#much to a PARTICULAR HUMAN which.....CASTS HIM OUT OF HEAVEN???????

[shsy7573]

Random Lucifer (Hazbin Hotel) Character/Song Analysis Kinda Thing… I Guess

Okay, so yeah, Luci has 100% taken over this page. So what? I’m not obsessed, you are.

Anyway, I’ve been listening to “More Than Anything” on repeat since it dropped, and like a lot of the fandom I tear up every single time… but unlike a lot of the fandom, it’s not because of the sweet father-daughter moment (which, don’t get me wrong, doesn’t help the situation because it’s just so damn wholesome).

No, what gets me is how, just through a couple subtle moments, the show is able to convey just how absolutely shattered Luci is as a character. And, you know, because he’s my favourite, bestest, snek-baby-duck-boy, it makes me a little emotional…

So now you’re all gonna hear about what goes through my mind every time I listen to it. YAY!

“Charlie! You don’t understand, Heaven never listens. They didn’t listen to me. They won’t listen to you!” / “You don’t know that—” / “I do!”

It starts before the song even truly begins. When I’m listening, it’s usually these first few lines that grab my attention. I end up replaying the first 4-5 seconds of the song over and over again because the pain in that “I do” is so fucking good! (And because I like to suffer apparently cuz I end up sad. Life of an angst lover I guess).

It’s the first time we see him with actual tears in his eyes. The raw delivery of that line is so attention grabbing, and manages to say so much in such little words.

I think the reason this particular scene tickles my brain so much is because it’s the breaking point for his character in a way. I am, and always will be, a sucker for moments where a character’s walls finally come down, and we get to see what’s been festering inside. When their deepest thoughts and how much they’re hurting are revealed. The entire song is what that is for Lucifer, starting with these two words right here. I truly cannot put into words just how much my breath is taken away by Jeremy’s delivery of this line. I cannot articulate how much I love it, and how important it is for Luci’s character. it just hits so deep and so right for me and I love it.

Lucifer isn’t just saying that he knows Heaven isn’t going to care about her plan (I don’t think anyone thought that’s all he was saying but whatever). He is saying that he knows what Heaven does to dreamers. He knows what they’ll do because he has already been there, and it destroyed him. They took his ideas that they saw as too outlandish, and they squashed them. Cast him aside. And he paid the price for it when he went bashing their back and did his own thing anyway.

Luci is a broken dreamer. Throughout the entire episode, and the series as a while, we are given very strong hints of this. However, it’s not until this song that we really see it in action. It’s not until these moments that we are able to see past both the veils of “Imposing King of Hell” and “Goofy Guy who’s trying his best but not great at Dadding,” and get a look at how genuinely depressed this man is.

“My dreams were too hard to defend.”

This scene eight here. The more I see it, the more I fall in love with it. Just a great example of ‘show don’t tell.’

He’s talking about having big ideas, he’s talking about giving people a chance and reaching outside the normal, he’s talking about being cast out of Heaven. I just love the parallel he’s drawing between Charlie’s mission, and his own past.

Charlie created the hotel in an attempt to give people who have been seen as lesser to all of Heaven some sort of chance. She is choosing to have faith in them, and to open up opportunities for them to lead a better life.

Lucifer, when he gave Eve the fruit, was taking a chance to allow humanity the chance to have free will. He wanted them to experience everything life had to offer for themselves like angels got to. He offered a chance for them to lead a better life.

He had everything, and he had complete faith that what he was doing was right. All the light and hope of his dreams was right in the palm of his hand. He had so many ideas that he thought, if they were saw through, would make the world a better place.

But it didn’t work out for him.

“And in the end, I won’t lose it all again.”

Now, the first seconds of dialogue may be what I keep rewatching, but this has got to be my favourite visual of the entire song. It’s such powerful imagery, and I fangirl over it every time.

Look at how small he looks in that shot (I know, I know, he’s tiny regardless, but like seriously). He is completely outnumbered, hopelessly overpowered, totally at the mercy of all his Heavenly superiors… and he’s all alone.

He lost everything because he had the gall to dream. It’s not hard to look at the song (and the episode at large, really) and find not only his feelings of being wronged, but also his immense guilt. It shows in how much he hates Sinners. They are basically the worst of what he did, a constant reminder of the day his mistake caused him to lose his home and everything he held dear, and they are all he gets to see. Only being permitted to see your failures for all eternity? No wonder he’s fucking depressed.

The day Heaven cast him out was the day he stopped dreaming. Because dreaming big only leads to pain, failure, and suffering.

“I just don’t want you to be crushed by them like… like I was.”

This next moment is kinda self explanatory and obvious and really doesn’t need any commentary, but I’m gonna talk about it anyway. Because I love it, and I love him, and… you know… angst. I’ve mentioned my lust for it several times now throughout this post, you really shouldn’t be surprised.

I just feel so bad for him. Lucifer made one mistake. One simple, misguided mistake that ended up introducing evil into the world, and all of Heaven came down on him for it. And, you know what, in the narrative presented by the show, what he did wasn’t that bad. He just wanted to give the world’s newest creations the same freedom angels had, and it backfired horribly. Lucifer, like Charlie, was an idealist who saw the best in people and wanted to help.

And what did he get for his good intentions? Shoved into the cesspool he unintentionally created, and forbidden to ever see anything good that came from his dream.

If I had to guess, Lilith was the only thing keeping his mental health afloat for a long time… and then they had Charlie.

“The tales about your lofty dreams. I’d listen breathlessly, imaging it could be me.”

His daughter became the light of his life. Something that he cherished and indulged more than anything else in the world. To him, she was perfect, and he wanted to do right by her in any way he could.

Lilith told their daughter stories of all her father’s dreams regardless of what he thought of them, and when the little princess came asking him… how could he refuse? How could he refuse her anything?

So he shared them with her. All the tales of grandeur, and fantasies of everything he wished the world could have been. All the dreams he had long since let go.

“And in the end, it’s the view I had of you that show me dreams can be worth fighting for.”

Now, the scene where Lily take’s Charlie away has always been excellent brain fodder for me because of how somewhat ambiguous it is. You could interpret his sadness to have SO MANY meanings. However, I have inevitably decided on two potential head-cannons/theories to share here for what could possibly be going through Snek-King’s head.

One: Lucifer loves his daughter, but he feels estranged and like he’s failed her in some way. She’s such a joy, such a wonder, and in a way it's his fault she’s trapped down here with all of human ties worst. He wasn’t to be close to her, and to make the world perfect for her… but he already feels like he’s failed her in the most unforgivable way. He keeps his distance because part of him doesn’t want her to have a super high of an opinion of him. It’s kind of his depression manifesting, saying that ‘she shouldn’t admire you and your stupid dreams when they’re the reason she’ll never see true light and happiness.’

The angst addict in me likes this one more, but still I’ve got another one that always pops.

Two: He feels like he’s selling her false hope, and he can kind of see the place her innocence is headed. He’s seen the horrors of the world, and he knows the more he indulges her dreams and fantasies, the more she’ll suffer when she sees that’s not what the world is like. He knows from personal experience how much it hurts when your dreams come undone, when you lose hope in the world.

Listening to Charlie’s actual lyrics, she tells him that he was the one who inspired her to dream, that he was right to dream, and that she’s not going to back down. In the song, Luci realises that 1: maybe he didn’t fuck us as badly as he thought and that she actually doesn’t blame him and wants her in his life and/or 2: she has her mother’s willpower, and she’s never going to stop dreaming or let her world be sullied like he did. She’s so much stronger than he was.

So he lets her in.

(Side note… AWWW, look how TINNYY he is! He’s so small. The start contrast in the second image gets me every time)

There’s a bit of symbolism in the song which I ABSOLUTELY adore, and it has to do with the wings. In the flashback, Charlie mentions his “lofty dreams,” when we see the duck, which later transforms to have multiple sets of wings. Later in the song, when Lucifer finally lets her in, he also sprouts those wings.

And I just love this, because I think it acts as the perfect symbolism of him finally opening his mind again. Not just to his daughter, but to the possibility of dreaming in general.

He takes her to a circus, a place filled to the brim with spectacles and thrills, a place where humanities wildest imaginations seem possible.

But even though he’s beginning to open up, and he’s willing to help her in whatever she does, he’s not ‘fixed.’ His depression and self doubt and feelings of hollow emptiness and guilt and apprehension aren’t gone.

And he’s still terrified of seeing her spark go out like his did.

This tiny smile break is so addicting to watch for me. It speaks volumes. Once again, my angst loving heart eats it up every time. It says, “I’m still worried, and there is still so much shit going on in my mind right now about all of this, but I’m here for you.”

And that’s what counts.

Luci’s character showed a lot of colours, and came a long way in this singular episode, but he’s still got a big uphill battle to climb. He still has to come back into his own where dreams are concerned. Maybe he never will, not completely. Realistically, he’ll never go back to the way he was.

But maybe, just maybe, in helping his daughter he’ll find something worth believing in again.

That is, of course, if they decide to give him a character arc beside ‘Dad who is trying and doing better,’ but for that only time will tell.

—

And THAT concludes my rant on the Rubber Ducky Ruler. If you stuck around this long, good for you! I wrote this whole thing on a limb at midnight, and NO I’m not going to go back and edit it because why would I ever want to see all the horrid grammatical and spelling errors I’ve inevitably made.

Maybe I’m off the mark on all of this. Maybe I’m head-cannoning too much. Maybe I’m just trying to suck out every hint of potential angst out of a song that’s supposed to be sweet and wholesome. That’s for you to decide. But for me, I’ve decided that I’m satisfied with this analysis. In the end, I just needed to express all the thoughts bumbling around in my head SOMEWHERE before I exploded, and unfortunately, I feel like I’ve run all my friends dry talking about this baby to them, so now it’s your turn. But, anyways, I think that about wraps things up. It’s time to go to bed.

Farewell, stay hydrated, and have a lovely rest of your day/night :)

[professoruber]

The Vees & Alastor: Reckless Ambition (Hazbin Hotel Thoughts/Analysis)

There's been a number moments throughout Season 1 which I think served to show that Alastor is not as different from the Vees as he may seem. I might go into more detail into these specific moments in another post; but the gist of my observations is that Alastor has been shown repeatedly to not be the enigmatic badass he presented himself as, at least not fully, and there's been a few allusions between them and the Vees.

This moment in particular near the end of the finale caught my eye in particular. Both The Vees ans Alastor are shown signing their own sections of the song independent of the rest of the cast; namely singing about how they will be the ones running the show soon.

Considering these segments are back-to-back, and also the other moments of similarities between the Vees and Alastor throughout the season, I kinda feel this might be intentional.

Ultimately they're all Overlords; power-hungry sinners who are much smaller in the grand scheme of things than they'd prefer.

I know there's been some debate on how Alastor will turn out, whether he'll be the big bad or not. And honestly...? I'm kinda leaning towards him not being the ultimate evil.

Because he is ultimately is just a sadistic serial killer with power-hungry ambitions. And just like how the Vees pick fights with those "above" them (Vox with Alastor, Velvette with Zestial and Carmilla, Valentino with Charlie), so does Alastor (Lucifer & Adam).

While Alastor's desire to 'unclip' his wings and be the one pulling all the strings is certainly rather sinister and foreboding, the scene is also a stark reminder of how human Alastor still is. He brought too much into his own hype, he seemed to get genuinely caught off guard by how Adam was able to beat him, and he only narrowly escaped death.

