that time works differently at different layers? And what circles have we seen in canon?

Situating Each Circle

My fundamental argument here is that temporal distortion in Hell is more extreme at the deeper depths, in a mathematically determinable way.

If we accept that Hell has nine circles (or planes or layers), then we can assume that we’ve seen three - probably five - of them. There is Limbo, as per season 11 and stated above, in which there seems to be little to no time dilation. This makes some sense if we accept that it’s the surface-most plane*, the first circle.

We have also established what’s in the ninth circle, titled Treachery, which is the Center of Hell and The Cage. Given its depth and the lines from season 3 Sin City, we can assume that, much like Limbo, this is an off-limits zone for most demons. If we accept my argument that times moves differently at the different layers, this is where time distortion - really, time dilation - should be the most extreme. It is the furthest removed from the material plane and the deepest well (do not call it a gravity well do not call it a gravity well do not call it a - )*, dilating time and everything around it at its depths.

In between, we have seen The Rack (where Dean was tortured), we have the Throne (where Rowena sat and kept court, since many of Crowley’s ruling scenes are implied to be on the surface rather than in Hell proper, although any of Crowley’s ruling scenes would be on this same level, I imagine), we have The Dungeon (from which Sam rescued Bobby’s soul as part of the Trials), and we have the glimpse we caught of how Crowley restructured the place into endless lines as a method of torment. There’s also the space where Lilith’s horn is kept, as per the Belphegor and Cas scenes in the early episodes of Season 15. I take that to be the same level as the Throne level, since it seems to be where ruling demons would both preside and reside.

Based on the seeming lack of time distortion we tend to see (in late seasons...) when we get scenes relating the Throne level, my headcanon is that this is the second circle of Hell (Lust). In the Inferno, incoming souls are judged here and then sent to which circle their sins have them belong, so I think it’s at least somewhat fitting for this to be where the Throne is. Keeping it closer to the surface world / material plane also has some advantages if doing so minimizes time distortion, since keeping closer time with Earth allows easier monitoring of Earth and tracking of things like deals etc. It also means that higher ranking aka more powerful demons who preside here are closer to Gates of Hell and therefore have less far to travel when slipping out and onto Earth.

In contrast, I think that The Rack is pretty damn deep. There is a lot of time distortion going on to get to 1 month = 1 decade (especially if we allow that a very small amount of dilation is happening at the topmost circles, even including Limbo). This makes sense to me in that The Rack is a place of exceeding misery and horror, literally the center of Hell’s most violent and excruciating tortures.

For that reason, I place The Rack as circle seven, aptly titled Violence. This is not to be confused with the sin of Wrath, which is actually the fifth circle. Rather, the seventh circle (to quote wikipedia at least), “houses the violent”. What better way to re-interpret that in the world of SPN than that circle hosting the torturers and their tortured? Within the seventh circle are those who committed violence against neighbors, against self, and against God. What better place for someone who sold his own soul (violence against self and against God), who killed?

Of course I don’t think it’s so straightforward that violent souls get sent to The Rack. I think any damned soul can be called there for a torture session. But Dean spent his entire time in Hell on The Rack, and that can’t be standard. Bobby spent plenty of his time in hell in a cell, as per 8x19 (Taxi Driver), and demons come here to torture him.

I don’t think it’s a huge leap for me to infer that Dean was special and spent his entire time on The Rack because they were so determined to use him to break the First Seal, and that most damned souls only do short stints on there, either due to limited real estate or so that souls don’t become numb to the violence (since let’s face it, most demonic torturers probably can’t keep them in anticipation of further horror as well as Alistair can, after a few days or months being cut into.) They’re probably returned to their cells to marinate in the memory and anticipation with only minor tortures until they’re brought down again. This is what we see with Bobby and probably with the endless lineups in Crowley’s redesigned Hell.

So - without too much to go on, I’m going to tentatively place the Dungeon with Bobby and other damned souls as being in the sixth circle, Heresy. It’s a circle described as hosting souls in flaming tombs, which I think fits this notion of a dungeon with cells holding on to souls, and keeps those souls close at hand and ready for another go in the seventh circle where The Rack is held. 

And this allows me to place the endless line as actually being either in the fourth circle, Greed, or the fifth circle, Wrath. The fourth involves a nation of lost souls who, in this pit of hell, lose their individuality and become sort of empty, which fits what we see in that brief clip of the Hell line. The fifth includes a “savage self-frustration” that seems fitting of the concept of that awful endless line, with sullen and angry souls fighting each other in muck and slime.

Regardless of fourth or fifth (I have no strong sense of which fits better), I see that line as being meaningful outside (above) the sixth circle, in a torment that is less acute, as souls that are less unique and differentiated, less violent, less worthy of turning into black-eyed demons.

Because in the Inferno, there’s this critical division between the fifth vs. sixth circles as the transition between the two being the transition into “Lower Hell” and the sixth being behind guarded walls, with another steep drop from the sixth to the seventh, and so on. This makes sense to me as Lower Hell being a place where they keep the Dungeon and guard the doomed souls, whereas that place outside those walls hosting the damned but less special, less differentiated, the more generically doomed... yeah, it just makes sense to me (your mileage, as always, may vary).

This distinction is important also because of that drop down. If distance and depth are important to temporal distortion, then it matters if the first few circles of Hell involve less of a steep drop one to the next. Here we should note that the seventh circle involves three rings, and the eighth circle (Fraud, aka Malebolge, another very strong contender for the location of The Rack since it’s essentially an amphitheater for torture, so I’ll do the math both ways below)*, well the eighth is basically a funnel with 10 separate rings or steps downward.

