#this costume has been my own personal purgatory

[squeakadeeks]

almost....

[horseshoemybeloved]

wait i am really intrigued with your versions of the suitehearts i love the designs and seeing your take on them so please infodump about them to me about this obscure fob au that i’ve been insane about for years

It is now time for my long ass ( my version of the ) suitehearts masterpost * wiggles fingers *

Keep in mind!!!

So basically first things first, my versions of ‘em are Completely different characters. Some draw/view the suitehearts as fob in silly costumes ( which is super chill ) but my versions are very different. So when I say “ Benzedrine is a repressed gay wizard obsessed with abba“ I am in no ways implying that Patrick is a repressed gay wizard obsessed with abba. There are some similarities between people but it is never intentional. ( also I’m constantly changing stuff nothings set in stone lol )

Da world!

The world is kinda like a purgatory, everyone there has died but could move to another plane. Thusly there are people from all different decades. Magic is very common here, a lot of people can do small basic spells. But it takes years of practice to become a wizard, and decades to become a good one. There are 5 main,,, species? Races? I’m not quite sure how to label em. But we have:

your average human, nothing really of note here

elemental benders ( they are born with a cavity in their chest relating to what “ element “ they control. Some control water some Disco music! )

Pixies/sprites, they usually have abnormal colored skin, pointy ears, and the ability to float around. They naturally have good connection with spirits and can summon them when needed ( if they’re good at it )

Angels, they’re naturally fun colors, have magical hair, and vaguely cow like ears?. Angles can use their magic to make themselves look like normal humans tho. They usually live together and provide comfort for people. But there has been a rebellion happening and now a lot of angels try and live life not for the sole service of others but now for themselves ( is allegory 4 womanhood moment )

And then of course furries xoxo

Now the reason you even started reading this, info about the suitehearts!

Dr. benzedrine is vaguely narcissistic and full of himself, but in an oddly charming way. Personality wise hes a mixture of howl ( hmc ) without Any of the swauve, mostly just the dramatics, and aziraphale ( good omens ). Hes a middle aged man who Will Not admit hes gay, he is Incredibly repressed. He was apart of the huge royal academy of wizards, best one they’d ever had. But had a falling out with the leader in charge and now just has his own little wizard store. He befriended Donnie at a little diner because he made a reference to a Kate bush or Fiona apple song, or something or other. Him and sandman do Not get along, sandman often visits the store just to annoy him. But they have more similarities than they know, they just need to stop bitching at eachother!

( also he was born like 5’ something but the spirits in charge of transferring people to this plane were like “ I’d be mad funny if we made him really short he’d be so mad “ )

He is my autistic little meow meow 😔🙏

Horseshoe has a regal flowyness to him, semi-oblivious to his own charm, and loves to dance the night away. When everyone around him is disheveled and falling apart, he still manages to look fantastic. He appears to be the dumb blonde of the group, which he definitely doesn't mind and loves to indulged in the trope. ( he may not know where or even what Sweden is but at least hes pretty ) But he is a deeply creative person, and that in its own special way shows an intelligence. He works at a small local craft store ( bcus then he gets first dibs on all the cool new art supplies :D ) he is an angel, but chooses to focus his little magical power on constantly disguising himself cus he doesn’t wanna be bothered lol.

Donnie is very nurturing and kind, yet extremely energetic and bubbly, think kinda like,,, super sweet valleygirl. He’s slightly based off YouTuber Garret watts. He is very big solid guy. He has a bit of a problem with feeling like he Needs to take care of everyone, like it’s job ( he’s workin through it in therapy ) Like I mentioned there are people who are like elemental benders, Donnie is one of them. He has a little terrarium with either a mushroom or a daisy, and can make vines grow from his hands and legs. Donnie is also autistic ( heavily based on my experiences with it, he’s also just kinda heavily based off of me ) He's from da 60s, during the whole hippy thing.

Sandman is your typical bitchy mallgoth, who goes around calling everyone a " poser" and everything " poser shit " they put up a bitchy angry front but deep down theyre an insecure sensitive little guy. Sandman is a Pixie so that means they can summon these ( usless ) spirit guys ( they’re not very good at it ) shes also kinda Super into typical """ cringey """ stuff from 2015 ( ie undertale, fnaf, the lving tombstone, mlp ) Sandman is semi kinda not really it’s complicated openly non-binary, but still seems to repress quite a bit and just push away all deeper feelings. I thought it would be interesting to experiment with a character who is a trans femme gay guy, kinda like a reverse trans masc lesbian I guess. Idk lol don’t get mad at me

Anything else kiddo?

The format id choose to express this story would def be a movie. Uhhh… I can’t really think of much else right now, but feel free to ask questions I luv talking about em :3

[champagns-archive]

⋆   closed   starter   :  @smokedfires​​​     &     based,

another  slow  and  dreadful  closing  shift.  the  monotonous  loop  that  felix  has  fallen  into  is  slowly  but  surely  making  him  lose  his  mind.  it  feels  like  he’s  living  the  same  exact  day  over  and  over  again.  his  own,  personal  purgatory.  except   –––––   he  wasn’t  dead.  not  that  that  would  make  much  of  a  difference.  he’s  currently  vacuuming,  yes,  vacuuming  the  dirty  carpet  of  the  store.  when  was  the  last  time  it  was  cleaned?  fuck  if  he  knows.  felix  was  more  interested  in  closing  the  store  down  so  that  he  and  piper  could  head  over  to  gabby’s  to  hang  out  with  the   rest  of  the  rat  pack.  the  only  silver  lining  to  the  day.  with  a  bored  expression  on  his  face,  he  continues  the  task  at  hand  and  almost  trips  over  the  chunky  cord  of  the  old  vacuum.     “     i  do  not  get  paid  enough  for  this  shi–––––     ”     he’s  cut  off  by  the  annoying  sound  of  the  entrance  bell  ringing  as  someone  enters.  turning  off  the  appliance,  he  turns  to  greet  the  costumer  and  his  face  drops  completely  as  he  notices  who  it  is.  martin.  of  fucking  course.  it’s  been  a  while  since  he’s  been  in  and  felix  thought  they  had  finally  gotten  rid  of  the  creep.  apparently  not.     “     my  favorite  regular.  you  have  a  knack  for  coming  in  right  before  we  close.     ”     words  are  dripping  with  sarcasm  as  felix  walks  closer  to  him.   mayer  chuckles  and  smirks  at  the  visible  annoyance  coming  from  felix.  he  loved  that  he  was  able  to  have  such  an  effect  on  him.     i usually get off around this time. you’re the only video store that has all the classics.     mayer  replies,  eyes  scanning  the  store  in  search  of  piper.  the  real  reason  why  he  was  here.     “     right.  well  you  know  where  they  are.  meet  me  at  the  counter  when  you’re  ready  to  check  out.     ”     with  that,  he  walks  into  the  back  room  where  piper  currently  was.     “     your  boyfriend  is  here.    ”     he  tells  her  with  a  roll  of  his  eyes.

[maxwell-grant]

Do you have any opinion on the Wold Newton universe or more generally the attempts to create a coherent universe based on massive crossover of victorian and/or pulp fictions ?

Fair warning to any and all of you who follow my blog and might think to yourselves "Wow, I want a Pulp Hero Cinematic Universe!". You don't. What you want is for these characters to thrive again and maybe kick ass together after reestablishing themselves as cool and popular and interesting characters in the pop culture eye, and I want that too, I've been working on ideas for years to try and bring some of that to reality, it's part of the whole point of this blog in the first place, and I must stress: Nothing, and I repeat, nothing, is going to put these characters six feet under faster than a botched attempt to follow in the MCU's footsteps. You don't want to watch these characters suffocate under the strain of a cinematic universe. I didn't like watching it happen with Marvel to begin with, as much as that clearly worked out for them.

If DC could only just barely catch up to the MCU's shadow and only started to thrive when they took a diametrically opposite approach, if the Monsterverse, despite the fact that it's characters were already in a cinematic universe together, only just barely limps on due to the popularity of it's central players, the pulp heroes don't have a chance in hell if they try and play by those rules. The Shadow and Doc Savage and Green Hornet can survive failed reboots, but not every character's got that kind of safety net, not every author can afford to take the risks necessary to commit to these properties, and some characters take a lot longer to crawl out of graves than others.

So with that said, let's talk about the WNU.

When I first started doing research on pulp heroes in general I spent a very long time going through all of the Wold Newton pages I could find, and I have a lot of them saved in case the websites get taken down one way or another. I still consult them frequently and I still consider them a pretty invaluable resource for anyone who wants to get acquainted with pulp characters, even if it must be prefaced that the WNU is basically fanfiction.

The Wold Newton Universe was a massive shared fanfiction universe before we had a proper name for this kind of thing and I do find it a little disheartening that, despite it predating or influencing works like LOEG and Incognito and Planetary, and how several current authors either got started writing articles for it or even professed their love of it, it's a currently dead project. I guess it ultimately wasn't supposed to even last as long as it did anyway, and much like the characters it's based on, it ultimately doesn't really die so much as it just lives on differently.

The big problem I have with the mainline WNU is, besides not liking Phillip Jose Farmer's writing, that much of it is basically crack fanfiction built on very, very flimsy family connections as an excuse to tie characters together, and already I think the premise that somehow, all of these characters are related, all of them are part of a special family tree connected by meteor-irradiated blood, to be extremely weak. A lot of the writing in many of the WNU pages is just not good and not workable, and it's hard to fault it as such considering this is fanfic, it's written by enthusiastic fans and not professional writers (although some of these people are, the Lofficiers have no excuse). But the great thing about the WNU is that, because it's a shared project with no ownership, everyone gets to play around and rewrite canon at will and bring their own angle to it.

There's WNU pages that are very hardline against the inclusion of superheroes, others don't have that restriction at all. There's WNU fan pages focusing exclusively on monsters and horror. Jess Nevins wrote a ton of pages digging out the really obscure characters only he knows about. There's Cool French Comics which is focused heavily on the European side of things, which is also where I discovered The Grey Claw's existence, and Tales of the Shadowmen is based a lot on these. I know for a fact that there used to be at least a couple of pages focusing on anime although the Wayback Machine doesn't have most of them archived. It's not so much a single shared universe or timeline so much as it's several, outright dozens, of them depending on who's writing the pages, and they were all free to either incorporate theories made by other authors or purposefully rewrite them. It’s a freedom afforded by the fact that these are non-profit fanfics, and the fact that over half of the characters in these webpages are public domain or in copyright purgatory to begin with.

Unlike with DC, who's got a hodgepodge of concepts that logically shouldn't work together but are still held together by the consistent ideal of the superhero and the Justice League and whatnot, and Marvel, who was a continuous crossover soap opera right from the start, the Pulp Heroes don't live in the same worlds, don't live in the same time periods, many of them weren't designed to do so, don't have a sliding timescale or rebooting timeline to keep them perpetually on the same level, they don't exist under unified copyright, don't operate by the same rules, and are less built to sacrifice their individuality and settings for the sake of costumed punch-ups with a bunch of randos. Superheroes are able to exist together by operating under a very strongly defined notion of what a superhero is and does, and if the Pulp Heroes had anything of the sort, I wouldn't have to make a chart in the first place trying to create a coherent explanation as to what defines them.

Before the MCU could sell people on the Avengers, it first had to sell them on all of it's other team players first, it needed to do the groundwork and rework all of it's existing characters to make sure they could reasonably be crammed on screen together. From the start, their universe was dictated by the need to have these characters team up. Be honest: Do you think this is gonna work for the Pulp Heroes? Characters whose greatest selling point, whose most enduring and unique traits, are the ways in which they are not like other heroes? Characters that currently struggle for newfound popularity because of the common notion that they are just superheroes, except old and racist and outdated. Do you think these characters aren't better off instead dispelling these preconceptions to rebel against the superhero dominance and thrive in different areas? The secret of their success in the first place was the ways in which they weren't like the Victorian Heroes that preceded them, and guess what, now they are on the same boat.

The concept is not unworkable, it's not impossible, some good stories have resulted out of mashing the icons big and small together, hell I have several Pulp Hero universe concepts I'm working on. But I must stress the need of approaching this from a different perspective. And that perspective starts with doing the groundwork on what works and what doesn't for them.

The only genuinely successful pulp hero universes to an extent I've seen were those that were built from the ground up based on an idea that these characters were supposed to interact and work together, or at least share a history together. The strongest one I've seen would definitely be The Chimera Brigade, because it's not preoccupied with mashing icons together but instead telling a story informed by the history of these characters, informed by it's central point: Namely, what does a pulp/superhero history look like from a French perspective. It's biggest names are used only sparingly, it's got a ton of original characters to make the world feel more seamless and real, it takes the routes less traveled to make the story stand more on it's own feet and not just based on the characters it's intended to reference. And in doing so, it's also allowed several of it's characters to thrive individually as well as collectively.

In that regard, I think the greatest thing the WNU has is that it provides a skeleton to work with. It provides not just one but several ideas of what you can do with these characters past their respective stories, either in personal canons, crossovers with other properties or even existing in shared universes. The ideas are there either for existing characters or original creations. What you do with those ideas is up to you.

[haloshornsinkstains]

Devildom Easter Egg Hunt

A little late, but the idea came to me at like 11pm last night and I'm old and suck at staying up late these days.

Anyway, Easter in the Devildom. With my MC Kore, because I missed writing about her.

Warnings: Female MC, Not a reader insert, polyamory, way too much description of baskets of chocolate, that's it.

“What the hell are ya wearing Kore?”

“Everyone come to the council room after classes, it’s important.” That’s what the text had said. The one sent from your phone to all of the brothers, and all three residents of Purgatory Hall. It was more than a little suspicious, for one Kore never wanted to stay longer at RAD than she really had to, and secondly she was usually much more polite when requesting a favour. But to use the council room she must have gained Diavolo’s permission so it couldn’t be anything too bad right? At least, that’s how they reassured themselves before turning up. Whatever scenarios they had planned out, none of them came close to what greeted them in the council room.

She looked down for a moment, before grinning back at Mammon. “You don’t recognise it?”

“I believe what Mammon means is why are you wearing that?” Lucifer sighed, shaking his head at the younger demon who had been momentarily rendered speechless.

“Well…” She started, still smiling happily at them all, “it’s Easter in the human realm, and since I already had the bunny costume on hand from that serving job we did, I thought I could share some of the festivities with you all. Technically I’m a bit late, Easter was yesterday, but I wanted Dia, um, Lord Diavolo to be able to join in and he wasn’t back until last night.”

The Prince in question was standing behind her beaming happily, nodding along with everything Kore said. “Now now Lucifer, no need to look so grumpy. I think it’s wonderful Kore wanted to bring something from the human realm to all of us!”

“But, that doesn’t explain why yer wearing that!” Mammon huffed. “Anyone could see ya like that!”

“Mammon… everyone already has seen me in this? And you’re all here anyway.” She shrugged. “In the human realm there’s an easter tradition where a rabbit brings chocolate eggs to kids. I know you’re not kids, but it seemed like fun. I organised an egg hunt and everything!”

“Did you say chocolate?”

“Yes Beel, chocolate eggs. The ones for the egg hunt aren’t, because it would give you an unfair advantage, but the prizes are chocolate eggs.” She laughed, pointing to the small pile of baskets behind her. “No touching until we’re done.”

Beel pouted a little, but stared determinedly at the baskets. Levi frowned beside him.

“So, this is a game? Are there clues?” His eyes flashed with interest, games he could do.

“Not really, I can give you some if you’re stuck though!” Kore laughed. “So, I hid 60 eggs, with Barbatos’ help so he’s going to stay here and keep me company guarding the prize baskets. He isn’t allowed to tell anyone where they are, including you Dia, and you agreed to not ask him.” Diavolo nodded. “So, the rules are; no magic,” she nodded towards Solomon and Lucifer, “no stealing from other people, if they found the egg it’s theirs,” a few sideways glances towards Mammon, “and no fighting. Everyone got that?”

There were assorted nods and murmurs of acceptance from the gathered Demons and Angels.

“Don’t look so pouty Luci, you don’t have to join in if you don’t want to. You can still have a basket of chocolates.”

Lucifer huffed. “Of course I’m taking part. But you neglected to tell us where the eggs had been hidden, unless you mean for us to search the whole Devildom?”

Kore blushed and shook her head. “Sorry! They’re in RAD, the Castle and their grounds. I would have hidden them in the House of Lamentation and Purgatory Hall but I didn’t get time between classes and Barb had duties to fulfill.”

“Then can we begin?”

She nodded at Lucifer. “The inaugural Devildom Easter Egg Hunt is go! Good Luck!”

Kore leaned back against the table, watching with amusement as the group scattered, most heading for the door to scour the school. Simeon and Luke stayed back, opting to look around the council room first instead. Simeon glanced down at Luke, standing on his tiptoes to try and peer over one of the taller plinths and sighed.

