#vampires are very rarely able to trust each other entirely and tend to be very solitary as a result

[nightingaletrash]

a surprisingly wholesome ending for a WoD game <3

[spunky-89]

All Power (Kol Mikaelson x Female Reader)

A/N: Woo a new fic! Cause updating or finishing old WIPs is apparently not as cool. Also, this fic is a bit of a crossover from Teen Wolf, not anything like major, just some references and such.

Word Count: 1.8 k

Warnings: None that I can think of

The air was tense in the courtyard as Kol stood protectively in front of his lover, facing off against his pain-in-the-ass hybrid brother. Elijah stood between the two trying to keep them from tearing each other apart. Freya was off to the side holding herself, feeling guilty for starting this disagreement.

“You come anywhere near her Nik and I swear it will be the last thing you do.” Kol threatened.

“I don’t like liars, especially not in the house where my daughter sleeps,” Klaus growled.

“You really think I wouldn’t make sure that my girlfriend had no ill intent towards my niece? Do you think that low of me brother?”

“Enough, both of you,” Elijah spoke, turning slightly to look at his youngest brother and his lover. “Now, would you care to share what this ruckus is all about?”

“I don’t know, ask Nik.” Kol spat, rage in his eyes.

“You stand there and make me the bad guy when it is your pet human that is lying and has been her whole time with us.” Klaus proclaimed.

“And how do you know this Niklaus?” Elijah inquired.

“Because I sensed it,” Freya spoke up, moving closer to the brewing storm.

“Sensed what Freya?” Kol snapped, becoming more and more fed up with the current situation.

“Something… off,” She tried, struggling to find the words.

“You need to do better than that sister, or else this is a waste of time because you have no grounds to accuse my girlfriend of anything.”

“Enough.” The woman came out from her position behind Kol and came to stand next to him. “Please just stop, all of you.” She requested.

“Darling?” Kol gave her a questioning look and she gave a heavy sigh.

“She isn’t wrong, I’m not human,” She started, avoiding eye contact and staring at the ground. “Well, not entirely human I should say.” She then looked to Klaus, “I’m honestly surprised you didn’t sense it. I mean typically wolves have a sense for this sort of thing.” She remarked.

“Get to the point, my patients is waning fast,” Klaus warned. As he did so, Kol took a threatening step forward, only to be stopped by a hand on his arm.

“Okay, calm down. The short version is I’m a werewolf.” The woman stated plainly.

“You can’t be, you’ve never turned on a full moon,” Kol stated, looking to his girlfriend in confusion.

“That’s because I’m a different breed and I’ve learned to control it.” She then gave a bashful smile at him and said, “I also happen to have an amazing anchor that keeps me grounded.”

“That’s it,” Klaus growled and sped at the supposed werewolf and pinned her to the wall, his eyes glowing golden. “Who are you?”

She saw Kol move to intervene but she shot him a look to let her handle this. She smirked as she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, opening them to reveal her eyes were glowing a vibrant purple, wolfish features taking over her face slightly. And before Klaus could make a comment or move, she dug her claws deep into his side and rake them upwards, causing him to release her in shock. She used that moment to roundhouse kick him away from her.

“Who am I? Well, I’m someone you really don’t want to piss off.” She huffed, fixing her clothes.

Kol was looking at her wide-eyed, never having seen her like that before. He watched in fascination as her face shifted back to the one he loved so much, though the claws on her hands didn’t disappear.

While Kol was focused on her, she was focused on Klaus. She knew she just poked the sleeping bear, or well in this case wolf. She acted casual, but she was ready for a full-fledged brawl. She heard him let out a chuckle, and her heart went icy cold. She knew that kind of chuckle. It was the kind that told her she’d just pissed him off and he was amused by her attempt to hurt him.

“That was a neat trick, love,” He said as he stood back up to his regular height. “But you’ll have to do a lot better than that if you want to hurt me.” He growled as his eyes flared and he started to rush towards the woman. Before he could even get close Kol threw him to the other side of the courtyard.

“I told you Nik, not a hair.” He seethed, standing protectively in front of his girlfriend, who was now minorly terrified and clutched onto the back of his jacket.

“Maybe I should just go,” She murmured to Kol.

“Nonsense, you are still welcome here,” Elijah promised.

Klaus had gotten up and was getting ready to argue when Elijah cut him off.

“Why don’t we give the lady the benefit of the doubt. As it stands, if she had wanted to harm any of us she’s had ample opportunities to do so and has not. We shall hear her out before we jump to any more conclusions.” He stated, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Everyone was slow to move, but eventually, all were gathered in the seating area.

“What do you want to know?” The woman asked, practically perched in Kol’s lap.

“First off, how is there another breed of werewolf?” Elijah asked.

“Well, there’s actually a few. I’m from the French line of werewolves, whereas your brother is of the North American breed. As far as I know, the only other breed is English wolves. But there are many different shifters out there from many cultures. Kitsune, for example, come from Japan.” She explained as best as she could.

“How is it we’ve never heard of any other wolves or shifters before?” Freya asked.

“That I am unsure of, but I’ve met loads of different shifters and other creatures. Where I come from, it’s practically a beacon for supernaturals.”

“And you can control your shifts?” Kol piped up.

“Well for the most part. The way French wolves and shifters work is that you can shift at any time, not just on the full moon. But the full moon makes us more susceptible to turning. But for older wolves, it becomes easier to control your shifts. Whereas baby wolves tend to be much more at risk of turning uncontrollably.”

She then spent the next hour or so explaining the differences between the different wolf breeds and other supernatural creatures, although she never really explained what she was. It was actually Kol that brought up the question.

“Me? Well, I’m kinda a special case. I’m a werewolf, but well, an extremely rare one. It’s why I didn’t tell you who or what I was.” She explained, clearly nervous to reveal who she was. But with one squeeze of the hand from Kol, she sighed and started speaking, “I am the twin sister of Scott McCall, the True Alpha. I am his opposite in most cases which makes us an elite team that is nearly unbeatable. So I am what is called a Compliment Alpha. Part alpha, part beta, all power. It’s why my eyes are purple. It combines the red of an alpha’s eyes and the blue of a beta’s.” She explained, once again flashing her eyes.

“Does that satisfy you Nik? Or does she have to go through her life story before you trust her?” Kol asked, seemingly done with his girlfriend being interrogated.