Why does this matter? So glad you asked!

Increasing Temporal Distortion at Each Level

If you’re following the hints I’m dropping, what I’m implying about getting deeper into Hell and the further drops down at the later levels is that the time distortion in Hell does not increase linearly. It increases exponentially.

Limbo has temporal distortion that is so minor as to be barely perceptible, if perceptible at all. The Rack gives us an explicit (if fuzzy) estimate of 1 month = 1 decade in terms of perception. The Cage is implied to be much, much more than that, at the extreme end up to 2-3 minutes = 1 week in terms of perception.

If the time distortion was linear, meaning that from circle 1 to circle 2, and circle 2 to 3, and 3 to 4 and so on, we should expect that the amount of time distortion from Limbo (circle 1) to the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to be a much, much wider gap than the amount of time distortion from the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to the Cage (circle 9). Like... it should be 7-8x as much distortion.

And I mean, you could take a linear headcanon approach to it. If we accept that SPN Hell has circles or layers as is Word of God and overtly implied by the narrative time and again, you could say that there’s x amount of distortion at circle 1, and 2x at circle 2, and 3x at circle 3, etc, and this would works okay when we got the math right, but like... it’s not my preference given the way canon works.

What I mean (especially for those who hate math so might not be automatically sussing what I’m saying), is that, for example, if 10 seconds in Limbo = 1 second on Earth (sure why not) then if the time distortion increases the same way (”linearly”) at each new circle of hell, then on the Rack we get 70 seconds = 1 Earth second (or 80 seconds = 1 Earth second, if the Rack is in the eighth circle).

That specific math doesn’t check out (it equates to 23.3 years on the Rack instead of 40, or 26.7 if the Rack is the eighth circle instead of the seventh), but to figure this out we should of course work backwards starting from the 4 months = 40 years. Which tells us that each second on Earth feels like 120seconds (2 minutes) on The Rack. If that’s happening at the seventh circle, then a linear difference between each circle of hell means that the time distortion in Limbo is roughly 17 seconds for every Earth second. This math works out a little prettier if the Rack is the eighth circle because that’s an even 15 seconds for every Earth second.

To me, that’s stretching how much time distortion is implied to occur at Limbo and vastly exaggerating what we see with Sam rescuing Bobby from Hell. If Bobby is actually kept in the 6th circle, that’s 102 (7th circle) or 190 (8th circle) seconds in Hell for every second on Earth. It just didn’t seem that Sam was spending a minute and a half in Hell for every second that Dean was spending on the surface in Taxi Driver, but then again, I haven’t rewatched that episode so I’d have to double check to know for sure.

Between those implications about time distortion in Limbo and Bobby’s rescue and even the Throne room when they visit Rowena to the way Dante’s Inferno (which SPN canon clearly drew from) funnels more extremely downward the deeper you go in the circles, to what Sam’s episode of Hell memories could imply about his experience of time dilation in the Cage (assuming we accept his statement about his episode “feeling like a week” even if we don’t take that number at exactly face value)... an exponential increase just makes more sense, mathematically?

And again, for anyone who doesn’t like math or doesn’t know what that means and why I keep using this word “exponentially,” what it means is that the difference between the first circle and the second circle is not as big as the difference between the second circle and the third circle. At each depth, the intensity of the time dilation increases. So that you might not even notice the difference in time dilation between circle 1 and 2, but the difference between circle 5 and 6 is massively noticeable, and the difference between circle 8 and circle 9 is like several times even that big. Like Inception!

So let’s run some final calculations and get you your answer(s), Anon!

Some Final Math and Estimates*

Assumption 1: Equivalent Dilation

If we assume that there is no difference in time dilation from one region of Hell to another, then the ratio that Dean gives us in Season 4 is accurate for all of Hell, and 1 month (30 days) in the pit feels like 10 years. That’s 120 seconds below to every second above.

This would mean that in 18 months in the Cage, Sam experiences 180 years worth of torture.

Assumption 2: Linear Dilation Circle 7

Assuming The Rack is in the seventh circle, then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds on the Rack equates to 154 seconds in the Cage at the ninth level. That would mean that in 18 months topside, Sam’s soul spent 231.5 years in the Cage.

Assumption 3: Linear Dilation Circle 8

Assuming the Rack is in the eighth circle (which, tbh, I kind of thing makes more sense even though I argued differently above, but shhh let’s pretend otherwise), then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds there equates to only 202.5 years for Sam’s soul in the Cage. Slightly less awful! 

Assumption 4: Exponential Dilation Circle 7

The simple way I’m doing this is that instead of taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it x2 at the second circle, x3 at the third, and so on, I’m taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it to the power of 2 at the second circle, to the power of 3 at the third, and so on. I still have to start with The Rack being 120seconds on Earth time and work backwards to get that initial Limbo starting point before I apply the exponent, but otherwise that’s all I’m doing. There are definitely more sophisticated ways we could approach it since that’s a pretty simple linear increase in the exponent, and we could instead make the exponent itself an equation we’d derive through more complex means but... I’m really not about to do that.

So.

If we start from The Rack = 120seconds (2mins), using the exponent assumptions above, then Limbo time dilation is roughly 2 seconds (actually 1.98167 or so) in Limbo for every Earth second (works beautifully for what we see in canon, basically imperceptible), and time dilation in the ninth circle is 471 seconds (7.85 mins) per Earth second. Yes, that big of a difference, because that’s how exponents work.