“Kore?”

She glanced over at the angel. “What is it Simeon?”

“Would it be permissible to work in teams for this game?” He nodded towards Luke, expression fond as ever.

“Of course Simeon! It’s not really as serious as all that, I only put the rules in place so no one spoiled the fun by magicking all the eggs to them or getting into a fight. It’s just for fun.” She giggled, patting one of the prize baskets. “Besides, I’d put money on Beel and Belphie already teaming up. Even if it’s just from Belphie’s laziness.”

As if on queue a shout echoed through the room from the corridor. “Oi! Ya not allowed to work together like that!”

“Kore never said working together was against the rules!”

“Mammon, let them be. Belphie isn’t likely to be much help when Beel is carrying him.”

Kore burst into laughter, shaking her head at their antics. “Well, I would wish you luck again Simeon, but I don’t think you’re in the most need of it.”

He chuckled in response, heading over to the younger angel to guide him out of the room. “Indeed, come on Luke. See you later Kore.”

She nodded, in response, leaning back and listening to the echoing voices through the halls as Barbatos came to sit beside her, letting her lean her shoulder against his.

That was how they found them two hours later, when all of the eggs had been collected and the hunters returned to the room, Kore tucked against Barbatos’ side giggling at something he’d told her while his arm rested around her waist.

“Ah, I’m glad to see you weren’t too bored while we were searching for eggs!” Diavolo boomed, chuckling at the sight before them.

Kore flushed bright pink, head shooting up to stare at the gathered group with wide eyes. Her gaze shifted quickly over Mammon and Levi, smiling softly at them to try and ease the tension from them. There would likely be time for a discussion later, but she was pleased to see neither jumped to chase Barbatos away from her, polyamory was hardest for the two of them but they were growing, learning.

“You should know already that Barbatos is excellent company.” She chuckled, shaking her head. “Go on then, how many eggs have you all collected?”

They handed over their eggs, letting Kore note down how many each had carefully before the next person handed theirs over. She paused half way through, looking at the ones Beel and Belphie handed over with a small frown.

“Um, Beel, why is this one half of an egg?” She asked, holding the slightly mangled object in her palm.

Beel rubbed the back of his neck, refusing to meet her gaze. “I, um, forgot you said they weren’t chocolate and I got hungry.”

“It was lucky he didn’t swallow it whole.” Belphie grumbled.

Kore giggled and nodding, noting down their score.

Once all the eggs were counted Kore jumped from the table ready to announce the scores.

“Alright gentlemen, the scores for the inaugural Devildom Easter Egg hunt are in! I’ll be going in ascending order of score, last place to first okay?” There were a few nods. “Okay, last place with two eggs is Asmo,”

“I knew I shouldn’t have stopped to fix my hair.”

“6th place is Solomon with three eggs, not bad, joint 5th place are Satan and the team of Simeon and Luke with five eggs each,”

“Well done Luke, you found most of those for us! I’d have been last without your help.”

“Damn, if Lucifer hadn’t beaten me up that tree using his stupid wings…”

Kore paused. “Wait, you climbed a tree Satan?!”

“Don’t worry Kore, I have it all on video. I may not have found many eggs, but I did capture most of the best moments on camera. Satan was very cat-like.”

“Thank you Solomon, I’ll be getting all of those from you later.” She grinned, looking back to the list. Okay, so 4th place is Lucifer with seven eggs. Then in joint 3rd place we have Mammon and Diavolo with eight eggs each, congratulations both of you,”

“I guess third place ain’t too bad. At least I beat Lucifer.”

“Oh excellent! I think that was very good for my first Easter Egg Hunt, don’t you?”

“Yes Dia, that’s a very respectable score. In 2nd place with ten eggs is Levi,”

“Damn, I guess it’s not bad for a game that involved physical activity…”

“Which means in 1st place is the team of Beel and Belphie with twelve eggs. Congratulations you two.”

“It was pretty much all Beel.” Belphie yawned. “As soon as he knew there was food on the line I mostly just napped.”

“Honestly I’d have been very impressed if anyone beat Beel in a competition that involved winning something edible.” Solomon chuckled.

“Alright, so Beel, Belphie, you get first choice of the Easter baskets.” Kore smiled, gesturing towards the table behind her.

“Are they not all the same then?”

“No Luke, they’re all the same value but the contents differ slightly. Different shops and types of chocolate. Some just have big eggs, there’s a couple with lots of small things, some are a mix of everything… you know? Also Barbatos baked a couple of treats, so there’s one in each basket too.”

“You put a lot of thought into this.” Diavolo hummed. “It’s very impressive Kore.”

She rubbed the back of her neck, looking down at the floor. “Well, Barb helped a lot, and… um, I just wanted to make sure it was fun?”

“You did an excellent job on your own, I merely offered a helping hand.” Barbatos sighed, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Do not sell yourself short Kore.”

“Ah… Thank you. Okay guys, pick your baskets.”

Beel, to the surprise of no one, picked a basket full of large eggs, Belphie went for one with small sheep shaped chocolates. Levi picked a basket with a mix, including some small pink flower shaped chocolates that looked just like ones from an episode of the anime he watched the week before. Mammon’s basket also had a mix, mostly white chocolates dusted with golden sheen. Diavolo picked a basket of large eggs, dark, white and milk with intricate decorations across their surface. Lucifer’s basket of choice was filled with the darkest chocolate, more bitter than sweet and perfect with coffee. Simeon and Luke picked matching baskets, large and small chocolates in marbled milk and white. Satan’s basket was small chocolates, full of unique flavours and combinations. The final two baskets were fairly similar, a mix of sizes and types, though Asmo’s leant more towards fruity flavours than Solomon’s. With all the baskets collected Kore grinned at them.

“Happy Easter everyone!” She paused, glancing over at Barbatos. “Oh, Barb, your basket should be in your room.”

[avauntus]

Supernatural - a retrospective

This is super self-indulgent, and I have so much else I’ve promised-- I owe a long-fic rec post, and ao3 comments, wip work, and that’s just my fandom stuff I’m behind on. *sigh*

But it’s late on a Saturday and now I’ve finished Supernatural, I want to share what I think are my top few eps, and a few other comments. I promise some of this will be different from the “greatest hits” you probably usually see, and I’ll try to make it worth your time. *wry smile*

Look, we have to have categories like: “Most Likely to Live in My Head Rent-Free for the Rest of my Life” and “Most Likely to Inspire Unnecessary Fanfiction” that are different from “Favorites,” because that’s just the cursed energy this show has. ;-)

My top five

#5 - 13.01 - “Lost and Found”

Written by: Andrew Dabb | Directed by: Phil Sgriccia

In fandom, this is most often referred to as the start of the “Grieving Widower” arc, tongue-in-cheek. Also has Alexander Calvert (Jack) walking around completely in the nude for the first third of the ep. (Neither of these are why this is in my top 5, but he has a good story about wardrobe for his ‘first day.’) 

I didn’t expect much out of this episode the first time I watched it, but I’ve gone over this ‘section’ of the show maybe 3-4 times in my Netflix catch-up, and I watch this one in full every time. From Jack being...not at all what anyone expected and an unsteady vindication, to the stunning cinematography (there’s a post that compares shots to Brokeback Mountain, but I think the shots here might be better), to the sheriff who takes the time to remind her deputy that “...there’s no such thing as ‘weird.’ Everyone’s normal in their own way,” to the slow reveal of exactly how hard the events of the previous night (12x23 - All Along the Watchtower) are hitting Dean and Sam and in different ways...(how long the episode takes to reveal to you how Dean fucked up his hand, and what he was saying when he did. Augh!) The Winchesters are trying to rally, but they have been taking hits for a long time, and the cracks are showing.

 #4 - 15.06 - “Golden Time”

Written by: Meredith Glynn | Directed by: John F. Showalter

Supernatural  has a terrible track record with representation in all stripes. It is infamously consistent in killing off anyone minority, female, or non-White. One of the interesting things about the chaotic meta-narrative of season 15 is you can see the lack of fucks some of the writer’s room had to give about not even being subtle about tearing down that type of ‘White-male-hero-journey” now that they were in a literal “what will they do, fire me?” situation.

I’m a Cas fan, and this episode, which gives him an actual, ‘case-of-the-week’ hunter’s narrative where he gets to save the day on his own, successfully, was wonderful. I love that for him! But more than that, for me, this episode is emotional to me for other reasons-- the way Dean and Cas circle around each other on their angry phone call (with the body language! They are broadcasting so LOUD and neither can see because they’re on the phone!), Sam’s story here, where he’s inheriting things from Rowena that allow him in turn to save Eileen, to Cas’ speech and quick anger at the lake when you reflect on his entire journey of self-realization from a soldier of blind faith to an agent of free will... “You selfish little men in your positions of authority...” I just... *clears throat, grabs tissue* 

#3 -  6.20 - “The Man Who Would Be King”

Written & Directed by: Ben Edlund

Speaking of Cas’ journey... I know some folks don’t like the angst and drama of the ‘Heaven and Hell’ plots of Supernatural, but I am here for it. Oh, did we need another reason to include this episode? This has some of the most metal quotes I have heard from any TV show. Ever.

I mean, look at this:

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have said: Freedom is a length of rope. God wants you to hang yourself with it.”

“Explaining freedom to angels is a bit like explaining poetry to fish.”

The delivery of: “It's not too late. Damn it, Cas! We can fix this!” “Dean, it’s not broken!” is one of those Supernatural bits that will live in my head until the end of time. All of Edlund’s episodes are among my favorites, but this (along with “5.04 - The End”) was on another level. 

#2 - 5.16 - “Dark Side of the Moon”

Written by: Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin | Directed by: Jeff Wollnough

I think of this episode every time  I hear Bob Dylan sing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” This is kinda a giant montage episode, but the connecting concepts are so...satisfying. 

“Heaven is your favorite memories.” “ It’s called the axis mundi. It’s a path that runs through heaven. Different people see it as different things. For you, it’s two-lane asphalt.” “This is your idea of heaven? Wow, this was one of the worst nights of my life.” “I don’t think I realized how long you’ve been cleaning up Dad’s messes.” “It’s awesome to finally have an application—a practical application—for string theory.” “Everyone leaves you, Dean. You noticed?” “Why is God talking to me? Gardner-to-gardener, and between us, I think he gets lonely.” “You son of a bitch, I believed in... ” Whoosh.

#1 - 4.01 - “Lazarus Rising”

Written by: Eric Kripke | Directed by: Kim Manners

So...this is the episode where Castiel, angel of thee Lord, shows up. And that’s primarily why it earns the no. 1 spot, because 80% of my enjoyment of Supernatural from this point on was Cas-adjacent. Plus this entire episode just hits. ALL OF IT. Dean’s homecoming. Ruby, my darling. Bobby’s entire vibe. Pamela Barnes, easily one of the most interesting women Supernatural ever introduced. Cas being so hot to say “Hi” to Dean he forgets he wounds people. 

But beyond that-- the way the show writes their ‘oh, by the way, angels’ narrative! If you haven’t seen this episode, would you believe me if I told you that THIS EPISODE, the episode where Supernatural said “canonically, Judeo-Christian Heaven is real, btw” involves no churches but does involve a séance, a soulmark handprint brand, and a himbo angel that “gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition”...but they were all “no homo, guys” for years?

Truly no one was out here doing it like Supernatural even back in 2008.

Others--

15.18 - “Despair” 

“Most Likely to Live Rent-Free in My Head for the Rest of my Life”

Written by: Robert Berens | Directed by: Richard Speight, Jr.

You know why this episode is here. It broke reality. I could be wrong-- but I’d put good money on this episode being the subject of academic theses in the future. That doesn’t automatically make for interesting story, but...

Has there ever been a case, in a mainstream US TV show where a major lead character (Cas) came out as queer so late in the game in a narratively-important way? I’m not aware of it, but I might just be behind on my television.

This episode has great writing, and (blessedly) amazing direction and blocking anyway. Check out the above gif - that is some next level foreshadowing going on in the cinematography, and this isn’t even the most remarked upon shot in this episode. (Seriously, I had to search for 40 minutes for this gif, please respect my game, lol.) Everyone who was involved in 15x18 is giddy talking about their investment, from the costume designer to the actors to the director to the writer...

...And then a bunch of them steadfastly have avoided posting much Supernatural-related since. So that’s...loud. There is a bunch of subtext in this episode that is screamingly loud; there is a bunch of text in this episode that makes several things clear fandom has been chattering over for years and years. The meta-commentary around this episode continues, months later. There are over 700 fics on AO3 with this episode tag.

I have more to say about the themes of ‘free will’ and ‘love’ and ‘identity’ tied to this episode, but seriously-- you’ve probably read 17 versions of it on Tumblr already, so.

This is the last time we see Cas, and the last time Supernatural can claim anything close to narrative consistency. For that alone, it’d earn free head-space.

Runners-up: “4.20 - The Rapture”; “5.04 - The End”; “7.21 - Reading is Fundamental”; “8.21 - The Great Escapist”; “9.06 - Heaven Can’t Wait”; “12.19 - The Future”; “14.08 - Byzantium”

6.17 - “My Heart Will Go On”/8.07 - “A Little Slice of Kevin”

“Most Likely to Inspire Unnecessary Fanfiction”

Written by: Eric Charmelo & Nicole Snyder (6.17); Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming | Directed by: Phil Sgriccia (6.17); Charlie Carner (8.07)

Usually the show kills off it’s “one-episode” female characters, but do you know one time it didn’t? When the Moirai (the Fates - specifically Atropos, the shearer of the Threads of Fate) showed up in canon in 6.17. She was posited to have “two older sisters that were bigger than her- in every sense of the word,” ...and Castiel had to back down when she challenged him to a cosmic game of chicken over the Winchester’s lives.

Then they never returned to that idea again. 

“A Little Slice of Kevin” is on here for the opposite reason -- an amazing idea that was really underwritten in the episode it showed up in. Dean Winchester has been dragging himself across the fabric of universes; the literal Word of God is in play in a warehouse in Middle America; Cas is back from Purgatory, but what does that mean, micro and macro? As a person on the street, what would it mean, or feel like, to learn you were a Prophet of the Lord, uncalled? That what you are, everything you are, is a cosmic contingency?

Maybe Fate has an opinion on all these shenanigans?

Perhaps all that doesn’t make sense, but it certainly made an impression on ~2012 me. To this day, it remains the WIP I can open up and fool myself with the ‘twist.’ I wish I remembered where I was going with it so I could finish it.

Runners Up: “2.20 - What Is and What Should Never Be”; “5.04 - The End”; “6.15 - The French Mistake”; 12.12 - “Stuck in the Middle (with you)”; “13.05 - Advanced Thanatology” “14.03 - The Scar”; “14.10 - Nihilism”; “15.15 - Gimme Shelter” ... and “15.20 - Carry On” (obviously)

Fifteen seasons. There were plenty of other episodes I loved that didn’t make these limited lists. But overall -- thank you, Supernatural, for the run. Even if I’m upset at the ending, I can appreciate the game. If you watch the show, what were your favorite episodes?

[lailaliquorice]

the world has no right to my heart

Oooh boy here’s some angst. And some long angst, coming in at just over 4k words. 

This one was the brainchild of @qualquercoisa945, because I said to come up with a prompt for this lyric and maria suggest jane figuring out that henry never really loved her and that she was abused too. so this isn’t entirely just me coming up with ideas to hurt you all!! but this was a weighty prompt that I hope I’ve done justice because coming to terms with something like this is very difficult, I can testify to that myself, so I wanted to write this well.

tw for mentions of emotional abuse, and semi-graphic blood

It was hard for Jane not to feel like the odd one out amongst the rest of the queens with her first solo line declaring her ‘only one he truly loved’.

She knew that Anna sometimes struggled with feeling unworthy of her place in the lineup due to being the true one to survive and was already ready to convince her that she’d suffered at his hands too, but could never quite apply that thought to herself. Jane had been the lucky one to avoid it; maybe she wouldn’t have been so lucky if she’d had a daughter but she hadn’t, Edward had put her in his good graces and he’d loved her for that, so she’d been treated right. She’d kept herself quiet, she’d done everything he asked, she’d given him a son. So she’d been treated right.

But for a reason she couldn’t figure out, no one else seemed to be able to accept that.

The first person who Jane noticed routinely keeping an eye on her was Anne. Which wasn’t what she expected seeing as Anne had a reputation of being so careless. Hindsight would make Jane realise that of course it was Anne to notice first, since she had taken the brunt of his temper so often and paid for it with her life, but in the moment she just thought it a little odd how Anne watched her frowning after she startled at a door slamming upstairs.

“You alright?” she asked, no hint of a joke in her question.

