#the worst witch season 3

[incorrect0hicsqueak]

Hecate: I'm actually deeply in love with Pippa, we've been dating for a couple of months now, we even have pet names.

Dimity, on the verge of tears: Why are you telling me this?

Hecate, grinning: Because you can't keep a secret to save your life and when you finally break, no one will believe you.

[hydr0phius]

Hecate in TWW17 S4 (and S3 if Indigo being yeeted back in time to when she went 'missing' is included): *Successfully performs Temporal magic flawlessly*

All of us: Oh yeah? Anyway- *it is never spoken of again*

Me 3 months later after having watched TNWW: TIME WITCH?????????

[devildomwriter]

Mammon Birthday Special 100 Fun Facts

1. Mammon states that he sleeps in the nude

2. Mammon despises witches and was nearly chopped into pieces by them once but Lucifer rescued him (although Lucifer was also the one to recommend they cut him into pieces)

3. When Levi tried attacking Mammon in his sleep, before he could even bring his foot down on Mammon, Mammon had him in a headlock

4. Mammon has a habit of stripping while drunk

5. Mammon does not like it when bath’s smell like flowers

6. Mammon’s dream for the future is having a carefree and playful life

7. Mammon starts his baths by washing his head

8. Mammon’s fear of ghosts and monsters originates a little after a year of living in the Devildom when he is possessed by a ghost

9. Mammon hates a Devildom song called “Corpse Rock”

10. Karasu refers to Mammon as noodle-boy

11. In earlier chats and Devilgrams Mammon is said to be a cat person, in later stories he is said to be a dog person, but his birthday information card again states he is more of a cat person

12. Mammon’s motto is “Money will makes the Devil turn millstones.”

13. Mammon’s daily activity is procrastinating in MC’s room

14. Mammon is obsessed with his shades and when he accidentally breaks them he’s devastated

15. According to Beelzebub, Mammon is bad at cooking and doesn’t make good peanut butter sandwiches

16. When Belphie and Beel helped Mammon pick out his human world outfit, he was so touched he bought them their human world clothes

17. Mammon states if the Devildom disappeared tomorrow he’d borrow as much money as he wanted to spend and not have to pay any of it back

18. Mammon’s favorite food in hell is Soy Sauce flavored cup ramen

19. In a love survey in B’s log, Mammin is said to be the active one pursuing love

20. Mammon is said to attract the “sassy and outgoing” types

21. The first thing Mammon does in the morning is check his stocks

22. In the love survey in B’s log when asked if he’d want to be bound by or bind his lover his response was “what do you want me to do? What did you say? Idiot!”

23. Mammon’s car is a Demonio 666 Lexura. The specific type was very rare and (unbeknownst to him originally) only with Lucifer and Diavolo’s help was he able to get it

24. Mammon easily forgets anniversaries and special dates of remembrance

25. Mammon is unable to express himself frankly

26. Mammon likes R&B music

27. Mammon is not a morning demon

28. One of the first things in the game said about Mammon by his brothers is that he’s a masochist

29. The results of a demon brain scanning app showed that Mammon’s thoughts are 90% money

30. Mammon’s worst RAD subject is Hexes and Curses

31. Mammon became Lucifer’s attendant in the Celestial Realm before Leviathan had even been born

32. Mammon was once almost roasted alive by hellfire

33. Mammon is a very bad liar and often admits exactly what he did when explaining that’s not what he did

34. Mammon was almost the one to tame Cerberus but Lucifer rushed in as he was about to confront the dog

35. Mammon is extremely protective of his little brothers

36. When forced to be honest, Mammon admits how much he admires and respects Lucifer

37. When Lucifer has a bad day, Mammon will bring him a drink and sandwich without being asked

38. Mammon was almost kicked out of the celestial realm thousands of years before the fall until Lucifer got through to him

39. Besides the people who were told what Simeon was going through in season 4, Mammon was the first one to notice something was wrong with him

40. Once Mammon was punished by Lucifer by being tickled until he laughed so hard he was humiliated

41. Mammon was given a serum with unknown results that caused him to tell MC he wanted to do many explicit things with them

42. Even Michael was unable to handle Mammon as an angel

43. Mammon is so fast that not even Diavolo and Lucifer can catch up to him

44. It’s been mentioned multiple times that Mammon uses crows as familiars

45. When Lucifer cannot trust Diavolo, he turns to Mammon

46. Mammon once called up Simeon to ask about significant lines in the TSL series so he could successfully hack into Leviathan’s akuzon account

47. Levi and Mammon sometimes perform standup comedy

48. When Mammon tried making a cake for Lucifer on his birthday in the Celestial Realm, he accidentally destroyed the kitchen, infuriating Michael

49. Mammon works as a model occasionally

50. In lesson 11 of the game Mammon claims he is well over 5,000 years old

51. In the celestial realm Mammon would often watch over the younger angels

52. Mammon once tried selling bird feathers to the lesser angels, claiming they were seraph feathers

53. In the celestial realm, Mammon once used the lesser angels to play a game of life-size chess

54. Mammon is said to have been the one who rallied and encouraged the angels in the Celestial war

55. Unlike his brothers, Mammon doesn’t often lose control of his powers

56. Whenever Mammon comes up with solutions to a crisis, they usually make things worse

57. Mammon struggles with math unless he thinks about it as calculating money

58. Mammon loves pandas because they’re profitable

59. Mammon always lets his brothers know about sales and deals going on

60. Mammon is the one who told Lucifer to always have pride and not regret his decision about the war

61. Mammon was cursed to speak like a cat during season 4 and Satan was unable to leave his side even getting Mammon to play with cat toys.

62. The first time Mammon lost control of his powers and transformed into a demon in the game is when he misunderstood a conversation between Levi and MC and assumed they had “relations”

63. Mammon is one of the only people who will indulge Asmodeus and watch his one-man fashion shows

64. When Mammon put too many meals on Satan’s tab, Satan called up Solomon and told him Mammon wanted to try his new recipe

65. Mammon has kidnapped MC multiple times

66. Mammon sometimes goes clubbing with Asmo after part time jobs

67. After Mammon sold all of their silverware he was fired from Ristorante Six

68. Mammon is sometimes referred to as MC’s pet

69. Mammon continues to insist he’s MC’s master not the other way around

70. Mammon sees Luke as his little brother

71. Student council members used to oversee detention until Mammon kept getting detention himself

72. Mammon once accidentally cast a spell on himself that made him burst into song

73. Mammon once accidentally turned himself into a dog

74. Mammon accidentally cursed himself and became extremely small. He was scared of how Beel was looking at him

75. When Mammon made the Miss’em dolls he became extremely wealthy but later blew it all on gambling

76. Mammon is too scared to watch horror movies alone and asks Lucifer to watch them with him

77. Mammon once attacked Lucifer with a three-prong pitch fork when he embarrassed him

78. Mammon has cried from fear of Simeon multiple times

79. Mammon was unable to even pretend to break up with MC

80. Mammon is one of the reasons you need a permit to get to the human world rather than do so freely

81. Mammon got a Mohawk once but his brothers teased him so much he immediately got rid of it

82. Mammon loves the Devildom version of Harry Potter

83. Mammon often threatens lesser/younger demons to hand over all their money

84. Mammon once stopped a bank robbery and demanded the money as compensation

85. Mammon accidentally cut down a Christmas tree gifted to Lucifer from Diavolo

86. Mammon was tricked by Lucifer to gamble against everyone he’d ever screwed over all at once

87. Mammon calls going to the horse races “seeing the horsies” to try and convince MC to tag along

88. When he was Lucifer’s attendant, Mammon sought for a rare Crystal Lily flower to gift him but got lost and Lucifer had to come find him

89. Mammon used Serenity Manor as collateral in gambling as soon as he got to the human world, almost forcing everyone to go right back to the Devildom

90. When coming up with proposal’s Mammon forced Simeon, Solomon, and Luke to participate in a flash mob

91. Mammon has a blood oath with MC and Leviathan

92. Mammon accidentally won Henry 1.0 while trying his first Devildom ice cream. He was nearly eaten.

93. Mammon owns an AK-47 after winning it over in a game against Leviathan

94. Mammon fees guilty that he didn’t have a grand reason to follow Lucifer to hell rather than just feeling like it

95. Mammon once lost a bet to a bunch of rabbits

96. Mammon prefers spicy foods to sweets

97. Mammon extorted Satan for 50,000 Grimm in exchange for throwing him a baseball

98. Mammon’s highest known rank in the celestial realm within the game is a Throne

99. When Mammon was turned into a Test Name box he got used to it immediately, disappointing Beelzebub

100. Mammon died in season 4 for a few minutes but was brought back by Barbatos

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil!