“I swear to you I am no threat to your family. I didn’t even know of your existence until Kol revealed who and what he was. Vampires are kinda new territory for me. This is not some evil plot to harm you or any Mikaelson. You all have become my new pack, and you don’t hurt your own pack.” She swore.

“I shall allow you to stay, but be warned little wolf, I see even the slightest hint of your inevitable betrayal and I will end you and your brother.” Klaus threatened, but instead of being scared she just gave him a smile.

“I would expect nothing less.” She teased as she stood from the couch. “But just so you know, my old pack and I are hard to kill. Trust me, many have tried, yet here I am.”

Kol stood as well and took her hand as they left for her apartment on the other end of town. He pulled her close by her shoulder and kissed her head as they walked out of the compound.

-----------

When they finally made it back to her apartment, he could see her noticeably relax.

“I have to say, darling, I’ve never seen you kick ass before but I would love to see it again,” Kol murmured as he wrapped his arms around her waist and laid kisses on her neck. She giggled and tried to push him away.

“Stooop,” She whined as she tried to wiggle out of his grip.

Kol, unfortunately, refused to let her go and held her tighter as he relished in her laughter. Moments like this were his favorite because there was just joy in the air. All troubles forgotten and burdens lifted to make room for the contentment he felt when he was with her.

The two settled down on the couch and just sat cuddled up in silence for a while. Kol was the first to break it after about half an hour.

“Would you have ever told me?” He asked, looking down at his lover who suddenly seemed very interested in the couch.

She sighed and sat up. She hated this. She knew he would eventually ask this. And she dreaded it because she didn’t have a good answer. But she knew she had to give him something.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” She started, “My identity and my secret is the reason why I ran here in the first place. The danger became too great for my brother and me to stay together. We had to separate, at least for a little while. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” She paused as she recalled the day she had to say goodbye to her mother and brother. The physical pain she felt when she got on the plane without him. “I was scared.” she admitted, “I trust you, and I wanted to tell you so many times, but…”

“But what darling? Cm’on darling, I just want to know.”

“If my identity was found out, I would have had to leave again. Which would mean leaving you. And I couldn’t- I can’t lose you too. It would break me. Shatter me to a point that I would become volatile and dangerous to those who came across me. Because my heart’s been broken a few too many times for me to be able to come back from that.” She said quietly, not realizing that tears had begun to stream down her face.

Kol pulled her back into his arms and just held her.

“I swear to you my love, no one will keep me from you. Not even my brother.” He vowed.

[robotslenderman]

Edgelord grimdark Baali headcanons.

Dead dove, do not eat. Glimmer of hope at the end but only barely.

Think, David Parker Ray*.

* If you have not heard of this guy, don't look him up. He's the worst torturer I've ever heard of, and that's all you need to know.

Think Josef Fritzl.

Think, the serial killers who drove around in vans kidnapping girls then torturing them in the back seat.

Then you have the great majority of the Baali.

They are not an Always Chaotic Evil clan, but they're a Mostly Chaotic Evil clan. It's not something that is caused by the blood changing them when they become Kindred, it's cultural. Early Baali were sadists and psychopaths, serial killers who liked to hunt humans, prey on them, and inflict as much suffering as possible. They knew they were defective as humans, so as vampires they seek out childer who are the same as them. Hunting down another serial killer is just part of the fun of the Embrace.

Baali tend to blood bind their childer to them because of how dangerous their chosen offspring can be. Baali are also antisocial by nature -- not as in "introverted", but as in the more psychiatric definition "actively hostile in social interaction."

Because of their actively antisocial nature, Baali have a very low population. Historically, they only worked together due to the manipulations of powerful Methuselah or demons compelling them to shut the fuck up, stop killing each other and fall in line. Or because some rituals required multiple Kindred to perform. When the Baali as a clan lost power, the elders lost control of the younger Baali.

Since then, Baali population control is maintained unintentionally by its own clan. Sadists and psychopaths don't tend to bond with normal people, after all, and with each other it's even worse. If two Baali work together out of practicality, sooner or later one will piss off the other over something petty and the other will set out to inflict disproportionate retribution via torture and destruction. If they fail, then, well, a lifelong feud is started, and sooner or later one destroys the other. It's rarely a quick and painless destruction.

Most Baali have a Sith-like relationship with their childer -- the abuser, the sire, gets bored of the offspring, and the offspring gets away when the blood bond weakens -- or maybe tries to destroy their sire themself. The sire gets upset that someone they controlled got away despite the boredom that triggered it, so they pursue the childe to punish them. Inevitably, one is destroyed, although the dance can last centuries.

Targets for the Embrace fall into one of two categories -- fellow sadists/psychopaths among humans, such as serial killers and torturers, or people whose Embrace would be nothing short of a complete and utter punishment. Think Cleopatras on steroids. Think victims that gave their sire more entertainment in trying to get away than normal, victims that their sires fixated on, victims that were hunters or diehard Catholics.

The only good Baali come from the second group, but even then there are few. They're blood bound to their sire at Embrace and strive to please them, and are bound until their sire loses interest -- but even when their sire loses interest, a Baali that tries to get away from their abuser will end up with a sire deciding they don't like to lose control. A lot of Baali don't try to get away; they'll stay with their sire and try to work their way back into their sire's good books until they're diablerised or destroyed out of sheer annoyance, or become sadists themselves.

The only good Baali are the Baali who managed to escape their sires, or another group which I'll mention in a bit. They are, inevitably, extremely traumatised, and that trauma can cause "good" to be a relative term. They are hunted by sires infuriated that they can no longer control the offspring, or managed to destroy their sire. No matter which, the entire Kindred world wants nothing to do with them and does not trust them, and few of them blame it.

The 1% of Baali who escape alive hide among the world of darkness. They pose as orphaned Tremere who were never brought into the Pyramid, or Caitiff or Thinbloods, because it's safer to be one of those than Baali. They often end up making a small family of their own -- embracing a couple of childer to keep them company, usually picking people who are empathetic, good at comfort, or counselors, or something along those lines. Those childer, the second-generation escapees, are the only "normal" Baali you'll ever find, although they might carry some trauma themselves due to having to care for a sire that's an emotional wreck, or due to some of them having been blood bound to their own sires (who almost always don't know better).

An escaped Baali is often too deeply traumatised to ever fully heal, and may be abusive (in a much lower-key way) towards their childer from the sheer trauma. The trauma runs too deep for many to be able to have the willpower to break the cycle. What they experienced was much more horrific than what people think of as abuse.

