#so anyway how about that whole putting a child into a supermax prison

[wantonlywindswept]

yet another fic idea: fox & boba, ponds lives

Consider: Boba looks at Ponds. Ponds looks back. Boba snaps, "You're a dishonor to my father's face," and shoves Ponds' helmet onto his head.

Consider: Boba presses a blaster to the back of Ponds' neck. Boba flicks a switch. Boba pulls the trigger.

Consider: Boba dumps Ponds' limp body into the airlock. When he hits the eject button, the transmitter on the back of Ponds' armor blinks a steady green.

Consider: Ponds is the youngest batchmate of Bly, of Cody, of Wolffe. Ponds is the youngest batchmate of Fox. 

Consider: Fox loves his batchmates. 

Consider: Fox pays his debts. 

Consider: It's really not that difficult for the Commander of the Guard to make one prisoner disappear.

[bluesclves]

Hey Scoob, I really love your blog about the Archangels and I would like to ask you one thing, how would you do a redemption arc for Lucifer? How would you reformulate the plot of s12 and s13 on Supernatural aimed at him? I imagine they could make him have the following thoughts about humanity: "I have nothing in favor of humanity but now I also have nothing more against."

Well actually, I’m writing a fanfic series about just that 😅 [Link]

Granted, I did the ‘lucifer becomes human’ trope well before season 13 thought to do it, and I had it stick as opposed to it being another half-assed 1-2 episode long arc.

But if I were to honestly re-write the show starting with season 12, following similar arcs for the boys?

I think I’d start by finding a way to give Lucifer a reason not to run back to the Winchesters at the beginning of Season 12. There really was no reason for him to go off on a rampage like that when they actually took his side against Chuck and got him the apology he’s so desperately wanted. Sure, Chuck still left… but that’s not the Winchester’s fault. They were on Team Save the World together, there’s no reason for them to be hunting Lucifer down and there’s no reason for Lucifer to assume they are no longer friendly to him.

If he came to them with his vessel issues and his injuries, they likely would have worked with him to find a stable vessel—which could lead to Crowley revealing he has Nick and giving the vessel to him freely so that he has a trump card via the magical enhancements in case he ever needs to use Lucifer or stop him.

But! I’d give him a reason not to come back. Just because the writing for that was lazy doesn’t mean I don’t like the drama associated with Lucifer “busting dad’s already-broken toys”. I actually really liked that scene in Rock Never Dies, I thought Rick Springfield delivered those lines fantastically and it gave me a little hope again that the Writers did actually see Lucifer’s potential as a deeply broken and flawed character— not just a villain for villainy’s sake.

Don’t get me wrong— I love Lucifer as an antagonist, he makes for a fantastic enemy of the Boys. But the caveat to that is that despite being an antagonist, he isn’t a traditional villain. His goals in season five were, from his point of view, wholly noble and just. He believed he was the good guy. In season 11, he also believes that he’s the good guy. He’s agreeing to fight Amara, after all. In seasons 12 & 13 however he loses that, and we see him becoming evil for the sake of being evil and it just doesn’t fit with his character so far as we have seen him.

So in order to both give him his redemption arc and maintain his status as a Lawful Good (which doesn’t mean Lawful Nice) Antagonist, I’d give him a very good reason not to return to Team Save The World.

What that reason not to come back could be anything as simple as “he came back to the bunker only to overhear that they are hunting him down” to as complex as “he hasn’t found a vessel that can hold him yet and he’s burnt through so many at this point that he’s afraid to go back out of fear that they won’t forgive him for something he honestly couldn’t help”.

Whatever the reason, I’d show it in some way from his point of view so it is clear why he goes off the deep end and just start smashing shit. I did actually like that, though I wish they portrayed it less as “he’s throwing a temper tantrum because he didn’t get his way” and more like “everyone thinks I’m a monster and my father left AGAIN so fine, if they all want me to be a monster so bad, I’ll give them a monster.”

The biggest problem I had with that arc in season 12 is that he invests himself so much in high-power religious and political figures, then uses that power just to make the Winchesters’ lives hell. He doesn’t effect any serious governmental changes as the president, he doesn’t make any decrees as the archbishop… it was honestly just fanservice and then he used that power to make Sam & Dean Public Enemies #1. That, and he fucked a random nobody Because The Plot Demands It.

That’s really something I could never wrap my head around. Lucifer is disgusted by humans. He sees them as filthy, unclean, base creatures.