I don't want to sound like a killjoy, but I'm concerned about David Tennant's family being involved in the second season of Good Omens (or Michael Sheen's partner Anna Lundberg in a future season three). I absolutely have nothing against them, I loved Staged just like everyone else, but this is exactly the matter for me: casting them in the series would automatically make me think about Staged or something else while I'm watching GO, and it would distract me from the plot and the magic of it. It would feel somehow like a family reunion, no matter how talented they are as actors (not to mention that there would be nepotism accusations, above all against David. I hope this won't affect the popularity rating, since season three is still hypothetical). I'm not the only one who thinks this might be an issue, from what I read on blogs here on Tumblr (and on the Internet in general) but I feel like there's a sort of tension, like people are scared to say it out loud, because some fans get the wrong idea and accuse them of hating Georgia or Anna or Ty (and that's why I'm asking this anonymously, I don't want to start a fight). I hope you get what I'm saying, it only felt fair to me to let you know whatever concerns some fans might have, and maybe even give you a perspective you weren't considering? Of course you have the last word on this, and if you think this is not a big deal, I trust your judgement.

I wish you a fantastic day! (And sorry for my English, I'm not native, I tried my best!)

Yeah. So, I find that a little creepy, not very creepy, but definitely a bit.

I thought we were lucky to get Peter Davison in Good Omens 2. (He didn't audition. We offered him the part, as I've been a fan of his since 1978, and All Creatures Great and Small. He crushes it, and is heartbreaking, funny, and still somehow the moral compass of the episode he's in.) Ty Tennant auditioned, along with a number of other actors, and got the part because he did it best. (I didn't know who his family was when we cast him. I just liked the audition tape.)

If you're hunting down family connections, David's mother-in-law, Ty's grandmother, Sandra Dickinson, is in the Audible Sandman, too, as one of the Three Witches/Fates/Eumenides etc. And she was cast in it two years before David Tennant (although probably around the same time Michael Sheen was asked to be Lucifer). (I've been a fan of Sandra's since she was Trillian in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 1981.)

Anyway, I'm sorry you're worried about Peter and Ty's performances, although I promise you have nothing to worry about, and I'm sorry that you worry that our possibly casting Georgia and Anna in a hypothetical and not-yet actually a real thing Season 3 might make people think of Staged and make them not able to enjoy Good Omens any longer. (Had I known people were this easily shaken I wouldn't have appeared in Staged either, in case my name at the front of Good Omens shattered the fragile illusion and revealed to people that the David Tennant and Michael Sheen who play Crowley and Aziraphale are actors.)

Starting in 2017 I was the recipient of mind-mangling quantities of Tumblr abuse for casting David Tennant and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale and Crowley, which was, many people made very clear to me, the worst casting in the whole entire utter history of casting, and something that Good Omens would never recover from, because for a start neither of them looked like the versions in people's heads, and I'd also miscast them badly because everyone knew that if you had to cast Sheen and Tennant, Michael had to play Crowley and David had to put on some weight and play Aziraphale. (It wasn't until May 2019 that people stopped grumbling.) So people worrying I'm going to cast Anna and Georgia in a season that hasn't even been commissioned in parts that haven't been written just makes me smile.

I hope this helps.

[zepskies]

Podcast Interview With Idling in the Impala: "Y/N and Let Y/N…"

Here we go! Sandra and Kasey, the lovely hosts of @idlingintheimpalapodcast — the podcast for all things SPN and fanfiction — invited me on the pod for an interview…

We chatted about Dean Winchester and Jensen Ackles’ early roles, the best and worst seasons of SPN, the joys and pains of writing Soldier Boy, and much, much more.

That’s right, there be some hot takes coming in this convo, and I had an absolute blast with these two! (And like I said in Sunday's announcement, I’m also putting my name and my voice out there for the first time! 😆)

So if any of that sounds interesting, feel free to dive in!

(**Important Note: Just to preface, we recorded this back in June, so it was before I posted certain stories or even started developing Lost on You. It was also when Tumblr activity/engagement was going through a spring/summer slowdown lol.

Links to all the fics and podfics we mentioned are at the end of this post.)

Have a listen: ⤵️

Interview Timestamps –

(Plus fic recs, SPN writer shoutouts, and more!)

1:44 – Who’s your guy: Sam or Dean?

3:35 – Getting into Supernatural for the first time (and seeing “Deanisms” in Jensen’s early roles).

10:15 – We debate the best and worst seasons of SPN: talking Mary Winchester, the British MOL, MOC Dean vs. Demon Dean, Chuck/God villainy, “jump the shark” moments, and that ending.

30:29 – Favorite SPN characters besides Sam and Dean.

32:34 – Writing fanfiction, joining Tumblr, and writing reader inserts vs. OCs.

38:05 – To “Y/N” or not “Y/N,” and the power of 2nd person. (**Disclaimer: Despite my hot take on this, I’ve loved a lot of stories by authors who use Y/N in reader insert stories.

Also, if I’m remembering the book You and its characters incorrectly forgive me, it’s been like 5 years since I read it lol.) 

51:00 – Favorite fanfic tropes in romance, the joys and challenges of writing Soldier Boy (AKA: the Original Asshole), and attempting to humanize Ben in Break Me Down.

Shoutout to @deans-spinster-witch always for giving me the inspiration to write BMD. 💚

Why We Love The Boys – A review of Supes Ain’t Always Heroes

1:07:57 – Engaging with readers, tips on increasing engagement, optimizing your Tumblr blog, writing schedules and processes, and incorporating reader feedback into stories.

1:26:38 – Sandra graciously narrated Midnight Espresso (Dean Winchester x Plus-sized Latina!Reader). We chat about what sparked the idea for the ME-verse, self-representation in fanfic, feeding Dean, loving Dean, and writing about culture and ethnicity in the fandom space.

1:38:26 – Chatting about the inspirations behind Smoke Eater, a firefighter!Dean AU; law enforcement procedurals, House MD, and researching for stories.

1:44:30 – Which Jackles character is the easiest or most fun to write?

1:47:39 – The challenges of writing Sam vs. Dean.

1:53:15 – Shoutouts! To some of my favorite SPN authors. I could only remember a few people off the top of my head (stupid me), but I love all of you!!

@waynes-multiverse @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior @luci-in-trenchcoats @rizlowwritessortof @waywardxwords

@deanwinchesterswitch @deanbrainrotwritings @deanwritings @spnbabe67 @thatonewriter15

@justagirlinafandomworld @kaleldobrev @artyandink @princessmisery666 @wayward-dreamer (– and many more.)

2:00:40 – How I came up with my username.

2:05:04 – Kasey’s Secret Question…

2:07:38 – Advice to fanfic writers and creatives for inspiration and/or wisdom.

2:16:35 – Sandra and Kasey’s lovely outro: self-representation in fandom, escapism, diverse voices, and more. (“Reach out a hand. Touch somebody. …Not like that.”)

📖 Fics Mentioned:

Sandra: @talltalesandbedtimestories -

Some Sunny Day Series – Dean Winchester x OFC - (I'm in the process of reading this entire series and it's been a joy to read! 💜)

Past Due – Dean Winchester x Reader

The Iceman Cometh – Dean Winchester x Reader

Cowboy Canter (Original Fiction) – Inspired by cowboyish Dean/Jensen.

Kasey: @sam-is-my-safe-word -

English Cottage-verse – Sam Winchester x Reader (I've read it and it's fantastic! 💜)

(K)not for sale – Soldier Boy x Dean Winchester

Alex (Zep/Me) -

Break Me Down – Soldier Boy/Ben x F. Reader

Midnight Espresso (& the Series Masterlist) – Dean Winchester x Plus-sized Latina!Reader

Dream With Me – Dean Winchester x Plus-sized Latina!Reader

Smoke Eater – Firefighter!Dean Winchester x F. Reader

Every Second Counts – Russell Shaw x F. Reader

🎙️ Stories/Podfics Sandra has narrated for me:

Podfic Playlist

And please remember to check out all the other awesome interviews, narrated podfics, and fun topics covered by Sandra and Kasey on the Idling in the Impala Podcast!

[wonderer399]

Sebastian : Why he is Perfect for Ciel

Ever since I was in the black butler back in 2015, I was like 17 years old...I was obsessed with BB...I shipped Sebaxciel very hard, I still do and will continue to do it and none of your petty 'anti' opinions will make me change my mind like ever. You are free to judge me and I will judge you 'anti' back as well...You guys think that you are being 'self righteous' ? Tbh in reality you guys exactly sound like 'Alicent Hightower' from 'House of the Dragon' after she was living her miserable life with her 3 annoying kids and had to stick her nose into Rhaenera's bussiness because her 'morals' goes against what Rhaenera was doing....Therefore, stop being annoying and you guys better keep your own opinion to yourselves...I'm 25 now...and I will still ship SebaXciel..until my last breath...I may start the fandom very late , however I have more sense and adulting going on my brain to judge what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'...and what should be kept in the 'greyzone'

I have always defended Sebastian, still do and will always be defending him because he deserves it. Sebastian and Ciel both NEED each other. You guys might think Sebastian NEEDS ciel more...its the other way around ..CIEL NEEDS SEBASTIAN and without Sebastian HE CAN NOT SURVIVE A DAY WITHOUT BEING KIDNAPPED!!!!! OR WORSE BEING KILLED!!!! SEBASTIAN IS CIEL'S LIFE SUPPORT!!!