So when the cycle continues, if a bit more watered down... the next generation of Baali sometimes escape their traumatised sires. These ones are often completely on their own, and are much more resolved to break the cycle by refusing to Embrace childer to take care of them. They don't know anything about the world of darkness except that Kindred as a whole despise them. They often have no idea there's others like them out there, and most of them spend entire lifetimes alone and in the closet. They prefer to pose as Tremere or Banu Haqim.

Every once in a blue moon, though, very rarely, maybe once every fifty years across the whole planet... one discovers another just like them. It's hard to. Usually, if they meet at all, they pass like ships in the night, with no idea the other was just like them because of how well hidden they are. But even with how low the main Baali population is, and lower still the population of the "normal" ones are hiding -- sometimes miracles do happen, and they find each other.

The Baali, as a clan, are a raging dumpster fire of misery and torture. But even out of that crucible, one or two will find a light in the tunnel and make it out.

[linkspooky]

Is the story in Owari no Seraph good? Heard it's just your average shonen manga.

Thank you for the question, anon! Owari no Seraph is not just “your average shonen manga” it’s THE AVERAGE SHONEN MANGA, it is every single average shonen manga ever combined into one and that’s why I love it.  I might as well turn this into a reccomendation post to answer your question.

You Should Read Owari no Seraph

Owari no Seraph is like several different shonen manga sewn together in a horrible frankenstein’s monster, but once again as I often say on this blog tropes are not bad things. They’re all about the execution. Owari no Seraph is like, one of five exorcism/demon fighting manga published by shueisha right now (Chainsawman, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Jujutsu Kaisen, Ao no Exorcist, Owari no Seraph). It stands out by raising the stakes as high as they can possibly go, it has no reservations at all over the fact that it’s a tropey, pulp, nightmare. It knows exactly what it is and just tells it’s story anyway. 

So here are a few things I like about the manga that make me want to reccomend it. 

1. The World

The worldbuilding of Owari no Seraph sounds like it was made up on the spot. This is coming from someone who has read the entire manga through twice, and every single english translation available of the spinoff novels. It basically goes like this, there are exorcists who fight demons with magical swords. Then there are vampires but they’re way too strong for an exorcist to ever defeat. Demons are former humans, or maybe former vampires. Eventually the exorcists learn to put demons in swords and allow them to possess you. The world ends because of things called seraphs which are children that were experimented on to turn them into angels to call the end of the world. 

It’s basically a mythology where every single supernatural creature exists simulatenously. It reminds me a lot of the Buffy mythos, where all sorts of supernatural creatures exist and vampires sort of just reign supreme as the strongest. 

While it is kind of a mess, it works well for the story. It basically creates a world where literally everything is out to kill humans, and the humans themselves can just barely fight back. It makes humans seem even more smaller and insignificant in the world they are inhabiting because there are just so many types of magical creatures that are infinitely stronger than them. 

What I love about the exorcists in this manga is how physically weak they are. Literally no matter what desperate strategy they pull, even if they are a once in a generation genius, or from some kind of chosen bloodline, every single character in the manga is desperate to survive at any time. No victory is ever achieved without tons of losses. The characters backs are perpetually against the wall. 

The exorcists really do come off like underdogs just trying to survive the extinction of humanity, because the world of magic is just so overwhelming and unknowable to the human characters. It’s like if the world exploded and every single fantasy creature came to life at once, and they all hated humans and wanted to stamp them out. 

Another thing I like about the vampires is that they’re not X Men. Sometimes when writing vampires authors just make them X Men, as in rather than being vampires themselves they just all have some kind of mutant power like flame conjuring or shapeshifting. The vampires are at the top of the hierarchy in this world because of their sheer strength alone, each one of them is a powerhouse of raw strength. 

2. Yuichiro Hyakuya

Yu’s character is interesting because it’s so weird and offputting but only if you read far enough in the manga to realize why. Yu’s attitude is something that is eventually deconstructed to horrifying effect much later on in the manga.  People often call him a boring shonen protagonist who only cares about fighting and friendship, but to me he’s always been more like Gon. That is a deconstruction of the “Pure-Hearted Hero” protagonist. 

Yuichiro tends to naturally attract people around him, especially damaged and lost people because of how accepting and trusting he is. The problem is Yu is able to accept everything because you get the sense that he doesn’t care. He just doesn’t even think about or consider the consequences of his actions at all, or even how his actions will affect other people.

Yu cares about the people he considers family and that’s it. The rest of the world might as well not even exist. And this is never once framed as a good trait. Yu just doesn’t think at all before he does something, and it’s not even him being stupid it’s him being suicidally reckless. He just kind of assumes that if he wants it everything should work out in his favor.

It’s gotten to the point where people around him are constantly bringing up the consequences of some of the reckless things he wants to try and he just shrugs it off. Somebody warns him reviving the dead is a bad idea, and he just says “but I want my family back.” He trusts and allies himself with complete enemies if he thinks it can return his loved ones to him. 

Yu doesn’t actually trust anyone. He just has the part of his brain where he distrusts people completely shut off. His complete and total blind faith in people ends up becoming a bad trait because as much as it brings his comrades closer to him, you get the sense that he just doesn’t care what happens in the end. As the manga progresses what seems like a typically all loving hero just becomes more and more distant from other people. The fact that he trusts without question is presented as something that makes him seem inhuman.

3. Shinoa Hiragi

Owari no Seraph is one fo the few manga where the female of the main character trio is just as connected and important to the plot as the two boys. Shinoa’s arc about learning to love and trust people also works because she was raised in a family with no love at all that only ever saw her as a tool.

Shinoa is probably the most complex of the main three characters because she engages with everyone behind a mask, but she’s also not a perfect actress. What’s great about her is that she’s flawed, she’s kind of a mess. Unlike her older sister who can manipulate anyone flawlessly, Shinoa is much more human behind the mask and has a difficult time repressing it. 

Shinoa’s arc is as central to the story as Yu’s. However she’s also his opposite and a good complement to him because while Yu is wild and reckless Shinoa is reserved and overly cautious. It’s not a fear of being weak in the same way Yu is afraid to be weak, what Shinoa fears is being out of control. However because she’s not the genius her sister is for Shinoa she only ever really has the illusion of control over situations. 