Jane nodded, trying to ignore the way her heart was hammering at the sound. “I’m fine. It just make me jump, nothing more than that,” she said with a reassuring smile, holding Anne’s gaze until she nodded before heading over to the kitchen cupboard to see what she could make for lunch. They’d done the weekly food shop earlier so nothing had been opened yet, holding out a packet of crackers and asking Anne “Can I open these?”

The concerned look that had only just left Anne’s face returned in full force, making Jane wonder immediately if she’d done something wrong by asking in the first place. But then Anne shrugged and replied “Course you can, all the stuff in here is yours as much as the next person. You don’t have to ask.”

“Oh. I just thought I should ask, that’s all.”

She quickly busied herself with making her lunch, keeping her gaze low so that she didn’t have to acknowledge the worried eyes she could feel following her the entire time.

It continued on with little things like that. Cathy gently rebuking Jane for apologising over a mishap at the theatre that wasn’t her fault only for her to just say sorry again, Anna jumping a foot into the air when Jane’s silent footsteps meant she caught her off guard for the hundredth time, Aragon telling her over and over again that she didn’t need to ask to sit down when she came into the other dressing room. How she would always follow everyone else’s suggestions for everything and back down fast whenever she was asked what she wanted to do. Little things here and there, nothing frequent or linked enough that Jane ever really connected the dots but enough that she noticed them as singular events.

But one singular event that forced her to connect those dots at last started out with an argument that Jane wasn’t even involved with. While Anne and Aragon’s fights were nowhere near as common as they had been during the start of their time together they still happened every now and then – never serious and never lasting long, but still as loud as ever.

Normally Jane would focus more on making sure Kat was ok during those arguments since they could sometimes make her upset, the two of them hiding in one of their bedrooms or sometimes Cathy’s study until amends had been made. Today, however, Kat was actually out of the house when it happened. So Jane was on her own.

As the sounds of shouting floated in from where the two of them had set up their theoretical battleground in the kitchen, Jane tried to focus on the embroidery she was attempting to do. Cathy had already shut the living room door and Anna was playing music to try and mute the fighting a little but she could still hear every word, even her own thoughts inaudible as they were all she could focus on.

Anne’s particularly loud shriek made Jane jump and accidentally jab the needle into her finger instead, letting out an involuntary squeak. She set her material down on her lap as she sucked on where it was bleeding slightly, nervousness rising in her chest as the stinging pain added to the unpleasant sensations in her brain and she was no longer keeping herself distracted.

“Catch yourself there?” came Anna’s wry remark, and Jane just gave a half-hearted laugh in the hope that neither she or Cathy noticed anything out of the ordinary with her.

There was no such luck though, since before she could pick up the embroidery again her hand was grabbed by Cathy from where she was sat next to her. “What’s the matter?” Cathy asked, a concerned frown on her face.

Jane shrugged. “N-nothing, I’m fine,” she lied, almost wincing as how she stumbled over two simple words. She was sure that Cathy would be able to feel the tremble in her clammy hand but she was still desperate to keep quiet the anxiety making her heart hammer and head spin.

Cathy looked entirely unconvinced but didn’t press for more information, letting Jane continue with her work as she picked her book up. The kitchen had fallen quiet by then, and Jane felt her shoulders seize up with tension at the sound of footsteps approaching the living room door. She had no idea why but the only coherent thought in her mind was to run, to hide from whatever retribution was coming.

But then the door swung open to reveal Anne and Aragon together and actually smiling at each other.

“What in God’s name was that all about?” Anna asked the question on Jane’s mind, while she could only sit and watch wide-eyed like a cornered deer.

Anne groaned, giving Aragon a knowing look who returned it with a slightly exasperated smile. “You know that journalist who interviewed us about our overlapping years a little while back?” Anne asked, pausing long enough for Jane to just about nod before she continued. “Well he emailed us the sample article today, and it was absolute bollocks. Turned us against each other completely when we’d been aiming for an article on how Henry played us both.”

“So we had a… marginally uncivilised phone call with him,” Aragon added, a satisfied smirk on her face as she turned to look at Anne again.

Cathy and Anna both laughed, but Jane was still left feeling too unsettled to share in their amusement. “So you’re not fighting each other?” she clarified quietly, too quietly.

Scrunching her face in disapproval as she shook her head, Anne said “Nah, not this time. All’s good.”

“Good,” Jane repeated.

Anne hummed in agreement, though there was something slightly off in her demeanour as she watched Jane through concerned eyes. “Yeah, we’re good. Are you though?” she asked.

Jane just blinked in surprise as Anne moved round to squat on the edge of the coffee table in front of her. “I’m fine, really,” she said quietly.

“You sure? Because it looked like the shouting’s made you kinda nervous,” Anne pointed out in that same gentle voice she always used when she pointed out oddities in Jane’s behaviour.

She shifted nervously beneath Anne’s kind eyes, still not wanting to admit it but worried that she would be called out for denying Anne’s suggestion. The entire room seemed to be holding its breath as she felt herself being acutely watched from all angles.

Aragon’s voice from across the room saved her from her miserable purgatory. “Give her some space, Anne,” she said, prompting Anne to turn her gaze away from Jane’s face and Jane to practically sag in relief when she was no longer the centre of attention. “Nevermind all that now, we’ve given that man a piece of our mind and I should hope he goes what’s good for him now. For the time being, ladies, we should really be getting ready to go.”

The show gave Jane a great mask to hide behind for the rest of the evening; it was easy to pretend she was no less than ok when she was wearing her armour of sequins and had her smile painted on in dusky rose lipstick. But she could hear her own voice shaking as she recited the end of her monologue and began her song, performing on autopilot as certain phrases refused to leave her head after they left her lips.

“I stood firm, no matter his flaws or tempers. No matter my fears or doubts I stayed there by his side. And that’s not because I was scared…”

Or was it?

Tears streamed down her face by the end of her solo, barely choking out her final line before Anne came to rescue her from standing alone in that spotlight. But when Anne grabbed her hand during the pre-Haus of Holbein costume change and fixed her with a questioning glance, she could only rub away the dampness on her cheeks and shake her head while hoping she would be able to keep herself together for the rest of the show.

The second they were back home Jane was practically running straight up to her bedroom, ignoring even Kat’s worried voices as she shut her door and just breathed for the first time that evening. Normally she would find something to occupy herself as she wound down for a couple of hours after getting home, but she felt so worn down in that moment that it was a struggle to just take her makeup off and get changed before she fell asleep. She vaguely registered someone who she thought was possibly Aragon crack open her door and check on her as she was falling asleep fast, just about mustering the energy to tell her she’d be fine by the morning before wakefulness slipped away.

But in her haste to get the wearisome day over and done with, she gave no thought to the prospect that it wasn’t over at all.

She recognised the place she opened her eyes in far too quickly, and purely by the floor she was looking at. She was on her knees at the foot of a throne; his throne, of course. At his feet where he had made sure she never moved from.

“Please, sire,” she asked without intending to, her lips moving of their own accord, though she had replayed this scene in her dreams so many times already that no word was a surprise. “Have mercy on them. This is all I ask of you. I plead for your forgiveness on behalf of these people, for I know they have spoken against you but may their judgement be passed by God and not your executioner’s sword.”

It had been so long that she hardly remembered the people who’s lives she was begging for. Participants in some sort of uprising, she recalled, but the details were unimportant beneath what the scene meant for her.

A finger beneath her chin tilted her head up none too gently, forcing her to look into the eyes of the man she was supposed to love. His face was inches from hers, his breath hot on her face, though she was too frozen in fear to move away even if she had tried to.

His voice rumbled low like thunder as he spoke, echoing around the room as if she was surrounded from all angles by his presence.

“Oh Jane. Didn’t I already teach you a lesson in what happens to those who meddle in my affairs? I’m sure you don’t want to end up the same way that the witch who came before you did.”

“No,” Jane breathed out, unsure even herself if it was intended to be a response to him or a quiet cry of protest at whatever would come next.

He seized her face by tightening the grip on her jaw, fingernails digging into her cheeks, and when he wrenched her head around to one side it was all Jane could do not to shriek.

It was Anne. Or rather, she could just about recognise the woman slumped against the wall as the Anne she knew now, if she looked past the blood and bruises that marred her face. This had never happened in her dream before, and she could only continue watching in horror as the nightmare refused to end.

“Jane,” she rasped out, her voice dry and painful as if she’d shouted herself hoarse. She crawled sluggishly closer as she spoke, forcing her to see with horrible clarity the damage that had been done to her face and neck. “Jane, don’t do it. Don’t make my mistakes. Run, run and hide before he has the chance to do this to you. Before he hurts you like I did and you can never be yourself ever again.”

She was so focused on Anne’s broken pleas that she registered nothing else until there was a hand on her own neck. “Too late, witch,” he murmured, the faintest hint of laughter in his voice.

Anne had reached her by then, a look of unimaginable sorrow in her bruised eyes as she cupped Jane’s cheek with a bloodstained hand and whispered “I’m sorry.”

Movement in the corner of her eye made her look back at him. Anne’s body crumpled to the floor as he raised a sword in his other hand. Jane closed her eyes and screamed.

“Jane!!”

She shot up in bed, still screaming as she looked around in panic and tried to work out where she was. With the darkness suffocating her she still had no idea if she was still in the throne room or anywhere else, and with no clue to who’s voice had called her name she instinctively backed up in fear until she collided with the head of the bed and hid her face in the crook of her arm.

“Woah, Jane, it’s just us. You had a nightmare, you’re safe in the house and we’re all here. It’s ok.”

The light was flicked on then, and Jane dared to open her eyes just a little. True to their words the rest of the queens were all there; Anna stood by the light switch with a deeply unsettled expression on her face and Kat held in her embrace, Aragon perched on the edge of the bed, Anne sat on her knees just in front of Jane and Cathy right next to her. They were all in their pyjamas and looked as though they’d all bolted out of their rooms and into hers when her screams shattered the silent night.

“Jane, talk to us, please,” Anne said, making Jane realise it was her who had spoken before.

Cathy nodded, tugging on Anne’s arm to make her sit back a little when Jane refused to uncurl herself from her protective stance. “I promise you’re safe, love. We’re all here for you if you want to talk to us,” she added more gently, though there was still a serious note in her voice and look of fear in her eyes.

As Jane’s racing mind calmed down she began to realise why. She was always the one to comfort them after their nightmares and reassure them while they cried, so to see her on the other end of that role reversal had to be more than a little frightening for them all.

“I was at the palace with him,” she started in a trembling voice, swallowing hard when her dry throat made it hard to squeeze words out. Suddenly as more of her dream came flooding back she snapped her gaze up to Anne from where she’d been studying the pattern on her duvet cover, just taking in the sight of her unmarred face without the marks of his fury there anymore. “He hurt you,” she could only whisper, covering her mouth with one hand to stifle her uneven breaths.

“Hey, I’m here now though,” Anne said, placing a hand on Jane’s arm to see if she’d react badly before she risked moving closer.

Jane needed no further invitation to practically launch herself at Anne, wrapping her arms tightly around her and clinging to her desperately. “He’d hurt you and you tried to warn me. And he- he said that if I didn’t keep quiet then he’d teach me a lesson by doing what he did to you,” she sobbed out, every memory of Anne’s horribly broken form coming back as she just shook in her arms.

Anne seemed to freeze for a minute before she moved to comfort Jane, and in the back of Jane’s mind she could tell that she was a little unsettled by the tale she’d just told. A gentle touch on her shoulder made her look up to see Aragon sat close with a hand on each of their backs, the soothing note in her voice clearly meant for both of them as she said “Breathe, love, please. We’re in the present day and we’re all safe now.”

“But-“

“Shh, I promise we’re safe,” Cathy added, rubbing Jane’s arm gently as she sat back from Anne’s embrace.

Jane nodded, pulling in a hiccupping breath as she forced herself to calm down. She snuck a glance up at Anne when she realised she hadn’t spoken for a minute, almost quivering at the faraway expression on her face and jumping when she turned to look down at her. “Jane,” she asked, her voice quietly serious, “did that ever happen to you outside your dream?”

She nodded again, and Anne’s face crumpled.

“It was only once though,” Jane said, not sure why she was defending him but feeling somehow obliged to. “He only told me that once. And he was right, it was my fault for getting involved in something I shouldn’t have done. But he was never hurt me. He wasn’t the same with me.”

Anne shaking her head sorrowfully interrupted Jane’s tirade, the look in her eyes so similar to the look she’d held in Jane’s dream that she fell quiet immediately. “He didn’t have to hit you for him to hurt you,” she said, glancing at Aragon who gave a supporting nod. “Jane, ah, I’ve noticed a few things. And I think I know what it adds up to but I didn’t want to say but I think I kinda have to now.” Her words came out all in a rush as she spoke, seeming almost hesitant as she looked back at Jane.

Hardly daring to think, Jane asked “Like what?”

“Like how you feel you should ask before doing things as if we’ll tell you off for anything, and you’re always keeping quiet so we don’t notice you moving around, and feeling the need to apologise all the time and never want to make any choices in case we get mad. And then today, when us yelling made you seem so scared,” Anne listed, and even though her voice was so soft Jane still felt like she was being read out a list of her crimes.

Cathy’s quiet hum made Jane look over to see her nod solemnly. “Things like this are what Kat and I have been covering in our research,” she said, holding out her hand for Kat to take as she and Anna walked over to join them on the bed. “I don’t want to make any assumptions, because I wasn’t there and the only person who can truly know is you. But they’re all signs of emotional abuse.”

“He didn’t,” Jane whispered, still unwilling to believe that. “He loved me. He can’t have done that, he said he loved me.”

The sympathetic looks of her fellow queens as she looked around at them all was almost too much to bear.

“I know this can’t be easy to hear,” Aragon said, reaching over to take Jane’s hand in hers. “But think for me, love. If Edward had been a girl, then what?”

Jane stopped.

Her mind started spinning with the hints he’d made. The anger that had been in his eyes so often while she’d been forced to just batten down the hatches and endure it. The deeper meaning of that one threat which had haunted her nightmares; it wasn’t only meddling in his affairs that Anne had done wrong, it was having a daughter. Maybe she could have done everything possible to keep herself quiet, to keep herself what she wanted her to be, but that one innocent fatal mistake could have sent her to the scaffold regardless.

Kat’s quiet voice interrupted her thoughts, the first time she had spoken that evening. “My counsellor said it’s like being in a box,” she spoke quietly, though there was conviction in her voice that told Jane even though she was nervous she was also confident in her words. “Every time you touch the walls it hurts so you try and be smaller so you don’t get hurt. But then the walls get smaller and smaller and you’ll never be small enough to be what they want. Does that… does that sound familiar?”

She could only stare at her friend-turned-daughter for a moment, wondering how she could have been so blinded with everything that Kat had gone through. “Oh god,” she burst out, covering her hands over her mouth and hunching forwards as she shook with terrified sobs.

Immediately she felt two people’s hands on her back, anchoring her to the present while she sobbed about the past. “You’re alright, Jane. It’s ok,” Anne whispered , “It’s scary to think about and it’s a lot to process but you’re ok now. I promise you’re ok.”

Those words were what Jane clung onto as she poured her emotions out, not caring that she was crying in front of them because she trusted them with this empty shell of herself she had become.

It was a few minutes before she had her breathing under control enough to talk again, sat leaning against Aragon with Cathy and Anne holding a hand each and Anna and Kat with her nearby. “I’m sorry,” she croaked, taking her hand back from Anne for a moment to rub at the tears streaming down her face.

“Don’t be,” Aragon whispered from above Jane’s head, squeezing her opposite shoulder gently with the arm around her back. “We can think about this in the morning. For now, though, we should really all be getting some more sleep.”

Kat’s yawn emphasised Aragon’s point exactly, and Jane cracked a tiny smile as she nodded. But then the thought of being alone for the rest of the night came flooding back, fear in her voice as she begged “Please, don’t leave me tonight.”

“Course we won’t,” said Anne with a smile.

And that was how a few minutes later found Jane tucked back up in her bed, with Kat curled into her on one side and Anne’s reassuring presence on the other. Cathy was latched onto Aragon like a koala a little way down the bed with Anna sprawled out and taking up the space by their feet. The night was still scary and she was still reluctant to sleep in case her nightmares made a return but Anne’s soft snoring next to her was a constant reminder that she was ok and that they’d both survived the past.

There was a lot she would need to deal with after that realisation she’d finally come to terms with. But, for now, she could rest with her family all around her and the knowledge that they would never let her get hurt again.

[bookandcranny]

Stone Heart Gambit

 Part 1 - Chapter 3

Soso wakes up in her bed, and for one blissful moment it’s as though all of it were only a dream brought on by too much chocolate before bed. Sunlight is shining through her window and, other than a dry mouth and a mildly upset stomach, she feels refreshed and content. Today has the makings of a perfect lazy day, she decides. She sits up, stretches, relishing the feeling of life coming back into her stiff muscles, opens her eyes, and squeaks.