Sebastian keeps to be surprisingly being 'Kind' towards 'Ciel' by every chapter and each chapter their bond becomes stronger than ever, mostly because due to Agni's influence. And I remember exactly Ciel saying that 'If my soul He wants, then I will make sure to get my revenge properly'...Ciel KNOWS what did he sign up for with sebastian !!! CIEL MAY LOOK LIKE A CHILD ...BUT MENTALLY HE CAN SELL ADULTS IN THE BLACK MARKETS 10 TIMES WITHOUT ANY HESITATION THOSE WHO ARE AGAINST HIM ....He is that cunning!!! We have seen Ciel's Kind side as well...Ciel and Sebastian both knows when and to whom to be 'cunning' or 'Kind'...Both Sebastian and Ciel are Extremely Extremely cunning and will and does 'BEND' the rules of the game at their own advantage through their extremely calculated and refined dirty tricks and schemes ....Playing fair is not their 'concern' ... but 'winning' is ....if Ciel is the 'King' in the Chessplayer, Sebastian is the Ultimate Cheat code and Chessboard in the game ....and pawns are the other characters ....Sebastian can't be the pawn ...Sebastian simply sets up the helpful environment for Ciel to win...Sebastian simply assists Ciel in his own game ....

Sebastian is the STRICTEST, SMARTEST, GENTLEST and NICEST ( may not be the kindest ...but he is still trying his best ...he gives me more like 'TOUGH LOVE' vibes your asian households will give off ) guy to be able pull up with all of Ciel's bratty tantrums .... ( if you even dare to give off the same exact attitude to your parents as Ciel does to sebby time to time....In the white household you won't be affected that much but in the black/latina/asian household, parents will start beating with flipflops no more attitudes.... compared to that Ciel is in 'heaven' as Sebby keeps tolerating ) Sebastian STAYS with Ciel through thick and thin ...Sebby never EVER abondons Ciel ( I don't count filler episodes of season 1 because its not Cannon ) ....Sebby is not that kind of 'mannerless' character who would force himself into 'Ciel's' arm ..sebby HIGHLY VALUES MANNERS,GRACEFULNESS and AESTHETICS...Sebby knows his self worth... we even see sebby getting 'blushed' cheeked whenever ciel compliments him for his good work and that what motivates sebby to stay with ciel through their journey together...they both appriciate, tolerate, they get and understand each other and the same time they are very fond of each other as well...

In the emerald witch arc, it is very evident that when sebby saw ciel was at his worst state ...sebby gone mad and destroyed the entire german military single handedly...ciel is very PRECIOUS to him...once ciel realized how sad Sebby would have felt when he kept rejecting sebby touch...after waking up from psychic trauma, Ciel immidiately compansated sebby with constantly 'touching' sebby 'affectionately' ...its like the two lovers being aparted for wayy too long and when they meet again, they can't let go of each other that easily...their bond just keeps getting stronger...and yall antis be burning lol ...because we shippers got the latest TEA DATE in the chapter 212 !! in the victorian era it was not 'acceptable' to sit 'butlers' and 'noble man' together ...let alone sipping tea and flirting with each other...its so sad that you guys don't like something that's fine! ...but don't dictate us and don't rubb your moral dicks into our faces ...keep it in your pockets

SEBA X CIEL IS THE GREATEST UNCONDITIONAL LOVE SHIP EVER!!! THIS IS THE PUREST FORM OF LOVE !!! SEBBY LOVES CIEL FOR HIS SOUL POTENTIAL REGARDLESS OF HIS GENDER OR HIS AGE!! SEBBY IS WILLING TO WAIT FOREVER AS LONG AS IT TAKES FOR CIEL TO TAKE HIS REVENGE!!! SEBBY RESPONDED TO CIEL'S CALLING IN THE 1ST PLACE !!

[justalilpearlie]

AITA for torturing my soulmate after he ditched me?

I know how the title sounds, but bare with me for a second.

So for context, a couple months ago I (27F) was put in a hunger games sort of death game with a couple friends where we'd have a random amouth of lives assigned to us and the last one standing would win. We could gift eachother lives or trade with them. To make it short, I got 6 lives, putting me in dark green, but my ally (28M), let's call him S, got 2, and was on his yellow life. So we partnered up and I ended up gifting him TWO of my lives this season, and we became best friends.

The problem started about a month ago, after he won last season and we moved into the next one, yet another death game, this time with only 3 lives each, however, there was a twist. Basicly we were all soulbounded to another person there, and when one took damage their soulmate did aswell.

Everyone went on their own separate ways, looking for resources to start off and testing if anyone they met along the way was their soulmate or not. I did this aswell! And ended up sticking around my friend M (33M). We separate for a little bit, and when I find him again M asks me if I wanna go to the NETHER with him. Worst. Mistake. Of. My. Life.

But I thought "Yeah, a quick trip to the Nether cant hurt, as long as we're careful, our soulmates wont mind!", thats where I was WRONG. Once we got back we called over everyone else in the server who hadn't found their soulmates yet, and two people quickly arrived, S and C (42F), both of which were my friends and allies from the first season! M made us play a little game called "Lost and Bound", or would've if we hadn't figured out early who my soulmate was, when a goat attacked S.

Turns out S was my soulbound and C was M's! And they weren't very happy about our little adventure. They called us cheaters, told us we abandoned them, said they'd be eachothers soulmates, and practically broke up with us… in a soulbound way? They also claimed to HATE us for just a small Nether trip. I was heartbroken I'm ngl. My two best friends and past allies, abandoned me just like that, and claimed I was the cheater!

Not only that, but M was quick to ditch me aswell! He even said he blamed me for it. After that I was left alone with my precious dog Tilly (??F), I built a tower alone since I had nobody left with me. But guess what? Everyone started calling me a WITCH and S stared acting like I was some sort of "crazy ex girlfriend".

This is where I feel like I might've been wrong with how I acted. So my other friend, lets call him R(41M), gave me the idea of taking small amounts of damage to "torture" S. I know its bad, but I was very angry at him for what he'd done and said at the time. So I took R up on it and accepted his powdered snow gift, I'd chill on it often to "tickle" S and scare him a little bit. I'd do this almost every day, sometimes standing next to a cactus aswell once I got one.

But in the end, M, C, S and I teamed up together until we all turned red. From then on I kind of went all in at C and might've sent my pack of dogs after her… and of course killed M in the process. Then S told me to meet him where it all started, before blowing himself up with tnt to let me take the win.

It's been a bit since that happened and we're probably gonna start another of these games soon. I've forgiven him for what he did, and it seems like he did aswell, but… I cant help but feel a bit guilty for all that pain I put him through. AITA?

Edit: I also forgot to mention how C tried to burn my dog?? So I was also very pissed at her about it.

[thestargayzingetherian]

Shadow Weaver's "Redemption"

So I often see posts going around about Shadow Weaver's death scene and how she "deserved worse" or "doesn't even count as a redemption". In my opinion, like a lot of She-Ra stuff online, it ignores a lot of the nuance of the show's actual writing.

I don't really call her arc a redemption arc... but I do see this scene in particular as her finally, at long last realising how much harm she's caused to Catra and Adora. By keeping them apart... she's actually made Adora weaker, ironically, all those years of manipulation... and it's been for nothing. Adora isn't her perfect little pawn, she's weak and dying of green prime virus running through her and hurting at the thought of her best friend dying to Prime's little pet cthulu.

I see way too many people say that SW should have died sooner and to be honest, yes, if this was any other story, yeah they'd have probably killed her around season 3. If they genuinely did want her to have a redemption, they'd have made her arc in seasons 3 and 4 more genuine, have her work to really be an ally of the rebellion and not being the manipulative witch she'd always been. But that's not what Nate Stevenson wanted to do. By keeping SW around as long as the show did, they got do more with her and show how someone like her is in various environments, both in the Horde and on the side of the rebellion.

I genuinely think this WAS SW doing a "one good thing" like Catra did. And to be honest, it was the only good thing she could really do. There is no way that if she did survive this that she could truly make ammends for the harm and cycles of abuse she perpetuated, especially not at this point in the story.

Hordak was at least under the influence of his programming and war was the only thing he knew when he started the Horde. Sure, he's not entirely absolved of his actions in the war, but he's at least more of a victim and his compassion for Entrapta show's he's at least worthy of a second chance. Shadow Weaver was clearly a woman driven by power, a desperate need for control and that was her own choice, likely from being scared of being weak. (I believe she was telling the truth when she told Catra that Catra reminded her of herself, that she was once a weak and hurt young woman who hated being weak and wanted to be stronger and that began her lust for power.)

Also, what she says to Catra and Adora? "It's much too late for me, but your story is just beginning. I'm so proud of you. You're welcome."