It’s a female character where basically the entire conflict of her character revolves around her agency, and trying to be her own person separate from her sister. Which is so rare for female characters to be that well developed and present such an interesting conflict. Which is another thing I likie about ONS, it’s a mishmash of tropes but it always uses those tropes very smartly. She fits in so well with the series because basically everyone in the series knows they’re already doomed and we see how each of them cope with it and struggle against it. 

4. Guren Ichinose 

Guren is hands down not only the most complicated character in the series, and also one of the best mentor characters of all time, he’s also where the excellent moral ambiguity of the series itself shines the brightest. Guren is basically the second protagonist of the series at this point because he has his own light novel spinoff and is just as important to the plot as Yu. 

What makes Guren compelling is that he’s not a bad guy at all, but he ends up committing some of the worst deeds in the manga. It once again solidifies the theme that life is more complex than bad people do bad things, sometimes in fact good people do a bad. Guren is great because he’s always one person who is basically struggling against the whole world, and sometimes you get the sense he wants to destroy it because that’s the only way he can throw his burdens off of him. 

But at the same time, this cold blooded guy whose constantly doing terrible things, and is desperate and hungry for power really is just a person who wants his friends to be safe and happy. Guren is someone whose lost literally everything to an uncaring world, his family, his close friends, his lover, he’s also been kicked on and stamped down his entire life. You understand why Guren would end up becoming such a selfish person because literally the world has always told him that he doesn’t deserve to be in it, he’s not a part of this story.

It’s like the struggling of a side character whose not even involved in the plot forcing their way in and trying to be the main character. Guren is so much weaker than everything around him, but he’ll keep fighting. And it’s amazing when Guren does literally every single thing, sacrifices everything, throws away everything and then he still fails in the end. That’s what makes his character compelling because he never gets what he wants no matter how desperately he struggles but he still keeps on fighting. 

His foiling with Yu is also incredible, and you get the sense that Guren is a worse person because he actually cares about things unlike Yu who is so reckless and doesn’t even think about the consequences of his actions.

5. The Conflict

Here’s how the manga starts. The world ends. You’ve been enslaved for several years by vampires that suck your blood. You finally escape but all of your family that was introduced died in the first chapter.

It’s overload but yet, Owari no Seraph always manages to keep these stakes consistent. It’s a manga that actually feels like the characters are struggling at the end of the world. Literally every single person there is past the point of no return in one way or another, and yet they keep fighting.

Which is what makes every fight fresh and compelling to read. Because the main characters don’t even win that often, or if they do win it’s a minor victory that’s evened out later by some loss. Every battle is for survival, not gaining territory. Which really helps along the themes of the story as well to create this picture of a severely broken world, where individual people are all desperate to band together to survive. 

The story itself also never grows stale or stagnant because things are constantly developing and changing around. You never feel one arc drags on too long. Because every single faction is just trying to survive, enemies from yesterday will become allies today and you end up getting to understand the perspective of each faction. 

If you can get past the premise, the manga is actually pretty grounded. Most of the emotional stakes comes from the connection between the characters and the fear of losing them, and that’s the primary focus of the story. It’s about inhuman tragedy and circumstances, and a world that’s so fantastical it’s almost impossible to believe, but there are humans still in the middle of it trying to survive and live even though their lives are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. 

[karui-kyofu]

Mobile Friendly BNHA Verse Muse Info

Under read more because it’s long.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Full Name: Kurai Amayo

Hero Name: Underworld

Age: 15-16

Gender: Male

Orientation: Pansexual

Species: Human

Occupation: Student

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Hair: Silvery almost white, worn kind of messy, and usually a bit unkept but somehow it still USUALLY looks good.

Eyes: Pure gold in color, sometimes seem to have catlike pupils but other times it seems to have been a trick of the light.

Complexion: Pale as hell. Constant dark circles under his eyes.

Height: 5’9

Weight: 130 lbs

Build: Slender, almost seeming overly skinny, but he’s healthy enough.

Scars: Several. Too many to really specify where. 

Piercings: Double ear piercings (the lobe) (I ignore the one for his faceclaim that has his neck pierced too. Kurai just has his ears pierced.)

Face claim(s): Kadoc Lemlupus

BACKGROUND

Ethnicity: Japanese

Parents: Currently Unnamed parents, both villains (Open to fleshing out some info about them though if needed)

Siblings: Unnamed, two, a brother and sister (also both villains, or eventually will become them).

Pets: Fish

Education: UA Academy

Languages: Japanese, English

Abilities: Nightfall (vampiric + light manipulation) One from each parent; It’s not exactly a void, but he can essentially make an entire area around him within a certain range so completely dark that no light can pierce through it. It also somewhat muffles sound, since it’s one of those tangible yet intangible sorts of blackness. It’s heavy, and thick, but can’t be touched or cut, or dissipated (though if he is killed or knocked unconscious it vanishes).

The second half of his ability (or more accurately his second quirk, from the other parent) is more straightforward, giving him vampiric like physical boosts (some increased strength, speed). Permanently boosted because of his quirk (even when speed and strength are not): Sight and hearing (to a small degree).

Summarized Personality Traits: Shy and awkward but friendly, somewhat low self esteem, difficulty trusting others but wants to, constantly afraid people will shun him for his parentage. Seems antisocial, but really is just not the greatest with people. Likely keeps to himself mostly, or hangs around near people but never WITH them unless invited.

Other Important details to note: Most people have probably never seen his face properly because of his light sensitivity issues, and the fact he wears hoodies and sweatshirts with a special sheer face covering to minimize light. He does take it off sometimes though, and will reveal his face if asked to.

Also it's not due to his quirk, more his personality (he is often almost deathly quiet) and just kind of a natural thing from a number of factors, but he has kind of a diminished presence and tends to not be noticed unless he speaks. Some more observant people though will likely be more aware he is there. But it's part of the reason why he sometimes seems to suddenly appear out of thin air. He was probably already there, people just didn't realize it.

More detailed background information (and in depth personality and quirk info):

Kurai was born as the child of two villains (not giving them names currently, and they’re not meant to be any currently known villains). Neither were very important, but despite his parents alignment, Kurai never really took to the whole villain sort of lifestyle (he’s far too big of a softie), and eventually he ran away, and ended up applying to U.A., and managed to get in.