What logical reason does he have to sleep with Kelly rather than turn her into wall paint at the mere suggestion that he might want to sleep with her? They made it seem like a little pressuring from an aide was enough to get Lucifer to set aside his distaste for humanity and sleep with her, despite showing earlier I’m the season how he manipulated another woman into carving his name into her own skin just for insinuating he might be interested in her.

What feasible reason did he have to sleep with Kelly? Fear of discovery? He obliterates her and cleans up the mess, snap-snap. Who’s gonna know? It’s not like he planned to be in that position long-term.

I really hate Kelly as a character however, in part because she was written to be expendable and I HATE characters that serve no purpose other than fodder. If you kill a character it should mean something.

So here’s how I would give us a Jack/Nephilim arc without stupid Lucifer Fanservice and Kelly and the dumb supermax prison break. Are you really gonna tell me that Billie wouldn’t just come and collect one of them as per their deal once she became Death-with-a-capital-D?

Lucifer is angry, he’s been betrayed by his Dad and he couldn’t go back to the Winchesters, and he’s just smashing shit and making their lives hell because he’s directing his anger at them. Because God or Amara gave them their mom back but left him with nothing. Again.

So he goes for the one person that can hurt them most— their mom. He comes to her when she’s still unsure about her place in this world and after she just slept with Ketch and is mostly a little disgusted with herself for stopping so low.

He goes to her in a dream as John, and tells her her husband is still suffering in Hell after all these years. But he can give her John back if she says yes. John is more familiar in this world anyways, he reminds her, the boys really need their father, someone they can count on.

And he possesses Mary, literally less than an hour after she had sex with Ketch. She doesn’t even have the chance to take morning-after pills. So she conceives and while the fetus matures an archangel is possessing her, so it draws power from him too to grow.

Bam, a nephilim (who will be an actual half-brother to Dean and Sam), being carried by a decidedly not expendable character, so there is actual urgency to the Boys’ attempts to save their mother.

You get Mary!Lucifer carrying a baby and slowly coming to the realisation that this can be his new purpose. It was an accident… but he is also this child’s parent and he has a responsibility to it. Maybe his Father left him and the world thinks he’s a monster... but this baby doesn’t k ow him yet and he will be a better Father than his own.

You get him changing tactics from using Mary to taunt the Winchesters to Playing keep-away and hiding from them to protect her and his child.

We can still have them eventually pinning Mary!Lucifer down and exorcising him from her, with Crowley trapping Lucifer in Nick, because I love it, but I think Mary carrying the Nephilim and Lucifer getting off his warpath and onto the path to parenthood is a much better arc for both those characters than the arcs they’ve been given thus far.

As for season 13? If we assume season 12 ends similarly to how it did, with Jack still being born but Sam and Dean finding a way to keep Mary alive throughout it, then you get Mary and Lucifer trapped in the apocalypse world together, we can get similar scenes to the almost-beautiful shows of character development through those short conversations Lucifer had with Mary. Only she’d have more insight into his thought process now, so we could get more in-depth conversations, and perhaps a tentative friendship as he continues to protect her despite her no longer carrying his child.

My biggest change to season 13 would be keeping Lucifer human longer. It’d be focused on transitioning the role of main villain from Lucifer to Apocalypse Michael, or Asmodeus. Lucifer may not be in the story as much, but the scenes he does have would develop his understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to be a father, coming to a head when he regains enough grace (through either Anael or natural means) to be formidable and rather than go it alone, asks the Winchesters to help him find his son. I’d preferably have him not be stupid and just stay tagging along with Cass after the Escape From Asmodeus.

I’d force him to experience humanity, to have to understand what it means to live knowing you are mortal and might die at any time. If he managed to work his way into the bunker via Cass, I’d focus on him rebuilding his role as a member of a family, giving and receiving help from the Winchesters in different ways.

He’d get his redemption arc, and then I’d have all his lessons and growth culminate in self-sacrifice at the end of season 13. Someone has to keep Michael in the Apocalypse World. Everyone else has to get across. So he tells the others to go through and he holds Michael off for as long as he can.

Maybe people would be upset for killing him off after finally redeeming him— but Supernatural isn’t about Lucifer, it’s about the Winchesters. And if I gave them an ally that powerful, there’s very little left to challenge them. So I’d have to kill him off in order to let the story continue.

But at least that way, he’d have the noble death he deserved, rather than being put down like the beaten horse he’s become.