And his reaction to his near death experience brought on by biting off more than he can chew... is to affirm his intentions to be even more ambitious and high-reaching.

Alastor wants to guide Charlie's potential. Which is potential to be someone much more powerful than Adam, the guy who gave Alastor a very near death.

Look, I'm all for having ambitions and upturning power structures. But Alastor's desire to upheave the status quo seems solely to put himself at the top.

I think that Alastor's desire to be a puppet-master of everything is going to backfire on him. He keeps testing his luck, and even after his luck almost ran out he's seemingly not changed his plans.

Subsequently though; the Vees should not be written off as a threat. Just like how Alastor was once an overlooked nobody before he did something big... the Vees are looked down upon by the older Overlords as "smug wannabes", but may very well still manage to accomplish something big.

And off course, these people are all still Overlords; very ambitious ones at that who have little issue in rather recklessly antagonising those stronger than them.

Maybe its a wild guess at this point; but I think all of Hell (and perhaps even Heaven) is going to pay the price for their reckless desire to be the ones on the top of the food chain.

Because the introduction of Evil into Earth because of Lucifer and Lilith showed how even a well-intentioned changes to the status quo can have disastrous consequences; what will happen when self-serving and evil overlords seek to upturn the status quo to place themselves at the top?

Probably something which isn't good for anyone, the Overlords in question included.

[voidscreamintheories]

HtP theory D: Who is he really? 2 of 2

This is a continuation from a first post, Spoilers for Hunter the Parenting

Speaking of his age, a few characters have called out D as looking old, decrepit, frail, or sickly. Despite the fact that we see a golden god of a man who honestly looks younger than at least one of his purported children. I don’t think this is wholly wrong on both fronts. You see, there is a particular group in World of Darkness who can only hang around on the normal plane of existence by inhabiting the bodies of the frail, the sick, or the dying. Because I think the D in Big D stands for Demon.

In the World of Darkness, specifically the game Demon the Fallen, “demons” are angels who sided with Lucifer against God. They were cast down into hell, where their angelic forms where forever marred by the torment in the depths. Sometimes, they can make their way out of the pit and back into our world. As mentioned before, and would be the case for the average DtF character, many slip into the body of someone who has a weak grip on their soul and is close to death. From there the demon can either try to redeem themselves, and perhaps find a way back to heaven, or they can just embrace what they have become and be a complete menace on earth. Now in DtF, the ability for demons to come back to earth ON THEIR OWN is VERY recent. However, I think D is a demon who was called to earth by a group somewhat akin to the shaman of his previous life, put into the body of some frail person of a bygone age, and has been trying to reclaim his angelic nature by becoming a protector of mankind from the creatures of the World of Darkness.

Some notes around this:

-In his conversation with Kitten, D mentions hunting a methusala of the La Sombre vampire clan with his siblings. I’m of two minds here, this could mean the children of the shaman-like summoners (if he has a VERY close origin to Big E) or it could mean other fallen angels, who like D are seeking redemption through monster hunting. It would make a lot more sense for a group of former angels to kill an ancient vamp than a family of hunters. This would require though that these summoners pulled a few angels up from the pit, so not sure.

-As for why some see him as old or frail, I think sometimes either the mask slips (maybe because D is stressed, or his angelic nature is weakened) or some level of supernatural ability allows them to see past the angelic personage and into the frail human body beneath. Two of the people who have called him old have either been Tremere or Tremere ghouls, and as I understand some vampire blood magic allows one to see past illusions/veils (and sometimes ghouls get lil bits of power from their vampire blood supply). I looked this one up, it’s the vampire discipline of Auspex, which the Tremere clan does have access to.

-Remold. Remold mentions that Big D’s family and his family have been enemies for generations. If my theory that D is an immortal goofster who has been around for a long time holds true, maybe it’s not so much that the Blacklaws have been at odds with D’s family, but instead against D himself, repeatedly antagonizing them as a living bloodline curse. This might explain his interest in Brok in the recent episode: D knows that once Remold has his Chekhov’s gun of a heart attack, Brok becomes the next Blacklaw that D will be fighting at all times. Why is D antagonizing this family? Well it could be an attempt to beef up some human hunters: If an entire family is constantly having to battle this one madman, and they know of the supernatural, they might become good soldiers against the darkness. Or maybe the Blacklaws have historically been opponents of hunters, Remold does seem to be against knowledge obtained through Big D’s hunts, Brok probably wouldn’t put a lot of time or effort into learning, if previous behaviour is to be believed. Maybe the Blacklaws are anti-intellectual in their history, and D wants to fight them so they can’t dismantle the arcanum or stop hunters by being ignorant. Now, there is a particular lil blue fella that I think bears mentioning, but I would like to discuss that in more detail in its own post, because I think there is a lot to dig into.

Also, quite a while ago I read someone suggest that D in Big D actually stood for Death, as in the rider of the apocalypse, since he does have a horse. This is a neat idea, but I do not know enough about WoD’s story of revelation to be able to discuss it. If this one turns out true, it’d be cool.

For now, thank you for reading this far. As always please let me know your thoughts, and if you are someone who was really engaged with WoD during the original runs, especially Demon the Fallen, please gimme your thoughts. I have a great interest in this setting, but it is very difficult to find info because it was in MANY old books.

As always, good evening.

[habeascorpseus]

👉👈 can you tell us more about the fnc angel/demon au? 🥺 pretty please?

oh CAN i? okay first things first. this is entirely because of good omens s2 and particularly uses concepts from episode 3 about "angels/demons who go along as best they can". also canon gillion and chip are very azi/crowley coded to me (cmon, gill's a literal paladin sent to the oversea to portend the rapture that he's now doubting the need for and chip is a mischievous little bastard with too much charisma and until recently no concrete stake in anything except for protecting his crew) so yeah. anyways the information will be delivered in bullet points for each person

CHIP

was an angel. a pretty young one, at that. possibly came to existence around the 3rd millennium of mana's society

pretty mischievous and self interested for an angel. lets just say he fucked around and found out, and for it he was kicked out of heaven and fell into hell, but managed to crawl out like the stubborn bastard he is

the form he fell and crawled back to earth in was a young human looking boy. involuntarily, of course. but he often struggled to change his form in the past, instead letting it be dictated by his emotional state (another fairly chaotic and unangelic thing to do), and right now he feels small, weak, and vulnerable

he's picked up by the black rose, and, desperate to belong, he goes along with their assumption that he's just a normal kid, too weak to use much power or even change his form. for the couple years he lives with the crew, he doesnt grow. (this is chalked up to malnourishment.)

unfortunately, now that he's a demon, he has an Energy. and that energy attracts things. in particular: bad shit, and other demons. niklaus takes notice of this crew claimed by a seemingly inexperienced demon and decides to sink it for fun and to see what chip will do.

chip washes ashore on another island with two thoughts: one, he doesnt think he's allowed to be attached to anything good anymore without poisoning it, and two, he needs to be scarier in order to not be fucked with.

so he spends ten years hanging around ruben price, a man who acts so comically, stereotypically evil that chip occasionally doubts how mortal he is, but it seems like price just Like That. a handy trick of being a demon now is that chip can Sense types of energy- positive, negative, etc. what's scariest about price is chip gets nothing off of him, which is why he's the perfect person to watch

things come to a head when price forces chip to kill a man. and, well, its kind of what he's supposed to do, as a demon- but he hates it. in particular, he hates not feeling in control, and it angers him enough that hes finally able to use some demonic power to set price's warehouse ablaze and disappear into the night. (his hands are now blackened from where they caught fire and he now has a tail, being so unused to using magic that using it burnt away his human form to reveal the true form beneath it. he cant really disguise them back to normal because, again, bad at form shifting)

he sets sail on the sea and lands on an island where he follows a particularly strong negative energy to a tavern where he meets...

JAY

girl who's family basically run the navy.

her older sister was just mysteriously murdered around a year and a half ago, and she's going through it

by which i mean, She's Pissed. she wants whoever killed her to be found and brought to justice, preferably with the business end of her own pistol, but her father (an admiral) has fucked off to gods-knows-where and there's not really any leads at home beyond being surrounded by what her sister left behind... she's getting desperate.

she's bartending at her mom's tavern one evening when a guy her age walks in but he's.. wrong. somehow. there's dozens of lanterns and candles in the room, and yet he seems to cast a long shadow behind him no matter where he turns. also his hands are dark claws. she's pretty sure he's a demon honestly.

she's getting desperate and she wants leads. his appearance makes her feel almost irrational in how suddenly she remembers she needs to find her sister's killer.

so, with some part of her screaming that she is being very, very stupid, she offers a deal. vengeance for her sister in exchange for her soul. the demon looks weirdly surprised at this and tells her that her soul won't be necessary, that he needs a crew on his ship and all she needs to do is travel with him. so she accepts, they shake hands, and jay tries to ignore how much her instincts are screaming this is a bad idea.

they set sail two days later on the demon's dingy little ship and begin sailing towards where jay thinks the next largest navy outpost is, and on the way they meet...

GILLION

gillion is an archangel. he's pretty young, all things considered. he's not sure when he came into being, but he's pretty sure he's a replacement for.... someone.

gillion has a destiny, that's for certain. the heavenly council has been training him since his creation for some kind of destiny, though he hasn't really thought to ask what it is. he's sure it's good, though. the heavenly order would never mislead him into committing morally reprehensible acts in the service of a greater cosmic good, right?

his "life" is pretty rigid though. all training, no play, and certainly no contact with the mortal realm, that is, until he follows some of his superiors on their way to bless some admiral of some mortal navy. except... this guy is evil. its written in his the fake smiles, his body language, the way he listens to them with greed in his eyes.

and gillion was destined to smite evil, so he attacks him.

heaven, of course, doesn't take kindly to this, but instead of kicking him from heaven outright, they propose a test of faith: be stripped of most of his divinity and fulfill his destiny within a year in the mortal realm. it's not like he has a choice, so they kick him down to mana with only his sword and a little bit of armor.

he falls into the sea, deep, deep into an undersea trench, where the first thing he sees are a couple tritons. and, yeah, tritons seem pretty cool. so with the last vestiges of whatever divine energy he carries, he becomes a triton and uses his wings (oh thank gods he still has his wings) to propel himself to the surface of the sea.

for a while, he floats adrift, taking in the feeling of being wet and having the sun burn his body where it rests above the waves and the taste of salt on his tongue and the dark spots in his eyes that appear every time he stares too long at the sun. but that's fine. it's.... nice. he can almost forget it's a punishment.

after a day of listless floating, Something appears on the horizon, and then grows closer. its large, and brown, and honestly kind of shabby looking. but it looks cozy, a bit more hospitable than the ocean, and he sends out a dozen silent prayers and thank-yous when the ship suddenly changes course and begins heading Directly for him.

a man pokes his head over the railing of the vehicle and asks if he's okay. his hair is a really pretty color. his eyes kind of remind him of the fires lit to burn sacrifices that he's seen humans make a couple times. a blackened, clawed hand reaches out to grab his, and when they touch, it the crackle in the air feels like the moments just before a smiting lightning strike. he feels forbidden. but gillion's beginning to appreciate the idea of a rebellious phase, so he grips him tightly and lets himself be pulled onboard.