He does have difficulties still in this verse with being in bright places due to his upbringing (he was raised in mostly dark places), and almost always hides himself in a dark coat or hoodie, his favorite and most common ones having a sort of sheer black mesh covering the face to help with his light sensitivity, so most people have never seen his face properly without it being hidden in shadows. He’s not the greatest with people, tending to shy away from them. He’s also very skittish about being touched, and tends to keep to himself. He’s pretty convinced that if people find out his parents are both villains, that he will be shunned, and so he keeps it to himself. The school is aware though of his parentage and he had to go through extra steps to prove he wasn’t a villain himself before he was allowed to properly apply. 

Appearance wise, he’s actually decently attractive, if a bit disheveled, apart from the constant dark circles under his eyes. Messy, rarely brushed silvery colored hair, and vividly golden eyes, his pupils sometimes seeming almost catlike, though it might be a trick of the light, or a manifestation of his quirk. He’s also got a little bit of an unusual slight point to his ears, and they sort of stick out weirdly, almost like a little elf.

His room is kept nice and dark, and all his lightbulbs have been replaced with blacklight bulbs, which are some of the only lights he can tolerate consistently, so his room has a rather eerie glow. Most of his belongings have some sort of glow factor to them (lighting under his bed, one of those blacklight glow fish tanks, lava lamps, etc), because he just really likes that sort of glowing, blacklit look. It’s also soft lighting so it’s something his eyes can tolerate.

Kurai has some unique quirks in the sense he got one quirk from one parent, but he also got a second one that sort of mutated from his other parent, so it’s not quite the same as theirs. Somewhat vampiric abilities associated with his tasting blood (rarely used because he hates it, but it boosts his strength and speed some), any kind of blood, and any amount, even a drop, for a short time. But more commonly, he has an ability having to do with light manipulation, causing the area around him to be engulfed in total darkness, as if his opponent has been transported into a void. Which is true in a sense, as some aspect of his ability seems to muffle sound as well, covering his movements when he’s in battle. If he uses both of his quirks, he can be a formidable opponent, but he’ll never be as powerful as some of the other heroes out there. His night vision is amazing, though his daytime vision a bit less so, unless he has one of his special hoodies on. His vision in general is a little sharper than most, and his hearing is also enhanced a little, courtesy of his quirk, but both are only slightly better than the average person, and not anything significant. 

As for downsides to his quirks, his vampiric abilities tend to torture him more emotionally rather than having a physical downfall, though he can sometimes get tired and lethargic after his ability fades. His light manipulation ability has a currently limited range, as he’s still learning fully how to control and expand it, but currently he can basically black out an area around him within about 40 feet if he pushes himself. His void type ability also can be bested by someone who is able to sense body heat or movement by means other than sight or hearing. 

As far as his actual personality, he’s actually really friendly if someone makes the effort to get past his fearful, antisocial seeming exterior. He actually really wants to be included in things, but he’s just really not sure how to go about it. He doesn’t see himself as someone that others would want to be friends with, because he grew up surrounded by villains who treated everyone like they were replaceable and everyone only cared about themselves. He’s almost far too nice for his own good, and he definitely has to work on his confidence in both himself and his abilities. He cares a great deal about those around him, but he won’t say anything most of the time unless presented with a situation he feels he has to. It most likely will take a little effort to get him to open up to others, and a little bit of persistence. If he does speak, he tends to speak softly, unless startled or frightened, and when afraid of something, his instinct is to hide in the closest dark little safe space he can find (such as under a table or beneath a bed). He absolutely hates bullying though, and when he feels confident enough, he will speak up, despite his fear of others, and stand up for people if he catches someone bullying another student.

He is slightly mentally unstable, hearing whispers sometimes in his ears, about how he isn’t good enough, how he should just give up, quit, how no one likes him, no one could ever like him, and other things like that. This is another side effect of his upbringing, his softhearted nature being a detriment to surviving such a childhood without some damage being left on him. He also rarely sleeps more than a few hours at a time, which is partly why he always looks so tired and why he’s always got those dark circles under his eyes.

He secretly would sneak out and do nice things for people when he was a child, even though he was punished and made fun of for it by those in his parents circle. The fact he couldn’t help himself from doing things like that, or from protecting animals or just doing little helpful things, was one of the signs he was not meant to be a villain. 

He has two siblings, both older than him. After he ran away, his parents basically pretended like he didn’t exist anymore, because he disappointed them by being too soft and kind, and because he refused to use his abilities for villainous acts.

(I have finally figured out what his hero costume looks like. Feel free to ask me, and I’ll send some pictures.)

(This verse is still new and tentative so more info will be added as I interact with him with people.)

[imperialsea-a]

ELIZABETH’S IN-DEPTH RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET.

          Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

          Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

Mun name: Rem (not that blue-haired anime girl or DN, it’s from my old blog!) OOC Contact: Contact me through the Tumblr IM system or my Discord! My Discord is: imperialsea#1818. Please tell me your URL if you message me there so I know who you are!

Now, onto the heart of the post!

   ♛   Who the heck is my muse, anyway? Elizabeth Eva Alexandria Cross, the only biological daughter of Kaien Cross, her father (a canon vk char), and Eva Liliya Cherie Cross, her mother (an oc muse)! Elizabeth is a vampire hunter by blood like all in her family before her! But, shh! Your character isn't supposed to know that .  .  .  unless they're also a hunter .  .  .  or a perhaps a vampire (since her family from both sides are famous hunters, but even then they don't have to know she's a vamp killer if you don't want them to) .  .  .  or they're some sort of ally to her / the hunters association since she can't just tell anyone her actual work on a whim. Where she's from, the existence of vampires are a secret from most of humanity and it's her job to kill the dangerous people-hurty ones and keep that nice and secret so as to avoid a world war! 'Nothing about her is complicated at all', I say, lying through my teeth like Bethy does to society every day by keeping her job and true lifestyle hidden :'D

Further information below the cut, please take time to read if you’re stuck on what to plot and how Bethy operates!

   ♛   Points of Interest:           - She was born and raised to fight against unruly beasts and composed foes alike. Despite her youth, she's a one-woman powerhouse and is not afraid to take herself down with an opponent if she deems it necessary. She's like the Smash player who hits the fake smash ball to take out an enemy on their last legs, even at the expense of her own life. She'll do it! Except in Smash she'd probably just win the match because she had an extra life and not, you know, not die forever for real in a last grand battle.