This would mean that Sam’s soul spent approximately 707 years in the Cage.

What a great number! What a reasonable number, and a pretty damn canon-compliant number to headcanon. I like this number.

Assumption 5: Exponential Dilation Circle 8

As above in terms of the exponent assumptions, if the Rack is actually in the 8th circle of Hell, that much closer to the Cage, then here the math works out so that 120 seconds on the 8th circle being... roughly 2 seconds in Limbo. Because that’s how exponential functions work. It’s actually 1.81928 in Limbo vs. the previous 1.98167, but that rounds to the same thing (2 seconds) in terms of human experience, even if it makes a big difference when we take it out to the difference it makes in months, years, etc.

(But like, this is why I think it’s exponential, because this works so much better for what canon implies about the time dilation there*.) 

Anyway, here, this would mean that Sam’s soul spent roughly 327.5 years in the Cage instead of the 707 from above. That’s a big difference.

Assumption 6: Off the Rails

We can also take Sam’s statement about 2-3 minutes on Earth (having a Hell flashback) feeling like a week in the pit. If we estimate conservatively and go with every 3 Earth minutes = 1 week in Hell, depending on how we approach it (depending on if you go with minutes in a week vs. a month and which way you get to a year), you get somewhere around 5000 years (in my present calculation it’s 4984, but I also calculated it another way to get to just over 5000).

Assumption 7: 9th Circle vs. The Cage

Dante’s Inferno distinguishes between the 9th Circle on its own vs. the Center of Hell as the place where Lucifer resides, right at the deepest depths. The Cage itself is remote in Hell, distant from all other demons, enough so as to be a matter of faith to many of them. If we allow the possibility that this all means that the Cage is deeper than the ninth circle itself*, we can add another linear layer or else another exponent (take our equation to the 10 instead of to the 9).

This works out to be:

Rack 7th Circle, Linear: 257 years

Rack 8th Circle, Linear: 225 years

Rack 7th Circle, Exponential: 1400 years

Rack 8th Circle, Exponential: 596 years

Meaning this is a good place to note that... depending on the final number you want to get to, you can use whichever assumptions you want to get there and justify it by math. Remember kids, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

TL;DR!!!!!

How much time did Sam’s soul spend in the Cage? My headcanon is that he spent probably either 600 or 700 years there, on the assumption that it was 18 months between Swan Song and Appointment in Samarra, and assuming time dilation gets more extreme the deeper that you go in Hell.

For people who want to make more conservative estimates but still embed some complexity to Hell’s time dilation and/or who be more canon-compliant to other glimpses we’ve seen of Hell’s time distortion (Limbo, etc), I think anywhere from about 200 years to 330 years is perfectly reasonable.

For people who want to go with maximum whump, the sky (5000) is the limit, but you can mathematically point to up to 1400 being pretty reasonable.

*Footnotes

1. Because canon plays fast and loose with how many months exactly have gone by, and some people headcanon that only about 4 months have passed in Season 6 before Appointment in Samarra when Death pulls his soul out. I personally read it as more like 6 months having gone by and think this is the more standard headcanon, so your 180 years is the most common interpretation, and definitely the most easy to defend. I also made calculations for Sam having spent 16 months in the Cage instead of 18 months there though, if anyone is interested.

2. There is also the Vestibule in the Inferno as the opening to Hell, before the first circle, and this requires passage from Charon to cross over and into Hell proper. This is where the quote “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here” is from at the Gate of Hell, which of course is evoked in season 5 as the episode in which Jo and Ellen die.

I like to think of the Vestibule in the world of SPN as being any and all of the many Hellgates implied by canon, including the one that opens in AHBL2. No time dilation occurs within the Vestibule(s), as a person has to enter into Hell’s circles to properly separate themselves from the material plane.

3. Not getting into it here but if I ever get around to writing an original piece of fiction about angels and demons etc like I kind of want to, some of my worldbuilding will explicitly connect/relate angels to celestial bodies, like literally to stars, with the depth of hell essentially being a black hole, hence why the closer one gets to it, the greater the time dilation there is. Gravity and heat increase near the center of hell in this unbearable way, and then at the very center, like within the black hole itself, it becomes unbearably incredibly cold, like that frozen lake in which Lucifer is half-submerged in Dante’s Inferno. Lucifer existing impossibly both within and outside the event horizon. But I digress.

4. When you think about how many angels are implied to have died in order to rescue Dean’s soul, compared to how simply Sam snuck into Hell to rescue Bobby, I think the circles of Hell interpretation becomes quite important. If Dean was in the seventh or eighth circle, like especially that eighth circle, that’s so much deeper in than the Dungeon. The angels also couldn’t infiltrate subtly, methinks, and had to storm the walled and heavily guarded gates at the sixth circle, through that dungeon, then fight their way down the three rings of the seventh circle and possibly down into the amphitheater of the eighth. We know that their powers alone can’t kill a demon as powerful as Alistair even on Earth, so on their home turf in Hell, it makes sense that demons would have put up a really solid fight against the angels. This helps resolve some of my own frustration at what seems to be discrepancies in the abilities of angels and how dangerous they are to demons in canon.