ITEMS OF IMPORTANCE

chip knows what gillion is, gillion does not know what chip is. chip is completely fine with this and is deciding to use it to his advantage in order to do minor devilish activities

what follows is basically the same plot until episode 14, though chip leans a lot more heavily into trickery and temptation

when it's revealed What chip is, gillion is not only Pissed but afraid for jay's soul, convinced that chip has been traveling with her in order to prey and feed upon it. he and chip duel, and gillion wins, as good so often does against evil— but before gillion can smite him and send him back to whence he came, jay steps in and stops him long enough for chip to slip away below deck. she tells gillion she made a deal with him and he blatantly refused her soul, which is why she's travelling with him instead. gillion, now hopeful that he can redeem chip, lets it slide, but. has chip promise to cool it on the demon shit.

the reason why gillion couldn't sense chip being a demon for so long is because he, for some reason, doesn't feel fiendish to him. unfortunately, gillion is too stupid to further entertain this train of thought.

both gillion and chip regain power at the same rate, though their progress is accelerated whenever gillion feels they did something good, and when chip is feeling angry. (this will eventually change)

chip is very bad at being a demon, to the point where he's begun talking jay out of vengeance entirely because it makes him feel bad about making her worse. gillion, ironically, says she should hold herself to her principles and seek justice, in a comical subversion of the angel and devil on her shoulders. they have many an argument about this.

nobody knows chip is Fallen. its one of the main sources of his insecurities and hed rather not have gillion judge him harder, thank you very much.

when chip is offered to have a memory removed by blangus, he attempts to remove his memory of being an angel. this doesn't work, because the memory is a core part of What he is and forgetting that would unmake him. he decides to give up killing a man instead.

gillion's destiny is to bring the rapture. kind of a bummer! gillion's a little in denial about it and the longer he spends with humanity and witnesses their good and their bad and the hope they all carry within them, the more reluctant he is to fulfill his purpose. (it's fine. he has 6 more months to decide. its fine. it's fine. time goes painfully slow for mortals)

eventually the truth of chip's past is revealed, and gillion is Pissed, though not at chip. in hindsight, it's obvious that he was created to replace chip when he Fell, meaning if not him, chip would have been the one to end the world, and that thought sits worse for him than imagining himself doing the deed. perhaps when he gets back to heaven he will demand chip's status be reinstated.

chip is caught between encouraging him to forsake his destiny (he likes humanity, and he likes fucking with heaven's plans) and going along with his destiny to not get kicked out of heaven. falling is painful and awful and he cant imagine gillion playing any role other than good, and he doesn't want him to, because if you're not With heaven, you're a victim of the rapture, and he doesn't want that.

gillion is already halfway on his way to letting himself fall on purpose the more he spends time with jay and chip. he wants to be with chip as long as he can be but every time they touch gillion gets the feeling hes skating on thin ice.

jay is the safest pirate on the sea in terms of other demons and angelic presences trying to fuck with her, both gillion and chip have a deal to smite her father next time they see him.

in chips solo mission with price, he ended up sending him to hell instead of giving him the eye. it is not at all disconcerting that chip can do this

edyn is an angel who helped raise gillion and gave him an immortal soul as a pet. when he was sent to earth it manifested as a frogtopus, and after gillion was sent away edyn followed him to earth and settled down in allport to keep tabs on him through the navy

caspian is Lizzie's guardian angel

anyways theres more but thats the long and not-at-all short of it. hope you like!

[mister13eyond]

It's okay that you called me Anon, don't worry. Is one of your assholes also trying to reset every single alternative universe you've created? My yes or rather is trying to cancel a certain event, completely ignoring the butterfly effect it could have. For him, chaos theory is nonsense created by humans.

OH THAT SOUNDS DELIGHTFUL AND TERRIBLE i *love* a metanarrative aware/multiverse-destroying character [chef kiss] NOT TO COMPARE TO UNDERTALE AUS but i always loved the whole back and forth happening with certain undertale aus where some iterations wanted to DESTROY the concept of alternate universes/timeline offshoots and others wanted to INSPIRE artists and lead to the creation of MORE offshoots? it's super fun, that level of self-interaction between yourself as a creator and your character as a narrative element but also a RESPONSE to your creation is SO fun!

NONE OF MINE ARE ON THAT LEVEL but I think the closest would be Zinnia- rambling/oc lore under the cut bc it got long!

SO SOME FRAMEWORK IS NECESSARY in my comic universe, angels are beings connected to the mana that makes up the universe, which they can cast as "miracles", while demons are beings made of mana who cannot draw it from the universe around them and must draw it from individuals to sustain themselves instead

As a result of this, FALLEN angels (which Zinnia is) are angels who have not only been cast out of heaven but also CUT OFF from the flow of universal mana

However, because of this, fallen angels can be something like black holes that can wipe out entire city blocks by draining all the mana and life force from beings around them. They're incredibly dangerous. As a result, not only are fallen angels RARE, but heaven also takes precautions when exiling them by shackling them. These shackles act as sort of power limiters, making it so they can only draw mana on a very small scale (and not from humans- it has to be obtained from mana-based beings like demons.) These shackles cannot be removed by the fallen angel themself, and must be removed by someone else.

Since it's pretty dangerous to create a fallen angel, and even WITH the shackles can still be risky, it is NOT done often. It's much more common for cases like Asphodel to happen- where someone is not-so-subtly encouraged to leave and not come back, but no *official* exile is made. They're still connected to the universal mana flow, but are Heavily Discouraged from using it. Like a kid who hasn't been fully disowned by their parents, but HAS stopped getting financial support in any way.

As a result, an angel has to REALLY fuck up to be exiled. In Zinnia's case, he was doing some Extremely Shady business dealings in the renaissance era- he was caught selling indulgences and making promises to certain religious figures that they'd have a guaranteed spot in heaven if they'd just help him with this particular political move he wanted to see happen, you know.... (I'm not saying he dealt with the Borgias, but i'm not NOT saying he dealt with the Borgias, you know?)

It's been A Long Time since then and Zinnia has mostly been kept from any large-scale scheming by a combination of being shackled and also generally everyone in his circle wising up to his nonsense, but he IS still pretty desperate to get his shackles off, and isn't above lying or deceiving others to do so. He's also relentlessly petty and does things like "sic a demon hunter on a demon because he pissed you off one time."

He's probably the biggest ACTUAL threat in the cast, but because he's got a poor reputation and is shackled so he can't use his power for destructive means, he's kind of undergone This form of characterization:

If he ever manages to actually fool anyone into unshackling him, he could be an Actual Genuine Threat, but since he hasn't had any success, he's just like a mean cat that lives in Damian's house and causes small-scale problems.

[rowavolo]

i am offering you a leaf as both a thank you and a preemptive apology. it's me again and i'm so normal about lucifer obey me /lie

he's the guy ever. hitting him with The Beam. the entire scene where we make a pact with him is…. “i can’t have you lumping me together with everyone else. that won’t do.” going crazy. if you hug him after he says "this is good enough for now" and i'm supposed to be SANE??? he cares so much for his family, he literally broke his core ideals to protect them (technically an hc but i’m correct about it). he notices so much about the people he cares for—he could tell the bottle of golden syrup was empty before levi did without ever touching it himself. his gift was a brooch that "caught our eye." he cried when we had to leave, and- “after you went back to the human world, did you ever think of me? not of my brothers, but me? tell me you did. tell me that i’ve been on your mind since the day you left. i don’t think i could handle it otherwise.” what else can you want in a man!!!! catastrophically unwell. would you believe me if i said this was half the original length of my talk about him because it is.

yearning aside, your vision of the celestial realm is clicking in place in my head like a lego brick, especially the tower design. very interested in the metal caste system you mentioned, and i am also Staring at your s/i’s lore. i’m a sucker for heaven/holy beings turning out to be bad/oppressive. an outcast from heaven finding a safe space in hell? in an arranged marriage on top of that? putting him in the microwave to watch him spin on the dish.

— blue anon (<- for no. particular reason /silly)

omg please PLEASE there is no need to apologise at all, I really enjoyed reading this and i feel like you summarised a lot of what i like about his character too! I feel like his individualism and want to be seen as separate to his brothers is a really integral part of his character, but hes also so intertwined with his role of looking after his brothers (insert some ramble about him being like someone in the parentified eldest daughter role) ANYWAYS im shaking you thank you so much for this big ramble and i would absolutely believe that theres more to this because its just like !! raah i can just feel the vibe and it's just !! im really happy you shared it with me because i liked reading it so much !!

ALSO thank you, i had so much fun working on this sort of original angel-inspired species a few years ago and im glad to be able to reuse some aspects of it in a way that im able to interact with and write about tangibly!!

AND THANK YOU i just vibe SO MUCH with this particular s/i, theres something so special about his vibe, and his arc of slowly realising that maybe the way he grew up wasnt so healthy after all and eventually settling into this space full of other outcasts (and i feel like a lot of the way you see Lucifer is displayed in how he is with my s/i in this particular AU (and the alternative version of it, in which my s/i was another 'brother', but one that fell for michaels manipulation and stayed behind in heaven)).

Like, the whole trope of finding a group that's like... theyre not just like you, but the way that theyre different from the others is compatible with the way that you are. youre playing different songs on the same wavelength. if that makes sense.

just something about my s/i finding that and learning to be at home and happy with it all

[athena-nation]

walk-through

Aziraphale slowly traces their finger along the ledge of the mantle. Photos of holidays past with what would be considered friends and family reach along, nearly teetering, its entire length. They come to a photo in particular and stop.

“I married.” Crowley points with his wine hand, “And that's our son.”.

Their shoulders slack a bit and Crowley, without fear of being too close now, reaches his right arm over Aziraphale’s shoulder, plucks up the photo, and brings it around so they can look at it together.

And they look at it together

Crowley points out “This is my wife, Sarah. This is my son, Eli. My father-in-law, my mother-in-law, and …” a few other people with hyphens and descriptors but the words trail off in Aziraphale’s ears, their interior self starting to take on blighted emotions.

Crowley walks a long look from the photo to his former love’s face.

“What was I going to do? I gave up everything.” He inhales, then elongates an exhale. “I love my kid. He, he's a fucken Giant! He's so gentle, though. I call him my we bull Ferdinand.” He places the photo back on the mantle.

“He's Nephilim?”

Crowley nods.

“Erm, is that why the flood was so hard?”

“Didn't understand why it hurt so much until I became” he pats his weathered human hand on his chest “this. Then, crews of memories came and I saw myself after that. Your kind were killing the children of angels who what? Married and loved humans.” He moves towards the couch. “I walked among them, you know. Wishing I could have the same thing. A partner, a lover, a family of Nephilim children and mixed villages and beliefs and homes? What a blessed funny thing, to love and create love? Angels, humans, Nephilim, Elioud.” 

He pauses to look at the mantle full of human relatives now.

“Then, they were found. They were a scourge to-”

“The Plan.” Aziraphale whispers.

“The great. fucking. ineffable plan.”

++++++++++++

They are now both sitting on the couch, Crowley to the right of the angel.

“I asked Hell to take everything including the throne that waited for me. Take my flight. Take my immortality. Don’t take my eyes, I loved them - so, of course, they did. But, I think they sort of felt bad because they gave me these eyes almost the same color. Which, which is yet another thing Eli did not inherit. He has no Angelic properties. Thank G-...."

He stops.

"I had to lose everything Angelic about me to get my memories back and now there are millions and millions of years of them that it hurts too much, my head is too small and the memories too big. Worst of the worst part? I didn’t realize there was a point that there was no more joy.”

“No more…joy? When?” Aziraphale quietly asked.

“I understand better now what happened.” Crowly skips over the too-hard-to-admit question. “Why they cast us out…”. His hurt makes a small place in his voice, “The audacity to think we could even share a little attention towards something so beautiful to us it outshone the sun? Brighter than God? How dare Her spotlight move an inch away from Her. A Seraphim who could fall In Love, no. That would not do. But, I couldn’t help it.