          - She's got vamp genes all over the place and is rare among hunters. She's biologically immortal like a Pureblood despite not being a vampire herself and is living testimony of what her predecessors took from Purebloods both by honorable bestowal of blood from the mysterious Hooded Woman, and straight up [insert painting of Jupiter Devouring His Son here]. Her great grandparent is 3k+ years old, her father is 200+ for devouring his own twin-- it's messy as mythology, but anime :'D  She herself is only 18 on default though (19 in K Crossover--), the youngest of her entire bloodline, and she can still be slain in battle even if she is much hardier than a typical human being. She's also sensitive to auras, and capable of sensing vampires.

          - Things characters might notice? She's ghostly pale and kind of looks like she stepped out of The Last Unicorn. She looks cold, sophisticated, and vaguely otherworldly-- she really doesn't radiate the friendliest of vibes unless she's doing something she loves, and the calculated yet seemingly effortless grace of her movements are prominent in and outside of combat. She is descended from an ancient royal line, and those posh, stuffy mannerisms and formal speech pattern live on through her even if the Adrasteian monarchy no longer exists.

          - She truly isn't a trigger-happy person, whatever the title of 'hunter' implies, and keeps a level head in most situations. Sure, Bethy looks as if she could bite someone's head off and can display some seriously threatening flashes of anger, but she's not going to do something rash and will only resort to drawing her weapons in a serious matter. She's here to save lives, maintain peace, and keep order, not disrupt it and set off a war! No pressure on her, right?

         - She is also notably, NOT a high school student, though she may be mistaken for a high school senior or young college student since her age fits the bill. Elizabeth actually graduated from her high school at age sixteen and took to hunting full-time immediately after. She was convinced to slow it down by her grandparents and began preparing for college when her assignment at Cross Academy arrived and, uh, pretty tragically, hasn’t been able to attend any classes due to her work demands. Come to choose between the world and personal fulfillment? Her conscience only let her have one choice; a hunter must hunt.

    ♛   What they’ve been up to recently:           - Work. There's hardly a time when this girl isn't working or planning what to do next, and the workload only grows after the previous president is outed as a dishonorable, self-serving traitor to the hunters. She's seriously injured after trading blows with him and is promptly benched to deal with the fallout and mental agony, but she's back within a year (and in K's crossover? Only six months later!).

          - Having said that, Elizabeth does have days off and will spend them quietly with her friends, or alone with music and a rejuvenating swim.

          - Depending on the time in her life? Her life circumstances vary drastically-- she can go from a young huntress travelling on her own as duty demands, or she can be a mother of five children and trusted right hand of the new hunter president, Zero Kiryuu. She lives for a long time, so she's always up to something! And of course, she's always motivated to fight for a better future. 

   ♛   Where to find them:            - Aside from work, check the beach! Or find her on methods of cross-continental transportation since she travels around the world for her job (she walks whenever possible, so it's rare to see her on a bus, but she’ll begrudgingly take one or a train)! Otherwise, a place like an aquarium, clothing store, or coffee shop, or any place in a city is your best chance.... write w me pls... q-q she is Around Somewhere.

          - If not found in any of those places and your character is someone inside Cross Academy, she can be found there, helping the prefects in some way and is familiar enough with the building to help out new students if they ask.

    ♛   Current Plans:           - Elizabeth is chained to her work as a hunter for as long as she draws breath, or until there is no need for her to end hostile vampires. Her ultimate goal is to keep the world from falling into a repeat, all-out war between vampires and humanity. Her living and family situation might change through the years, but that will always be her primary drive-- she's got an indomitable will.

    ♛   Desired Interactions:           - please ovq

          - In all seriousness, I’m up for pretty much anything. She needs more friends, more enemies, people to protect, people to be protected by, people she looks up to, people who legitimately unnerve her, everything! I just don’t feel comfortable killing her. Elizabeth fought really hard to get her future and deserves to find comfort after her entire childhood-young adult life was spent thinking the only thing of worth she had was her role as a huntress. I do really, really love angst though, so anything else goes, really c:

     ♛   Offered Interactions ( please sit tight for this! it will be divided into multiple sections! ) :           - IF YOUR CHARACTER IS HUMAN:                - She’ll assume your muse is an average civilian until shown otherwise (be it with unusual powers, whacky aura, combat prowess, or prior knowledge from a report or something-- a plot specific thing). Unless they truly know about vampires / work with the Hunters Association, Elizabeth will not be sharing any information about who or what she is without a legitimate reason (such as the human character being bitten by a Pureblood and thus is being turned into a vampire themselves). However, the other party being kept in the dark about vampires can open the door to a more relaxed Elizabeth without her professional, perfectionist mindset. She’s more likely to have a pleasant conversation with humans since they have no part in the hunt-- but in that same vein, she does aim to keep them at a certain distance and not develop a deep emotional bond (but she’s also a lot softer than she looks and acts and tends to care for others quickly, should they get along). It’s a tricky slope .  .  . She’s thawed out and the nicer aspects of her personality are far more prominent, but at the same time, she’s not being entirely genuine. Give her time and she’ll become more open about personal things, just, not her work.

               - Applies to her K Proj. Crossover.  Working with S4, Elizabeth takes some time to adjust, but ultimately loves the organization and the people within it. They’re an exception to her ‘no ties with average humans’ rule because....errr.... they’re not the average human she’s used to protecting and in that verse they’re aware of her occupation and peculiar heritage. She’s not as cold first impressions might suggest and loves Reisi’s weird af team building nights, it’s hard for her to not have a soft spot for them, even as an outsider and unofficial member (as in, she has none of the abilities the Blues have, but she has her natural abilities).

         - IF YOUR CHARACTER IS A HUNTER:                 - Elizabeth is a known figure in hunter society; her great grandfather, grandfather, and aunt were previous heads of the organization and each are still alive at present. So, it probably makes more sense if your hunter character at the very least knows about her-- unless they’re an off-series muse in which case go wild and do what you think is best! I always did like the idea of two vampire hunters chilling together with neither one knowing the other is a fellow hunter until they’re attacked by a vamp and they’re both like ‘Oh!’

               - A simple but always reliable plot idea is two hunters on a joint mission! It’s really important to know that Bethy does not take kindly to poor performance and expects her partner to take whatever assignment they have seriously. If not? Things get tundra-cold really fast-- o-o;; People’s lives are at stake and in her opinion, if a hunter wants to mope or complain about their blood-given obligation, they’re not fit to be hunters in the first place. ‘Can’t do the job? Then finish what you started with me if you have any shred of integrity, and get thee gone’ sort of thing. Otherwise, uh :’D;; she’s highly cooperative and always aims to reach the outcome with the least amount of damage.