She could have very easily just said sorry, much like Catra did when she rescued Glimmer.... but would ANY apology be really able to make up for what she did? No, probably not. Instead its just... "you're welcome" as if to say "you're finally rid of me, congrats". Because she knows that pain now and how it tore Catra and Adora apart. And the fact she does this with her mask off, without any hint of lies, as if to be finally honest for the first time in so long.

I know it's fun to dunk on SW and say she's the worst ever and yeah, I do enjoy that too... but I also know what her arc, if you can call it, that is about and why she is in the story. Like everything in She-Ra, she has a lot of nuance to her, even if you didn't realise it.

[lizzieraindrops]

Destiny is a story about shapes and grief.

I think I may have figured out Destiny. I don't think the primary conflict between the Light and the Darkness is the philosophical issue we thought it was.

I got thinking about it after all this talking, with many others but especially @jazzhandsmcleg, about the way all of The Witch Queen DLC and its 4 seasons have had overarching narratives surrounding trauma and cycles of violence and grief, and the way the Darkness and the Light are characterized by their different approaches to it.

In TWQ, Savathûn is given a true second chance for her species in the Light. But as Ikora points out, she struggles to break free of the learned patterns of the Darkness, continuing the pattern of deception and violence.

Same with Season of the Risen - it’s the Warlords and Dark Ages all over again, but this time it’s the Hive. It forces once again to ask: what does it mean to be given a second chance if this is what you do with it? Temper this with Saladin’s story about the girl from the Dark Ages who he protected, but who became a cruel mortal Warlord in her own right. Crow objects to the mental torture of the Hive Lightbearers and he tries to break from the cycle of interspecies violence, but unintentionally ends up continuing it by killing the Psion and heightening tensions between humans and the Uluran.

Season of the Haunted!!! Literally, the entire thing is about confronting your traumas and greatest fears and the worst parts about yourself and beginning to heal them, making something better from them. Completely changing the game by turning Nightmares that torment into Memories that guide you. Crow with the memory of Uldren, Zavala with that of Safiyah, Caiatl that of Ghaul - and most importantly, resolution focuses on how they, specifically have been held back from healing by their self-incriminating Nightmares. It challenges the cycle of continuing violence on a very personal level. Eris even has patrol dialogue describing the a Nightmare as a thing of pain craving only more pain: "Such is the cycle."

Season of Plunder brings up the very same questions on a much higher organizational level. It gives us Eido and Eramis taking very different jaded vs. new-hope approaches to the legacy of the Whirlwind, asking: can we change? Are we defined by generational trauma forever? Can we continue to grow and change for the better even though it can never be undone? Though Eido is clearly young and naïve, we're clearly given the opportunity and narrative nudge to sympathize with her desire and hope for growth and redemption, both for the Eliksni overall, and for Eramis in particular.

And we're not even done with Season of the Seraph, but it already goes incredibly hard asking the same questions, again from a more personal angle. How far, and through how many generations is trauma transmitted? From the Bray family to Rasputin, to Felwinter to Osiris to Ikora – how do we fix this? How do we fix this? How do you defeat an enemy who IS war itself? What can you do to end an endless cosmic cycle of violence?

Go back and back and back in Destiny's lore even back to D1, and the majority of conflicts seem driven by this cycle of grief and revenge and violence. The entire line of humanity's war with the Hive goes back through Oryx's grief for Crota and the First Crota Fireteam and Eriana-3's grief for her wife Wei Ning. Even the Hive siblings' pact with the Worm Gods, though manipulated by Rhulk, was driven by the pain and grief they endured for themselves and their people, and wanting to escape that cruel pattern. The entire predicament of the Eliksni and their conflict with humans is driven by the trauma and grief and loss of the Whirlwind. Even Caiatl's empire, a conquering force that would be highly regarded by the sword logic, now must reckon with the same kind of loss in the Fall of Torobatl.

How do you escape this cycle and stay free of it?

I think, this year, we are finally seeing the beginnings of an answer.

I can't highly enough recommend the TWQ Collector's Edition lorebook (page scans & transcript) and The Hidden Dossier (page scans & transcript) that immediately follows it. What I've been calling Ikora's theory of "memory and grace" that she develops through the course of these two lore books is a balanced philosophy of memory/Darkness and grace/Light (which honestly deserves an entire post of its own). I think it clearly points toward the final resolution the story of the conflict between the Darkness and the Light.

In light of this, something in the Calus part of the new Lightfall CE lorebook (images, transcript) really jumped out at me.

“The doomed and the damned left the record of their downfall in the OXA. Your star got its name from the oldest myths in that archive. And when your mother told your father that story…the star became your name. A prayer that all will go as it must…and the way it must go is struggle.” “Aiat.” Not a word in Ulurant or any other Cabal tongue. “But Caiatl means something else..” “Yes. ‘It may not always go as it needs to go.’ A good name for a soldier." "A strange name for a daughter," I say. "Your father chose it for your mother's sake. Out of love."

And because the parallel is so overwhelmingly striking, I am once again going to reference philosophy/worldbuilding from the Young Wizards universe, which has great resonance with Destiny lore and which Bungie has been long aware of and has even been referenced in Forsaken-era canon lore.

“all the fair things skewed, all the beauty twisted by the dark Lone Power watching on his steed. If only there were some way he could be otherwise if he wanted to! For here was his name, a long splendid flow of syllables in the Speech, wild and courageous in its own way—and it said that he had not always been so hostile; that he got tired sometimes of being wicked, but his pride and his fear of being ridiculed would never let him stop. Never, forever, said the symbol at the very end of his name, the closed circle that binds spells into an unbreakable cycle and indicates lives bound the same way.” [...] “Nita bent quickly over the Book and, with the pen, in lines of light, drew from that final circle an arrow pointing upward, the way out, the symbol that said change could happen—if, only if—and together they finished the Starsnuffer’s name in the Speech, said the new last syllable, made it real.” Excerpt From: Diane Duane. “So You Want to Be a Wizard, New Millennium Edition.”

CAIATL’S NAME IS LITERALLY THE UP-AND-OUT SYMBOL.

I know I'm probably only talking to the handful of Destiny players from the (very small) Young Wizards fandom, but what you need to know is that this moment is pivotal and sets up the series-long theme of hope for an eventual exit from the cycle. It's the incredibly small, overwhelmingly improbable possibility of a second chance, a new start for the Lone Power, the source of all strife and suffering, who itself is driven by loss and pain. A concept of extended grace that is inherently tied to the philosophy of the Light.

“Billions of years, it took. All the redemptions there have ever been went toward this; from the greatest to the least. And finally in the fullness of time you came along, and took my role, of your own will, and woke up a race powerful enough to change the whole Universe, and gave them the fire.” She glanced up at the mobiles and smiled. “How could he resist such a bait? He took the gamble: he always does. And losing, he won.” [...] “The Defender reached down and put a hand into the shadow. “And we are going where such matters are transcended… where all his old pains will shift. Not forgotten, but transformed. Life in this universe will never have such a friend. And as for His inventions… look closely at Death, and see what it can become.” The long, prone darkness began to burn, from inside, the way a mountain seems to do with sunset. “Brother,” the Defender said. “Come on. They’re waiting.” Excerpt From: Diane Duane. “High Wizardry New Millennium Edition.”

This is the devil’s second chance, its homecoming. Grace among the memory. How do we heal this? By fixing it. By making and TAKING that opportunity of grace.

Likewise, Destiny is shaping up into its own universe’s story of this Reconfiguration, the remaking of everything that exists through the act of a second chance, both offered and taken, with full awareness of the irreversibility of harm already caused.

Destiny isn’t the story of the light and the darkness fighting each other. That happens, but that’s not what it’s ABOUT.

It’s “And I know exactly what we are. We’re best frenemies with a history of intense mutual hurt and messy reconciliation, leaving a deep tenderness as well as an almost impenetrable knot of scars. What could be simpler?” (Chalco)

It's “For so long, I believed peace was beyond my reach. No more. I have found it in guiding others down the same path that saved me. But… I might allow myself to want more than peace. What, I am not certain. Is joy the word? Might I find that again?” (Eris)

It's “Second chances… hm. Turns out I've been using mine wrong. I thought being a Guardian was my destiny. That wielding the Light for good was the most I had to offer. But it's clear now. This is what the Traveler chose me for. I was reforged in the Light for a purpose. To remake something dead and gone… into something beautiful. To learn how to forge something new from what we were. Everything Uldren did to the Reef, the Scorn… Fikrul. I have a responsibility — no — a calling to make them whole. And… I can't replace Cayde. But I can cover his old patrols — maybe organize the Hunters a bit, if they'll let me. Clean up some of my mess. I don't know if I can fix everything Uldren left broken… but I can try.” (Crow)

We aren’t defeating the Darkness. That’s never what it’s been about. It’s about breaking the cycle of trauma and grief with memory and grace. We're transcending the Final Shape, but we're not here to destroy it or become it. We’re harmonizing the Darkness and the Light into a sustainable balance to create something new from the wounded remains.