“I had already fallen in love with you.”

Aziraphale jolts, inhaling guilt hot and old. It awakens and spreads like a smoldering field under a forest fire floor. It was a new sensation. It was an unrealized shame.

“You fell. Because of me?” he asks.

Crowly nods. “And that, that is also why they bullied you. Why they called you soft, Azazel, scapegoat, weak.” In a teasing voice, he recollects, “Haha an angel fell for you and then he fell from heaven! Haha, you gonna start questioning the war against heaven. nyah nyah you’re crying because you’re becoming human.”

The replay of those schoolyard cruelties does bump up against a repression or ten.

++++++++++++

“I met Sarah 4 years after my wings were taken back. I was always sick after that happened and had these intense rolling fevers under my skin all the time. I didn’t know it was a human thing happening. So, I had to see a human doctor. After I came out of it, I…and she…” and trails off still feeling the burning in his arms. “...has a conference this week and will visit our boy at university.” He sounds lonely. “She’s back Sunday.” he sniffs, picks up his wine and finishes it.

“Eli is a good kid. BIG and yet quiet and beautiful and a painter and a footballer. Children are amazing things - he can be anything he wants. But best of all - he's not an angel. Not a single angelic power except when he looks at me. Oooch that crushes me.” Crowley says as he smiles thinking about that very feeling. I know he loves me and he tells me nearly every day. Twenty-four! And still tells his father he loves him. I think that's what I was looking for. All my heavenly creations and to never have any of them say that they loved me…”

ah. Hurt.

Crowly catches what he said, but is somewhere between apologizing for what was a fauxpax and letting the old love just feel it.

Aziraphale tries to equalize the conversation.

“I don't know if we had anything that would be considered ‘love’. A lot of it was fear and questioning and warm things and watching you and feeling you watching me, but…I had never fallen for anything before and definitely not the way…”

“But, I did. Because of you. Two times.”

“no no, nonononono…so this is MY fault? That’s not very fair. It's… a resentment now.” Aziraphale is growing hot underneath and the sadness becomes confusing.

Crowly moves his head almost serpent-like conveying what we would think is maybe, maybe not.

They are both staring at untouched drinks, Crowley’s wine, Aziraphale’s tea.

That. That is true hurt.

“They made you watch. Do you remember that?” Aziraphale wide and wet-eyed shook his head meekly. He did not. Not today. Crowley sucks in his lips, bites, and nods his head, “All 200 of us.” he snaps his fingers. “Just like that. No trial, just decided. Some all at once, some one by bloody one.” He quirks his mouth, “I was a ‘special case’. Because I had a head full of questions and a… a …a heart full of Love. Love that was not directed at God. So, I was the last one to go.”

Aziraphale looks away.

Crowley softens his speech.

“Maybe I should have said something sooner. Maybe, but I didn't and I would replay those days in the bookshop over and over in my head to try to get my mind around them and I couldn't and I know that I didn't want to know any of it anymore. One night I woke up soaked in tears - and all of a sudden I felt I was treading water and that THIS was the Karma of Eve. THIS is what I get for tempting her to bite the apple and now we alllll get to have Knowledge and that's pretty ba–. No, it isn’t bad. It’s a shame, really, cuz I thought,”

He puts his glass down and waits out the anger.

“I thought it was going to be a good thing, maybe even an ineffable thing of my own.”

+++++++++++

“Aziraphale, I broke."

It's cold. I wish I wore a thicker swear.

“It’s really hard to forgive you because you watched it happen and then didn't remember and then they punished you and punished you and punished you and you and we would have been a perfect foil to their hatred together, I guess. I don't know.

“You chose Heaven over us, for us.

“And I chose Earth over y-….” He pauses. “Let me correct that - I chose Earth, for me.

“Becoming mortal was not in anger towards you. It was time and I've never been consistently happier. I morbidly want to say thank you because I have this thing in my life now, but I'm not going to. I don't have a preternatural disposition for forgiveness. I can accept what happened and that’s it. And like every human should, I have a therapist and we just treat it all like a big traumatic brain injury. That seems to be the best way for me to get my head around what happened. Beginning of time to now. Like all of it was a dream. I was in a million-year coma. In a blackout.”

Blackout.

The visit has become humid. Aziraphale knows this has to happen.

+++++++++++

“Right,”

Crowley dusts off the top of his trousers, stands up, and puts his hand over to Aziraphale. They look up at him, put their hand in his, and get up from the couch. When standing, Crowley lets their hand go - it was merely to help. Aziraphale is numb.

“So, let me show you another thing…”

Crowley opens a set of French doors out into the garden. It’s dark out all around, but this is illuminated with tiny bulbs and solar lanterns in mason jars. They both nearly bump their heads on a few. “Wife.” Crowley smiles and hoists it up out of head-bumping reach.

It comes into view as they walk down a bit - a diminutive cottage Crowley steps over to, grabs the lock, and in two twists - opens it.

Aziraphale stifles weeping, slightly failing. Crowley had taken items from the bookshop and brought them here. The desk, the portfolios, notes, postcards, unread books and read ones.

It was a mini bookshop.

With only one chair.

Silence

“I…” Suddenly self-conscious, he tries again. “I weep myself to sleep, every night, right there.” He points to the chair, which bears evidence of a man whose face has folded many times into those arms and wept and slept and drank a little and wept and slept some more.

“Sarah knows she’ll never understand what happened. She’s never pried nor has tried to change my mind about keeping this” he moves his arm to wave it along the eyeline of the room, but drops it. He turns to Aziraphale. “She sees so many people at the hospital from veritable wars that she just accepted this habit of mine as…as a erm…traumatic brain injury. PTSD. An old coma’s ghosts.”

dead silence

“I've only recently begun to stop crying,” Crowley says, nodding, as he starts to. “and now you're fucking here, and for the first time in all our millennia together, seeing you here -

"I'm so fucking unhappy.”

Time stops, but in the human way.

“I can't bear to be near you. You're everything I ever needed and wanted and I couldn’t compete with God or the Second Coming that apparently NEVER happened.” He now gestures wide with his arms outstretched, one long fluid movement so intense and passionate it looks as if he never lost his wings.

“We….“ he bangs his chest, “weeeeeee all lived down here through whatever stupid thing you were all fighting over up there and maybe you fixed it and maybe nothing happened -

“but you didn't even throw a feather from the sky to let me know that there was some fucking kind of Peace going on.

”That you missed me.

“or you were just a little sorry.”

He is heaving and trying to hold onto any words without screaming. “Sure, it still rains fish in Texas and frogs in Croydon sometimes, there’s still some old mischievous magic from past events between us. but it does make me so so so fucking…….sad you. said. Nothing.”

silence is now an abyss

“You, too, then? Just like her? Not even one. fucking. Sign.”

Crowley drops his arms and all the energy he had brewing all evening, if not all the last 28 years, sinks out from him and into the ground cover.

“Aziraphale?”

so, … this is death

“Yes, Crowley.”

“Please leave.”

+++++++++++

The Angel is standing outside of the house, their back to the door, waiting to hear the click of a lock before walking away. It doesn't rain in this section of England very much which is very strange. It's almost like one last small miracle is left to protect the home, his wife, his son.

His humanity.

Aziraphael walks back to the car. No shade of yellow, just plain grey. A rental he doesn't drive through Soho on his way home to the end of the world.

[aeternals]

DUMAH, ANGEL OF SILENCE

tags since idk if i should post their bio here or carrd

HISTORY

          The angel of silence, they called him.  The angel of the stillness of death. 

          Dumah was a pariah amongst his peers save for the chosen few who’d been tasked over darker matters.  His deeds weren’t held as high in regard as Michael’s or even Gabriel’s, which he often found funny because he was also an avenger.  He used his holy fire to cleanse the land of their enemies.  The angel’s enemies for the concept of their God had long ago faded.  No one had seen him ( or her ) in as long as anyone could remember.  Only the Metatron - God’s voice - could answer such a question.  And he’d been missing since time immemorial.  

          But because he tended to do it with an army of what the humans called ‘ zombies ‘ it was always wiped from history.  With his power over the wicked dead, Dumah would call their souls to his side in order to repent for the damage they’d done in life.  They were his weapons; extensions of the flaming sword held firmly in his grip.  Each soul was infused with a portion of his holy fire so that they, too, could cleanse the evil off the land.

          Light cast over his missions to hide the dark of what he’d done.  Some of his peers called him too zealous.  Too dangerous.  At times it felt like all they wanted to do was hide his lack of mercy.  A mercy that was started to get twisted by a new faith.  As if the harsh reality of what they were was too much for humans to handle.  Not their problem, Dumah would say.  Their existence wasn’t created to make the mortals happy.  They’d been created to hold a balance in the universe.  As there was dark so there must be light.  With chaos must be order.

          His vindication over Egypt was the last straw.  On the sandy battlefield Dumah got down on one knee to admire the cleansing.  Balance had been restored to a land so heavily swayed in one direction for generations.  Order settled over the chaos.  Bodies of rotting bone and flesh were slowly hobbling back to his very position for their next orders.  Or, hopefully, to be laid to rest, even if for just a little while.  Yet, several of his brothers stood over him to cast judgement.  Too much, they’d claimed.  The war against the unworthy had crossed a line even Michael couldn’t turn a blind eye to.

                                   So, they cast him out.  He and his two closest commanders.

          Over the millenia Dumah took his label more closely to heart.  His voice was only used on rare occasions.  Anything that needed to be said could come from the lips of the two always by his side.

LORE

       (  NOTE: Angels in Dumah’s incarnation are a combination of a lot of different media.  The intention is for it to mesh with any other supernatural creatures that we may come across but if adjustments need to be made then we can certainly discuss it.  More info to be added as I think about it.  Another note to add is that this lore will not discuss  Demons at this time. )

          There are Nine Circles of Heaven to mirror the Nine Circles of Hell ( as inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy ).  Purgatory exists in the middle alongside the mortal plane.  Gehenna, for the sake of Dumah’s history, is another name for Purgatory.  It was originally named after the valley where the door was placed.  One of Dumah’s titles was to be the ruler of Purgatory.  With no natural governing body of it’s own there was a fear of rebellion when the veil between worlds got thin.  With his power over nearly half of the undead Dumah was seen as a natural fit.  But, when he was cast out of Heaven he closed that particular door so he could keep a closer eye on it.

          The circles represent ideals.  Being higher or lower in sphere didn’t necessarily mean an angel was higher or lower in the hierarchy.  Each circle, however, has it’s own governing ladder.  Heaven, afterall, sought to balance the order of the universe.   Dumah himself resided in the fifth circle with a number of other angels that were considered to be ‘ warriors. ‘  The just.  As a commander of his own angelic army Dumah only had to answer to the ruler of the Fifth Circle, Michael.  Beyond what would’ve been Metatron had the deity still been around.

          Wings do. Indeed, have feathers in Heaven.  They are also not visible on the mortal plane unless an angels expends the energy to make them so.  Some say it’s because their divinity makes them impossible to see with mortal eyes.  Dumah would argue there’s a glamor at work since they can be visible.  Demons and other supernatural creatures have the ability to see most angel wings.  Power level on each side could certainly come into play.

          Powers, similarly, vary from angel to angel.  They guide what an angel’s purpose in heaven is going to be.  They also dictate the circle in which the angel is going to reside.