The living gargoyle is staring at her from the foot of her bed. He’s eating a candy bar, pausing to pick flecks of caramel out of a rather impressive set of pointed teeth, framed on either side by a pair of tusks. Next to him on the floor is an empty bread bag, empty milk carton, two boxes of cereal- yes, empty- and a jar of peanut butter that has, as of yet, been spared from the rampage.

“You ate all my food,” Soso comments dumbly. All things considered, it shouldn’t be the biggest issue, but that milk was supposed to be communal and her housemates are going to kill her.

The beast bows his head. “I’ll replace it.” Before she can question just how he plans to do that, he hands her the peanut butter like a peace offering and— what the hell, she takes it and starts eating with her fingers. It calms her down, marginally.

“You were a statue,” she says with, if she does say so herself, remarkable evenness.

“I was. Rather, I was cursed into a prison of stone.”

“A curse, okay, sure. And now you’re… uncursed?”

He nods.

“But you still look like…” She coughs awkwardly. “I mean, you know, you don’t look human.”

“That’s because I’m not,” he explains. “I am Adamantius the unbreakable, son of man.”

“That’s a hell of a name.”

“I am the fire that burns in the west,” he says, as if that explains everything. “What may I call you?”

“I’m… Soso,” she replies. “Soso Willoughby. I don’t have any fancy titles, sorry.”

“Lady Willoughby,” he says, and his eyes sparkle. “I owe you a great debt.” He drops his head so low his horns brush the floor.

“Hey, I’m not mad about the food, don’t worry about it. You must’ve been hungry.”

“I was. I have been. For countless years I’ve been imprisoned, waiting until the fated night you would free me from my endless purgatory.”

“I did what?” she gawks. “No, you’ve got me confused with someone else. I didn’t free anyone from anything.”

He sits up and presents her with a slightly squished snickers bar. “A single selfless gift,” he says, sounding overcome. “Even when the world forgot about me, even after the stories of my triumphs were lost to time, you still came and spoke to me with such kindness. Truly I can never repay you, but I will stay by your side and serve you faithfully ‘til the end of my days in gratitude.”

“Whoa, wait, what?” she chokes. “I didn’t- I didn’t do anything! And you can’t… how am I supposed to explain you to my roommates? How am I supposed to-“ A thought occurs to her. “Oh god, how am I supposd to explain to Mr Surehouser that I stole his gargoyle? We need to get you back to the library before anyone notices you’re missing.”

The reverence falls from his face, replaced by a baring of teeth. “I will not go back there.”

Soso puts up her hands. “Okay, okay. Let’s… put a pin in that discussion. I need to think.”

“I apologize,” Adamantius rasps. “I didn’t mean to frighten you again. I swear to you, I will not cause you any harm. But I do not wish to return there, ever.”

“Well, what do you wish- want?” She leans tentatively closer, studying him. He’s less frightening in the light of day, but not by much. The color of skin still makes him appear as if made of stone, except now she can see his chest rise and fall with his breathing. A thin crack near the junction of one of his horns glows a faint red, the same flame-light that flickers behind his eyes, an inferno contained in a shell of granite.

“I want only to serve you, and to bring to account those who have wronged us.”

She doesn’t like the sound of that. “What does that mean?”

A flicker of something almost devious enters his expression. He gestures towards the bedroom window. Soso gets up to have a look. She pales.

Outside, the town is in chaos. Windows are smashed in, cars are tipped over, heavy claws marks carve a path down the entire street. It looks like the aftermath of a horror movie. A young man wearing a rubber mask is cowering in a tree on Summer Street as police and concerned neighbors try to coax him down.

“I thought it was just a really good costume,” another boy says, shaking like a lead as he gives his statement to a local news reporter.

Soso stands on the porch barefoot in yesterday’s clothes and tries not to panic. Adamantius comes up behind her in the doorway and she shoves him back inside. Remembering she’s not alone in the house, she keeps shoving until they’re standing in the narrow fenced-in area behind the back of the house, well out of sight.

“What did you do?” she demands.

“I thought the fates of the enemy should be left to your discretion, but I wanted to ensure they got the message.”

“Yeah, I think they got it!” She puts her head in her hands. “Dear god, you didn’t kill anybody, did you?”

“As I said, I was awaiting your orders.”

“Okay, my orders are ‘don’t kill anybody’.”

He cocks his head to the side. “Not ever?”

“Not ever! No killing, Ada- Adam- Why is your name so complicated!” she asks in frustration. “Don’t you have nickname or something I can call you?”

He lowers his head, looking pensive. After a moment he says, “There was someone once very close to me called me ‘Adami’.”

This information mellows Soso’s temper somewhat. Despite his appearance and somewhat murderous tendencies, there had been someone who cared for him, and whom it seemed he cared for in return, and now if his story was to be believed, crazy as it all sounded, they are likely long gone. Soso tries to imagine being imprisoned like he was, asleep and awake at once in a frozen form while the days, months, years went by. It sounds terrible.

“How long exactly were you… doing time?”

“I couldn’t say. After the first few decades or so time begins to lose its meaning. I didn’t so much feel the passage of time, only watched the rising and falling of the sun, the turning of the seasons. For much of that time, I wished only for vengeance, then for death, and then I wished for nothing at all. There didn’t seem a point. I had lost all hope of rescue long ago.” His gaze falls on her again. “Then you came. You spoke to me, and reminded me that I was still alive.”

Soso feels her face heat. How was she supposed to tell him that she’d only started talking to him because she thought he was an inanimate object?

“Adami,” she says gently. “We need to go back there. I need to figure out what happened, and the only other person I can think of who might know something is the librarian. I can’t- I don’t have enough room to hide you here without someone finding out, and once they do… I don’t know, they’ll probably want to put you in prison or dissect you for science or something!”

She reaches up and places her hands on his shoulders, privately marveling at the sheer size of him. She has to stand on her toes.

“I promise I’m not going to let anything happen to you, but you need to trust me.”

“Of course,” he says without hesitation. “I will follow where you lead.”

Soso exhales an anxious breath and releases him. “I’ll need my bike.”

 --

 Surehouser doesn’t wake up in his bed, and rather than the morning light he is woken by a persistent thumping sound. At first, he thinks it’s simply the pounding in his own head. He’s had a bottle of dandelion wine- a gift from some cousin or other- stowed away since the equinox, saved for the express purpose of drowning out the Halloween festivities with his own.

In the time it takes him to recognize the knocking for what it is, he’s become aware of three things. One: he is wildly hung over. Two: today is the first of the month. Three: following that logic, he is well overdue to submit his annual report, which was due at the first of last month. He should get to it, he supposes, adjusting his glamour to better disguise the air of malaise he carries with him. Then again he doubts anyone is going to come breaking his door down about it. If not for the occasional paperwork and the letters and packages from his relations he’d think the whole of faerie society had long forgotten about him. It’s not as if anything happens here anyway.

He trudges to the front door of the library, wondering who could be so desperate to get his attention, and finds standing there the young lady who’s been dropping by the past couple weeks, accompanied by an eight foot abomination.

“So,” says the girl. “Don’t freak out.”

Surehouser runs to his desk and retrieves the enchanted blade he keeps below the stationary drawer. He’s not as spry as he used to be though and the monster has him pinned to the cherry wood before he can so much as unsheathe it. It gnashes its teeth and twists his arm until he’s forced to drop the weapon with a cry. Without any other option, he drops the human farce and the light it forces outward stuns the creature just long enough for him to slip from its grasp. From there, escaping would be easy, just take the form of a jackrabbit or a will o’ wisp and be gone. He almost does just that, but it seems somewhere along the years he’s picked up a conscience. Damn it.

“Soso, get back, I’ll hold it off.” He places himself between her and it, forming a barrier. Between the throbbing headache and the fear he hardly notices her grabbing onto his arm.

“Hold on a second, both of you stop it!”

Adamantius readies to charge and Soso steps between them.

“I said STOP!”

It stops. “As per your instructions,” it growls, startling Surehouser almost more than the attack itself. “I will not kill him.”

“I don’t want you to do anything to him, understand?”

The creature- he looks torn. “Not even-“

“No, whatever it is, no!” she says, flustered. She chides the rampaging goliath like one would a misbehaving dog. It’s honestly impressive. “Mr Surehouser’s a friend.”

Another snarl tears from him. “He’s a faerie.”

It takes a moment to sink in, but once she realizes he knows there’s no way to deny it. Soso steps back and for the first time really takes him in, the truth of him. Under his human disguise, the librarian is summer court through and through; his body all mist and golden light. The base human features are still there, but unlike some of his more passable fellows, one look at him without the aid of a glamour is enough to know he’s not of their world. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he veils himself with the familiar mask of the old unassuming librarian. It’s a magic specifically designed to make him easy to overlook, though the exact details of his appearance still depend largely on the viewer’s perception. It’s why he does his best to stay away from crowds. Too many conflicting accounts of the same man create a very real risk of his cover being blown.

It’s been a long time since he willingly dropped the act around another person, even among his own kind, however infrequently he sees them. Certainly he hadn’t planned to destroy his entire carefully-crafted persona when he woke up seven minutes ago. Yet here they were.

“That’s, wow,” the girl says.

He forces a chuckle. “Not the worst reaction I could’ve gotten, I suppose.”

“Yeah, well, I’m getting to a point where being shocked at every new thing is just taking up too much energy.”

Her eyes are winged and weary. Surehouser looks from her to Adamantius, an ancient warrior whom last he saw was petrified on his front lawn, a being even older than his great-grandfather, and significantly more sapient than he’d been led to believe from the wartime tales. He casts one last, longing look at his dagger laying on the floor and declares,

“It seems that we have a lot to talk about and frankly I don’t want to have this conversation standing up.”

He takes them out of the main library to a sitting area. There are two arm chairs and a small sofa loosely fitted into a circle around a low table in front of a fireplace, now dormant. Soso flops gratefully into the nearest chair. Adamantius isn’t so eager.

“I don’t like faeries,” he says. “And I don’t like your rings.”

“It’s a semi-circle if anything.” He sits. The monster stays standing, hovering at Soso’s side, tense and wary.

“So,” Surehouser begins after a moment. “You’ve, er, woken Adamantius.”

She nods slowly. “If it counts for anything, I didn’t exactly mean to.”

“It’s alright, Soso. I understand many humans in your age group go through an arcane phase, performing your little rituals and whatnot. Although how you stumbled upon something powerful enough to undo a curse like that is far beyond me.”

“I’m serious, I don’t know anything about magic or curses or whatever! It was an accident.”

He looks into her eyes; she seems earnest, though it can be hard to tell with humans.

“I gave him a snickers,” she says. “Adamantius says it was a gesture of pure kindness that broke the curse, or something.”

She looks to him for confirmation. He doesn’t take his eyes off the faerie, but nods his confirmation. She goes on to tell the full story, punctuated with various exaggerated hand motions.

“-And you don’t seem that surprised by all this,” she notes as it comes to a close. Or rather, catches up with the present. “And also, you’re a faerie? Is Surehouser even your name?”

“You could say so. It’s a name, and it’s mine.”

She makes a face. “Right. So like, what now?”

He lets out a long sigh. “Now, I need a drink.” He stands up and, obliged by the laws of hospitality, adds, “Do you want anything?”

“Oh, I don’t really drink. Also, it’s like 2:30.” When it becomes clear that that is not the deterrent she thinks it is, she turns to the creature. “What about you?”

“If you’re not having anything, neither will I.”

She purses her lips. “Actually, Mr Surehouser, if I could bug you for some water or something to eat… all I’ve really had today is, like, half a jar of peanut butter, and this guy was a rock for like a thousand years I guess so he’s always hungry.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Though food is not his indulgence of choice, he’s pretty sure he remembers where the kitchen is supposed to be. The fruit there doesn’t go rotten and the water he runs into a pitcher is cold and clean. For himself, two painkillers. As much as he’d rather not, he’s starting to think this is indeed a conversation he should be sober for.

Once he’s made up a tray he returns to the sitting room where the odd pair are exchanging muttered words and serious glances. Soso stands up to help him set everything out but as she reaches for the fruit, her monster stops her.

“For pity’s sake, Adamantius, they won’t harm her. This place is neutral territory. That’s the whole point.”

While he’s distracted she pops a handful of grapes into her mouth. “You two know each other?”

“Not personally,” says Surehouser. “Though at the same time you could say we’ve been neighbors for years.” He chuckles to himself. “For more than a century, now that I think about it. I’m a watcher. Not the first, though maybe the last.” He loses some of his good humor. The reality of the situation is setting in, unbelievable though it is. “It’s been my job to… well to prevent what is happening right now.”

“He is my jailor,” Adamantius clarifies.

“More or less. Soso, do you even know who it is you’ve been sitting so comfortably beside?”

“Does she know who you are?” he snaps in retaliation. “Have you ever taken a moment to explain the depths of your fraudulence, you oversized pixie?”

His eyes narrow. “Name calling isn’t necessary. But you have a point.” He turns to the girl. “I haven’t lied to you, but neither have I been truthful. Look around you. You see an old library, and me, its keeper. Although on the surface that is true, it’s such a small fraction of what it is. It’s only a name, only some books on some shelves.”

“Then what is the truth? The full truth.” She stares at him intently.

“Long ago,” he begins. As a start to a story, it’s as good as any. Soso’s told him her story, now he owes her one in return. “There was a terrible war between humankind and the fae people. You might know them as faeries, the hidden folk, the good neighbors. Again, that’s only the barest sliver of it. The fae consist of all magical beings, united against humanity. Once, our worlds were one, with the faerie lords, whose magic was strongest and purest, ruling over all.”

“While the humans,” Adamantius interjects. “Struggled at the bottom of the food chain. Although they were greater in numbers and more widespread than almost any other species, they were preyed on by the faefolk because of their lack of natural magic. When their science and scholarly learning grew strong enough to threaten even the faeries’ regime, war broke out. In the process, countless human lives and achievements were lost.”

“I would’ve gotten to that,” Surehouser says haughtily. “As I was saying, after years of fighting the humans finally made a breakthrough. Through study and spiritualism their brightest scholars developed a power that was enough to rival fae magic. They called it alchemy, and with it they created a killing machine powerful enough to turn the tide of the war. Adamantius, the man-made monster.

“Though it was magic, albeit humans’ version of magic, that created him, he became the ultimate soldier against the fae forces. Because of this, many came to consider his existence the ultimate insult, a betrayal of our ways.”

The monster in question lunges forward. Soso seizes his arm, nearly falling out of her chair.

“Your ways and your magic have nothing to do with me. I am the son of man.”

Surehouser takes a sip of water, smiling against the rim of his glass. All this drama for a beast who was unable to act without his human’s approval.

“Personally I’m neutral on the subject. War is a terribly ugly thing. The humans’ precious pet soldier did a lot of damage, but so did we. The only reason the humans won the war in the end was because the lords at the time feared their new alchemy. This single creation of theirs had dealt more damage in a few years, a blink of an eye to them, than all their previous efforts combined. If the humans managed to reproduce their experiment… well, the risk was too great.

“The fae forces surrendered and treaty negotiations began. One of the main conditions of the treaty was that each nation’s greatest tools of war be retired and sealed away somewhere on neutral ground, never to be used again. You see where I’m going with this?”

Soso looks offended. “Adami’s alive. A living person isn’t a weapon.”

He shrugs. “When I say tools of war I’m not speaking of just blades and bombs. Lots of things can be a weapon that you wouldn’t expect. Wealth, knowledge, even a bowl of fruit.”

Adamantius picks up an armchair.

“Kidding, kidding! No need to go throwing furniture.” He stands up, hands raised. “You are much more hair-trigger than the stories suggested. Come, I’ll show you what I mean.”

He takes them behind the front desk and pushes aside a shelf of “staff picks”, revealing a hidden doorway that opens onto the basement. Anyone who knew what to look for would be able to pick out a concealment charm easily. Sometimes it paid to do things the old-fashioned way, so to speak.

The entrance is short and narrow and Adamantius struggles to squeeze through for a minute before it becomes clear that it’s wasted effort.

“What a pity,” Surehouser chirps. “Guess you’ll just have to trust me with your human for a while.”

He growls his disapproval, but once again Soso manages to talk him down. “I’ll be fine. I promised, right? Nothing bad is gonna happen.”

The creature doesn’t look entirely at ease with the idea, but he relents. As they descend the steps, he stands stalwart at the doorway, his eyes following them down until they disappear into the darkness completely.

[douxreviews]

Rome - Series Review

“You look like laundry.”

Costume dramas and toga parties aren’t for everyone. But even if Gladiator left you cold, Caligula left you cringing, and I, Claudius left you feeling overly-British, HBO’s now-defunct series Rome is still worth checking out during the summer television wasteland.