…

Anyways, I agree with your thoughts of Lucifer deciding he still doesn’t love humanity but he doesn’t actively hate them anymore because that is actually the impression I got in seasons 12 & 13. His beef was with specific people, not humanity as a whole. He was angry with God and with tfw, and that’s it.

Thanks for the ask! Sorry for the Essay!

[sunken-standard]

How about 89 and 32 from Drabble challenge meme? I'm in love with all the universes! I have a soft spot for ‘Sherlock Holmes is an Alien’ verse though. This is me being annoying, just ignore me and write your thing. :D

Okay, so I ended up using both theoriginal prompts, which were already used before, and the new ones(44, 64 & 102) picked by rainmyselfinharmony.  I changed ‘he’ to'she’ because I had an idea.  Sherlock-Is-An-Alien 'verse; not somuch crack as fluff and a little angst.  And kind of boring, becauseI’m pants at exposition when it comes to worldbuilding.  I have waytoo much backstory in my head for all of this.

“Are you drunk?”/ “Hewould have really loved that…”/ “He used to be my bestfriend.”/ “If I could go back, I wouldn’t changeanything”/ “Buy me chocolates and tell me everything’sgoing to be okay”

“Are you drunk?” Molly asked,taking in the sorry sight before her.

“Maybe?  Drunk is such animprecise term.  Your language is so vague and full of…feelings… and impressions.  You’ll never get off thisrock until you embrace scientific imperialism as a complete… thing. Paradigm,” he said, sitting up in his chair before slumpingback into it.

“Oh-kay,” Molly said, shakingoff her coat.  "I’ll just make you some coffee then?“

"Coffee doesn’t actually—”

“Placebo effect.”

He hummed, either an agreement or adismissal, who knew.  She figured she’d make him the coffee anyway.

“So why are you drunk?”

“Told John about the baby and heinsisted on taking me to the pub.  Greg was there.  And Mycroft.  Ithink they’re shagging.  Can’t be sure, though, might have just eateneclairs together, which is close enough to shagging anyway.”

“Uh huh.  And what about the otherthing?”

“What other thing?”

“The thing about you being fromsomewhere that’s not Earth?”

“Shhh!”

“It’s after nine, Mrs. Hudson iseither already baked or off with Mr. Chatterjee.  No one’s going tofind out about your secret identity, Clark Kent.”

“Who?”

“Nevermind.”

Sherlock fell quiet, either dozing orcontemplating something, while Molly finished the coffee.  Decaf,because if she had to suffer, so did he.

“I want chocolates.  Buy mechocolates and tell me everything’s going to be okay.”

“Wh…hyy would I need to tell youeverything’s okay?” she asked, bending over him to set his mugon the side table.  "What did you do?“

"Ejaculated close enough to yourcervix that one lucky sperm cell was able to make it to the egg inyour fallopian tube, thereby impregnating you.  Or did you forgetalready?”

“So you’re having a freak-outabout being a dad?”

“John just kept going on and onabout how great it is, watching them grow and knowing you’d madesomething so wonderful, but it’s all bollocks.  It doesn’t matterwhat anyone does, they always get something wrong.  Look at Mycroft. You’ve met his parents, they’re practically saints!”

“What about your parents?  Yourreal ones?” Molly asked.  They hadn’t really talked a lot aboutany of it; Sherlock always found a way of avoiding real answers toher questions, except when it was something to do with the actualbiology of his species and how it might affect Marvin (which she wastold not to call the baby because our child is not a cartoon,Molly, I’m not even from Mars and I have nosense of humour.)

“Don’t have parents.”

“So you were an orphan?”

“No, we just… don’t have them. Once people in our society reach optimal sexual maturity, they make acontribution to a kind of collection centre.  Then their DNA ispaired off with the most suitable genetic match and the strongestembryos get incubated.”

“Wow, eugenics.  So you might havebrothers and sisters?  Are you raised together, or is it like BraveNew World?”

“I don’t know what that is,”he said.  

“It’s a book.  Maybe a film, too,I’m not really sure.  Science fiction.”

Sherlock made a noise.  "Molly,almost everything your people call 'science’ is fiction.“

"Oh, why thank you,” she saidlightly.

“Not you.  You’re very goodat… measuring… things.  And identifying other things.  It’s notyour fault your species only has the most rudimentary grasp of itsown biology, you work with what you have,” he said, making agenuine effort to compliment her.

She gave him a look and he stoppedtalking, proving that even he, who thought he knew everything, couldlearn.  After a beat, she prompted, “So you were saying aboutyour— family?”  She didn’t know if that was the word for it.