5. Please be aware that all maths above involve some rounding, since I didn’t think anyone wanted the detailed decimals. I also calculated months as being 30 days and for simplicity, calculated years as being 12 months. I could rework the math into weeks with 52 weeks being a year instead, which gives slightly different numbers, but it’s work so I’m just going to go with these approximations. Also noting that I used calculated everything using excel to save myself a headache. I’m sorry if there are any errors, especially when it comes to the exponents, my brain got very tired. Please let me know if you find any.

6. When it comes to the exponential ones, if The Rack is in the 7th circle of hell, then if the Dungeon where Bobby was kept was in the 6th circle, then each Earth second is 60 seconds (1 minute) in the Dungeon. That’s more time dilation than I think canon implies, because 60 minutes (1hr) in the Dungeon is only a minute on Earth? In contrast if The Rack is in the 8th circle, then 1 Earth second is 36 seconds in the Dungeon. I honestly think both of these are more extreme than canon implies, but again, it’s been a million years since I watched that episode because it’s written by Bucklemming and I cannot stand their writing. But as a count in favor of the exponential argument instead of linear, if time dilation increases the same amount at each circle then 1 Earth second translates to 103 seconds in the Dungeon (Rack in 7th) or 90 seconds (Rack in 8th), both of which are a lot more dilation than our exponential account.

7. For simplicity, I’ve also ignored the different rings which occur at the 7th and 8th circles. Those would, of course, change the math here as well, and we could add another linear or exponential step for each of those rings. That would lead to some crazy numbers because we’re talking about 13 additional steps. Linearly we’d add a few thousand years, but exponentially we’re starting to talk about a geological timescale. I don’t think it’s productive to make that extreme of an assumption about those rings, but I think we could comfortably stretch the distance between the 7th circle and the pit in which Lucifer’s cage sits at the deepest depths of hell if we wanted to, if you wanted to reasonably get closer to that 5000 years estimate.

8. Since your ask mentioned it, Anon, I realize I don’t touch on Enochian in this post but I have two tag-rambles about my thoughts on enochian and I thought I had a proper post on it somewhere but can’t find it. I could/should probably make a post with a tumblr ficlet about that, since I started drafting a canon-divergent post-Hell fic with Sam and Enochian and there’s like... no chance I’ll ever finish it. But anyway.

Thanks for reading this far, to anyone who did.

[diosapate]

mercy killed john cleanly. he did not die in pain, she did not disrespect his body; she killed him quickly and efficiently and that was it. john killed her brutally!! he mutilated her and covered someone else with her gore and only then killed her with a tap to the back of the head. he ripped a dead woman’s cloak from her body and touched her corpse with his bare foot to prove a point!!

all this to say: necromancy is disrespect for the dead under the guise of reverence, and john isn’t even bullshitting respect for the dead anymore in Thee most obvious way. god’s mercy is finite and he has none left; i suspect that his “i’m just a little guy :)” act is at its end and we are about to see more of the man who claims that guys like him don’t make mistakes.

[gingiekittycat]

"There must be something I can do for you."

OK so I have been trying for the longest time to make sense of why the fuck they KEPT GOING WITH THE MAGIC ACT when they realized they couldn't do miracles. And I think I've got it.

Once again, it boils down to misunderstanding and miscommunication (surprise surprise):

I fully believe Aziraphale thought he was doing Crowley a favor by offering to do his magic act. Crowley’s in trouble with the theater, the alcohol he was going to sell is ruined because of Aziraphale’s shenanigans at the church. To take some of the pressure off Crowley, he offers to perform.

Here's the thing, though. Aziraphale DOESN'T think he's a very good magician. Just look at how nervous he is! He has zero confidence. Even the coin trick he does for Crowley, he's shocked and delighted when it actually works because he doesn't think it's going to. He's pretending for Crowley's sake because he's trying to get Crowley out of the hot seat with the theater.

That's also why he chooses such a dramatic and dangerous trick for the stage: he has to make it good for Crowley.

Meanwhile.

MEANWHILE.

Crowley sees Aziraphale's offer to do the magic act purely as another one of Aziraphale’s whimsies. Which of course he is going to indulge, because he's a lovesick fool. He goes into FULL SUPPORTIVE HUSBAND mode, builds up Aziraphale's confidence, agrees to do the highly dangerous trick because Aziraphale wants to, because he thinks Aziraphale thinks he's good at magic, because he thinks Aziraphale really wants to get up on stage and perform, and he just doesn't want to see Aziraphale embarrassed... (Sound familiar???)

So. We get to the stage. Aziraphale doesn’t actually want to be there, but he's doing it for Crowley; Crowley doesn't actually want to be there, but he's doing it for Aziraphale. BOTH of them are complete idiots, because they're so enamored with each other and so fucking COMMITTED that neither of them wants to back down when they find out they can't do miracles. They just really want to make their husband happy--so badly that they're willing to risk discorporation for it.

In conclusion: they are idiots and I love them but THEY NEED TO COMMUNICATE JESUS CHRIST

It's no wonder the season ended like it did...

[partyrockin]

possessed by the homestuck brainrot demon of old to make this

[biceratops7]

*bracing myself on my knees and trying to breath, nursing a cramp*

I got here as fast as I can. I just wanted to point out that THIS…

Is one of the gayest fucking lines of television I’ve heard in my life.

Even if the presence of the song itself somehow wasn’t a flashing spotlight enough, the literal voice of God directly draws attention to it. Telling us that in universe, a nightingale really is in fact singing in Barkley square, and to know its music is sweet regardless of if we can hear it. Just like there are really in fact angels (one fallen but we’ll let it slide) dining at the ritz, and they’ve been falling in love regardless of if they’ve been allowed to openly pursue that feeling.