Rome is about two legionaries, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. It’s about pre-middle-class urban life. It’s about colonialism. It’s about pre-Christian morality. It’s about sex, and violence, and loyalty, and fatherhood, and childhood. Oh, yeah: it’s about Julius and Augustus Caesar and the bloody chaos of the rise of the Roman Empire.

I know this is a genre site. I know that HBO’s Rome ended years ago. But what else are you going to do during the Summer TV Wasteland? (Especially if you don’t have cable?)

Season One covers Caesar’s return from Gaul (which is divided into three parts, as you will recall from Latin 101) after eight years subduing the hairy natives. Victorious, angry, and with an astonishing amount of popular support for someone who’s been away for so long, Caesar crosses the Rubicon with his vast army—a real no-no according to Republican laws, which didn’t allow generals to command troops within the Roman environs. Caesar, who is stolid, smart, and pleasantly sharp-witted, gets into a power-play with the hapless and pudgy Pompey, wins, and becomes a tyrant who is assassinated by Brutus, Cassius, and 42 other Roman senators. And if you feel spoiled, well… you should have paid better attention in Roman Civ.

Season Two is far more rushed: the producers found out that they were being cancelled mid-filming, and decided to compress what had been a five-year plan into about five episodes. So Season Two takes us from Caesar’s death to the rise of Augustus to Mark Antony’s defeat (and steamy relationship with Cleopatra) in Egypt. Against the backdrop, Lucius and Titus contend with the difficult adjustment to civilian life, and even, for a while, become something like Mafiosi in the city of Rome itself.

Lucius and Titus are, for me, the heart of the series. Lucius (Kevin McKidd, who is now on Grey’s Anatomy -- he's the grumpy one in the photo) is a “Catonian” -- he believes in the sacred Roman Republic. But he also believes in loyalty and keeping his promises. Over the course of the two seasons, this means that he, more often than not, winds up working against his own political philosophy out of loyalty to Caesar (first) and Mark Antony (later). Lucius’s home life is no simpler: after eight years away, he and his wife have some complex issues to work out. How they work them out I’ll leave for you to discover.

Titus (Ray Stevenson), who is in the brig for general disorderliness when we first meet him, is Lucius’s polar opposite. He doesn’t have a political philosophy. He doesn’t have a philosophy, at all. But he’s a spectacular fighter who is, it turns out, capable of his own kind of loyalty -- to Lucius, with whom he becomes fast friends, and to Augustus Caesar, whom he taught to fight (as a youngster) and for whom he does occasionally gruesome favors (when Caesar is actually Caesar and not just Octavius). Watching Titus grow, but stay essentially true to his essentially good nature, over the course of the series is definitely one of its high points. I liked him so much I even rented the most recent Punisher movie, in which Ray Stevenson plays the eponymous character. Sadly, I am not a Punisher fan.

History buffs will love this show -- at least, I think that’s a huge part of my affection for it. My own deep-seated hatred of Cicero for all of those damned dependent clauses and odd ablative uses made me laugh out loud when I saw him sniveling, groveling, and grasping at straws in the Caesar-Pompey death-match. But, schadenfraude aside, his death scene made me cry. Seeing Old Man Cato, scrawny and protesting in the Roman senate in a skimpy black toga, was equally amusing (Cato has a great part to play in Dante’s Purgatory, which has always endeared me to him).

Both Caesars are rather unreadable, especially Ocatvius/Octavian/Augustus, who is played by a child actor for the first half of the series, and an adult actor for the second half. He’s brilliant, cold, proto-Machiavellian, and completely unable to understand illogical, emotional behavior -- he demands loyalty but is incapable of it himself. The complexity of his character, over about 22 episodes, pretty much reveals why I think this show is just awesome. Mark Antony isn’t quite as well drawn, but I get the impression that he just wasn’t that complex of a guy. Either way, James Purfoy does a great job.

I feel like I should say something about the women -- Atia, Julius’s niece, prominent among them. And Cleopatra, of course. Their roles are complex but they’re usually stuck in the domestic sphere, attempting to control the men and circumstances around them through sex, parties, and social snubs. It’s fun to watch, but in retrospect it’s easier to forget.

Rome received a lot of press in its heyday: it wasn’t nearly as popular as Deadwood, Six Feet Under or The Sopranos, but it was far more expensive than all of those shows. The sets for the Forum and the Avantine were the largest sets ever constructed for a TV show, on an Italian backlot. The money was well-spent: until I did some research, I assumed that the producers had simply taken over a town in, say, Croatia, and Romanized it within an inch of its life. It just looks real. If they ever do make a movie, which is a rumor floating around, it should look great on a big screen.

For all the cost and bluster, Rome got some flack for not being “sweeping” or “epic” enough. But it’s not supposed to be Gladiator for the small screen. Rather, it’s about the personalities involved in a battle that seems epic in retrospect, but at the time was a vivid, lived experience for a select group of powerful men and women. Also, the life of the “common man” (whoever he is) was typically dark, cramped, and dirty. Rome wasn’t a planned city, and alleys were far more common that wide boulevards and open spaces.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it wasn’t built by just one man engaging in some mythological Pax Romana or something like that. It was people with money and power wanting more money and more power, but it was also people with strong philosophies (Lucius, Cicero, and Cato among them) just trying to do what is right according to old Roman virtues. It’s also, of course, about the death of the virtuous against the greediness of others. But when isn’t that the story of civilization?

Four out of four togas.

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

Sorry if you've answered this already but based on the current trajectory/pieces on the board and your own awesome ideas on the show -- if you were in charge, what would S14 look like/be about?

Hello. I have a question, and it may seem weird. But is it confirmed that Jensen’s new character is Dean possessed by something? or does everyone just assume that? Because Judging on the pictures we’ve seen of him as the new character, his outfit is pretty ‘old timey,’ you’d think if he was possessed that whoever/whatever possessing him would just wear whatever Dean is wearing at the time right? Or am I wrong and looking too much into it?            

Hey there!

I’ll tackle these asks together as well if you don’t mind. :)

I’m sorry for only replying so late and also only with this short reply, but I am truly so short on time due to traveling for work atm that in my days off I just have so much other stuff to do and plan prior JIB that I simply can’t be online as much atm. So sorry again! *hugs*

Given the latest episode I personally think that we will likely end this season on a mixture of endings such as in S8 and S9. I get the feeling that possibly none of the main characters will actually end the season in the same place, but will each face their respective “all goes to hell”-moment. And with that I don’t mean they are in different universes, but they’ll be split up and each of them focused on a different obstacle. And I also kind of think that the Apocalypse World thing may not be resolved this season.

But to make it a bit easier, I’ll give you some things I could imagine happening in S14 or the end of S13 that takes us over to S14 and that being things I’d pick to explore if I was to be part of the writing team.

Judging from official descriptions it seems that in 13x21 the Winchesters may enter Apocalypse World once more and trying to bring Mary and Jack back. From spoilers we know however that won’t go as smoothly as expected because Mary seems to see that world as her form of purgatory and doesn’t want to go back. Futhermore in 22 apparently they plan on saving lots of innocents which I suppose could mean they will try to bring all of the resistence over to the normal SPN world including Kevin, Bobby, etc.. At the same time it seems Rowena is dealing with Lucifer in some way as the official description for 13x22 says that Rowena’s interaction with Lucifer will have an effect on the outcome of the journey for one of our heroes. Now question is does journey mean the journey to the other world or their story in a broader sense? In any case the hook line is called “hitching a ride” which at the very least feels ominously alluding to possession or something like Dean carrying Benny out of purgatory in his arm. That said based on these infos I could imagine that

a) Lucifer may be wounded ot even dead after his confrontation with Rowena, which is the reason for

b) the last bits of his power keeping Heaven stable enough (where was he btw? because he seemed to not have been in Heaven since the whole low on bettary thing and lights flickering wasn’t a thing when he was around) are gone and Heaven would fall and that leading to

c) all souls kept in Heaven crashing to earth and causing chaos - and the show using a parallel to how it was in S9 with the angels that possibly some of those ghosts, because they are unable to deal with this opt for possession.

d) the falling souls thing would be of course another perfect possibility to bring back deceased characters (this is also where I could imagine the show truly got JDM for some short scene as John), but much more than that truly re-arrange the whole natural order (and with that also give Death a whole lot more trouble), because

e) with Heaven falling and apparently Hell being run by no one, I think they could really let a few big bads come out to play from Hell.

f) Furthermore Heaven falling and God remaining absent and Jake possibly also staying back in the AU would make for a blank in power structure that so far jas been filed by everything christian belief/lore and in that regard Gabriel going after demigods of other cultures and beliefs feels important, because those smaller religions, etc. could be filling that blank space.

And that brings me to the main characters and what may be in store for them. The least ideas I have for Sam’s story tbh, but I think whatever it will be it will be tied to Rowena and witchcraft (possibly even his psychic abilities coming back or his demon blood addiction playing a role again) since for seasons the show has been framing Sam with witchcraft in particular and with Rowena as well.

Cas I could imagine is either the one to finally remember there exists another archangel in their universe that they may try and contact and in so far could be trying to rise Michael from the cage in a desperate attempt or could even go as  far as tyring to reach back to the Empty and get that place’s entity to allow more angels to return. In any case they will make this angels dying out thing a very personal journey for Cas I assume.

And last but not least there is Dean and that is probably who everybody is thinking about most and while the show has been alluding to Michael!Dean or Death!/Reaper!Dean or more generally Dean dying quite heavily I think it will be none of that or at the very least in the shape we have come to know.

As I have said before on this topic of spoilery pics from set and that Jensen posted himself, the vibe I am getting is that whoever Jensen plays is something/someone that hasn’t been walking earth in a long time or never (really, their “it’s someone from a while back” could just be distraction). Just look wise I fangirled over the outfit because as a massive Peaky Blinders fan it reminded me a great deal of those costumes, but moreover reminded me also of “Baron Samedi” (who could fit the bill of someone from way back and something related to Death).

At the moment I think that what- or whoever Jensen will play (and of course they could truly just opt for a doppelgänger plot with Hevane falling and possibly different world collapsing someone looking like Dean but not being Dean could pop up, but I think this is a more unlikely possibility) is a creture/character that only comes into being due to the situation and blanks left by Heaven going out of business and there needing to be someone to “guide those souls” to their new resting place. If they wanted to they could perfectly use  Baron Samedi like figure here to do that. Now question is why that creature would look like Dean but dress differently or would chose Dean as his vessel. I have no good explanation or idea, but it could be the Billie as Death knows Dean’s expertise in that regard and knows something will come - she was very interested truly about what would happen if Sam died (you could even argue that Sam getting hurt/death could have brought about the chnge in Dean Billie is after - again I don’t think Billie will survive this season) - and that Dean would be the right one for the job. More generally I think Dean is in a mindset where he would make a deal - even possession of some sort - if it meant they could save the world. Also, reapers are supposedly a league of angels, couldn’t they possibly be “promoted” to angels and power Heaven and therefore someon who has worked as a reaper before filling their place? Anyway...

So to answer your first anons questions (and this really just a brief collection of ideas I have, I could also imagine Cas trying to get some angels from AU to this world for example, but there are so many ideas but I can’t get them in order or at least can see them work on their own but nor woven together, so I left those out)

All that said if I had to take over from here on out, I would work with Heaven falling and the aftermath of that and explore that. Likewise one would also have to take a look at the state of Hell, because who runs that atm? I’d stick to this main thing and would work everything around that in terms of personal arcs and would chuck the million tiny stories Dabb opens up with each new episode without resolving or truly takin time to develop them.

And now to the second ask. No, I don’t think it was said anywhere that Dean will get possessed. It is just based on allusions throughout the season one could think that was foreshadowing, but also it would be the easiest explanation and the current staff seems to go with the most obvious options. But no, in general it could be someone who looks like Dean or appears in his shape, but is not possessing Dean. If Jensen playing someone else than Dean and Dean disappearing would be a dead serious confirmation imo that this mini arc won’t last longer than 3 episodes or 4 at most, because the show simply cannot function without Dean as Dean, because Dean builds the emotional core and serves as the narrartor of the show, so if he isn’t there, the show lacks it’s heart and soul. That is not to say Sam isn’t important or that Cas isn’t, but I am saying this without any maliciousness involved, the show can function and has shown to function when they are not around as Cas or Sam (see all the times we had Not!Sam or Not!Cas), but that would not be the case with Dean. He is the stepping stone and core of it all holding it together, so... I’d be surprised if the show went with Dean not being Dean for much longer.

[lanonima]

The History of Silverwood

So the roots of Silverwood stretch all the way back to 2002/2003-ish (me being 11 or 12 at the time) and the story, being made organically, had gone through a number of incredible changes over the years which are still hilarious to me so Buckle Up for a hell of a ride and some never-before revealed Silverwood backstory! This is very long but also mostly art-heavy so you can scroll through and just look at silly art through the years if you want.

2002-2003. Fresh off reading The Riddle of the Wren (by Charles de Lint) I came up with a story heavily inspired by it. The story featured a villain by the name of Ithian who was hunting the main character Sanne (who was like an angel or a fairy or something idk) via dreams. Differences being that Sanne came to Earth (I guess?) as a child and was adopted and her new brother was helping her fight Ithian and also they never left their own world. It wasn’t very exciting and I promptly forgot about it (excepting that ideas about magic and space and world-hopping from this book have continued to influence me to this day and are especially noticeable in Stringworlds, but that’s another story).

2004. My friends and I mostly being active on The Lion King Fanart Archive, and this also being the very brief period of time where I was interested in Harry Potter, we started a Harry Potter...thing. Not really an RP but. Anyway my character was an original named Hawkswind (I think I took this sort of naming idea from Mercedes Lackey but I’m not clear on the details) and she was a red wolf who was later turned into a purple lion by magic shenanigans. Two pictures courtesy of @devinsdesigns hopefully she doesn’t mind me putting them up.

2005 (probably). Hawkswind got resused in an actual Harry Potter RP, but this time as a human who’s real name was Rene and she was a French werewolf and also in hiding and probably a bunch of other embarrassing shit I’ve admitted to before but no longer remember truthfully (something about being an immortal princess? sounds about right but who the fuck knows). I don’t have any pictures of her like this but she looked like me.

Between 2005 and 2006. For the first time ever I will admit. Yes, Anthem’s original name was Ansem due to Kingdom Hearts. No, I had not played Kingdom Hearts at this time. But I did read a lot of KH fanfiction for some reason and there was one in particular that grabbed me and I used parts of it for the Original Silverwood Plotline which mostly featured Hawkswind as a chosen one who had failed to save the world and was now being held captive.

2006. By late 2006 I had renamed Anthem and the plot had really taken off. Hawkswind was still French, Anthem was British, she was still an unsuccessful chosen one who had basically been brainwashed into joining her former nemesis. She was a heartless, but by this point I was already calling them Harketein. 

Although Hawkswind was a lesbian (her girlfriend was Aidian) she and Anthem had several children and the story had shifted from the parents to the children, about one of whom there was a prophecy. (Keir and Kaite were the main children in question). Predictably for someone who loves mythology, Anthem’s response to this was to try and murder the children and so the struggle between him and Hawkswind shifted to a domestic one. Pics from this period.

(This is the first picture of Anthem I ever drew so you can see he’s pretty much remained the same from the get-go).

Also around this point Sonya and Aya were first introduced. They were vampires who were friends of Hawkswind.

2007. In early 2007 a short side-story about Keir and a magic mirror led to the creation of the Shenlai, and specifically the shenlai anaora, useless shadow servants who have haunted Anthem’s mansion ever since. They used to look like this.

Also around this point in time this story (then called Saga) met Purgatory, the LARP that @hakbot and I did every day after school like the nerds we are. It was all about gods and thus Hawkswind (now called Hawkie for short) became queen of hell and goddess of evil. Anthem was also in hell and kept breaking out so her main purpose was hunting him down and dragging him back. It also led to pictures like this.

This is where Tris was introduced! The queen of demons came into the story as an eternally cursed child already, and eventually other characters like her assistant Bird (a soul with no memories who therefore could not be placed) and demons like Bermuda were created to fill her court.

By late 2007 Hawkswind was already in love with Anthem, though she also hated him, and since he was capable of magically controlling her who knows how accurate that was.

Between 2006 and 2007 I was in a group story with some other writers and she was my character (obviously) and in late 2007 they officially killed Anthem off. It lasted a little while, but not super long because what would I do without him?

Art from this period also shows the first appearance of her scar, initially from Anthem ripping her heart out to turn her into a Harketein.

The story changes again to a game of chase with Hawkie fleeing from world to world and Anthem chasing her down. The kids are still present, but not as important. It’s around this time that I remember the original story of Ithian and Sanne, which had certain similarities. Sanne is scrapped, and Ithian enters the story as a rival for Anthem. By this point he wasn’t necessarily evil but he was certainly a deviant of a sort. Cross-dressing and also a very unhealthy one-sided obsession with his sister. One of those things has lasted to this day, the other has not (hint: it’s the incest).