We're here to heal the broken relationship between the Winnower and the Gardener.

That's all that it is, in the end. They had a falling out, and now they hurt, and they hurt each other, and everything else, forever. Breaking free from that cycle begins and ends with them.

Is that fair? No, it's not.

But Destiny is – unhingedly, brilliantly, paradoxically – a FPS game about how to stop killing each other, growing ever more into a framework of restorative and reparative justice.

The story says, we are all culpable, we have all done awful shit and have endless potential to do more awful shit – AND, most critically, we all have the potential to do better (grace). AND, the act of making the conscious choice to do so and letting that happen is the only way for things to get better (memory).

The Collapse happened and it was horrible, the Red War happened and it was horrible, the Great Disaster happened and it was horrible, Twilight Gap happened and it was horrible...AND?? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO RESPOND? The Whirlwind happened and it was horrible! The Fall of Torobatl happened and it was horrible! Your species' Choice was stolen and you became the most prolifically violent killers in the universe and it was and is horrible! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Are you going to make it more horrible? Or are you going to make it BETTER????

Are you going to fight for the Final Shape, or for the gentle kingdom ringed in spears?

[incorrect0hicsqueak]

Ada: What are you talking about

Hecate? You love it here!

Hecate: I'm not sure I do, I think I've just developed Stockholm syndrome.

[tylermileslockett]

The Sisters Graeae (#4 in my "Quest firnthe Gorgon Head" series)

   As Perseus was the son of Zeus, the gods heard his prayers. Athena answered, offering strategic information on the only ones who knew the locations of the The Gorgon sisters, were in fact, another set of three sisters; the sisters Graeae. These are three gray haired old hags with swan like bodies, who share but one eye and tooth between them. Hermes, God of travelers and ally to mortals, also offered his guidance to the distant realm. After many weeks of difficult trekking, Perseus found himself on the island of Cisthene, in the craggy land of the sisters Graeae. Sneaking upon the women, he waited until they passed their one eye between them, snatching it away, and threatening to heave it into the sea. The Graeae gave in, revealing the location of the Gorgon sisters. But it would be no easy task. The gorgon sisters had golden wings, bronze hands, snakes for hair, and worst of all, their gazes turned men to stone. Perseus would need sacred weapons for such a mission. And, according to Athena, there was only one group who could provide them: the sea nymphs.

   With the 3 sisters we can see the first of many examples of the “triple goddess” archetype in Old world mythology. Some are represented with one body and three forms (triple bodied Hekate) while most are three individuals. (i.e. “The Morai” (fates), “the Horai” (seasons) “The Furies,” “The Hesperides,”(graces) and “the Gorgons.”) We can see other examples from other ancient cultures, like the Norse “Norns” or the Christian holy trinity of the father, son, and holy spirit. Even Shakespeare, a student of Greek myth and poetry, chose three witches to prophecy to Macbeth.

Like this art? It will be in my illustrated book with over 130 other full page illustrations coming in June to kickstarter.  to get unseen free hi-hes art subscribe to my email newsletter

Follow my backerkit kickstarter notification page.

Thank you for supporting independent artists! 🤘❤️🏛😁

[dragonfly0808]

The Trix’s Fates

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE END OF SEASON 3 AND WHAT HAPPENS TO THE TRIX

Well well well… I’ve got some explaining to do.

I knew from very early on that I wanted the Trix to have a tragic ending, with one of them dying, one of them going crazy and one of them just being utterly defeated at the loss of the other two. After some debating, I pretty quickly knew who would end up with which fate.

So… I’ll go by parts, going from oldest to youngest, starting with:

Icy

Icy is the one who goes crazy, losing her mind.

I chose her for this since she’s the leader and the oldest, and losing one of her sisters leads her to fully going off the deep end, she goes too far, gets in too deep.

At the beginning of her story, Icy is very controlled, very paicient and has a full plan. She’s crafty, resourceful and has a family history with dark magic and the dragon flame.

But what sets her off the road is no longer fully being in control due to being out of balance after losing a sister and no longer caring about what happens to her. She has no real end-plan, she has no real goal other than to get back at the Winx and hurt them as much as she can. She was no longer interested in the Ancestral Witches until her plan of collapsing Andros was thwarted.

Icy has a lot of warnings, the very first being when Darcy decides to leave, refusing to stay and watch Icy get herself killed. Instead of letting go and running away like Darcy begs her to do, Icy chooses revenge.

She goes to her home planet, her uncle tries to dissuade her, to warn her of the dangers of the magic that has taken the lives of too many family members, she kills him in order to access that same magic.

She has chances to stop, but she chooses revenge, she feels like she has no other purpose, no other road to take other than to finish what she started the very first time she attacked Bloom.

Icy goes crazy and loses control because it’s the complete opposite of who she was when the story started, she loses everything, included herself.

She choses revenge, choses to continue her family’s mistakes, choses to take the risk of awakening the Ancestral Witches but in the end, she loses it all to those very choices.

Stormy

I went a bit deeper into Stormy’s fate in another post but I chose Stormy to be the one who dies to show her being a bit of a self-fullfiling prophecy, her rage, the very thing that often gives her an edge in battle and helps her in her power to become stronger, is the very thing that kills her.

I chose Stormy to be the one killed also because I had very specific storylines in mind for Darcy and Icy but as for Stormy I just felt like dying would actually be the most interesting, unexpected thing I could do with her.

I thought it could be a very tragic thing to see Stormy, who we know to be fearless and brash and impulsive… die due to a mistake, die in fear of something that she created.

In case you somehow haven’t noticed, I love angst

Darcy

Darcy is the last one standing… well… ‘standing’. I thought that my version of Darcy would be the most devastated to be left alone.

Darcy in my rewrite, has never really been alone. At first she had her brother, then she had Riven, then she had the Trix.

She’s the youngest, the one that they want to protect the most.

To her, being alone is truly the worst case scenario, which is why I chose her to have that fate cause I am cruel. Darcy herself tells Riven in their final goodbye that she’s not used to being alone and that she isn’t good at it.

She gives up. A big part of her dies with her sisters and she turns her back to the ideas of revenge and dark magic.

She was always the ‘lesser evil’ of the Trix, which I feel makes it even more tragic that she ends up so very alone.

Darcy is betrayed once by her brother, being left alone, then she betrays Riven, leaving him on his own, and in the end, Stormy is killed and, seeing Icy is heading down a road that will end in death or worse, Darcy can’t bring herself to watch, to keep going.

————

The reason why I wanted to overall make the Trix’s fates so drastic and tragic was for 2 main reasons.

First off, as a contrast. We see the Winx keep growing and becoming more powerful, while the Trix, as a commenter once said, peaked in high school and have just been going downhill, not truly developing their power after becoming convinced they were at the top of their game in s1.

The second was to show consequences and how high the stakes were for s3. To go all in with the angst and show how, the very first villains of Veiled Wings are destroyed by s3, while our heroes are very much affected and nearly destroyed by s3, but manage to prevail.

[devildomwriter]

Satan Birthday Special 100 Fun Facts

1. Satan was born from a combination of Lucifer’s intense wrath and him tearing off his wings, this gave Satan flesh for a body

2. Physically, Satan is the youngest but he is ranked fourth as he is fourth strongest of the seven brothers

3. Satan often fears he is nothing but a lesser copy of Lucifer

4. Satan’s wrath was so out of control after his birth his brothers did anything they could to stop his rages, including tying him in chains and stuffing him in a locker, knocking him out, or holding him underwater until he passed out

5. When Satan discovered cats he burst into Levi’s room demanding to know more about this

6. Satan believes Leviathan is mature in the way he focuses on other people’s opinions

7. Satan has always been a demon and accepting wrath as part of who he was so he did not struggle with his sin like his brothers did

8. Satan treasures the first things his brothers ever gave him

9. Satan’s tail is spiky and you can be injured touching it if you aren’t careful

10. Satan gets angriest over petty inconveniences

11. Simeon believes that Satan always only wearing one sleeve of his jackets is his way of rebelling

12. Satan has a tendency to overthink things

13. Satan does his best to avoid arguing with his brothers even when they annoy him

14. Satan is compared to a cat by his brothers due to his tendency to show up in completely random places when you least expect

15. Satan has connections in almost every industry as he’s easily able to socialize and make friends

16. Satan claims his books are organized in a way he understands

17. Once Satan’s books collapsed on him and he stayed there for several days relaxing

18. Satan enjoys the fine arts and likes going to art museums

19. Satan enjoys theatre and the opera

20. Satan easily gets his hands on rare and cursed objects to the point it impresses Lucifer

21. Satan has successfully cursed Lucifer several times. The worst of them being when he transferred his pain from Solomon’s cooking to Lucifer.