( please note other divinities on this blog follow the same angellic / demonic lore )

[liminaldaze]

So, I decided to use a dream I had as a springboard for some writing, and, well, this is what I ended up with.

---------------------------------------------------

Try as she might to center herself, the anxiety induced by the situation was only building. Even if she hadn’t been running on fumes, the loud, unfamiliar surroundings wouldn’t have been to her liking. Nell tried her best to look less like she was nervously hugging herself and more like she was simply crossing her arms, but she didn’t imagine she was fooling anyone. 

She'd been left to awkwardly wait by her lonesome atop the bar that doubled as the front desk of the establishment. Not by it, no, she was quite literally standing on it. Owing to the range of clientele that made use of the place, the countertop Nell stood on had to be, if she were to estimate, well over sixty feet off the ground. 

It was unfair. She’d merely been towing along, there to help get a move on carrying up some luggage while Rolan handled the matter of finalizing their crew’s lodging arrangements. Nell had intended to follow his lead, but it became increasingly apparent that he was likewise out of his element, that the I’taeri filled room had him just as rattled as it did her. With a concerning storm inbound everyone was seeking out the nearest shelter capable of weathering it, and while the waystop was fitted with fixtures to accommodate those of human stature the bulk of clientele happened to be the giant aliens. 

The two waited, Rolan opting for a less than proactive approach, likely hoping the others would start trickling in before he had to handle any interactions. Jenna and Kyle had said they’d be right behind them, but that turned out to be very much not the case. Their explanation came in the form of a call via their AR headsets. 

There had been an issue with the other truck it turned out and, though no one asked for it, Rolan felt the situation would benefit from his “expertise.” Which was to say, he had found an excuse to bail on her. He told Nell to “watch their stuff” and sit tight in case someone turned up to assist them before beating a hasty retreat towards the lift they’d used to ascend the counter. She hadn’t even been afforded the chance to voice her objections, of which she had many. 

And so there she was, marooned with a pile of luggage that she’d be hard pressed to lug around on her own. 

“Fucker…” she muttered bitterly. In that moment, from the very depths of her heart, Nell swore that there would be a reckoning. 

If by chance one of the larger customers did fancy their belongings then “watch” would be precisely the full extent of what Nell could do about it. Of course, it was less their stuff that Nell was worried about. One often heard… stories concerning I’taeri and humans. Of all sorts, but it was a particular subset, those of a darker nature, that surfaced in her mind as she watched the titanic beings go about their business. 

She cast her head this way and that, but there weren’t any other humans that she could immediately see, making her feel all the more vulnerable for it. And small. Very small. 

She swallowed thickly, trying not to flinch anytime she inadvertently met someone’s gaze. Heaven forbid it be misconstrued as interest in further interaction. All she wanted was to crawl into her sleeping nook, to curl up into a ball and cocoon herself in the blankets, allowing sleep to ferry her away from the myriad stresses of the waking world… At least the ones that didn’t manage to find her even in sleep. 

“Yup, that’s a human,” a voice cut above the others.

Jolting her back to the moment, Nell realized she’d closed her eyes. It doesn’t take her long to catch sight of an I’taeri woman who, no mistaking it, had her own sights trained on Nell, an easy smile on her face as she began making her way towards the counter. 

It sent veritable alarms blaring in her head. Oh nonononono! All at once, exactly the sort of thing she’d been hoping to avoid had seemingly been set into motion. She instinctively started to backpedal away, sprawling atop the bags she’d forgotten about right behind her with a startled “Eep!” 

Nell was blinking up at the ceiling, her mind trying to make sense of what had just occurred when she became aware of a particular set of booming steps that had only grown in intensity. In short order the ceiling was obscured by an impossibly tall, and fetching, individual smirking down at her from on high. Stunned and utterly mesmerized by the stranger’s presence, Nell could do little more than drink her appearance in.

Aside from the obvious disparity in scale, I’taeri weren’t all that different from humans in appearance, following a similar template, though they had their fair share of noteworthy features. The long, elegant tapered ears evocative of elves were certainly a highlight. Said ears possessed an impressive range of motion and were highly emotive. Both I’taeri eyes and hair came in colors not naturally occurring among humans, this one opting to keep her dark violet hair cropped to about shoulder length. Then there was the wide brimmed hat that encircled the I’taeri’s face like a halo from the angle Nell was viewing her from, the obscene amount of material that had to have gone into making the article staggering to contemplate. The hat cast her face in shadow, and from beneath it her crimson eyes almost appeared to emit a faint glow. 

“Uh-oh, had yourself a bit of a spill there,” the face hovering above Nell remarked, jolsting her out of her trance-like state. 

An intense blush rose to her cheeks, the amused expression on the I’taeri’s face telling Nell that her outright gawking hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Here,” the stranger supplied, her hand rising into view, its fingers honing in on the quivering little human. As if expecting the worst, Nell’s initial reaction was to stiffen and screw her eyes shut. Instead, she felt the tips of said fingers gently slide behind her back in a scooping motion, assisting her onto her feet. “But my, you are a tiny thing~ If I hadn’t already been looking I may have missed you entirely.”

“Th-Thanks?” Nell uttered, a little shell shocked. Then the rest of what the woman had said registered. “Wait. Looking… N-Not for me!?”

The woman laughed softly. “No, not you specifically. Cute as you are,” she said with a wink.

That little addendum both threw Nell for a loop and filled her stomach with butterflies. She also seemed to be feeling… lightheaded? She thought? Her own experience in dealing with the I’taeri was very limited, and she was finding the mere presence of one that had thier undivided attention trained on her disorienting enough without having to contend with... whatever else was going on here. The expression on her face must have been amusing, as the other two I’taeri standing behind the first, who she hadn’t registered until that moment, chuckled to themselves. So not just one, but three of the giant aliens were peering down on her.

Joy.

“I do, however,” the woman continued, “suspect you might be associated with a business contact I’m to meet here. Jennifer Rosario. Know of her?”

“My, uh, boss.” Nell blinked up at the woman, indeed recalling something about a client. 

“Just so,” the behatted woman smirked, making a gesture reminiscent of a finger gun at the human. “Last I heard from her, your crew had made it safely and she was on her way up to the lobby. And yet…” She made a show of glancing around.

Nell jerked, realizing that she was dealing with a potentially dissatisfied customer and rushed, if clumsily, to offer an explanation.“Sh-She was!  But we got a call, and, uhm… Well, something went wrong with one of the trucks, so she probably got caught up with that a-and…”

The woman brought her hands up in a ‘slow down’ gesture. “Easy, there, I’m not mad,” she assured, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “Here’s what we’ll do.” Then, glancing back at her companions. “You two head down to the garage and offer a hand. I’ll keep our new little friend company.”

“Y-You don’t have to…” Nell stuttered, uncertain if she’d even been heard.

“Hah, one hand may be all that’s needed,” one of the two women joked as they made their departure, Nell briefly watching after them.

“I should at least call, give them a heads up,” Nell fretted. 

“It’s fine,” the woman assured, noisily dragging over a bar stool capable of towering over some human buildings. “Those two can explain themselves. Meanwhile, I’ll stick around to deter any untoward strangers that might be tempted to snatch a little thing like you up.” She rested her arms on the counter and leaned forward, bringing herself closer to the ‘little thing’ in question. 

Nell chuckled nervously, her instinct to back away from the immense entity encroaching upon her space nearly causing her to trip over the bags once again. The already intimidating amount of attention she’d been receiving before suddenly felt far more concentrated. Then there was that sparkle Nell thought she saw in her eyes.

 “Uh, well.. You’re also a…” she started, then paused, anxiously trying to retain some measure of tact as she pointed out the obvious. “That is to say… We don’t exactly know one another, either.”

The giant woman barked a laugh at that, Nell’s proximity to the booming exhale of air making her jump. “We don’t, now, do we?” Sitting back up, the I’taeri woman removed her hat and held it to her chest. “In that case, you can call me Lyen. And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

With Lyn’s hat removed, Nell could see that she had her hair partially pinned back in a short ponytail. The hat itself, she also noted, now that she had a different angle of it, looked like some iteration of a cavalier style hat. Once more, her mind drifted towards wondering at just how much in the way of resources, and what materials exactly, went into actualizing such a prodigious article. And that was just the hat. What about the coat she wore? And- Nell had to blink, making sure she had seen it correctly, but that certainly looked to be a human space grade helmet dangling from her ear. 

“Hrm?” Lyen hummed encouragingly, the slight tilt of her head jostling the unconventional accessory 

Nell blushed, realizing she’d fallen back into gawking. “My… My name’s Nell.”

“Nell…” Lyen repeated, as if evaluating the feel of the name as it rolled off her tongue. It caused Nell to shiver, though with what she couldn’t quite say. Lyen meanwhile gave an approving nod of her head. “Lovely~”

She set her hat down atop the counter, the object producing a prominent displacement of air that rustled Nell’s clothing and the straps on some of the bags. Nell was staring wide-eyed at it, having been set only a little ways down from her own position. It occurred to her, with no shortage of wonderment, that she could probably fit under the dome of it at a complete stand. There was a small part of her, even, that wanted to find out. 

“How about some food and drink to commemorate this auspicious meeting, eh?” Lyen’s voice drew Nell’s attention back to her face, noting her pleased expression. She flashed one of those easy smiles of her’s. “And perhaps some appropriately tiny seating while we’re at it,” she added with a chuckle. 

Nell was about to insist that wasn’t necessary, but Lyen had already started to wave down an I’teari staff member from on the other side of the bar. 

Taking a deep, shuddery breath, it was all Nell could do to steel herself for what yet lay ahead. 

[sbbreflections]

LEVITICUS

3. Leviticus

The Lord, through Moses, further solidifies His relationship and covenant with the Israelites, and outlines His list of non-negotiable rules - along with blessings for those who obey, and punishments for those who would disobey Him. It is a call to Holy Living through choice and action.

This is the book where proper practices for making Holy Sacrifices and Offerings to God are detailed. A major thing of note that casts a sort of shadow on Leviticus is the “Sin Offering” which at the time needed to be done on occasion of specified sin as well as on a yearly ritualistic basis to cleanse the people. If I understand correctly, this particular offering practice would become obsolete when Jesus was crucified and died for our sins.*

Also defined are:

1. Clean and Unclean Animals (which should and should not be eaten/touched),

2. Particular Purification Rituals,

3. Prohibitions regarding Sexual Practices and the handling of Blood, and

4. Personal Holiness/Conduct (how one sets themselves apart as “holy” and in reverence to The Most High) {Leviticus 19}

Some of the ordinances set in this chapter had not been mentioned previously and that means to me that God was capable of not only creation and destruction, but also of awareness and modification. It’s almost as if he utilized the SWOT analysis after each Human Hiccup. I believe that the Lord set these laws with the Israelites as a continued test of faith and loyalty to Him. “Before we go any further, hear me and hear me well.” I mean, yes He would want to see his children prosper, but He didn’t mind executing with fury, as well. If His people could rebuke the sins of those who they lived with before, and refuse the sins of those who they would come into contact with BECAUSE GOD SAID, they would of course find favor in His eyes.

Think in Morgan Freeman’s epic voice: “I have saved these {people} and given them food, water and protection. Still, they are capable of doing what they want because I have also given them free-will. I give them what they need, and still, they consistently find new ways to defy me - even after I tell them what should not be done and what will happen if they do… when I show them my Glory, they fear me awhile and turn back to their wits soon enough. They are either brave or stupid. But at least if I tell them *everything* they need to know not to do, their punishments (or rewards) would be justified. They will worship me, for I am the Lord their God, or they will perish.”