Eventually Aidian was murdered and scrapped. I made Ithian Hawkie’s twin brother and lightened her hair slightly to match his. Wings also came into the picture, with varying levels of metaphorical depending on the day.

Ithian regains some of his dream-abilities and also he lives in the void between worlds where he was cast (coming back to Riddle of the Wren again). He pulled Hawkie in with him and it corrupts her. Aidian is actually Not Dead but she does sort of lose it when Hawkie turns evil because while they aren’t dating anymore, she still had feelings for her.

Another story change has Harketein as being allergic to iron, and one of the ways Hawkie protects herself from Anthem is by locking herself in iron shackles which is...a bad idea. In late 2007 she is gaining a lot of scars most, but not all, of which disappear in later versions.

In very late 2007 I take the story off of Earth, which it had been leaving for some time, and first start to design them different outfits with varying levels of...uh...interest. Anthem always wears a suit though because literally what else would he wear?

For the first time I’m calling her Ithea (yes, reverse engineered from Ithian because I’m a lazy piece of shit). For the first time she uses what would later become her pole-axe, and I gave her straight-up black hair.

2008. Sonya and Aya make a reappearance, though their personalities are shifting, with Sonya becoming ever more hopeless, though Aya has yet to obtain her status as Alpha Bitch. Aidian also makes another showing, this time as a dragon.

Around this time Ithea gains her pointed ears and aggressive, fight-happy personality. By mid-2008 she had her pole-axe well in hand, and I had names for the countries they were in - Tsime and Cylli, which have continued to exist in one form or another since then.

By August of this year, many things have become canon! Ithea’s “always smiling but will kill you” aesthetic happens. The first time her black-silver-and purple color scheme pops up, though it’s not set in stone yet. New costume design. The word Drezhein makes an appearance, and that’s what she is, and her shapeshifted form is wolf-like. Probably around this time Anthem became a Harkitein if he wasn’t already. Also her height is 5′5″ which it has been ever since. Her magic bracelets come in at this point too, as well as an unspecified illness making a return from an earlier version.

By the end of this year, the domestic situation is set in stone, as is the history of Harkitein being created to fight Drezhein (a failed experiment in the end). The illegality of making Harkitein, as well as Anthem murdering the wizard who created him, are evident. The anaora are still around and some of them have names (they’re still useless though).

Shortly after this, some of them gain human forms due to messing with Anthem’s magic and they just annoy the shit out of him all the time. Anthem’s role of “sort of evil but mostly just long-suffering” is here to stay.

2009. The children reappear, and also another very important character is created: Cranberries! Here is Kaite, Ro, and Cranberries in their designs at this time.

And here’s a really terrible family portrait.

At this point in time Keir is still a girl. I’m not entirely sure when Keir went from being a girl to being a boy but that did happen at some point. Oh well.

Sonya and Aya get a redesign and appropriate fantasy names. By this point new personalities for them are set in stone. Sonya is Ithea’s friend while Aya is Anthem’s, and their relationship is...less than stellar. They’re not vampires anymore but Vekain, another magical race in this world who have their own political shit going on (but we ignore it because Sonya is exiled anyway).

Important to mention but closing in on the year Kaite became the butch lesbian we all know and love, and certain aspects of her, Cyan, and Gavin’s future career in organized crime become assured.

The anaora are still around and becoming more catlike.

And at the very close of the year, Tris and Bird officially make a new appearance! Away from Purgatory, Tris is a cursed child empress and instead of being demons her people are the Daemir. Bird is still a memory-less stranger who washed up on the beach and quickly proved invaluable. With her came her husband Bermuda.

2010. The most important picture I’ve ever drawn is created.

Additional information is created about the gods and the history of the world and the creation of its various peoples.

Around this time the long-lasting political turmoil of what Ithea, Anthem, and Ithian did becomes more fully explored. The great-grandchildren are created and the story becomes intensely political in nature.

2011-2014. Around this time I took a long break. I had written the story down for NaNoWriMo and mostly considered it finished. I still played with the story a bit, but I was trying hard to focus on publishable things and so I didn’t really mess with it much except for dumb posts on Tumblr. Some art from that time.

2015-Present. By 2015 the story was officially called Silverwood and I was back in my obsession with it, which I’ve never left. Exciting things happened, mostly in the realm of costume and character design.

Inside and outside of tumblr shitposts I have continued to deepen the story in the cast, the world-building and design, the politics, and the personal relationships between the characters. Will it ever be done? Probably not. But at least I enjoy it. Thanks for reading, take some more art!

[winelover1989]

I’ve been asked about Sara’s story three times from AgentCanary shippers who are new to her character... So here’s the abridged version for the story of the most epic DCTV hero with a character arc rarely done for female superheroes.  TLDR (For those who don’t know about The Canary or Sara) : She’s basically DCTV’s time travelling Batman! 

Here you’ll find a list of the 32 Arrow episodes she starred in if you want to watch her origin story before she moved to Legends of Tomorrow. So Arrow did a gender flipped version The Vampire Diaries love triangle, Arrow/Oliver and the two Lance sisters - Laurel & Sara. Ten years ago, Sara was the Damon like “bad sister” who’s cheating with her sister Laurel’s boyfriend Oliver/Arrow & leaves with him on a cruise. Not a very heroic start but this cruise literally launched the DCTV franchise. 

The ship drowns while they were making out & Oliver is stranded on the island named Lian Yu (Mandarin for Purgatory) in the North China Sea with his Arrow origin story kicking off. Another shady human trafficking (sort of mad scientist like) ship rescues Sara from the ship wreck. She sort of develops Stockholm syndrome after a while on that ship. There are a lot of things we don’t know about this story but the motto she constantly used while saving women when she was introduced as the Black Canary in Season 2 of Arrow, ‘No woman should suffer at the hands of men’, gives some insightful subtext.  

A lot happens on this ship & Oliver’s island... the shady ship is wrecked in the end, Oliver thinks she died so he tells her family she drowned during the first accident as he’s keeping his own story a secret too but Sara is rescued by her ex girlfriend Nyssa (remember when she said she too had a Maggie?)  Nyssa al Ghul is Ra's al Ghul’s daughter, the head of League of Assassins, the same guy who trained Batman.  

They later explained this encounter on Legends of Tomorrow, that while time travelling to the League of Assassins before Nyssa was even born, Sara makes this request to Ra's al Ghul. For five years, she’s trained at the League of Assassins. This is why I like her origin story more than Oliver’s because it’s more believable given her fighting skills & it’s closer to Batman’s time at the League. Five years later, in Season 2 of Arrow, she goes rogue from the League of Assassins & returns to Star City as ‘The Canary’ with a lot of scars, awesome fighting skills & a sexy costume to protect her family.

Her character has always been very layered & morally grey but she started out from a very dark place, as a former assassin who believed that her family & her sister were better off believing she died in that cruise with Oliver. There’s some badass Arrow&Canary team ups & these two seasons also have a beautiful redemption arc as she rebuilds her relationship with her sister, her dad & gets closure with Oliver. In Season 3, Sara was killed in a pretty pointless way at the hands of a close friend going through a sleep walking murder spree. 

Her sister, Laurel, becomes the Black Canary after Sara’s death. An year later, against everyone’s advice, she visits Sara’s grave, digs up her body & takes it to the League of Assassins. They have a Lazarus Pit, which kept Ra's al Ghul young for centuries & another character was once resurrected by the pit. But no one had been resurrected after being dead for as long as Sara, which led to the most awesome fictional resurrection ever! It’s my personal favourite. 

But she returns as something else, so they bring in *drum roll* Constantine (I love that guy) to save her soul & tie it back to her body. It was a pretty interesting ritual involving Laurel & Oliver in a way going to the underworld(? I don’t remember exactly what it was called) to bring her back...

She returns but she still suffers from blood lust (not literal, just murderous tendencies) & there’s a darkness which she has a hard time controlling so she moves away from home to catch a break. 

She’s chilling in Tibet, when a guy named Rip Hunter from the future shows up with a time travelling ship, assembling a team of superheroes who didn’t leave much of an impact on their timeline. He’s a member of the Time Masters, an organisation responsible for protecting history & ensuring that no one messes with the timeline. For this new chapter of her post resurrection life, she becomes the White Canary.

These guys mess up more than they fix but Legends of Tomorrow is a fun light hearted show where they visit a new era & location every episode.  And at this point Sara has replaced Rip as the Captain of the time ship & the leader of the team. When she’s not being a badass assassin, she’s making women throughout the ages question their sexuality. So that’s Sara Lance for you...her story on Arrow was a bit dark & intense but I enjoyed it the most on that show, it’s a lot more fun on Legends though. So if you don’t want to watch Arrow, you can just watch her scenes from the Arrow episodes she’s in but Legends is definitely worth watching!  In case you guys don’t watch either, I hope this answers some questions & gives you more insight into her. 

[vsplusonline]

Wendell in the Bardo

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/wendell-in-the-bardo/

Wendell in the Bardo

For a story published last year in the New York Times, designer Wendell Rodricks, now no more, spoke mystically to journalist Sarah Khan about the house he had lived in for the last 24 years with his partner Jerome Marrel. A 400-year-old structure, formerly called Casa Dona Maria in Colvale, Goa, it had belonged to a lady named Olinda Braganza. Wendell had seen the house in a dream and would later visit it to take Mrs Braganza around her own home and narrate intimate details that no one could have known. No one but someone who had lived there before. In spirit or flesh.

Some years later, Braganza wanted to sell the house, but only to Wendell. “A dream leads to a house. A house leads to a book. A book leads to a museum,” Wendell told Khan. “That doesn’t happen often in people’s lives unless dharma decides it.”

Wendell often spoke about dreams intersecting realities. Of the fashion industry and Moda Goa, the museum of Goan costumes and jewellery from pre-Portuguese rule to now, that he was painstakingly and passionately putting together over the years. He would later bring in an architect company, an archiving firm and a board of advisors. Brick by breath, with time and team, ebb or tide, with penitent patience and the perseverance of a man possessed.

Wendell Rodricks with life partner Jerome Marrel   | Photo Credit: Instagram

State of consciousness

Where is Wendell now, four days after his untimely passing at 59 years? A death that shocked the Indian fashion industry, leaving many wrapped in dark grief. We may not know where he exactly rests but, by existentialist rumination, he will be in his house-home forever — Casa Wendell and Jerome in Colvale. In memories, laughter, warmth, shared or/and secret worries, photos, collectibles, in the silent wails of his bereft pet dogs (some who are dead, others alive), in the emotions of his friends who will visit Jerome.

In spirit, Wendell will also transit to Moda Goa that will house more than 800-plus costumes and articles he collected. When the doors finally open, visitors will feel and miss Wendell.

Nobody really dies as long as they live in the memories of those alive. It applies to Wendell, too. Now though, while he is presumably in ‘bardo’, the intermediary state between death and nirvana, we must rewind thoughts. Bardo, described in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy as a transitional stage between states of consciousness, resembles the idea of the Christian purgatory. “A temporary state after physical death for expiatory purification.” Not everyone agrees with these post-mortem projections.

Wendell Rodricks with Sophie the boxer   | Photo Credit: Instagram

However, in the days soon after a death, a person is remembered, eulogised, loved, missed and talked about persistently. That places a person in a transitional state. Wendell is in media and in minds. What he stood for, what shaped him, who he shaped, his whims and idiosyncrasies, his devotion to detail and the extraordinary hard work he put in becoming the man he wanted to be.

A friend who has eclipsed, a mentor who taught debutants the shallows and deeps of fashion, an ordinary man who loved food, then dieted and exercised, and loved East European cruises. Who lost no opportunity to proclaim love for his partner Jerome. A designer who created anti-embellished textiles in a country that worships bling. Who spoke for sustainability, simplicity in design and became the most known cultural ambassador of Goa. Who spoke his mind and bared his heart.

Wendell is in bardo because all these things are up in the air. Including the factoid that among Moda Goa’s collections is a seventh century Apsara found in a Colvale field where a Buddhist monastery once stood.

Schulen Fernandes, Wendell Rodricks, Manish Arora, Anamika Khanna and Rajesh Pratap Singh at the Lotus Make-Up India Fashion Week Spring Summer 2020 Finale   | Photo Credit: Getty Images

Thinker, designer, revivalist

I spent much of last night, unusually awake, burrowing into the transitional complexity of this theme to locate Wendell’s relevance in Indian fashion. The idea is not unique. I have been morbidly fascinated with death states since childhood due to my writer father’s melancholic personality and his death dialogues. That was why I read and reread George Saunders’ 2017 Man Booker-winning novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, with deep interest.

It surprises me in the research of my own work that a large of number of subjects I explored over the last two decades as a fashion journalist led me to Wendell now and again. Gay rights and fashion or unfashion. Size charts in India, the downsides and triumphs of modelling, his discovery of some of India’s top glamour names, textile innovation, authoring books, winning the Padma Shri in 2014. Sending out the reimagined Kunbi sari on the ramp on actor-model Lisa Ray, who was recovering from multiple myeloma. He held back tears when veteran crafts practitioner Jasleen Dhamija (with actor Nandita Das) spoke about the Kunbi project (a loom and weaver revival project that, from 2012, continued at the government polytechnic in Panjim) at the then Wills India Fashion Week in 2010 in Delhi.

“This is not about commercial gain. Sometimes fashion needs to distance itself from finance that it feeds on so voraciously. When you see a Louis Vuitton or a Hermes Birkin bag, you think of money. When you see the Kunbi sari, you see a culture and a tribe,” he told me for a story for The Indian Express.

Then there was an offbeat story on secret couture owned by Indians for Mint Lounge. I have no idea why I reached out to Wendell. However, there he was talking about the clothes and accessories he was collecting for Moda Goa with pieces from private collections. It included a gold embroidered Bishop’s mitre, a gold coin pendant that dated back to the Knights of Malta circa 1500s, garments and jewellery from the last century.

Conversations would plod on, on the phone and in person. He would continue to send links to new fashion films, news and books via email. I enjoyed his witty, ironic, sometimes sardonic assessments of fashion as celebrity theatre. I loved the way he dressed his models but did not always admire how he undressed his remarks on social media.

Wendell is in bardo as these thoughts have bubbled up in no chronological order. Must have, in other minds too.

With charm in plenty

A poignant one springs from 2015. My close friend, Sharda Ugra, a well-known sports journalist and I visited Wendell and Jerome at their Colvale residence for dinner. Earlier that day, I had picked up my long-ordered Kunbi sari from Wendell’s Retreat & Style store in Panjim, but didn’t have a white petticoat to do justice to its white field. I wore it with a red blouse and a dark petticoat. Sharda wore a hand blocked-printed sari.

We arrived, excited and mismatched. The house is built on different floor levels with an architectural grammar that compels you to look around to orient yourself. The whisky was fabulous, the dogs were delightful, and the irresistible Jerome in a checked lungi was just the kind of husband material one would need to make a case for marriage. I felt lightheaded and funny. Sharda was in great spirits, too. Wendell and Jerome spoke cricket with her and fashion with me. Life and death, Rekha and Sachin Tendulkar, Goa and Paris, masala mussels, multiple sclerosis, his muse Malaika Arora, books and bum trips, it all came up. Wendell talked about the “smallness” of two inches that makes women go mad if they gain that extra and how his fashion teacher in France, who called him “Mr Rodriguez”, asked him to design clothes for women who have hips.

Later that year, the hand-signed New Year card Jerome and Wendell would always send arrived with warm adjectives. An email preceded that. “Take care of the Kunbi. Cool wash on low spin short cycle. And don’t tear the manjistha strips for a wound. Wear with the happiness it was woven with…” wrote Wendell. Manjistha, the red vegetable dye, is derived from a plant with healing properties according to Ayurveda.

Quick to hurt from fashion industry barbs as to healing and moving on, the guru of persistence, Wendell Rodricks was Indian fashion’s Mr Diehard.

Then God cast the die.

Shefalee Vasudev is editor of The Voice of Fashion.