And hell, maybe it’s BECAUSE of the traffic that the nightingale finally sings. Perhaps it wasn’t ready until it was sure no one else could listen.

[bluberryfields]

This is what happens when you're raised by TV and trained in literary analysis

Beyond the crushing heartbreak of that finale, one thing in particular has stuck with me when I look at it in the context of S2 as a whole.

He lays out their relationship, "We're a team, a group. A group of the two of us. And we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't."

He then turns his head away and says, "I mean, the last few years, not really."

He pauses here, facing the interior of the bookshop. Really looks it up and down.

Turns back, "And I would like to spend" before choking on his words and looks toward the window. He can't finish saying something like "And I would like to spend eternity with you" because that's too much, too fast, for both of them.

But it's that "last few years" bit that has firmly lodged itself in my very broken brain.

According to Gaiman, it's been "a few years" since the end of Season 1. Armageddon has been averted. Heaven and Hell have reluctantly retreated. Crowley and Aziraphale have been effectively cut loose from their "sides," leaving them to form their own side.

So at the start of Season 2, we get a glimpse of the “fragile existence” they have carved out for themselves. To me, the biggest difference that we see is how they exist together in front of others. Going to the coffee shop, the pub, and the other shops along the street that Aziraphale has lived on for over 200 years. And don’t forget how they act in front of Nina, Maggie, and sweet, dim Muriel.

At the coffee shop, Aziraphale stammers a bit when Nina asks who Crowley is, but he still seems to have affection in his voice when he says, "We go back a long time."

Compared to Shakespearian "He's not my friend! We've never met before. We don't know each other!" panic, this is an incredible difference.

Of course, each time, Crowley is cool and cheeky and does nothing to indicate that they aren't a pair. Though, of course, he does deny it when Nina asks about Aziraphale being his side piece. “He’s not my bit on the side! He’s far too pure of heart to be anyone’s bit on the side.” And refers to him as an “Angel [swallows]I know.”

When they go the pub, Crowley's joy at doing something together in public that they do not normally do is super cute, including his cheeky order for Aziraphale's sherry. Then, when bringing the drinks over to the socially trapped Aziraphale, he greets Mr. Brown with a truly adorable, "Hello" and a signature DT smile. Then upon hearing how “excited” Mr. Fell is to host the meeting, he looks down and says, “Oh? You astonish me.” while Aziraphale sips his sherry and squirms.

We also watch as Crowley follows Aziraphale as he goes to each shop and talks to the owners about the meeting/secret ball. In theory, Crowley has no reason to tag along, and he certainly doesn’t help sway anyone who doesn’t want to/can’t go. He goofs around at the magic shop. He splays out on the bench, chin on hand, looking for all the world a husband waiting for his wife to pick out a dress at the department store. They are so married it’s ridiculous.

Finally, their behavior in front of Muriel while inside their sanctuary. Crowley sits on the arm of Aziraphale’s chair, somehow looking supremely comfortable on the old-fashioned furniture. He folds up those gloriously long limbs and presses himself as close as possible.

He smiles and plays along with Aziraphale’s coaching of Muriel in her disguise. Calls him Angel and asks to speak in private. And at the end, during the awful wait while Aziraphale talks with The Metatron, Crowley cleans up the shop and tells Muriel that he and Aziraphale will need some “us” time after all this. No beating around the bush. 

Without oversight, they can be openly together and happy. But Heaven just can’t let that happen. 

[fellthemarvelous]

Do you ever really think about what happened in The Resurrectionists?

Aziraphale spent that entire time trying to save Elspeth's soul from being damned to Hell.

Every questionable choice he made was done so because he was trying to help Elspeth and also trying to find new ways to decrease human suffering.

He was working really fucking hard to do his job, but he made mistakes along the way because he is constantly struggling with the knowledge that the rules become a lot more convoluted as life becomes more complicated.

Digging up bodies is wrong, but Elspeth was poor and acting in desperation to take care of herself and Wee Morag so they wouldn't have to continue living on the streets.

He is the one who encouraged her to dig up another body because he realized that Mister Dalrymple was trying to help teach those learning to become doctors so they could do better to decrease human suffering when it was their turn to help others.

He wasn't able to save Wee Morag after she was shot by a grave gun, and watched in dismay as Elspeth sold her body to Mister Dalrymple so she could get off the streets.

And when that didn't work the way she'd hoped, she decided that her life meant nothing anymore and decided she was better off dead.

Aziraphale had been spending that entire minisode trying to save Elspeth's soul from Hell, but he ultimately realizes that he made things worse even though he was trying so hard to do the right thing.

Heaven didn't care that he failed. Heaven has already said "we're the good guys, we're just not doing anything to stop the bad guys". Aziraphale was doing the job given to him by God. He made a mistake, but he thought he was doing the right thing because he cares about human souls. He still wants to protect humanity from Hell. That's literally his job.

Crowley saw someone digging up a body in the graveyard and immediately realized he didn't need to do anything.

Instead he watches.

He listens to Elspeth and finds it easier to sympathize with her plight because he's in the same boat in many ways. It doesn't matter what he does because he won't be able to climb his way out of Hell.

He listens to Aziraphale and he challenges the angel when he disagrees with some of the things he's saying.

He doesn't interfere with Elspeth or Aziraphale though.