I’m not mocking The Lord at all, I assure you. I like movies and this is how I imagined he may have felt during the times. I do pray this is not offensive to anyone who matters.

I can fully understand how this chapter (the one that basically calls most of us all Sinners) could be a trigger for most people in the world today - it is where [who we are] and [what we do] that would have undeniably disappointed our Father in Heaven is written plainly and lives forever. It is where our devilish neighbors pull a line from to demonize the next sinner. While some of the information is outdated and/or simply irrelevant for modern day Christians*, other parts do give us a first glance at right and wrong in the eyes of TMH (and those who walk with Him). And so, it is a very important book to familiarize yourself with if you want to be “good” in the general sense of the word. Because of Jesus’ crucification, we experience wrath and reward much differently from what is written here - as in, punishments are not carried out the same as they were anymore, and some of these regulations no longer apply.

Be wise. Use discernment.

Numbers is next.

Originally post dated February 21, 2024.

Written x SP

[troybeecham]

Fr. Troy Beecham

Sermon, Proper 23 A 2023

Matthew 22:1-14

“Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again, he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so, the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

This is the third parable of Jesus in a row as recorded in the Gospel according to St. Matthew about the kingdom of heaven. Given the teaching of the prophets, those Jewish listeners who heard Jesus’ parable would have readily associated a festive meal with the celebration of God’s covenant people after the Day of Judgement. This parable falls under the category of the “hard sayings” of Jesus because in it he unflinchingly speaks about judgement and punishment, and we 21st century Western folks find it difficult to think in such ways. We have been taught to perceive Jesus, and God the Father, as being our buddy, a laid-back self-help guru who only wants us to be nice to each other. Being nice to each other is certainly a laudable thing, but when we cast Jesus in such a non-Scriptural role it can obscure, or completely eliminate, the clarity of Jesus when he speaks about judgement and punishment. We must also remember that he preached this parable only days before his crucifixion. Knowing how little time he had left, Jesus pulls no punches, but rather pleads with us to be changed and made ready for what is to come.

One particular criticism of Jesus in this parable is that it sounds harsh to our ears, and the punishments seem disproportionate to the crime. For his contemporaries, this language sounded like the realities of their lives, even appropriate, and some took pleasure in hearing about the just punishment of the wrong-doers. They heard their own prejudices affirmed: all the “bad” people, the “wrong type of people” were getting their just punishments. As much as we like to think that we have matured out of seeing God as Judge, we today are just as happy when we hear how our enemies are going to “get what’s coming to them”. I see it in print daily as we judge each other over our responses to the political and social issues of the moment, the absolute glee as each side fantasizes about how their enemies are going to suffer when their side wins or loses. To be clear, there are some political ideologies that are profoundly evil and must be confronted as being wholly incompatible with Biblical, orthodox/catholic Christianity. In particular, the Leftist ideologies of the last century, socialism/communism being the most evil, which, in the course of overturning and destroying from within multiples cultures, are directly responsible for the deaths of 22% of the human population of the 20th century. It has been in full view over the last few years, and this week, with violent protests, anti-Jewish hatred, the looting and burning in cities, all displayed before us and lauded by mainstream media. The continuing scourge of Leftist ideology continues to plague our nation and the world. We must pray that God would deliver us from the evils of the anti-life, anti-freedom ideology. Even so, we can make no spiritual progress without the willingness to look at our secret desire for the judgement of others and the desire for a wrathful God when it comes to our enemies.

But is that all there is to be seen in this parable? Can God only be a wrathful enforcer of arbitrary rules on the one hand or the indulgent, doting father who cannot see that his children are anything other than wonderful on the other? God, Jesus teaches us, is much more than either of these extremes. Let’s look further into the parable to see why.

The parallel to this parable as recounted in the Gospel according to St. Luke follows a dinner at the home of a Pharisee, whom Jesus challenges to invite those who cannot repay his hospitality: the “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind”. It is more than mere hospitality and money that is being examined here. To share a meal with the cripples, the lame, and the blind would render the Pharisee unclean according to his understanding of the Torah. This is no simple thing, but literally an issue of the Pharisee being in right relationship with God. Jesus challenges him to see that his understanding of the Torah is clouded, and so is his soul, with the prejudices of his time. His slow, or complete lack of, response is entirely understandable. How easily could any of us be told that the core of our beliefs is wrong, have been wrong, for centuries, and that our right standing with God is in jeopardy because of our inability, or unwillingness, to have our beliefs challenged and redirected in a new way? This is no less true for a culture as for an individual. Change is difficult, especially around our core beliefs about God, ourselves, and each other.

But change is at the heart of Jesus’ proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of God. We all of us are called to be changed, or using biblical language to repent, and to be open to God in ways that usually challenge and frighten us. Allowing the Holy Spirit to come and transform us from within is frightening when you think about the consequences of a truly transformed life. Jesus uses the language of being born again, being born anew, born from above. We must be born again, a throughgoing and wholesale transformation of our values, our core beliefs, and our conditioned loves and hatreds. Anything less is to show up, as the parable says, to the banquet wearing the wrong robes.

There’s a contemporary parable in the Talmud:

A king who summoned his servants to a banquet, but did not appoint a day or a time. Now kings can be unpredictable: one day merciful, another wrathful. The wise invitees dropped all that they were doing, got dressed in their best, and sat at the door of the palace to await the pleasure of the king. They said to themselves “It may not look like a banquet is being prepared, but this is the palace of the great king! He can order a banquet at any moment and his will shall be done!” The foolish invitees went about their daily lives, saying to themselves “We will wait until we hear that preparations are being made, and the we will bathe, clothe ourselves in finery, and present ourselves to the palace of the great king.” Without warning, the king ordered his servants to prepare a banquet immediately, to open the doors and escort his invitees into the feast. The wise ones entered into the presence of the king, prepared and adorned in their finery, but the foolish ones hurried to the palace and entered the presence of the king unbathed, clothes in dirty work clothes, totally unprepared even though they had been told to prepare for the banquet by the servants of the king. The king warmly received the wise, who entered rejoicing, but with the fools he was angry. Then the king proclaimed “Those who heeded my invitation, prepared themselves and waiting for me cleansed and dressed in finery, let them be seated with me and rejoice with me. But those foolish ones, cast them out, confiscate their lands, and let them be placed in chains!”

Kings are unpredictable. They keep their own counsel and answer to only themselves. It is entirely their decision as to when they will open the doors of the kingdom and set out a feast. But the king’s son, Jesus, and his servants, the prophets and the apostles, have proclaimed the invitation of the king. To refuse to come, to refuse a king’s command, is treason; to kill his son or his servants amounts to insurrection, so the king will send his troops, his angels, to put down the rebellion. We have been invited. We are awaiting the command of the king. How have we responded? Have we allowed the Holy Spirit to enter into our lives to transform us? Have we welcomed the Son, our Savior Jesus, into our souls so that we might be born again and clothed in the robes of his righteousness? Have we dropped everything to await the Day of the Lord at the doors of the kingdom, ready to enter when God calls for the end of time and the Day of Judgement? Or are we still clothed in the rags of our own busyness, our own righteousness, and filled with the prejudices, hatreds, and loves of this world? There will come a day when we must all stand before the judgment of God. Are you prepared?

My prayer is that we may all receive the invitation of God with the wisdom that is the gift of grace, and so yield ourselves and our of our lives to his Holy Spirit that we might be born again and clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, having our deepest selves remade in his image so that we may love what he loves and desire only what he desires. We must be prepared, my friends, for no one knows the day or the hour except the Father.

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

[a-divinewrite]

an angel’s emergency visit.

in which seraph has to treat a irksome fallen angel

“You know, I didn’t think humans such as yourself would be so skilled in healing the otherworldly,” Luella said. Admiring Seraph’s skill with a small, but approving, nod.

It was the first hint of gratitude that the fallen angel had shown throughout this entire ordeal, no matter how condescending it might have been, he would take it. It’s not like the angel would have any other way to repay him.

“You’ll be surprised to know that I am considered one of the best,” Seraph replied. He struggled to mask the annoyance of the sigh pushing past his lips. His hands steady on the festering wound on the angel’s back that refused any sort of treatment. With one hand, he tried suturing down the wound with a needle and special thread designed for even the toughest of wounds, but even with Luella’s it seemed to fight back against the long gaping hole across her back. The skin jumped back, startled by the needle invading its space and trying to close it back up.

Luella drew in a harsh hiss as their skin seemingly fought back. “Oh you!” Luella scowled. They grit their teeth as they very obviously fought back the urge to let out a string of foul curses, they were losing too.

“The wound refuses to heal. Your body isn’t cooperating with you,” he said matter of factly. He drew the light closer to further inspect the wound. Two jagged open wounds rested behind the shoulder blades, fussing like a child who won’t cooperate. With his gloved hand he pulled at the skin to see the edges of the wound, they were stained with the darkest of black he’d ever seen. It was the most peculiar thing, Luella was an angel. Sure, a just recently fallen angel at that, but an angel nonetheless. It’s not like she had lost her healing properties once she was cast off from Heaven. They were still a being of divine greatness.

So why hadn’t they been healing properly?

“Can you stop eyeing me like a petri dish? I take back my previous compliment! You humans are so tedious.”

“I’m afraid the tedious one is you,” Seraph said. He rolled his chair over to face her clearly. “Or should I say your skin, as that's what seems to be the issue at the moment.”

Luella’s brows knit together in confusion. “Excuse me? I beg your pardon?” The lines of their frown increased and Seraph could see Luella begin to narrow his eyes at him with a are you sure look?

“I’m afraid so,” Seraph replied, “there seems to be an odd substance attached to your skin that won’t let you heal properly.”

Luella chuckled with a hint of nervousness. “I’m- I’m not understanding, I’m an Angel-”

“A fallen angel,” Seraph corrected.

“An angel nonetheless!” She raised herself up from the examination table, tying back the ribbon of her open hospital gown. “This is ridiculous! I rescind my compliment! What other doctors are there around that could help me?”

Seraph shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know. The issue isn’t with me in particular, it’s with the tissue in particular. It refuses to heal.”

“Surely if you’re considered one of the best then you’ve seen similar things, haven’t you?”

“Well sure, with werewolves, vampires, goblins, whatever, but I’m afraid I’m a little short sighted when it comes to fallen angels, we haven’t gotten much of those recently.”

A whine began to rise up her throat. Luella tugged at the bountiful coils that danced across her shoulders. “This can’t be it! I swear it. . . ” Luella muttered under her breath. The angel looked down at the floor, appearing to have a million things running through their mind at the moment.

Seraph began to open his mouth before the door to the clinic creaked open. Peeking in was a familiar silver haired fairy with a familiar book under her arm.

“Sorry, am I interrupting you?” Helena asked in the faintest whisper.

Seraph broke out into a smile. “Absolutely not, Hel, come in.”

“Wonderful. I brought The Book, you ought not to leave it around. Fenrir gets a little antsy when he’s not held for a while.” She placed the blue leather bound book into his hands and caught the eyes of the angel on the examination table. “Are you feeling alright Luella? Any better now?”

“Hm?” Luella’s eyes darted up and fell onto Helena, breaking out of her trance and fell straight into the trap of another one. “Oh hello, Helena dear! Oh! I’m afraid there’s something deeply wrong with me, Hel!” Luella’s hand fell over her forehead as she cried out dramatically. “My wounds don’t heal and I’ve nowhere to go, I’m plagued by my sins left and right!”