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[earthdeep]

ok so

having finished silver snow I've now done all the story content easily available to me, even tho the two music tracks in the extras menu that are ???ed out still do worry me

and tbh I don't have much to say abt silver snow itself bc it is almost identical to verdant wind HOWEVER I'm taking this opportunity to ramble my thoughts on the game as a whole, in a format that will likely not make sense to myself let alone anyone else

I guess I'll start on my thoughts on the lords? + rhea bc she's basically a fourth lord. so like, personal fave is still edelgard bc I am gay and angry with the state of the world, followed by claude bc he's fun and also probably the best person out of all the major players in this game, then rhea further back for being fucking terrifying to me and yet also woefully incompetent at the act of doing anything important, and dimitri is waaaaaaaaaaaaay down at the bottom of the barrel bc I am not here for angry white boys. I'm incredibly disappointed in the fandom wrt how much they adore dimitri. not surprised, mind you, since I've seen the cullenites in the dragon age fandom and their years of bullshit. but still, el and claude have so much more going for them (and are hotter to boot lbr) that it makes it suuuuuuper difficult to claim race and gender has nothing to do with it. but I'm totally sharing some of that blame with the game too, bc dimitri did get brought up in a good light more than, say, claude did in the eagles routes. which is super shite since claude's the fucking helpful one. srsly I had to sit through dream!dimitri in silver snow and you couldn't give me another claude scene- oh my god I just realised I didn't here from him again after he went missing. son of a fuck my dude just disappeared. like I assume he ran off to almyra like every other time but I just never saw him again.

actually, since we're on the topic of claude not being widely beloved enough by the fandom for me not to side eye them, leeeeeeet's point out a little smth smth with 3h's darker skinned characters. bc.... eesh. dedue? absolute life debt mode to the whitest of boys, hobbies include household chores, big brawny lad who's only recently literate. if disney wrote this character he would currently be locked in the vault out of shame. but I guess if it's not a pattern- oh hello cyril. at least HIS life debt is to the whitest of ladies instead! literally, her dragon form is the actual colour white. at least catherine used to be a noble, even if it's in danger of being cancelled out by her also being a brigand. and I don't think she's any good at chores either which is good. but like, the devotion...

we have claude and petra too, who thankfully have lives of their own. but it's hard not to wince when claude is called some variant of sneaky for the hundredth time (he's all talk yo...) and petra's post timeskip outfit makes me feel kinda gross if I look at it too long. it's annoying bc her face makes me feel gay things and then the camera pans and I'm back to oh yeah, they really wanted the tropical princess halloween costume huh.

at least judith's cool. and even wears trousers. I've never seen her in action in my game bc I overlevel and get through fights too fast for her but we stan her on this blog anyway. and this is already the third 3h lady I've had this response to but I am super gay.

anyway that elephant has finally been ushered out of the room, time to ramble about narrative things. bc what the fuck was three houses doing? verdant wind and silver snow were the same but for the final boss (and BOY is that final boss an asspull in both routes) while azure moon is similar but with entirely different factions being discussed, then crimson flower is just HALF A ROUTE?? and tbh crimson flower was I think the best, not only bc it was p unique and let me hug edelgard but also bc it was as short as it was. all the other routes dragged to hell and back as a result of being restrained by the calendar. you have so much fucking energy by endgame that it's a fucking chore to use it all, and you can only go two weeks before you've taught everyone on your main team and need to go explore and feed them or give them shit and then you need to use up all your energy and collect some more ingredients for the meals you keep having and then decide what you're going to do with your free day now all your paralogues are done and you don't want for ore or gold or levels so do you- ugh I know I could just skip but it feels wrong to do when not story appropriate. the calendar system works during the academy phase and fits the almost slice of life feeling it has, but once there's a war on it just destroys the narrative tension. war isn't hell in three houses, war is purgatory.

and now for something completely different: the church n stuff. it sure is very based on the real life church! as an agnostic lesbian maybe you can guess how high my hackles raised whenever anything particularly churchy came up. I do wonder whether IS underestimated how heavily that could sway the viewpoint of the player. bc I walked in ready to burn that fucking monastery to the ground if I'm honest. it's rare to be able to do that to christianity allegories in video games (*cough*dragonage*cough*) so crimson flower appealed to me a lot in a way I'd guess wouldn't to certain others (*stares at the white boy stans*) and it's kind of a kick in the teeth to be railroaded into worrying abt rhea in verdant wind. I purposely avoided support with her during that run and yet my dialogue options the moment she vanished were byleth caring abt her well being. game, the most I care at this point is that she is alive enough to give me some fucking answers on the shit she's been doing this past millenium. and that specific factor makes me wonder whether silver snow was done first and basically copy pasted to serve as a different route, forgetting that the player may not have the same objectives since they've been rolling with claude the visionary for the past year.

honestly the golden deer in general get kinda shafted by the game. I've seen others point it out too, but they get like no exposure outside of claude unless you seek them out. of the eagles, edelgard and hubert are always major characters appearing as bosses multiple times, although the others do fall to the background. then dear god the lions. both ashe and sylvain have entire month's missions dedicated to a part of their backstory during the academy phase! and even while dimitri dies after a single battle away from his route, there's a good chance dedue's coming back for more. claude gets a couple letters and a single battle and then he's out. let us ally with claude you bastard of a game.

I got sidetracked there but like the ashe and sylvain getting prominent story beats in all routes I think was a bit of a lost opportunity. and also probably is the reason sylvain is actually as popular as he is. dude's kind of a scumbag and it really does take being contextualised by his obscene amount of trauma to start understanding or liking him. it also helps he's easy as fuck to recruit and a very viable unit so u have a gameplay route to getting attached to him (legit 3/4 of my playthroughs had me fielding him as one of my regulars).

but think of the potential to add that to other characters! imagine seeing the conditions that led leonie to obsess over jeralt! meeting all these (completely alive!) siblings we keep hearing about then not seeing! killing bernadetta's father! the possibilities are endless and could be easily explained by rhea assigning tasks to students who already have relevant context or whatever. just ugh some of the choices made by the writers annoy me.

sfdlkdfkjdj I don't know how to connect this last bit at all, bc it's just observations abt like the models n stuff. I like how they've obviously set materials up for all the models to easily change clothing colours to differentiate factions. that's cool. they did that with skin tones too, so if you zoom in on like the agarthans you can see their weird super pale complexion (tho for some reason their battalions have regular skin?). tho it does make it weird when the 2d portrait is always the same. this duscar soldier sure doesn't look like his profile pic.

anyway that was the last thing on my mind abt this game. kinda anticlimactic to end on, I know, but rather in the spirit of things. only crimson flower knows what a satisfying conclusion is, after all :) long live lady edelgard yo.

[ramajmedia]

10 Facts Behind The Making Of The Handmaid’s Tale | ScreenRant

The Handmaid's Tale just finished up its third season which, as always, left audiences at the edge of their seat. Margaret Atwood’s famed novel adaptation has been revisited time and time again, but none as effective as the original Hulu series. While the showrunners have Atwood's penned ideals to thrive off of, the show does much more to find its way into the hearts of modern audiences.

It takes viewers with a strong stomach and a sturdy mindset to get through the dire circumstances that surround June in her role as a handmaid. Elisabeth Moss takes the lead as June a.k.a Offred, showing audiences exactly what it takes to survive Gilead. The rest of the nail-biting rhythmic that comes from the show is thanks to the intricate details embossed by the show's creators. Take into consideration these 10 facts about the making of The Handmaid's Tale.

RELATED: The Handmaid's Tale: 10 Things That Only Make Sense If You Read The Book

10 Margaret Atwood Makes A Cameo

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was published in 1985. At the time, the novel's plot was righteously taboo, bringing forth old school values that subsequently paralleled the rising concerns of equality. Still, the topic didn’t stop schools from assigning the novel as a read for high school students. It even caught the attention of film producers who fastened it into the 1990 film of the same name.

That being said, the Hulu series is the first time that Atwood actually makes a cameo in her own work. She appears in the first episode of the pilot season. The author appears as an Aunt who slaps Offred during the group shaming circle.

9 Everything That Happens Is Based On History

Atwood prides her novel on the fact that most of the atrocious circumstances are based on real-life events. Believe it or not, the patriarchal theocracy is only a supposed work of science fiction. In fact, the author adamantly dismisses the genre of sci-fi, stating that “every building in the book has its counterpart in reality.”

The harsh murders (hangings, stoning, etc) and the laws concerning the women of Gilead all came directly from Atwood's research in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto. In other words, many of these situations are derived from real-life occurrences that are recorded in several books.

8 Offred Doesn't Actually Have A Name

In the Hulu version of The Handmaid's Tale, audiences learn that Offred has a real name. She goes by June, although this name is “forbidden now." In the book, however, Offred doesn't actually have a name. She is only referred to by her handmaid's name (i.e. Offred). And in the 1990 film, her name is Kate. 

The Hulu show gives her the name of June because that is what many readers had interpreted her name to be based on Atwood's writings. Atwood admitted in an article for the New York Times that the name “was not my original thought but it fits, so readers are welcome to it if they wish."

7 Inspiration For The Handmaid's Clothes

The handmaid's uniforms are absolutely outdated, and what's more, they are an astonishing, deep red color. There are actually a few different reasons for these styling choices in the Hulu show. The color and styling are drawn from Mary Magdalene. Mary is a Biblical figure who walked alongside Jesus.

However, she is better known as a repentant prostitute. Red is also, of course, representative of blood. Plus, the brilliant colored garb makes it easier to spot any handmaid trying to run away. Likewise, the Wive's costumes are blue as a symbolic measure of purity and the Virgin Mary.

RELATED: The Handmaid's Tale: 10 Times Serena Joy Waterford Was The Worst Person On Earth

6 Joseph Fiennes Refused To Do One Scene

Joseph Fiennes plays Commander Waterford in the disturbing television series. He has had to procure a few damaging scenes, the most intense of which involves the atypical rape of his handmaid. Even though Fiennes is no stranger to filming these atrocious scenes, he refused to film one that was written into the script. It involved Commander Waterford raping his wife.

This was supposed to happen in season two, but Fiennes argued that it was out of character for Waterford in that particular moment in time. Fiennes told the showrunners that, although Waterford is a rapist, he does not do it spontaneously or without reason. Whatever else he may have said apparently won the showrunners over because the scene was cut from the script.

5 Why Serena Names The Baby Nicole

Another behind-the-scenes fun fact is the reason behind the Waterford baby‘s name. Immediately after giving birth to her first Gilead child, June names the baby Holly after her mother. However, by the end of the second season when she gives up her baby to freedom, she insists that the baby is called Nichole, which is what Serena Joy (Waterford) names the baby.

It isn't abundantly clear why June switched the name, but it could be because she saw the irony in the name that Serena gave her. The name Nichole is strikingly similar to Nicholas, which is the name of the baby‘s biological father. Apparently, Serena gives her this name as a passive aggressive measure to remind her husband that he isn't really the baby's father.

4 Gilead Comes From The Bible

Like many of the Easter eggs in Atwood's novel, the term Gilead is derived directly from the Bible. Gilead is the purgatory remnants of what was once the United States. Atwood named the new regime after the Biblical source called “The Republic of Gilead.” It’s a geographic location in the Bible, which is associated with segregation and immortality. In the Book of Hosea, it says, “Gilead is the city of those who work in equity, it is stained with blood.“

RELATED: The Handmaid's Tale: 10 Things We Still Need To Know About Nick Blaine

3 Amanda Brugel's Deep Connection To The Story

Amanda Brugel, who plays Rita in the Hulu version of The Handmaid's Tale is a fan of Atwood's story, to put it mildly. When she was in high school, she was assigned to read The Handmaid's Tale She was only fifteen at the time, but she was so enamored with it that she wrote short stories about it. Brugel then applied to a university with a thesis on the novel and subsequently received a full scholarship. The entire essay mainly focused on one character from Atwood's book.

The character was Rita.

2 The Original Characters Weren't So Diverse

In the original story of The Handmaid's Tale, any race other than white is sent away to the Midwest, which essentially eliminated all non-caucasian races from the novel. Although the concept falls in line with Gilead's racist agenda, TV producers thought it would be best to eliminate this concept from the screen adaptation.

Likewise, there were no explicitly gay characters in the book. Emily a.k.a. Ofglen didn’t have a wife or any sexual orientation in Atwood's book. However, the author is now delighted at these changes. She told Vanity Fair, “It’s very now. In the series, she, number one, gay, and number two, she had a wife. You could have said that in 1985. It wouldn't have made any sense. People were talking that way. But they are now, so that makes sense.”

1 The Toughest Set Was The Grocery Store

One of the main disassociations in this story is that women lose their eligibility to read and write. When set designers were put to the task to create the world of Gilead, they had to ensure this rule remained cohesive, even in the background. This meant they were put to the difficult task of creating the grocery store. If you look closely, you’ll notice that every single label negates the use of words and instead uses pictures and original labels to identify the products. This took a lot of tedious work, but it helps make the world of Gilead more realistic.

Apparently, the juxtaposition of a modern, real-world grocery store with the condemning structure of the new realm was jarring to some of the cast who found the grocery set to be “creepy."

NEXT: The 10 Best Music Moments On The Handmaid's Tale

source https://screenrant.com/10-facts-behind-making-handmaids-tale/

[adiseaselikeyouspreads]

The seventh news story comes out. Another murder attempt against repeat survivor thwarted; no comment from Jason Joon-ho so far. Society continues to be unsympathetic. He receives no time off school. Film club is suspended until further notice. Film class becomes a study hall. He feels like the silent room is judging him.

Regan and Dmitri call out from school. He doesn’t see them at all, for three days. There’s whispers in the halls about them being gone. Jason thinks everyone is blaming him for that, too, somehow, but he can’t be sure.

Either way he skips lunch, dodges Riley and Rose and Sidney. He doesn’t want them to ask. He doesn’t know how he’ll lie to them. He spends a lot of time wondering if Rose and Riley knew.

But he spends even more time thinking about the Plague Doctors. Dmitri and Regan. How they lied to him. How they were killers the whole time, didn’t tell him, when they knew how he felt about it. How all of their interactions had probably just been them trying to get close, to kill more people.

How they saved him, in and out of costume.

How their lips felt.

He’s so confused. He doesn’t know how to feel. He misses them. Three days pass and he feels exponentially isolated. His parents are busy. His mom tries, but she doesn’t know how to help him. Fair, considering he doesn’t even know how to help himself. At least no more murder attempts are happening. He kind of wishes they would. A simple, self-destructive wish. It would make this weird stall- this purgatory- end. It would make the universe move again.

Jason sits outside during his lunch hour, with little regard to his safety. He’s not even paying attention, really. His brain is too fogged over. He chews on a sandwich, but doesn’t taste it.

“Hey, Jason…” A voice comes from behind him, along with the squeak of a door. Jason recognizes it. Michael King. Oh, right, he was discharged from the hospital yesterday. Some dull little part of Jason’s brain says Well, here it is, he’s going to stab me and then leave my body behind a dumpster. That thought doesn’t kickstart him into a panic. In fact, he sinks further into himself, doesn’t react, just chews more slowly and stares into the distance.

Oddly, death doesn’t come. The silence stretches long enough that Michael makes a nervous sort of noise, shifts, feet scraping at the pavement.

“Jason?” He tries again, sounding less certain this time.

Jason drops his sandwich back into its bag. “What do you want?” He asks, half-turning to face Michael.

Michael, who’s now down a right arm. It’s gone, just below the elbow. His left forearm has a few visible wicked scars. The trap really did do a number on him.

“I just wanted to come… talk.” He’s avoiding eye contact. He’s more nervous than Jason. Jason can’t help but feel a little satisfied at that. Just a little.

“Here to discuss the terms of my next kidnapping?” Jason asks, earning an anxious laugh.

“No. God, no, dude. I came to apologize. For the whole…” He does a throat-cutting hand motion, wincing as he does it. “A lot of shit in my life went really bad really fast and I just…”

“Decided to try to kill me?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was shitty of me.” He straightens the collar of his overshirt, then runs his hand through his hair, awkward and slow. He sits next to Jason, taps his foot nervously. “I didn’t want to, and I know this is no excuse, but everything just kinda collapsed all at once. I ruined my GPA this semester, because of physics class, and we lost the game that an important scout came to, so a bunch of my scholarships fell through… My parents were freaking out at me about ‘making something of myself’ and being successful and all that.” He rocks a little, grimaces.

“The counsellor was freaking me out and my friends were all being dicks about how I’d fucked up in the game and I felt like I needed to prove something, and you were all over the news, and my dad started to like, set everything up…” He trails off, looking away from Jason again and then back at the door. “Guess I kind of fucked everything up even more, for both of us.”

Jason listens through, but not without his fair share of squinting. Still, he feels sympathetic. Michael is the murderer with the motive that Jason had wanted the rest of them to be. Someone with a reason that could be remedied, with something besides ‘I want to’ or ‘what’s stopping me?’. The result of their messed up society and its awful priorities. Someone who wouldn’t be this, in another reality, where things were different. Someone who wouldn’t be this with just a spot of good luck.

Jason bounces his leg and looks down at his hands. Thinks of how hasty Michael’s knots were, how ineffectual the traps were. He looks back up.

“I hope you know I can’t elect an attempted murder as student council president in good conscience,” Jason finally responds. Michael makes a confused face, and then relief washes over and he kind of hangs his head, mussing up his own hair again. “Even if I ate your cookie.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m kicked from the race.” He sounds tired. Jason notices the bags under his eyes. He gets the feeling that the kick had more to do with him failing and not with him attempting. Jason packs up his lunchbox and stands up, stretching.