22. Satan originally looks down on manga but changes his mind after reading a bunch of manga Levi switched out in his room as a prank

23. Satan loves watching dramas and mysteries, especially Mid-Fall Murders

24. Due to watching crime shows regularly Satan believed that when dining in the human world you tell the waitress you’d like “the usual” and they’ll know what you mean

25. Although originally Satan complains he’s never beat Diavolo in chess, it’s implied he finally beats him in season 3

26. Satan has a major inferiority complex when it comes to Lucifer which causes him to often doubt himself

27. Satan is subscribed to Monthly Devil Architect’s Digest

28. Satan was once cursed to see everything as cats, he wasn’t the least bit bothered

29. Satan gifted Lucifer a scarf that was cursed to grow eternally

30. Satan doesn’t seem to realize how terrifying his anger is when he is visibly confused as to why his brothers are hiding

31. Satan has hoarded cats in the past and is no longer allowed to have any

32. Satan feeds a local cat he has named Sir Cat

33. Satan gives MC instructions on feeding many of the cats who come by serenity manor

34. When attempting to turn Simeon’s cafe into a cat cafe he “borrowed” a bunch of cats from witches. He was distressed when they were all returned to their owners.

35. Satan once fell asleep with a cat in public and ended up covered in Hell Zakura petals. Solomon thought it was cute.

36. Satan cursed a pizza deliverer for putting pineapple on their pizza

37. Satan desires to be on the receiving end of a loving headbutt by a cat in full force

38. Satan checks cat blogs before he goes to bed as they give him energy for the next day

39. Satan has to be told to stop using cat stickies as he puts them everywhere

40. Satan covered his and Belphegor’s laptops in cat stickers

41. Satan enjoys classical music, symphonies, and Ska music

42. Satan prefers food chunkier than smooth because it has more bite to it

43. Satan enjoys the bitterness of Dark chocolate

44. Satan has said his type is someone he can have a mutual understanding with when it comes to anger

45. Satan has had things thrown at his head multiple times in the game, some of these items include a pillow, a piece of trash, and a pile of pancakes

46. Satan hates baby talk, more specifically when Asmodeus uses it

47. Satan has inherited some of Lucifer’s memories and emotions

48. When Satan was cursed to stay close to Lucifer he would just stare and growl at Lucifer from the corner of the room

49. Satan’s antagonistic behavior towards Lucifer is somewhat compulsive as even he wishes he didn’t dedicate so much time to Lucifer but cannot stop himself

50. Satan let’s Belphegor sleep on his lap even though it annoys him

51. Satan learned how to read ancient human text from Solomon

52. Satan considers Mephistopheles an ally since they both dislike Lucifer

53. In a love survey on B’s Log Satan says he wants to “bind and monopolize” his lover and is the active one pursuing love

54. Satan cherishes relationship anniversaries and special dates of remembrance

55. In a relationship with obstacles, Satan chooses to face the difficulties with passion

56. When it comes to a lover, Satan said he would get jealous easily

57. Satan originally did not understand humans and assumed they’d all be fine receiving expensive items and gems as gifts and was angry when MC did not

58. Satan has ranked his favorite cat positions as stalk-straight tail, slow blink, making biscuits, head butting, and bellyflops

59. Satan secretly dislikes Green Peas

60. Satan is annoyed by the RAD Newpsaper Club account and has the notifications for it turned off

61. Satan says he tends to sleep on his stomach to avoid being hit in the face when his books randomly come avalanching down on him

62. Satan starts all his baths by washing his left arm

63. Satan’s daily activity is petting a cat

64. Satan’s dream is to have a cat

65. On sleepless nights, Satan calls MC because he finds their voice soothing

66. Satan’s motto is “Wisdom is the treasure of all generations.”

67. Satan’s rage emits so much energy it’s too much for humans to handle and can shake buildings and break things without getting near them

68. Satan sends cursed chain mail to Lucifer daily

69. When Mammon could only speak cat, Satan was called to help and he spent the day happily playing with cat toys with Mammon

70. Satan became enraged with Raphael when he was compared to Lucifer

71. Satan is very knowledgeable when it comes to the constellations and the specific stars among them

72. Satan believes Easter is the perfect excuse to throw eggs at Lucifer

73. Satan looks forward to fall as he believes it’s the best season for reading

74. Satan has trouble eating something if it looks like a cat

75. Satan always has a bag of cat treats with him wherever he goes

76. Satan seems to remember exactly where he left off in a book when he falls asleep reading. In an interview with B’s Log he says “Yesterday I was in the mood for The Complete Book of Cat's Paws, but I fell asleep on the Havana Brown page, around line no. 27.”

77. Satan sometimes hums the theme song to mid fall murders

78. Satan’s compliments often sound more like insults

79. Satan originally took Levi to be a nobody with no powers.

80. Satan once used Diavolo as a hostage

81. When Satan wanted to get MC a gift he offered to kill someone for them

82. Satan enjoys a railroad building mobile app

83. In the baseball game in the anime, Satan’s team lost 0 to 666 but Satan still claims it’s the game where he trumped Lucifer

84. Satan owns a book that can enter the memories of whoever first opens it

85. Satan built a life like snow sculpture of Lucifer out of spite, knowing Lucifer would feel uncomfortable

86. Satan once decorated the backyard with cat towers hoping it’d become a cat colony

87. Satan is the secretary of the RAD student council

88. Satan is the one who introduced the idea of second-hand/used bookstores to the Devildom.

89. Satan has a collection of priceless jewels that are rare in both the human world and Devildom. It’s not stated how he got his hands on them but he is alluded to being very wealthy by Leviathan

90. Believing they were lost deep in the forest, Satan initiated sex with MC but they were immediately after found by Beelzebub

91. Satan said if he was in a horror movie he’d be the silent killer “helping” the detectives and frame Lucifer for all the murders

92. Satan once got into a fight with Beelzebub over who liked Devilcat most

93. Satan once went to a riddle event with Solomon and MC

94. Satan bribed Barbatos with rare tea to let him go to the human world alone

95. In an interview with B’s Log he said his everyday small happiness is gaining new knowledge

96. Something Satan believes is absolutely not allowed in front of him is disrespecting cats and is quoted saying “Dare to make disrespectful remarks about cats in front of me. I’ll **** and **** your ****.” — B’s log

97. Satan’s three rules for his daily life are — Read books, play with cats, and make time for yourself

98. When asked if he prefers mature or child-like people, he states he prefers mature people and then immediately references Simeon

99. Satan is skilled with cooking stews and enjoys working with the variety of spices and herbs Barbatos gives him

100. Satan believes his composure makes him “cool” and that he only “very, very occasionally” loses his temper

[indelicateink]

so today i fell down a rabbit hole with The Vampire Lestat. @aquarines made a good post noting rolin saying TVL will only be one season. which got me sitting down with the book to see how they could possibly speedrun this bad boy to cram it into 8 episodes (worst-case scenario; 15 if there’s a god).

idk about you guys, but I could squeeze it into a tight 9 episodes, MAYBE (estimates below)? BUT: I didn’t account for the present-day stuff, which would surely push it over 9 episodes by my outsider guesses(/wishes; I didn’t make huge cuts, just modest ones). and i adore you, lestat, but the present-day stuff is also hugely important to me. bc although the book is almost wholly autobiography of lestat’s past, they’ve promised us Louis and Daniel and Armand aren’t going anywhere. so they’ll surely be bringing in other plot from the rest of the chronicles, and possibly hints of Talamasca things bc of the sister show...?

like. the beginning of TVL's a piece of cake--

Downtown Saturday Night in the Twentieth Century - 1984

All exposition. Hi I’m Lestat and I’m a vampire and a rockstar. How I woke up from my long sleep. How I started my band. Omg the 20th C, I love it. Interview With the Vampire is a book that exists? Okay: here are some opinions.

This can be massively condensed to an exchange with Daniel, so that’s…16 pages down. Out of 481.

but the central part of the book–

(putting this wild ride behind a cut for book spoilers)

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part I: Lelio Rising (44 pages [hardback])

lol THERE’S SO MUCH, THIS WHOLE CENTRAL “TEEAAOTVL” SECTION COULD BE THE WHOLE SEASON ALONE NO COMING UP FOR AIR, LBR. but it can’t be, so:

his early life/whole childhood summed up. shitty family, the running away, Gabrielle intro/characterization.

the wolves.

meeting Nicki, the romance (if they’re speedrunning, this is probably half montage and we possibly won’t get the witches’ place, his existential crisis, etc??), then peacing tf out from Auvergne.

starting life w Nicki in Paris, joining the theatre, falling in love with acting, signs of strain with Nicki.

hey, I’m being stalked.

Maybe they do a lot of implying with his early childhood/family situation and just jump right to the wolves; 23 minutes for Nicki and their romance; then boom Paris and hello theatre. 1 episode? [or, A BRUTAL EDIT: 5 minutes my life/family sucks beyond the telling, 5 minutes for the wolves, 10 minutes for Nicki, okaylet’sgotoparishii’minparisilovethetheater!! 10 minutes. In a 44-minute episode (why not), we now have 14 minutes for the present day.]