               - As a teenager, she attended a hunter-run private academy in Adrasteia for four years. If it’s possible for your muse to attend (as in, they are from a vampire hunter family and can pass the rigorous entrance exams), throw em in for a slightly younger, less stringent Bethy? A national fencing champion at the top of her classes, and great granddaughter to the legendary hellfire headmaster, Elizabeth’s not easily missed! It could be the start to an amicable relationship to carry into future interactions?

        - IF YOUR CHARACTER IS A VAMPIRE:                 - Bluntly put, for vampires, it’s probably better to interact with Elizabeth after Cross Academy has fallen in the large battle that took place there. Her mother is revealed to have been alive and held captive as a vampire, she’s already friends with a hunter/vamp, her two friends turned out to be Purebloods, and ‘oh....my mother and father got together again and now I’ve got a younger vampire brother’ .....and her boyfriend’s half sister is also a vampire who marries the former vamp senate heir..... so...vamps everywhere; she simply accepts them as part of the family. Prior to that, while she isn’t hostile to vampires and certainly has no intention to attack a vamp unjustly, it’s not a place she’s eager to put herself in. Depending on how threatened she feels, she’ll even swallow her pride and keep her head down-- mostly.

               - If your muse is a hunter-turned-vampire, she doesn’t treat them as a vampire, rather, she still sees them as a compatriot, like in the case of Zero Kiryuu. Whether or not your muse received the blood of their keeper is up to you, but in the case that they haven’t-- she’s always there to assist in granting mercy whenever the time comes :’)

       - IF YOUR CHARACTER DOES NOT FIT INTO ANY OF THE ABOVE CATEGORIES / REGARDING OTHER VERSES:                - Please help me find something that works, I’m willing to try! Memes are incredibly helpful! Send one in, the tag is here, and we can go from there!

                  - My currently finished and ready-to-use Crossover Verse is K Proj., which can be read about right here.

      ♛   Current Open Post/s: Linked right here. There's no expiration date to these, and it doesn't matter if another person has replied to one, you are more than welcome to reply to one if it catches your eye at all.

      ♛   Anything else?:  YEAH, wow I am so sorry that got so long. Please note that this post may be updated periodically!

[theajaheira]

an open mic enthusiast

read it on ao3!

Rupert Giles was sitting at one of the tables, playing leisurely and expertly on his guitar, singing in a way that was possibly the most unbearably fucking sexy thing Jenny had ever seen.

(comics reboot: Jenny’s got a crush.)

will i keep writing fic after every single one-panel tidbit about reboot giles and jenny? probably. definitely. absolutely.

some oblique references to issue #3 (and probably falls within that rough timeline), but you don’t have to know the comics to enjoy this.

Six days out of the week, Jenny Calendar stayed responsibly indoors after dark. It wasn’t wise to tempt fate when it came to vampires, especially not in a town like Sunnydale. Students and teachers alike dropped off the face of the earth at least once a month, if not more, and she had no intention of being one of them. As much as she loved being out at night, dancing and exploring and messing around with magic, none of those things were worth ending up as vampire chow.

One day out of the week, it was open mic night at the Espresso Pump.

This particular Wednesday, Jenny had tried on five different outfits and four different shades of lipstick, then vacillated between pinning her hair up and letting it fall in loose waves to graze her shoulders. Currently, her hair was half-up-half-down, her lipstick was half-purple-half-peach, and the butterflies in her chest were making it impossible for her to accurately judge how good any of her fashion choices were.

“Fuck you, Rupert Giles,” she said to the mirror, and meant it wholeheartedly. No one had ever gotten her this flustered with a single well-played chord.

The whole ordeal had started about three months ago, two days after Jenny had met Rupert Giles in a faculty meeting. She hadn’t thought much beyond “reasonably hot and sweetly polite,” and had correctly assumed that he was the kind of guy who wasn’t really into making friends on staff. As such, she hadn’t been thinking about him at all when she’d noticed the Open Mic flyer tacked to the noticeboard in the faculty room—only that apparently open mic night also meant a discount on coffee, and the Espresso Pump was only half a block away from Jenny’s apartment.

“Hmm,” said Jenny, cheered by the prospect of cheap coffee from one of her favorite places.

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for an open mic enthusiast,” observed Mr. Giles, who was making himself a cup of tea at the counter nearby. He looked up at her almost furtively. “Are you planning on going?”

“I like coffee,” said Jenny, shrugging. “And it’s near my house. Utilizing the open-mic-night coffee discount might be a nice way to kill a few hours before I go back to a night of Netflix and…” She trailed off. “Really just Netflix.”

“It’s certainly a lifestyle choice,” said Mr. Giles, giving her a crooked grin as he finished making his tea. “One I can wholeheartedly relate to. I spent the better half of last night binging period dramas and translating ancient texts.”

“Multitasking!” Jenny grinned back. “Can’t help but admire that in a guy.”

Mr. Giles blushed an adorable shade of pink and took a sip of his tea. “Lord, but that’s awful,” he said, pulling a face.

“I think the Espresso Pump has some great iced tea,” said Jenny helpfully.

“That’s worse,” said Mr. Giles, but he was still smiling a little as he headed out of the staff room. Jenny was smiling too, and didn’t entirely know why.

She was thinking a little about Mr. Giles for the rest of the day—casually, and between classes, when she had a few minutes to spare. They weren’t very serious thoughts, and she was pretty sure a lot of them had to do with the fact that living on a Hellmouth made it pretty much impossible to get laid. Besides which, he wasn’t her type—she didn’t tend to go for sweetly gentle intellectuals who blushed like an English rose. By the time she’d gotten home, he had all but left her mind.

That day, she didn’t change her outfit before open mic night. She did reapply her lipstick, mostly on principle; there was still a possibility she might meet somebody in the time it took to drink her coffee. She put on a cross necklace as a precautionary measure and headed out of her apartment, feeling the sense of cheerful boredom that one did right before something big and wonderful knocked them sideways.