Helena’s eyes widened with worry at the sight of the seemingly distraught angel. She darted towards the patient and laid a gentle hand on her shoulders. Her face wrought with concern as Luella planted her head on her arm.

“Luella don’t worry please, I promise you Seraph will get you fixed up all better in no time. Once you’re done I’m sure we can get The Order to find you a place to stay,” Helena reassured.

To Seraph’s shock, Luella nuzzled their head against the corner of Helena’s arm. A fire sparked in their conniving yellow eyes as a sly smile worked across their lips. Seraph struggled to the best of his abilities to fight back the scowl that threatened to overthrow his demeanor. His eye twitched as Luella reached a hand to pat Helena’s head.

“Oh, Hellie, may I trouble you for some tea?”

“Of course, I’ll get you some right away!” Helena nodded and turned to Seraph. “Would you like anything, Seraph?”

“No thank you, Hel, I appreciate it though.”

She smiled and nodded before heading off to the door and out the clinic.

Luella chortled with delight. “She’s cute.”

“Hey!” Seraph exclaimed. “Don’t start batting eyelashes at my assistant now, got it?”

“Don’t tell me you’re a little lovesick, Doctor?”

“You know I’m thinking charging you might not be so bad of an idea.”

[starbuck]

“Red book cover, red book cover.”

You know the book that Flint’s reading in the fort cell in 4x05? The red one that resembles his beloved copy of Meditations? This one?

It’s not Meditations. It’s The Pilgrim’s Progress…

… which, for anyone unaware, is a famous Christian allegory written by Puritan preacher John Bunyan in the 1600s, which sets out a prescription for how one ought to seek and attain salvation from a Puritan perspective (the only correct one according to them).

It stands in complete opposition to Thomas’ “know no shame” inscription in Meditations, encouraging its readers to feel ashamed about everything they do that might divert them from the straight and narrow. It also opposes Miranda’s assertion that “true love shouldn’t require suffering,” being very much on the “the truest form of love, love through suffering,” side of things.

Which brings us to Flint. According to Miranda in 2x05, Flint’s being driven to fight against England is, in part, a result of his shame. She perceives this shame to be that which Civilization’s judgements have burdened him with but Flint himself suggests that his shame is also the result of guilt over having not tried to save Thomas when he had the chance.

This is interesting because, though I do believe that Flint has largely made peace with himself by season four and has found a greater cause to fight for overall (which are not insignificant things, I want to be clear), it’s also true that he says to Silver in 4x04: “I think if [Thomas] knew how close we were to the victory he gave his life to achieve, he wouldn't want me to [give it up],” suggesting that Thomas’ death is still hanging over him in a way that’s honestly not that dissimilar to how he started out. There’s still a shame-based aspect to his desire to fight in the sense of “I can’t give up this war because Thomas (and now Miranda too) died for this.”

All of this could easily be said to parallel the protagonist of The Pilgrim’s Progress being driven to undertake a perilous journey in order to rid himself of his burden of shame and finally find peace at the end of it all.

According to the Puritan teachings espoused in the book, believing that you are inherently unclean and sinful is paramount to your salvation so, in other words, shame is good and necessary. As I said, this is the complete opposite of the Hamiltons’ beliefs, but it aligns pretty well with the ideas that Oglethorpe professes at the beginning of 4x10 about how “human debris” such as Thomas and Flint are “anathema to the Empire” and how they “must cease to be… to be able to find peace.”

Plenty of people have pointed out that Oglethorpe’s prison plantation can be viewed as a metaphorical afterlife which Flint enters into at the end of the show (through a gate even, just like the entrance into Heaven), but I’d also like to highlight his having to walk down a literal straight and narrow path—again, like the protagonist of The Pilgrim’s Progress—in order to finally reunite with Thomas.

So, with all that being said, the message behind Flint reading this particular book in 4x05 seems twofold to me:

1. Despite doing his best to follow Thomas and Miranda’s example and cast off his shame, shame is still something that Flint is very much burdened by and which still influences his desire to fight against England, even into season four.

2. Silver’s orchestrating Flint’s being sent to the plantation in Savannah and reunited with Thomas aligns with the “happy ending” of The Pilgrim’s Progress, freeing him from his shame and allowing him to find the peace he sought at last. And yet, with the plantation itself being upheld by shame, by the idea that men like Thomas and Flint deserve to be cast out of Civilization, is this really the kind of ““peace”” that Flint wanted for himself? Can imprisoning him for life in such a place truly be said to be “freeing” him from anything?

By having this particular copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress superficially resemble Meditations despite it being a book whose values are entirely opposite from Thomas’ core tenant “know no shame,” the show presents us with a “fruit, fruit. tits, tits.” commentary on its own ending: Silver’s solution might look like a happy ending for Flint at first glance, but, in reality, it promotes shame rather than eliminating it.

[norahastuff]

4x03 is a lot, Dean discovering Mary wasn’t the perfect saintly wife and mother but in fact a hunter, him meeting his grandfather and taking an instant dislike to him - going so far as to name him Dick Cheney. There’s also Dean finding out Sam was named after their grandfather and he was named after their grandmother which is just another hit in the whole “Dean tried so hard to emulate his father and his particular brand of masculinity and yet despite all his efforts, it was Sam who was most like John and Dean who was much more like Mary thing” but Dean and his view of masculinity is a much longer conversation for another time. 

This was supposed to be a lesson in fate and inevitability for Dean. Cas was supposed to show him “all roads lead to the same destination” and Cas doesn’t waver on that. He ends the episode where he began, firm in his belief in heaven and the plan, and he doesn’t say anything to indicate the events of this little trip have had any effect on him. However I think this is where you truly start to see what casting Misha actually meant.

I mean just looking at Cas’ reaction to Dean and you can see that he’s already starting to feel things, especially because Misha had played the stoic alien otherworldly side of Cas so well, you can clearly see when he starts to feel and those doorways to doubt start to appear.

This human that he’s inexplicably bonded to is feeling so very many complicated things and trying to understand him and the things he’s feeling leads to Cas having to question things he’s not supposed to question. Things that he deep down already knew should be questioned. That’s Cas’ arc in s4 but it’s not something they textually start explore until later in the season. However Misha, powerhouse that he is, managed to start getting that across as early as this episode, without a single word. No wonder Carver fell in love with him so fast. This is the episode where on the commentary Kripke goes on about how talented and fantastic Misha is and Carver chimes in with “he’s a brick house stud.” That has nothing to do with anything, I just like bringing it up.

Anyway, Misha and what he created with Cas was pretty much the reason the angels and the apocalypse arc was as epic as it was, without Cas being as engaging a character as he ended up being, none of that would have come to pass. Guess this one is less rewatch thoughts and more of a Misha appreciation post...was bound to happen at some point.

Oh and just a sidenote, can’t really post this without mentioning how the Cas sitting on Dean’s bed scene was seen as being “too gay” ( I mean in the grand scheme of their scenes it’s a 3 or 4 at best) but in the end they decided to go with it anyway. Here’s a link to a post about it.

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

Rambling About 1998 Casting

Having seen a ton old, Broadway-based productions, and a ton of newer, London-based productions, so I now have a general idea of what the differences between the two are, I’ve noticed just how much adding Broadway cast members to a mostly London-based show affected the VHS version.

Three Broadway actors were cast in 1998, one from the original cast, and two who were performing at the time.

Ken Page was the original Broadway Old Deuteronomy. Old Deuteronomy’s role is pretty much the same in London and Broadway versions, so there’s not much to comment on with him. But, Munkustrap and Mistoffelees are characters with tons of little differences between versions, so Michael Gruber and Jacob Brent changed more.

But, Michael Gruber’s casting actually didn’t change much. The biggest difference between London Munkustrap and Broadway Munkustrap is the Macavity Fight. Broadway Munk is taken out of the action much earlier. Someone cast as Munk in London would have to learn more fight choreography than someone cast on Broadway. But, the London version of the Macavity Fight was used in 1998. Michael Gruber learned the new choreography for the filmed version.

Mistoffelees is different. Virtually every time the choreography and staging of the character differs between London and Broadway, 1998 uses the Broadway version. Misto’s opening line is Broadway. A large portion of Jellicle Ball choreography (Fugue, Girls, Mungo Entrance, Boys Jump, Tours) is Broadway. Mistoffelees is absent during Skimble’s number, because Broadway had a longer break for Misto actors to change costumes for Misto’s number than London did. The pacing of Misto’s number comes from the Broadway variant where Misto sings the second verse, even though he doesn’t sing it in this version.

There are a lot more changes between London and Broadway with Misto’s stuff than with Munk’s stuff. Munk’s changes were one fight scene. I’m guessing there was too much London choreography for Jacob Brent to learn during rehearsals, so they switched it to what he was already familiar with. 

When Misto was given his Broadway role, if his London role was still needed, it was given to Tumblebrutus. This put Tumblebrutus in many places where I’ve never seen him appear onstage. In Broadway-based productions, “have you been an alumnus of heaven and hell?” is Plato’s opening line. In Broadway-based productions, Munkustrap holds the light at the front of Skimble’s train. In London-based productions, those are both Mistoffelees. Instead of just imitating Broadway and putting Plato and Munk in those places, which would’ve been very easy to do in Munk’s case, they swapped in Tumblebrutus.

Tumblebrutus was played by Fergus Logan, who played Mistoffelees in London at the time, so he was more familiar with these bits, though it must’ve been weird doing them as a different character. He also had to learn the rest of Tumble’s track, but only parts that didn’t overlap with Misto’s track, or with Pouncival’s track when those were swapped out.

Then there’s that reworking of the Jellicle Ball. In every version of the ball, we start out with the entire cast together, but eventually the crowd disperses. 

In London-based productions, Carbucketty/Pouncival has a ballet solo. He crosses the stage and one of the girls, usually Jemima/Sillabub, runs past him. They briefly acknowledge each other. Carbucketty/Pouncival reaches the other side of the stage and Mistoffelees runs out. Weirdly, this step is called “Mungo’s Entrance”, even though I’ve never seen Mungojerrie be the one who enters here. Anyway, Carbucketty/Pouncival and Misto jump around a bit and the Jerrie tumbles out (maybe this should’ve been called Mungo’s entrance), followed by Cassandra. Jerrie tries to hit on Cassandra and gets rejected. This is when Bomba’s section starts up.

In Broadway-based productions, the bit where Jemima/Sillabub runs by (literally named Girls) is cut and replaced with Alonzo. Mistoffelees gets the ballet solo, crosses the stage towards Alonzo, and they seem to dance the idea of making polite conversation. Pouncival runs out for the Mungo Entrance and the Boys Jump features three cats, instead of two. Tumblebrutus tumbles out and we have a bit that I’ve dubbed the Antagonistic Waggle, where Tumble gets in a bit of a fit with the other boys. The fight breaks up when Cassandra comes out and then Bomba starts up her section.

If you took a Carbucketty, cast them as Pouncival and gave them the Broadway choreography, it’d be easy. They don’t get their ballet solo, but once they get onstage for the Boys Jump, it’d all be pretty familiar. However, London Alonzo isn’t in this section at all, so this would be new stuff to learn. The 1998 version added a moment where Alonzo hits on Bomba and gets rejected, possibly to match the Jerrie/Cassandra bit that would have in London, and when Cassandra comes out, Alonzo is far more successful with her than Jerrie is, because Casslonzo is basically canon in London-based productions.