“Before I can accept your apology… Your days of murdering are over, right?”

“Yeah. I don’t… I mean, they never even really started. That’s not the kind of thing I want to do. Or be known for.”

“Good.” He doesn’t explicitly accept the apology, but it’s probably implicit in his little nod. He still thinks Michael has a little bit of a way to go before he proves he’s an alright guy. But he’s willing to give him a chance. He really liked him before all this, anyways. “I’ll see you around.” He passes Michael in order to go back inside.

He goes through class, finishing out the day with a slightly less addled mind. Something new is nagging at him now, though. Just barely out of reach. It’s when he thinks back over the conversation that he realizes what exactly it is.

He was willing to forgive Michael. He let him tell his story. He was willing to accept his words because he understood that Michael’s actions were a direct byproduct of society.

That’s Dmitri and Regan’s whole schtick, but on the other end. They distrust society, think that no one is handling the problems. They’re right, on some level. Jason’s seen it personally, seven times now, how the criminal justice system and society on the whole fails its people. Maybe he should give them a chance to explain.

After school, he picks up their homework for them. He’s decided to brave his own car, for the first time since this all started (well, second, if the drive to school in the morning counts, but he was hardly awake enough to be paranoid). He checks the back seat and the trunk before actually getting in to drive, and heads to Regan’s house.

The first thing Jason notices is that the only car in the driveway is Dmitri’s. Either Regan’s car was being used, or his parents aren’t home to take up the garage. He’s crossing his fingers for the latter.

He climbs out of the car after pulling out a little stack of worksheets and walks up to the door, ringing the bell once.

He bounces in place as he waits, but no one answers the door. So he rings again. This time, after a few seconds, he hears shuffling against the door. Someone straining to see through the peephole?

There’s the sound of a click, and the door slowly peeks open.

Dmitri’s looking up at him, hand curled around the edge of the door tight, knuckles white.

“Hey,” he says, with a nonchalance that is not supported by his body language. His eyes flicker nervously, like he’s watching for something. Jason looks over his shoulder, then back at Dmitri.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” he reassures.

“Oh.” Dmitri relaxes, visibly, even if only slightly.

“I wanted to come talk,” Jason explains. Dmitri holds the door open and lets him come inside. It’s odd, how familiar this place seems and yet how strange it feels right now. He holds the homework out to Dmitri. “I picked this up for you two.”

“Thanks,” Dmitri says, immediately tossing the homework on the coffee table and letting it fan out.

“How is Regan doing?”

“Better. Stab wounds aren’t that hard to take care of, when they don’t hit anything important.”

“Does this kind of thing happen often?”

“Not really. We’re pretty good at the whole deal. I’ve gotten hit once. Left a cool scar on my hip-” He’s already prying his pants away from his pelvis, and Jason holds up a hand.

“You don’t have to show me.”

“Are you sure? It’s really-”

“So, where’s Regan?”

“Oh, he’s up in his room. Even though he’s doing better, I’ve got him on bed rest.”

“Can we go up?”

Dmitri taps his chin and then walks over to the stairs and stares up for a second, like he’s still trying to decide. “Alright,” he finally agrees, starting upstairs. Jason follows.

They head down the hall to Regan’s room and Dmitri knocks, light, before pushing in without waiting for a response.

Regan sits up, wincing, and says, “Hey, babe-” And then his eyebrows shoot up when he sees Jason. “Hey, Jason,” he adds, propping himself against some pillows.

“Hey,” he says back. It’s weirder to see him injured, now, out of the costume. There was the anger, before, and the shock. Now he’s just Jason’s friend, laid up in bed with a secret stab wound.

“You been doing alright?” Regan asks. Sympathy settles in Jason’s chest like a stone. Regan’s asking if he’s okay.

“No more murder attempts,” Jason says, noncommittally.

“That’s good.” Regan nods. “I hope no one’s been giving you a hard time.”

“Not really. No more than usual, at least. It’s been kind of lonely.”

“It’s not a party without me,” Dmitri says as he slips onto the bed and wraps a careful arm around Regan.

“So you two are dating?” Jason blurts, before his mind catches up with his mouth.

They look at each other for a second before a grin splits Dmitri’s face.

“You mean two platonic bros can’t call each other babe?” Dmitri asks.

“N- I mean- What about Rose and Riley?”

“They know,” Regan says. “We’re vigilantes, not dicks.”

“It’s sort of a ‘they scratch our backs, we scratch theirs’ sort of deal.” Dmitri reaches over and back to scratch his own back. Jason can’t tell if it’s symbolic or if he’s actually just itchy.

“Oh,” Jason says. He doesn’t know what else to say. Sidney was right. Does that mean Dmitri liked him? Likes him? Or was it all performative? Instead of considering that at this exact moment, he switches topics. “Michael talked to me, today. Michael King.”

Dmitri perks up, immediately, eyes narrowing. “What did he do?”

“Nothing bad,” Jason says, holding up a pacifying hand. “Just. Came to talk. Apologize. It kind of… made me think. That I didn’t really listen to you guys or give you a fair chance to explain yourselves.”

Dmitri doesn’t relax anyways. Him and Regan share another look and Regan grips his hand gently.

“So you came for a little exposition?” Regan teases.

“I’m serious,” Jason says. “I’d really like to, like, know… why you do this.”

Regan seems to mull it over, rubbing his thumb over the back of Dmitri’s hand. Maybe to soothe him. Dmitri is looking more agitated, all of a sudden.

“A friend of ours got killed,” Regan says, as casually as one can say something like that. “When we were really young. He went missing. No one ever found him and no one ever got brought in for it.” Regan squeezes Dmitri’s hand, because Dmitri is gritting his teeth.

“People go after fucking kids,” Dmitri ends up snapping, bringing up a hand to run through his hair. He’s still straining to smile, like he’s trying not to get worked up. “All this superiority bullshit aside, people go after little kids, they just- how is a kid supposed to defend themselves against an adult?” It’s not working well.

Regan holds him closer. “Over summer break, we started to look into it. Go back through old forums, try to do anything to track down our friend or the person who killed him. The trail eventually led us to a suspect. Brad Milton.”

Jason remembers seeing the news reports about his mysterious murder, over summer break. His mom had been really stressed out about it.

Dmitri gets up, starts pacing. “We went to the police, first! We did! They told us it’d been too long. Too many years. Even with our evidence, they said it was too late and that we should just drop it, that they’d never be able to get anything substantial. That he was too important to the economy of the area to bother anyways.” He points at Jason. “Well, I’m not the kind to give up. Not so easy. So we scheduled a meeting… At his house. Without him knowing. We just showed up and rang the doorbell. We brought the evidence and we shoved it right in his face. We just wanted him to admit it, to us. To get closure, I guess.”

Regan beckons Dmitri, who’s been pacing furiously, back over. Dmitri walks to the bed, sits down, stands up, sits down, stands up, and repeats this in quick sequence until Regan threads his fingers through Dmitri’s hair and continues to soothe him.

“He wouldn’t admit it,” Regan says, almost whispering. “He told us he had no idea what we were talking about. I got mad. I ended up shoving him. Even though the guy was a murderer, he was - he was skinny as hell, really. And then when he kept going, telling me - telling us - that we’d come there for no reason, that we’d never get what we wanted, I...snapped. I grabbed the lamp off the table and...” Regan cringes. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I really didn’t. I was just running on instinct, I was...I was just so angry. Dmitri was yelling at me the whole time. I think he was telling me to stop - imagine that.” He chuckles a little, but there’s no joy in it. “I stopped after...I don’t know how long. But when I did, he was dead.”

“He had it coming,” Dmitri mutters. He’s scowling and tugging nervously at the bedsheets. They’re rapid little movements, characterised by anxiety. Jason doesn’t think he’s ever seen Dmitri this worked up.

“We hid the evidence. And we decided we were never going to mention it again. Not to anyone. It was over.”

“It was supposed to be over,” Dmitri corrects, tugging his way out of Regan’s grip to start pacing again, running his hands through his hair ceaselessly. “Then his fucking partner showed up. The police might’ve let us slide, or maybe they really were that stupid, but Brad Milton had friends with actual deductive skills, and one of them fucking showed up at my house.” Dmitri laughs, acidic. He stops his walking to tap his foot rapidly. “That time, I was the one who snapped. He underestimated me. I took the knife from him and-” Dmitri stops and breathes in sharply.

“It was easier to deal with it this time,” Regan continues, voice soft again. “It was Dmitri’s house, after all. We could hide the body on the property and who would ever go looking? The Morozovas are important around here.”

“You mean we’re rich,” Dmitri snaps, resuming his track around the room. “That’s all it takes, to get away with it. A little bit of money.”

“Either way, after we finished cleanup, we kind of…” Regan makes a helpless face, as if he’s struggling for the words. “Emotions were running high, we needed comfort, and the feelings that had kind of been there for years came to the surface.”

“We hooked up,” Dmitri clarifies.

“Ah,” says Jason, intelligently.

“Then, once everything had kind of settled, and we’d talked…” Regan says, after clearing his throat, “We realized that no one was going to fix this stuff. No one cares about it. It’s easy to find the people responsible, if you know how to look, if you just watch, but no one cares. The cops will never do anything. No one wants to be the one who brought in this week’s hottest celebrity killer.”

“But we care,” Dmitri says, pausing where he is and crossing his arms. “And we know the kind of damage they do. How bad it hurts to lose someone you care about. The system was never built to have a way to fix it. So… so we decided to play their game, and play it in a way they didn’t expect. Turn their little rules back against them.” His arm comes up, to rub his neck. “A disease like them spreads. If no action is taken, they just infect everyone around them. I was sick of being scared, Jason. I was sick of having to see other people be scared. I wanted the killers to be scared, for once.”

Jason looks at the ground, trying to let all of this sink in. He’s seen how it goes. Plenty of the people who tried to kill him were the type doing it just to do it. They weren’t good people. They weren’t the kind of people who were going to stop if he’d just talked to them longer, more. Steve and Michael walked away without any legal repercussions. If there’s no consequences, no one learns that it’s wrong. It stays glorified. The victims are vilified. If they dare to talk about it, they’re made even more vulnerable.  Dissenters are buzzkills.

Regan and Dmitri aren’t infallible. Jason doesn’t agree with everything they do. He still hates Regan’s decision about Christian Lyons.  But he understands. Their primary function isn’t to kill Christian Lyons, it’s to kill Mr. Beltramis. It’s to kill the people who are exploitative, vicious, underhanded- those who hurt others for pleasure, who inspire others to do similar.

Jason remembers the feeling of driving Beltrami into the wall, of seeing him slump down. He remembers how liberating it felt, knowing that Beltrami couldn’t lie to him again, hurt him again, hurt anyone again.

He remembers lying in bed and feeling much more secure, knowing he could do that. Knowing he could stand up for himself.

Maybe the whole vigilante thing isn’t so bad. It’s not his style. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. It’d make him sick. But there’s no peaceful discourse to be made with someone who decides on their own to murder teenagers. If there’s no legal recourse, going outside makes sense. They’re helping people. They’re saving lives. Equally important, they’re making themselves into public figures. The punishment is blatant. There’s no more security.

Jason nods, a little. This all slowly pans out in his mind and he laces his fingers together.

“Alright,” he says.

“Alright?” Regan asks.

“Alright, I understand,” Jason says. “I get all that stuff, I do. You guys are really brave. It’s dangerous. Not everyone would be willing to go to all this effort, to…”

“No one has before, really. Not besides one-time revenge killings.” Dmitri points out.

“Exactly,” Jason says. “So it’s… Wait, did you guys say you just started this summer?”

“We’re pretty efficient.” Regan shrugs. Jason swallows. That’s a little intimidating. Quick workers. Or these people just make themselves too obvious.

“I’ve got just one more question, then,” Jason states, readjusting his glasses. “Why did you guys approach me, before?”

“Well,” Dmitri answers, rocking on his heels before coming closer. “At first it was definitely because of the whole murderer thing. The Survivor had started coming up into Maine and had killed another survivor a few cities away. We figured that he was gunning for you. So I needed to find out where you’d be, that afternoon.”

Jason’s going to be sad, but Dmitri continues.

“But then I realized you were kinda cute and seemed sorta fun. And you looked like you could use the company. So I invited you to a shindig. And what do you know? My judgement of character is always spot on.” Dmitri cracks just a little bit of a grin.

“So you didn’t do it out of pity.”

“Nope.”

“Or just to use me to get to people.”

“Nope! Steve’s attack was totally out of nowhere. He wasn’t even on our radar. We were hoping the Survivor would be the end of it.”

“When I came in during the whole Christian thing,” Regan says, “I was just… I was coming over to climb the tree to talk to you. And heard a gunshot. And just happened to have my costume in the car.”

“Oh,” Jason says, for probably the millionth time. “So you guys…”

“Still want to be your friend?” Regan offers. “If you’d let us. We like you a lot.”

“A lot,” Dmitri emphasizes. How earnest he looks when he says it makes Jason’s stomach flip.

“I’d like that,” Jason agrees. His brain starts running through other conversations. Other encounters. The kisses at the party, what Sidney had said, the fact that they were past the protection phase when they’d kissed him during spin the bottle. There’s a question on the tip of his tongue, but he’s too nervous, too uncertain to ask. It would be like intruding, he’s sure. He opts, instead, for, “When do you guys think you’ll be coming back?”

“It’ll probably be another week,” Regan says, grimacing at his wound. He laughs a little anyways. “Coach isn’t going to be happy about that.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t drop by and visit,” Dmitri says.

“You inviting him to my house?” Regan asks.

“I can invite him if I want,” Dmitri says, sticking his tongue out.

“You could go back to school, you know,” he says, jabbing Dmitri in the side gently.

“Like I’m going to leave you alone.” Dmitri shoves his hand away. “What if you walk around?”

“Yeah, the thing is, I’m not you, and am actually responsible.”

“Rude.” Dmitri swats his arm, lightly.

“Voorhees,” Regan says, adjusting himself a little. “When Dmitri got hurt at the beginning of last semester, I ran to the store real quick to grab him a drink and he tried to play DDR.”

“Oh my god,” Jason responds.

“Hey!” Dmitri says. “No one ever told me you shouldn’t dance with a stab wound in your hip. It was a learning experience for both of us.”

“You should probably come back to school,” Jason laughs, quietly. “It’ll… stir up less suspicion that way.”

Dmitri makes a ‘huh’ sound and then leans in close to Jason, squinting.

“You miss me.” Dmitri responds, with a grin. “You miss my wily charms.”

“I…” Jason avoids eye contact, feeling heat creep up his neck. “I mean, it’d be nice to be able to hang out with you again, I kinda got used… to…” Dmitri moves in closer. His arms curl around Jason’s waist and suddenly he’s on tip-toe, kissing Jason.

Jason stiffens, for a half second, and then melts into it, blush already blossoming over his cheeks. He can feel Dmitri smile into the kiss, fingers pressing lightly into his back. He nips Jason’s bottom lip.

Then Jason’s brain quickly catches back up and he remembers Regan. He steps back, heart hammering. He doesn’t want to step on any toes- he places a hand on Dmitri’s shoulder and takes note of his mischievous grin before looking at Regan. Regan’s smiling lazily, leaning on one arm. He doesn’t look upset.

Jason looks between the two of them, eyes a little wide, at a loss for words. When they finally do come to him, they’re not so much words as, “Ah, uhm, h.. Mh?”

“I told you we thought you were cute,” Dmitri says, sounding pleased with himself.

“B...both of you?” Jason squeaks.

“I can kiss you, too, if you need proof.” Regan shrugs. Jason heats up further and puts his hand over his mouth. Regan smiles real wide. “How can’t we think you’re cute when you act like that?”

Jason laughs, nervously. His heart is soaring. “I just thought it was, that the last kiss was part of the whole party guy thing.”

“It was five percent that and ninety-five percent good luck.” Dmitri grins.

“Well,” Jason responds, vaguely.

“You haven’t got to decide anything right now, Voorhees,” Regan says. “I know this whole thing’s probably been an emotional whiplash.”

“Yeah, I’ll…” Jason’s head is a mess right now and what he wants more than anything is to kiss the both of them again, but thinking is probably the smarter idea. “I’m definitely going to consider it.” He tugs on his hoodie sleeves, shifts, and tries to get his heartbeat to slow down.

He puts his hands in his pockets and smiles. Then takes out his phone and checks the time.

“I should probably head home now, before my parents start to worry.” They’ve gotten slightly better at doing that, at least. “I’ll drop by again tomorrow.”

“Looking forward to it already.” Regan smiles softly, again.

“I’ll probably come back to school in a day or two,” Dmitri says, with a lazy salute.

“You guys make sure to get your homework done,” Jason says, helpfully. Then he hesitates for a second before turning around. Dmitri walks with him to the front door and watches until he gets in his car.

Jason puts on Cherry Bomb before starting his drive home.