The discussion that he and Aziraphale have with Mister Dalrymple teaches Crowley something just as much as it teaches Aziraphale.

Before he learns the reason that Mister Dalrymple cuts open dead bodies in the first place, he's cheering to the idea of more murder.

That tumor that Aziraphale hugs to his chest is just as much of a learning moment for Crowley. He hadn't considered why someone might have a good reason to cut up dead bodies, but Crowley and Aziraphale both love children and they both just learned that a child died with a tumor inside of him.

Crowley didn't realize anymore than Aziraphale did just how much danger Wee Morag and Elspeth were in from digging up bodies of rich people.

It was when Crowley saw that Elspeth was about to kill herself that he realized he could no longer sit back and do nothing.

As a demon, it should have been easier for Crowley to accept that Hell was winning another soul, but the truth is that the entire time Aziraphale was working so hard to save Elspeth's soul, Crowley was able to act as a spectator because she was already headed down the path towards Hell.

Crowley had just watched Aziraphale work so hard to save this human soul, this soul who had just lost the woman she loved who was wanting to end her own life so she could see Wee Morag again, and he realized he couldn't sit back and watch anymore. He knew Elspeth wouldn't see Wee Morag again if she killed herself because Hell cares just as little about how complicated human life is as Heaven does.

He used Aziraphale's money to bribe Elspeth into being properly good so she could go to Heaven. He saved her knowing that he was offering the win to Heaven just so she could see Wee Morag again.

It's important to remember that neither Heaven nor Hell give a single solitary fuck about humanity or the complications that arise as life becomes more problematic. Humanity exists within all shades of grey.

Heaven does nothing to stop Hell. Hell spends eternity torturing humans and other demons. Neither side is good. Neither side is ideal.

And in the end, Crowley did what he did because Aziraphale was doing the right thing by trying to save Elspeth's soul from eternal torment, something she doesn't deserve because she was simply trying to survive in a system that has always put poor people at a disadvantage. Aziraphale learned this too. He learned that there is no inherent virtue behind poverty.

To shades of grey.

[thisisnotthenerd]

ok so i clarified otohan's build for myself

she's a 20th level psi warrior fighter base, and the backpack lets her use echo knight abilities. this all tracks--4 attacks, 2 action surges, 12 psionic power dice (+1 if regained on a bonus action) at a d12, and the ability to manifest two echoes at once. i'm going to guess that she uses two-weapon fighting based on the damage rolls from her offhand weapon. plus 3 legendary actions that she could use to attack with either weapon, dash, psi-powered leap (80 ft), telekinetic control (2 actions, move target 30 ft in a direction of her choice), and 3 legendary resistances.

if they hadn't immediately dealt with the backpack she could have been flashing all over the battlefield, 10 attacks each in the turns that she used action surge, 6 otherwise, split across multiple opponents or targeted to one. given her place in initiative, this could have been a full massacre before she went exaltant if she had hit the casters and healers first, instead of chetney. she had the movement for it.

speaking of that: she regained both action surges and presumably all of her psi power dice, gained resistance to all damage, and a +3 bonus to AC. I'm guessing the state was triggered by a damage threshold. i'm willing to bet that if she didn't have the health potion they might have gotten her down within the round, assuming the threshold is 1/4 of the total or something like that, and the 66 she got back brought her back over half.

on the other hand, even given the multiple deaths and 1 permadeath, bell's hells really worked hard on this one. ashton and fearne using the shards and doing big damage. fcg keeping the party up with 2 mass cure wounds and a revivify. laudna debuffing with bane and getting damage in with the eldritch blasts. imogen getting the backpack off. orym using bait and switch to defend imogen and overall being a tiny tank. chet dying, coming back, and still going around to get imogen up. so many crits. fcg's hail mary.

they got her now, so there's no more shadow assassinations, and they won't be splitting attention when they come back to kill ludinus.

good riddance.

[breesperez139]

Dc x Dp Prompt #2

Danny loved his life. After his reveal to Jack and Maddie as a half ghost went right, everything started falling into place.

Vlad stopped his insane schemes once his parents were set loose on him. Sure he’s still mayor but he funds the town, keeps them protected from unwanted visitors, and is no longer trying to kidnap/adopt/clone Danny anymore.

Speaking of clones, Ellie was officially adopted into the family. She didn’t live with them full time with her obsession being freedom, but at least she has a home to return to now.

Dan was also adopted into the family. He is still on probation but turns out having their adopted family again (and as many ghost fruits as he wants) helped ease the rage. That’s not to mention Dan’s and Skulker’s bi-weekly figh- errr meetups.

Well at least there’s been no property destruction since he’s been crowned. After he and his rogues began scheduling their own meetups, his grades started going up again. So while he may never become an astronaut like he always dreamed of, he could still go up to space and see the stars whenever he wanted to.

Sure, being king wasn’t exactly what he wanted in life (or death) but he could protect his ghosts and liminals better this way. And considering his entire town is either ghost or liminal, it was just easier to protect them from the GIW and the government in general with a crown on his head.

Besides being king isn’t all bad either. He’s rich now meaning they won’t be racked up in college debt, he has cool artifacts that were gifted to the ghost king over the millennia that were left untouched but he’s not about to return them (they were gifts to the ghost king, practically funeral gifts like flowers but more rare and expensive), and he has crazy powerful Ancients as friends/family/mentors/protectors. He’s still a baby in ghost years and a minor in human years so he’s not expected to do much either way.