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part II: The Legacy of Magnus (60 pages)

massively important part of the book.

abduction by Magnus, death/rape/turning by Magnus

learning being a vampire, learning how to be rich, rediscovering Paris & haunting/tainting his former life and Nicki, getting his newfound wealth/shit squared away with his attorney Roget, meeting Armand and the coven.

Gabrielle has come to Paris to die.

THIS IS LIKE 2--3 if life loves me--EPISODES RIGHT HERE. idek, the professionals will make this work.

realizing it's interesting louis told lestat's origin story to the whole world (unlike the books, where it's in lestat's book). the story louis had to practically pry out of him. lol uh hope the guy was okay with that.

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part III: Viaticum for the Marquise (47 pages)

Gabrielle, Gabrielle, Gabrielle.

death/turning, learning to be a vampire along with the guy who doesn’t know how to be a vampire yet.

fighting with armand and the coven. armand stalking this guy like JOIN MY COVEN YOU TOTALLY WANT TO BE WITH ME JOIN MY COVEN, SON OF A BITCH WHY ISN’T THIS WORKING— meanwhile lestat is like…I admit this guy is super hot, but maybe a tool?

the coven abducts nicki (who lestat has been avoiding post-vampirism): lestat is officially done with this shit.

god they could make this 1 episode if they REALLY burn rubber, but it should be 2 because there’s so much to cover, and you know lestat would want Gabrielle alone to be like 3 episodes at the very least, lol. they might really change the coven stuff based on what they did in S2, which saves some time. [or, A BRUTAL EDIT: 20 minutes for gabrielle to die, be turned, the novelty of becoming a vampire, woo incest on main. 10 minutes of the coven pestering them and armand coming on heavy with the mind gift and obsessive stalking. 1 minute for omg Nicki kidnapped! we now have 13 minutes for the present-day.]

section 2, part IV. The Children of Darkness (52 pages)

the coven abducts lestat and gabrielle. Lestat’s devastating powerpoint for the coven that their life is a lie and they’re full of shit. existential crisis! the coven collapses. Lestat & Gabrielle drop the mic and leave with Nicki.

Nicki’s deranged from being a vampire chew toy and wants to be a vampire. Lestat only knows how to make really good, reasoned decisions, so ofc he turns him. that relationship implodes. Gabrielle teaches Nicki how to vampire.

okay, deep breath: Armand destroys everyone in the coven who doesn’t escape, Lestat encourages those vampires to figure out the new century, Armand preternaturally studies up on How To Be A Person In This Century (lestat describing him as insect-like as he consumes the contents of a library), Armand is STILL trying to seduce lestat via stalking, shit goes to hell between lestat and nicki and the theater of the vampires is created with Nicki and the former coven members (and later armand)

THISISSOMUCH. that could be like half a season right there. but! they could TOTALLY elide almost all the stuff with the coven here because it’s not hugely important to lestat’s arc? they already filmed lestat breaking it up (from armand’s POV) in s2. the focus of this part could be the relationship with nicki reaching its extinction-level event. okay. it’s not undoable that this is 1 episode, pooooossibly less with merciless cutting. [or, A BRUTAL EDIT: 12 minutes to refute Armand’s version—telling the coven to wake up to themselves and get a life off in the TdV, how Lestat didn’t tap the gremlin…idk, this blends pretty well into the next part. Maybe 24 minutes if they crush the Armand bits in this section with the next section. 7 minutes for the Lestat/Nicki implosion. We now have 1 minute for the present-day.]

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part V: The Vampire Armand (41 pages)

before there was The Vampire Armand the novel, there was this entire section of Lestat’s book.

aaaand it starts out with armand seducing lestat with the mind gift (granted, you sense this was not super needed because lestat was already smitten, but armand is practical if nothing else), and he proceeds to either rape lestat or just drink off him by force, depending on how we’re reading that. lestat breaks the spell and fights him off, and beats the entire snot out of him in front of a crowd of party-goers in the rain.

then lestat and gabrielle take armand back to their place, because—lestat’s still fond of him! LMAO PEOPLE HE REALLY IS A WEIRDO, I CANNOT EXPRESS WHAT A VILLAIN CUT WE GOT IN S1

to hugely sum up: armand’s past, lestat learns marius exists and becomes obsessed that someone could be a Functional Vampire, armand reallyreallyreally wants to hang with lestat (and gabrielle) for eternity but they are like. pal. your thirst is destructive. a world of no. you gotta go figure out how to live in the world on your own.

okay here we get into total unknowns on how amc wants to handle this. do they devote an entire episode to armand now, or save it for his own interview? god, in deference to limited S3 time I bet they don’t go deep into his backstory beyond quickly dropping the vital marius info? this entire part V is potentially a whole-ass episode, though, buuuuut I feel like they could squeeze a decent amount of present-day stuff in that ep, too.

it would be objectively hilarious if lestat started to tell armand’s story and armand threw the shit fit of all time and they decided to skip it. (for now.)

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part VI: On the Devil’s Road from Paris to Cairo (34 pages)

okay thank god we’ve come to a part that it would be easy(?) to majorly cut if need be. gabrielle & lestat travel, existential questions are asked, lestat searches for marius leaving giant carved-in-stone letters to him all over the place like a lunatic, gabrielle gets more and more restless/distant.

what’s important here: we learn about armand cutting off nicki’s hands, and nicki’s suicide.

oh, and that gabrielle sat on a letter for some time about how all of lestat’s mortal family except his father were murdered in the revolution, because she hoped he’d go off to the jungle with her or…idk, some fuckin thing, it’s wildly selfish.

anyway, lestat and gabrielle make their bittersweet split, and lestat is so depressed from everything that's happened that instead of going to new orleans as planned (his father had fled there), he goes into the earth to sleep for awhile.

then: hi marius. (AR does love her cliffhangers)

I mean. bullet points are: nicki’s death explained in a letter and lestat’s family’s death explained in a letter and gabrielle’s departure and marius’s entrance. It’s possible it’s not a whole episode. idk how fast they need to move, though.

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part VII: Ancient Magic, Ancient Mysteries (109!!!!! pages!!!!)

okay. to sum: marius takes him home, we learn marius’s story (more to come in the Blood and Gold novel), we meet Akasha/Akasha allows Lestat to drink from her, Enkil is pissed, Marius asks Lestat leave (friendly) and hey, threatens to fuck his shit up if he tells anyone/any fledglings about the existence of Marius & Akasha & Enkil et al (not so friendly lol). this…matters later. as you know.

Lestat arrives in New Orleans.

lol SORRY MARIUS YOU FUCKO, WE CAN TOTALLY CUT MOST OF YOUR STORY FROM S3, YOUR CHAPTER IS MASSIVE, LOL. i honestly think they have to cut his big backstory except for an outline, jesus. we are so pressed for time. (i don’t truly hate you, marius, but christ you’re a pompous dick who has caused so much suffering.) but yeah, they’re going to have to keep in how he came to be caregiver for Akasha and Enkil and all that. It’s the Marius Mystique Episode. Anyway, the Akasha/Lestat here is HUGELY important, so that and Marius…this is all an episode’s worth at the very least.

Epilogue: Interview with the Vampire (16 pages)

jesus

this part is devastatingly sad.

“But my story isn’t finished, no matter how reluctant I might be to continue it. And I must consider, at least briefly, the painful events that led to my decisions to go down into the earth in 1929.”

here lestat touches on the events of IWTV very briefly; he’s far kinder speaking of louis in his book than louis was speaking of lestat. (also, ofc, when AR wrote IWTV she didn’t know TVL was coming. lestat has to poke holes in some things: yes, we were in love, explicitly [“Read between the lines.”]; louis didn’t know how gorgeous he was; omg I was down bad; I was wealthy and he didn’t understand that; we were doomed, I was selfish; I cursed claudia when I condemned her to that body and I deserved everything that came to me, I did it because I wanted to, I don’t regret our family; I don’t blame her for killing me, “it was the sort of thing I might have done myself”; our family was together almost 70 years, which is very long for vampires to stay together, apparently (note: the show gave this to armand and louis instead: don’t even talk to me right now?); but “little things like this don’t really matter. He told the tale as he believed it.”)

something important that I hope/anticipate they’ll come back to is lestat then challenging the events of the trial and armand’s betrayal. it’s an order of magnitude more fucked up in the book for lestat than how it seemed to play out in s2? so i’m not sure what to expect in the s3 POV.

and then: lestat goes to rot in nola, and eventually goes into the earth. before he goes underground armand visits him here in the 20th C to whine that louis—who, okay, I lied, is alive, and he didn’t know you were alive either bc I lied to him, too—has left armand after all these years together and btw lestat, can I hit? I know you’re busy rotting in your depression hovel, but I really, really could use the d right now. aaaand lestat tells him to go suck a fuck. (I guess we're leaving all that out, though.)