So, there was a lot of rearranging to mix some Broadway into the 1998 film, even though the Broadway cast members were outnumbered. 

This is all interesting, but I sometimes wonder why they made this decision. I’m not at all complaining, because it turned out great, but it wasn’t the most convenient decision. Since the filming was based out of London, you’d think they would’ve just gathered the London cast, reworked some of the choreography for film, and left it at that. Most filmed recordings of plays don’t mix and match their casts. I think they wanted the show they filmed to sort of represent all shows up to that point. But how did they pick which characters to use the current London cast for vs. the ones to get someone else for? And why cast several roles with actors who’d never played them before?

I honestly don’t know, but I have a few observations.

So, if they went to represent all of Cats, getting someone from the original London cast was vital. Since Grizabella is the character with the iconic song, the song that made the show a hit outside of theatre circles, casting the first person to sing that song in an official production makes perfect sense. Thus, Elaine Paige as Grizabella. Also, Grizabella is an older character, so casting someone in 1997 who first played the role in 1981 would mean casting an older actress. That works perfectly here.

In fact, most of the older characters were cast with older actors. Ken Page first played Old D in 1982. For Gus, instead of a casting an actor who’d played him before, they actually cast an old actor, someone who could represent a human version of Gus. This completely changed the tone of the number, but in a way that people liked. When watching bootlegs, I tend to skip over Gus, but it’s one of my favorite numbers in 1998.

The other characters on the older side of the cast are Bustopher, Asparagus, Skimble, Jellylorum, and Jennyanydots. James Barron (Bustopher) and Susie McKenna (Jenny) were playing the roles in London at the time. Tony Timberlake (Asparagus), played the Gustopher (Gus/Asparagus/Bustopher) role in London directly before Barron did. Geoffrey Garratt (Skimble) first played his role in the 1989 UK tour. Susan Jane Tanner (Jelly) was from the original London cast. So, there’s a mix of old and new.

I don’t actually know the ages of most of these actors, so I can’t give exact numbers of how old they were when they first played their roles vs. when recording for the VHS. Also, Garratt is not the only actor who came from the 1989 tour. Rosemarie Ford (Bombalurina) spent most of her Cats career playing Grizabella, but she began as Bomba in 1989. Aeva May (Demeter) started even earlier, being cast as Demeter in London in 1986. Both played adult, but younger adult characters for the VHS at 35. 1989 was still less than a decade before the VHS and 1986 only slightly before.

So, Grizabella, Old Deuteronomy, and Jellylorum were the three older characters cast with actors who’d played their roles a long time before the VHS, meaning that their actors were a bit closer to the age of their characters. I’m not sure why Jellylorum in particular got this emphasis, other than that it just works. It just does. But, this does cause this weird effect with my brain when actors played Jelly too young. I also get annoyed when Jenny’s played too young because she’s the OLD Gumbie Cat. It’s the title of the song. How could you miss that? But, neither Skimble nor Jelly have their ages made nearly as clear, so it should be understandable when 30 year-old actors don’t know how old they’re supposed to be and just play them at 30. This is easy to accept with Skimble, but not with Jelly, entirely because I can recognize from 1998 that she both aligns herself with older characters and is played by an older actress. She doesn’t look 30. If a 30 year-old is cast as Jelly, and has seen the 1998 version, they should probably know that. If Jellylorum was meant to be younger, they wouldn’t have cast the role the way they did.

Now, back to Misto. I called this “rambling” for a reason. I’m writing off the top of my head here.

Mistoffelees is a really weird case. They cast the Broadway actor, but still brought in the London actor to play a different character, one he’d never played before. Fergus Logan wasn’t the only actor playing a role he hadn’t played before. Rebecca Parker (Cassandra) began as a swing and then played Bomba. Frank Thompson (George) started off as Admetus/Macavity and then became a swing. As swings, they could’ve played their filmed roles before, but I have no proof of that. (As a side note, I wonder if Thompson being an Admetus has something to do with his George being credited as Admetus).

But, Parker and Thompson seemed pretty comfortable as Cassandra and George, while Logan struggled a bit with Tumblebrutus. I think this is because, half the time, 1998 Tumblebrutus isn’t even Tumblebrutus. He’s a stand-in for London Mistoffelees. Having to be a stand-in, and having more experience in his stand-in role, I don’t think Logan was given a whole lot of room to develop his Tumblebrutus, so the role felt reduced and inconsistent. Parker just had to play Cassandra, so she developed her Cassandra. Thompson just had to play George, so he developed his George. 1998 basically tried to have a Broadway and a London Misto at the same time and sort of lost Tumblebrutus as a character along the way.

Tumblebrutus isn’t a major character, especially in London-based productions, so this isn’t a major problem. Some tours and smaller productions actually cut Tumblebrutus in favor of Electra. Pouncival is never cut. He seems to be the preferred tom kitten in general. But, the reduced role of Tumblebrutus is the result of casting a Broadway Mistoffelees when it seems like they wanted a London one. But, they cast a Broadway Munkustrap and had him play a London Munkustrap with no one cast as a stand-in, while they made changes to Misto’s role to match the Broadway version. They wanted both versions so badly that they basically refused to choose just one.

With the casting of Michael Gruber, from what I can tell, Gillian Lynne just really liked him in the role.

(Interview tidbit is from Michael Gruber’s page on the Cats Wiki)

This might’ve been the case with Jacob Brent as Mistoffelees as well, but I think there was more to it than that. Technically, Brent and Logan were both great in the role. Seeing Misto and Tumble in the Boys Ballet, which Brent said Logan had the timing for better than he did, Logan might’ve actually been better at dancing the role. 

But, I think what decided Brent’s casting was his acting of the role.

The role of Mistoffelees evolved a lot over time and London and Broadway evolved in different directions. By the time Brent was cast, Broadway Mistoffelees was a mix of the very dramatic, theatrical character Broadway started with and the younger, more awkward version that Lindsay Chambers brought to Broadway from Zurich. Brent was Chambers’ understudy and their versions of the character are similar. There are no full recordings of Chambers as Misto on Broadway, but there is a bootleg from Zurich, so the two portrayals can be compared.

Zurich was Vienna-based. The 1983 Vienna production was mostly based off of Broadway, but with a few changes. One of these changes is that Mistoffelees, who had a large singing role on Broadway, became completely mute. Mute Misto soon spread to Amsterdam and Paris. In Paris, the character was aged down and given more of a character arc where magically recovering Old Deuteronomy becomes a coming-of-age moment. Zurich took this characterization and ran with it. Both Paris and Zurich opened with Tibor Kovats as Misto, but the bootleg was filmed after Lindsay Chambers took over. The younger, coming-of-age aspects of the character were doubled down on. On top of that, Chambers’ Misto is an outcast, often scolded by the older cats in the tribe for what appear to be misunderstandings. Munkustrap is particularly harsh with him, and after he brings Old D back, Munkustrap dances with him and leads him to the tire for Tugger’s “ladies and gentlemen” finale. Munkustrap took the lead in honoring Misto at the end. Gaining Munk’s respect in particular is Zurich Misto’s arc.

Jacob Brent also plays Misto as younger and prone to awkward mistakes, but the tone is different. His Misto is more Broadway theatrical, with a small singing role. This makes him seem a bit more confident, and he at times appears to have a bit of an ego. Most of the older cats seem to like him. Munkustrap, the complete opposite to his Zurich counterpart, is very patient with Misto and seems to understand him a bit better than some of the other cats. Instead, Misto doesn’t really seem to fit in with cats closer to his own age and it’s the entire tribe he has to impress, without focus on a specific character.

All in all, the storyline with Zurich Misto is a bit more obvious. But, Brent’s Misto is more energetic, more dynamic. He makes facial expressions that make for great close ups. The combination of the clear story arc, which can be made even clearer on film, and that energy and expressiveness, make for a character that works really well on film. He’s the ideal Misto for a recorded production.

So, it was less Jacob Brent as a dancer, and more Mistoffelees, the character as played by Jacob Brent, that they were looking for.

I’ve run out of things to ramble about for now. I’ll just add on at the end that all of these people are awesome.

[milfmacbeth]

whats your favourite corruption arc? got any recs per chance ? 👀 even if its a fic or something maybe

thanks for asking!

ok so i wouldn't call all of these "recommendations" but these are the ones that stuck with me personally. (this is a fucking novel so i'm putting it under a cut)

in no particular order:

billy shakespeare's macbeth. there's just something so sexy about committing regicide because your girlboss wife convinced you to and then spiraling into paranoia and insanity

percy de rolo from the first campaign of critical role/the legend of vox machina. so, the first critical role campaign is set in a medieval-ish world but percy is an inventor with more of a steampunk aesthetic. in the story, he invented the gun to get revenge on the people who murdered his family. with the help of a demon that's possessing him and eating the souls of everyone percy kills with said gun. this one is especially fun since during the first arc, percy is this quiet supporting character in the background and then the briarwood arc starts and percy shows an aspect of his character that the fandom has lovingly dubbed "no mercy percy" (coincidentally, this is where the story really kicks into gear and gets going)

goethe's faust. this one is not a rec. do not read goethe's faust it is an absolutely incomprehensible 19th century german play that no one except high school students who got forced by their teachers has actually read. that being said, i fucking love it. it pretty much laid the groundwork for all subsequent deal with the devil stories. mephistopheles is one of the most characters ever (bisexual icon and also breaks the fourth wall which is wild considering he's from the 1800's where deadpool-esque talking to the audience was less of a thing than it is now), and faust selling his soul for knowledge and earthly pleasures is pretty enjoyable too.

lucifer (particularly the paradise lost version). fallen angel who got cast out of heaven for rebelling against god and is now trying (and succeeding) to drag humanity down with him because it's better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. gotta hand it to the christians, their lore fucks. (although their holy book really, really doesn't)

light yagami. this is less of a corruption "arc" than a corruption "2 episodes" but death note is still an amazing story. i watched death note for the first time when i was like 15 and less well-versed in media analysis than i am now (we all start somewhere) and having a villain protagonist just blew my fucking mind. (what do you mean the protagonist doesn't have to be a good guy? is this allowed?)

yarvi from joe abercrombie's shattered sea trilogy. don't really have much to say about this one and the books do have some issues (like that horrendous twist in the third book that made everything more boring) but all in all, the books are enjoyable and yarvi turning from "morally grey protagonist" to "literally worse than the enemies they're fighting" was pretty cool

fenrir from norse mythology (i don't know if he should count but i'm including him as an honorary mention. also, disclaimer that this is mythology so this is one version of about 50.000 and none of them are "more correct" than others). the thing that gets me about fenrir is the self-fulfilling prophecy of it all. when fenrir was a puppy, odin and the other gods were initially on friendly terms with him until odin got a prophecy about how fenrir was going to devour the moon, kick off ragnarök and kill him. so he chains fenrir up. however much time passes and the inevitable happens. fenrir, now a fuckhuge wolf, is pissed and rightfully so. as a harbinger of the end of everything, he (to the surprise of no one) devours the moon and kills odin. why? because he's angry at being unjustly imprisoned. it's one of my favourite stories because no one escapes their fate, not even gods and things could have been so different but they aren't, they can't be. this could've been easily avoided. this was inevitable. i am so normal about this.

and last but not least... the archivist corruption arc that lives in my head but never actually happened. it has been a year or so and i'm still coping and seething about the wasted potential that was the entirety of season 5 of the magnus archives. the archivist should've had a corruption arc and i will die on this hill. fight me, jonny sims.