Life was going great, especially after Amity Park adopted ghost etiquette and ecto-infused food and beverages.

So why the Ancients are the Justice League of all people standing outside his front door with the Batman looking thoroughly freaked out the moment he opened the door? He hasn’t said anything yet either!! Stupid fucking government heroes.

[deramin2]

Orym's argument against Ludinus Da'leth and the Ruby Vanguard is essentially "The purpose of a system is what it does."

This is a systems theory coined by Stafford Beer around 2001. He posited there is "no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do." It does not matter what someone tells you a system does if it does not reliably do that. The things it does consistently do are the actual purpose of the system.

Ludinus (and Liliana) claim the purpose of the Ruby Vanguard's violence is to free Exandria of oppression from the gods. Orym's point is that they have not consistently protected anyone from oppression. They consistently murder innocent people, indoctrinate vulnerable people into doing terrible violence (including children), support a ruling class that dominates the population through mind control and eugenics, and seek to release a predator so terrifying that the warring alien gods and native primordials worked together to seal it away as a threat to both of them.

So the logical conclusion is that the purpose of Ludinus' system is not to free anyone from tyranny, it's to install himself as the tyrant. And it does not matter what Ludinus says it's for or even what he believes it's for. The purpose of a system is what it does. And Orym has been personally and repeatedly victimized by what it does. Why wouldn't he keep reminding them of that?

Add onto that, the Ruby Vanguard is a death cult. They lure people in with believable lies. They use propaganda to control how people view them and to convince people to support them. Liliana has been groomed into a true believer who genuinely thinks what she has been told is true and that Ludinus' system does what he says it will. She has been convincing other people of this for years. Not because she's an inherently bad person but because everyone generally tries to convince others that what we believe is true. It is actually dangerous to let a cultist try to talk you into the cult's perspective. That's why Orym shuts it down.

Orym was already on edge but it's fully in a breakdown after FCG's sacrifice. One more iteration of Ludinus' system consistently murdering the people he loves. But he still told Imogen he wants her to have a good relationship with her mom again. He wants Liliana to make it through the other side of this. But that has to involve consistently stating the reality of what's happening against what she believes.

Ludinus believes in the rapture of the revolution. Burn everything to the ground on a fundamental level and a new perfect society will grow, with him to guide it. The reality is that kind of power vacuum consistently leads to horrific violence and conditions often get much, much worse. Especially for vulnerable people, who often do not survive. A lot about the gods' relationships to mortals probably needs to change, but this an incredibly dangerous gamble to fix it.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Any suggestion otherwise is cold comfort to Orym's family in the ground.

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

Orym picking up that chunk of breastplate, thinking about how many people he lost fighting Otohan Thull

The moon, and sun, and sword, and shield, and now armour

This little robot that rolled into his life only a few months ago, who'd only known consciousness for a few years longer than that - sacrificed themself for the cause

So stupid as to ignore the proof that Exandria is round, but so wise to know truth and love, gone.

He needs another tattoo...

[novelconcepts]

One of the most fundamentally interesting things to me about YJ and writing fic, specifically, is how the blame changes hands depending on the story. On whose perspective you're writing from. On whose story it is at a given moment. The very thing I dislike about viewers missing the point becomes so fascinating to me from within the narrative. Who are these characters when seen through the eyes of their peers?

Who does Jackie become? If you're Shauna, she's the love of your life, and your greatest rival, and the other half of your soul, and the person you blame for your dead dreams. If you're Van, she's the respected captain who earns none of your respect in the woods, the one who left you to die without blinking, the easiest target for teenage malice. If you're Natalie, she's competition for affection, the blabbermouth who can't leave well enough alone, the hands putting themselves to no good use. If you're Jackie? You're just a girl. You're so tired. You're so scared. You're losing face a little more every day, and you're made of despair, and you can't even trust your best friend. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.

Who does Lottie become? If you're Natalie, she's your direct foil, the splinter under the edge of your thumbnail, the smart mouth to match your own, the confusing amalgamation of normal friend and mad ritual. If you're Misty, she's the first shred of obvious power in months, a leader who might need to be nudged back into line, a fascinating exercise in hitching your wagon to the right star early on. If you're Taissa, she's flat-nuts and endlessly frustrating, she's got your girlfriend's full attention, she's incredibly dangerous. If you're Lottie? You're just a girl. You're so tired. You're so scared. You've built a pedestal you can't keep your balance on, and you're not sure if you're right or going crazy, and you didn't want this. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.

From outside the narrative, there is no bad guy. There is no blame. It is no one's fault. It is Man v. Nature, they are doing the best they can with an impossible situation. They're all trying to contribute what they can to the story, for better or worse.

From inside the narrative, you are a teenager trapped in a society constructed entirely of bare-bones-survival with the wildest assortment of girls. From inside the narrative, to stay human, you have to love and fight, respect and judge. Every story changes the game. Every story shifts the blame. A hero in one has the bloodiest hands in the next. And that, to me, is such a thrilling sandbox to play in.

[prince-liest]

Some thoughts on Lucifer's mental health, relationships, and role as king of hell!

Lucifer’s perception of himself as the king of hell is really interesting to me because he’s very blase about it in canon while totally using it when it suits him.

I think it’s really telling that the first time he actually brings it up himself is when it’s something he can leverage to help Charlie out. He reads to me like someone who objectively knows that he’s the hottest shit in town, but also just doesn’t really think that it matters most of the time because it's not relevant to his personal problems. Being Lucifer Morningstar did not allow him to achieve his goals in petitioning heaven. Being the most powerful person in hell didn’t even un-fuck his family life!