So it's only 16 pages, but this seems pretty important given that lestat’s POV on s1 and s2 seems kind of promised? and a counterweight to the villain edit he's had for the past couple years? do they condense this to 1 episode or pepper it throughout?

Dionysus in San Francisco - 1985 (28 pages?!)

ROCKSTAR LESTAT! aside from the parts of 1984 in the very beginning, this narrow chapter is all that actually exists of rockstar lestat!! rolin, please give us a healthier meal than this. I trust you on this implicitly.

so: vampires internationally threatening lestat and his band, rockstar lyfe, brief reunion with louis (shamefully SHORT), hey it’s the big concert, shit happens, oh shit it’s Gabrielle saving the day!, okay let’s adjourn and regroup tomorrow this has been a wild ride, OH NO AKASHA— finis.

I’m assuming this is threaded throughout s3, heavy on the final episode. the louis part we already know will be different--they've had a reunion.

idk how all that works, but I have total faith they’ll make good television.

I am baffled, on the face of it, how they pull in Louis—unless they get creative with blending in the other books NOW.

frex they could OPEN the season just dumping us in with Lestat at Marius’s island where he/we meet Akasha and touch briefly on that, and then flash forward to the present-day interview and jump around the telling of TVL like that. but, vitally, we’ve been introduced to Akasha from the start, so hints of her can start showing up in the present-day plot in a way that makes sense to the (unread) audience, which gives us a big plot-driving reason to spend a lot of time in the present day, with louis, possibly the talamasca, possibly Jesse and the fam. or the talamasca does an infodump on akasha early, idk.

whatever they do, I need them to be creative and get me so much louis up in here. matched! set! do! not! separate!

honestly I’m not sure how they squeeze this all down to 8 episodes without a chainsaw, but! again: i have faith. though honestly i'm hoping for 15 episodes.

[2stepadmiral]

Hardly a hot take, but I didn’t like acolyte. It’s the first Star Wars show that was legitimately bad (book of boba fett, Mando season 3, and Obi Wan I would consider guilty pleasures at worst). Overall, it had a lot of bad writing, cringy acting, and poor storytelling. Yes, there were some good parts, like Qimir’s character, the fight choreography, onscreen debut of cortosis, and Sol (until about episode 7), but for me, they weren’t good enough to make up for the lacking areas.

A few highlight critiques I have:

I hated the overall theme of anti-Jediism. Not because I don’t believe that the Jedi should be criticized, I just think that the way it was handled was nonsensical and idiotic. The flaws of the Jedi by the clone war were primarily complacency to a degree that they are basically puppets of the Senate, and stale teachings that haven’t changed in however many centuries or millennia that lead to Darth Vader. These flaws are issues that the Jedi should’ve recognized and tried to address, but they don’t warrant a total demonization of the institution as a whole. That’s the tragedy of the fall of the Jedi, the fact that they could’ve prevented their fall if they had simply been self critical and introspective. In acolyte, you have what effectively feels like real world political issues and criticisms forced into this universe and forcibly applied to the lens of the Jedi flaws. It isn’t explained why the Jedi being an institution is in and of itself a characteristic of the order, let alone a flaw, except from the perspective of the stranger, who sees himself as a victim of the Jedi because they won’t let him be a galaxy conquering Sith psychopath, which is a pretty weak argument.

Too many of the main characters are obnoxious and completely unlikeable. Neither mae nor osha feel like actual characters with actual arcs or development, just caricatures who make poor decisions and throw temper tantrums at anything they don’t like. Yord is an inflexible rule stickler who never develops any character besides rigidly following the rules and expressing bland disapproval at anyone who doesn’t follow his lead. Indara and Venestra were like Yord on steroids; they both reminded me unpleasantly of Luminara in TCW, but somehow with less personality. Sol, Jecki, and Qimir were the only characters that were interesting and somewhat likable.

The lightsaber designs are bland and boring. Before now, lightsaber hilts were always unique and had a profound or at least noticeable elegance to the design (Rey’s yellow lightsaber and Ezra’s blaster hybrid lightsaber are exceptions, those two were bland or ugly designs IMO). Pretty much every lightsaber in acolyte looks like interchangeable foot long pieces of discolored pipe with different cuts at the emitters, but apart from that, they looked pretty interchangeable.

The witches are cringe and poorly written. If these witches are supposed to be dark and creepy and potentially evil, why are they not just night sisters? If they’re supposed to be benevolent witches, Why did they act so night sister like? They play too small role in the story to be an entirely new kind of witch, and trying to blend nightsisters and other tribes of Dathomir witches was just confusing. We don’t understand their motives, and if we’re supposed to sympathize with them, it’s made very difficult by the fact that they’re pretty openly cultish and their intentions, for the twins seem pretty sinister. Overall, their inclusion just felt like a very weak and forced attempt to quickly add layers of demonization to the Jedi, and most of their time on screen countered that intention by making them cringy (that ceremony was beyond weird) and frankly unsympathetic due to their openly controlling and not so subtle Sinister undertones.

The ‘twist’ made no sense. Torbin was so homesick after a mere two months in the field doing drudge work that he thought bringing these girls would get him home? And he felt guilty to the point where he willingly and knowingly drank poison as atonement because… Sol understandably struck at one of the witches when she started turning into a shadow demon? And seemed to be attacking one of the girls they were there to save? And the witches, in retaliation/defense, tried to kill him? And then possessed a Wookie Jedi to try and make him kill them? And then they all died when they were expelled from Kelnacca’s mind? What? 

I hated the bleeding scene. I love the concept of bleeding kyber crystals, and previous executions, like in Jedi survivor, and in the Vader comics, were freaking awesome. But in both of those instances, you had fallen Jedi having the focus all of their rage and pain into a crystal that was actively fighting back, and as a result, success usually meant in explosion of Force energy. This may the concept fuel more like a tragedy when a crystal was bled, and it made it seem like even building a Sith light saber was in of itself a trial. Osha casually and unintentionally bleeding Sol’s crystal while strangling him makes bleeding seem ludicrously easy or makes it seem like she is casually more powerful than Vader, even while he was using a Darkside Nexus, and then the light saber blade changing color while active after she bleeds it trivializes the whole process.

The fact is that the vergence thing does raise questions about Anakin’s unique nature in the Force. They could have said that Brendok might have some kind of Nexus in the Force, and that the witches were able to use this potentially unnatural focus of Force energy to affect the artificial conception and birth of an unusually powerful being, and could’ve left a clear implication that while the twins together might have been almost as powerful as Anakin, even together they would have been less powerful. Using the term ‘vergence’ immediately implies that they are on the same level as Anakin in strength, as well as in unique nature. It’s sort of like Kyp Durron in the early EU, randomly introducing a Force user who is such a prodigy that he easily outstrips even master Luke. It strips beloved characters of their importance.

It also raises questions about how unique Plagueis’ work is. I haven’t read the book yet, but from my knowledge of Darth Plagueis, his obsession with immortality is what led him to learn how to influence the Force to create life. His whole pursuit flew directly in the face of the Rule of Two, Which is part of what made him interesting. Now, the implication is that he stole the idea from the witches, which robs him of some of his appeal and makes his work seem like a cheap knock off instead of a bold and desperate gambit that fleshes out his character and further contributes to Palpatine. Yes, they may remedy this in future seasons if it is renewed, but for right now, it’s raising questions.

Basil. That rodent annoyed the hell out of me every time he was on screen after episode 4.

Overall, the show had potential, but I feel like poor choices in writing dragged it down and ruined the execution. At the end of the day, I literally just want to watch an enjoyable Star Wars show that I can get into, and acolyte kept dragging me out of it with these and other issues.

[chaifootsteps]

Look, I think it's quite normal when someone likes a villain just like a villain, there's nothing wrong with that. For example, I really like Bill Cipher, Gothel, Frollo, witches and Valtor from Winx (we do not take into account the ending of season 3 and season 8), and similar one-dimensional villains. And if we touch on the universe of Viv, then I really like the villainous version of Stolas from the artist lima.jei. They have their own antagonistic charm and charisma, given all the terrible things they've done. Therefore, I don't see anything wrong with someone liking Valentino. Yes, it's hard for me to understand this, because I think he's a pretty mediocre, stupid and boring villain, but I don't see anything wrong with that. Nevertheless, Norry's reaction to the fans' desire for the worst to Valentino seems to me terribly ridiculous. Shouldn't this be proof that the character did a good job of being the antagonist? And their argument that "this is a fictional character" is broken down by their own actions. If this is a fictional character in a fictional story, then why are you wasting time defending him online?

Exactly, there's absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with liking Valentino, regardless of what he did. Might be something wrong if you're out there defending actual, real life people who are dangerous, ala what Elcee was doing, but fictional villains? People like those for all kinds of reasons.

Norry's a disingenuous idiot. It's okay to like bad characters, it's okay to hate bad characters, but it's not okay to call for the mass reporting of posts that criticize your favorite rapist blorbo.