“Not exactly a family.  We’reraised in small groups of children of a similar age range and fromrelated lineages, more or less like a nursery.  Once physical andintellectual abilities, personalities, and proclivities start toemerge, we’re split up and moved into specialized groups.  A bit likeyour schools, actually, with houses and different academic tracks. And I do have one genetic sister, though the biological relationshipis unimportant in our society.  She used to be my best friend.” Sherlock sounded quite sober then; she wondered if it was some alienmetabolism thing or if he could control his state of inebriation orif he’d just been putting on a bit of a show.  There was a hint ofsadness there, too, she thought.

“Used to be?”

“We had a difference of opinionand now she’s on a prison planet orbiting the event horizon of ablack hole.  Intergalactic SuperMax.”

“Oh.  So you put your sister injail.”

“No, she put herself in jail.  Sheseized control of the interplanetary government for a time and in theprocess blew up two planets and made a third unfit for habitation forthe next eight millennia,” he said.

“Wow.”

“She was always ambitious.”

“So is that whole thing why youwere exiled?”

“Exiled?  Who said anything aboutexiled?” he said too quickly.

“You did, the night you told meabout yourself and we found out about Marv—the baby.”

“It wasn’t so much as one isolatedincident as a cumulative set of things.  I didn’t have anything to dowith Eurus’ coup, if that’s what you’re wondering.  I was in adifferent solar system at the time.  She’s actually the one who sentJim after me to bring me back.  I wonder if she knows he went outwith a bang.  She would have really loved that…” he said, awistful note to his voice.

Molly was beginning to think she mightbe carrying Rosemary’s Baby.

“So your sister knew Jim?  But Ithought he was from a different planet.”

“He was.  Planets are like postcodes to the rest of the galaxy.  Honestly, calling Earth a backwateris a kindness.”

“So we’re a bunch of hicks.”

“'Hicks’ implies that you’resimply a more rural part of a larger society.  You’re more like oneof the last uncontacted tribes of the Amazon.”

“Oh, how lucky of me, a simplesavage, to have been impregnated by Dr. Livingstone himself,”she muttered.

“That’s rather reductive,”Sherlock said, scowling.  She wasn’t sure if he meant towardshimself, or towards the uncontacted Amazonians. Probably better tojust let that one lie, lest her crazy half-alien baby hormones makeher slightly homicidal.

Then something occurred to her as sheremembered something he’d said a few minutes before.

“So you said you contributegenetic material…  Does that mean you might already have otherchildren out there?”  She really didn’t know how to feel aboutthat.  

“Nope.  Optimal age for a woman issometime in her early to mid-twenties, for a man it’s betweenthirty-five and forty-five to ensure longevity, so I’m right onschedule.  Too young when I left to make my contribution, though Iexpect they’d have skimmed me out of the gene pool anyway.  I supposeit’s possible I’m an uncle, though, as far as that goes.”

“You weren’t trying to get mepregnant, were you?  As an experiment?”  She tried not to letthe sudden anger she felt come through in her voice.  She failed.

“No, of course not.  You’re myfriend.  More than a friend.  Girlfriend, lover, partner, paramour,beloved,  whatever.  Not really my area, at least up until recently,”he said, dead-sober.  

Beloved, she thought.  Did thatmean…?  She couldn’t bring herself to ask.  She made anon-committal noise and went to take her mug back to the kitchen.

*

Sherlock lay with his face pressed toher belly, his hand resting on her hip.  He did that a lot, sometimeswhen they weren’t even in bed.

“Are you communicatingtelepathically with the baby?” she asked.  The question was onlyhalf in jest; there was still so much she didn’t know about him. About them, she supposed.

“Uh, no,” he said shortly. He didn’t offer any further explanation or make some kind ofsarcastic remark about her telly-watching habits.

“Sherlock,” she began afterthe silence dragged on, “do you hate it here?”  It had beena weird night and she was in a weird mood.  She didn’t know what shewas saying or why she was saying it, really.

“It’s not where I thought I’d endup and, as far as assignments go, it certainly leaves a lot to bedesired, but even if I had it to do all over again, even if I couldgo back, I wouldn’t change anything,” he said, turning hisface and pressing a kiss to her stomach.

It was so oddly tender that she feltherself getting choked up over it; she blamed the hormones.  She ranher fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck and tried notto let herself think too much about how impossible it all seemed.