...Except for when suddenly it might in fact help un-fuck his relationship with his daughter.

It's the main thing he can desperately and dramatically showcase as a worthwhile reason for Charlie to maintain a relationship with him, because he as a person is depressed, half-functional, and barely has enough spoons to pay attention to a conversation he's having with her while he's actively having it, nevermind remembering their last one.

He wants to! And it doesn't start with his song at the hotel! It starts with him answering the phone, heavily fumbling actually connecting with Charlie despite clearly desperately wanting to, and then realizing she's asking him for something and promptly choking on his tea before excitedly telling her, "Yeah! Of course! Anything within my power is yours for the asking, you just name it." He knows that there is a great deal 'within his power,' and he's happy and relieved that he can offer her that!

Lilith has been gone for years but he's still wearing his wedding ring. His walls are still covered in family portraits. He's just been sitting in his room making thousands of rubber ducks he thinks suck instead of ruling hell, because his daughter liked that one duck he made one time.

Charlie needed him to support her in her mission, but damn did Lucifer also need Charlie to get him out and moving and actually doing things again.

Anyway, someone get this man on an SSRI.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

So one of the things that Good Omens, the book in particular, points out again and again, is that Heaven and Hell are functionally the same. “Anyway, why are we talking about this good and evil?” book Crowley says. “They’re just names for sides. We know that.”

The two sides may seem ideologically opposed, but they do suspiciously similar things, and neither of them care about humanity. They’re both willing to destroy all life on Earth to prove whose gang is best. (There’s a bit of a Cold War analogy here that’s very obvious in the book.) That all was made very clear in season one.

But what the Job minisode shows is that Heaven and Hell are really one system, playing a game of good cop/bad cop with humans, angels and demons alike.

We learn that God and Satan not only talk to each other, but are on familiar enough terms to make a bet. (Which involves making some humans suffer to prove a point, very on brand for Good Omens’ God.) These are not some mid-level metaphysical bureaucrats sharing information through back channels that don’t exist but totally do. This is collusion at the highest level! They write up a contract and everything! And then Heaven simply stands back and lets Hell do its dirty work.

(Flash forward 4500 years to Aziraphale telling Crowley he should be the one to kill the Antichrist so Heaven doesn’t have “blood on its hands.”)

Heaven and Hell also work as a unified system to keep their respective angels and demons in line. Heaven needs Hell in order to ensure compliance in its own ranks. The Fall must have had a huge demonstration effect: this is what will happen to anyone else who steps out of line. Heaven mostly uses fear to control its own population, with the threat of falling always there to ensure obedience. And Hell is full of angry demons, isn’t it? Anger is pretty much the only emotion it’s socially acceptable for a demon to have, and Heaven is very useful for keeping that anger focused on an external target.

The Job storyline is the first time in the series we’ve seen Heaven and Hell working together so directly, but I don’t think it’ll be the last. They’re in the same building, after all. One of them just has a better view.

[yea-baiyi]

say what you want about svsss but hands down the most distraught i have ever been while reading a mxtx novel is after the bing-ge extra. what do you mean he asked shen qingqiu to come with him. what do you mean “it’s not fair”. what do you mean he looked back.

[siriusly-the-best-bi]

wow so I have like 3 analysis in progress that touch on this topic but I really need to just talk about it rn with its own spotlight.

Aziraphale has this entire life that he's built for himself on earth, after armageddon he's thriving. When we catch up with him in Season 2 his first scene is literally him going to check in with one of his tenants, and throughout the season we see that he has a decent relationship with nearly Everyone on the block. He has an entire life for himself all hashed out and pretty.

Crowley... does not. His cold open in Season 2 is back in St. James park, checking in with Shax, finding out the gossip on Hell. He doesn't have his apartment, he only has his Bentley and the few plants he could fit in it. He doesn't have any other human friendships. His entire life and everything he loves to do is built entirely around Aziraphale.

This is something that I just find so fucking thrilling because when it comes to their characters and where exactly they are in their arcs right now, it's essentially like looking into a mirror.

Aziraphale knows exactly who he is when he's on his own. He nurtures his own relationships with humans he sees often, he's a nice landlord, he loves books and classical music, and hot cocoa. But, Aziraphale still holds onto the ideals of heaven. He still cares about doing good and being forgiving. He still cowers and jumps at the opportunity to help heaven, not because he wants to but because he's supposed to because he's still an angel.

Crowley has nothing. He has his car, which he drives to a secluded location to park every night, only to drive it right back in the morning. He's only even vaguely recognizable because people associate him with Aziraphale and this is fine for him, he could care less. He doesn't really need to know who he is or process his traumas, why would he when he can put all his attention and focus and love and care directly into Aziraphale? His friend, who has always been his friend, the one person who has always stood by him. Who cares about heaven and hell, he has Aziraphale.

When we finally see them on their own and without the influences of their head offices, we see the opposite of what we'd expect, and nearly the opposite of the outcome we see in episode 6. Crowley is the one constantly checking in with Hell (wether he likes it or not), and Aziraphale is the one who's living care free without even thinking about heaven. When he does something good that he wants to report, he just calls Crowley.

this whole dance of Crowley not knowing who he is without Aziraphale and Aziraphale knowing who he is fundamentally but not knowing how to break free from the confines of Heaven that stop him from truly embracing Crowley in the end, it's just so delicious.