In this case, it was the fact that by the time Jenny had gotten her coffee, all the seats indoors were full. A little annoyed by the concept of actually having to attend open mic night, she stepped into the outdoor seating area. Though she couldn’t see who was singing, she could make out a man’s low, melodic voice, accompanied by a softly strumming guitar. She recognized the song, or at least the melody, and was humming idly along as she moved forward to sit down—

—at which point someone moved out of the way, and Jenny saw that Rupert Giles was sitting at one of the tables, playing leisurely and expertly on his guitar, singing in a way that was possibly the most unbearably fucking sexy thing Jenny had ever seen. Stunned, and unwilling to take her eyes off Rupert, she set her coffee down on the nearest empty table, then sat slowly down, watching him with rapt and breathless attention.

Halfway through the song, Rupert looked up and saw her. His fingers slipped on the strings, striking an off-key chord, but his voice didn’t falter—and his eyes didn’t leave Jenny’s.

This had been going on for a lot longer than it probably should have. Outside the open mic, Rupert and Jenny exchanged light pleasantries at most, holding brief, friendly conversations in the minutes before staff meetings started or lunch ended. But every Wednesday night, Jenny changed her outfit, applied a bolder shade of lipstick, and headed down to the Espresso Pump, where it was now very rare for Rupert to be playing anything but love songs.

They were in a holding pattern, Jenny knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to break it. What if it turned out Rupert wasn’t half as interested in her as his music and his blush made him seem? There was something unspeakably romantic about their connection when she could pretend it was reciprocated. she felt like bringing it into the real world ran the risk of revealing that Rupert just happened to get a little flirty while he was singing.

And now here she was, in the third month of acting like a lovestruck teenager. She didn’t know what it was about Rupert, but being around him made her feel…warm. And happy. And a little nervous, but in a nice way.

Though the nice parts were somewhat counteracted by how fucking difficult being nervous made picking out a good outfit. It was starting to get late, and Jenny was starting to worry that she might legitimately miss seeing Rupert play, but she had started dressing up and she couldn’t dress down now. It was the principle of the thing—

As she was scanning her living room for the top she’d tossed over her shoulder, Jenny’s eyes landed on the clock, and—fuck!

Okay. Seriously no time to be picky. Tugging her hair down, Jenny wiped off the purple-peach lipstick hybrid, stepped into a pair of heeled boots, adjusted her top, and sprinted out of the house, half-tumbling down the stairs and out the door and—

—colliding directly with Rupert, who neatly caught her in his arms before hitting his head rather hard against a lamppost.

They stared at each other, eyes wide. Then Rupert said, “This really is my day for head injuries, isn’t it?”

“What?” Jenny took a second look at Rupert, then saw his torn clothing and the bruising down the side of his face. “Oh my god. Are you okay? Was that me?”

“What on earth were you running to?” Rupert asked, sounding more curious than accusing.

“I didn’t want to miss seeing you play!” Jenny answered immediately, too preoccupied with her concern to realize what she’d indirectly told him. “Did a building collapse on you?”

“You really do pick the most extraordinary days to miss seeing me play,” said Rupert. He looked amused, though that adorable, telling blush had returned at Jenny’s admission. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing about the giant vampire-killing bat from at least one of your students tomorrow.”

“Giant—you know what, forget it,” said Jenny, waving a hand. “I really don’t want to know. The supernatural dealings in this town give me a headache. Listen, come up to my apartment and I’ll fix you up.”

A slow, shy smile spread across Rupert’s face. “I’d like that,” he said.

After Rupert had been sufficiently patched up, Jenny made tea. She didn’t really know how to make tea, but she had some extra tea leaves left from a ritual she’d been experimenting with, so she sort of just threw them all into a pot and filled it with water, hoping against hope that Rupert wasn’t watching.

“What are you doing?” said Rupert from behind her, sounding like he couldn’t decide whether to be affronted or start giggling.

“Tea?” said Jenny.

“No,” said Rupert. “Have you—what—no.”

“I kinda live off of store-bought coffee and takeout,” said Jenny. “I don’t really do the whole cooking thing, especially not since they invented the Domino’s app.”

Rupert pinched the bridge of his nose. Now he just looked like he was really trying not to start giggling. “And I’m supposed to trust that you administered adequate medical care?” he teased. “You don’t even have a kettle.”

“Pot, kettle,” said Jenny, and directed a winning smile at Rupert.

“That’s terrible,” said Rupert. “You are terrible. Sit down while I make you a proper cup of tea.”

“Oh no!” Jenny objected. “At the very least let me fix up your head. You look awful!”

“Thanks ever so,” said Rupert dryly.

“No, I don’t mean—you’re obviously still seriously hot, I’m just saying—” Jenny clarified, then groaned, burying her face in her hands.

“Obviously still seriously hot,” Rupert repeated, sounding rather pleased about this description.

“You know, I used to be way smoother?” Jenny informed him, raising her head to glare at him. “I used to have game, Rupert, I used to be able to knock people’s socks off, and it was not fair of you to just play guitar like that.”

“I’m simply utilizing my only advantage,” said Rupert mildly. “Not all of us can be stunningly beautiful, adorably tiny computer science teachers.”

Jenny bit her lip, smiling. “Go on,” she said.

“I do believe I have sung you a multitude of love songs, Ms. Calendar,” said Rupert, “and now you’re asking for more?”

“Wait,” said Jenny. “Hold up. Those were for me?”

Rupert looked at her for a very long time. Then he said, “Just to clarify. I’ve been holding off on asking you out because I wasn’t sure if you were interested, and you were under the impression that I just happened to be singing love songs while making direct eye contact with you?”

“You weren’t sure if I was interested?” said Jenny disbelievingly. “What did you think I was going to open mic night for?”

“You said you liked coffee—”

At that point, the absurdity of the situation hit Jenny in full force. She burst into violent giggles, falling against Rupert’s shoulder, and she felt him begin to laugh as well. “God, we’re a pair!” she wheezed.

Rupert turned his head towards hers, eyes alight, and Jenny realized that she would very much like to kiss him. But she kind of wanted to spend tonight finally getting to know him, so instead she took his hands in hers, giving him a delighted, open-mouthed smile. “You wanna show me that Netflix period drama you were talking about?” she said. “I do actually know how to make popcorn.”

“I’d quite like that,” said Rupert, smiling warmly back at her.

“Hey, Mr. Giles?” said Jenny, poking her head into the library and doing her best to look innocently professional. Rupert, who had been conversing with Willow Rosenberg and Buffy Summers, brightened at the sight of her. “Just wanted to check—you’re gonna be doing that open mic night thing next Wednesday, right? As long as there aren’t any giant vampire-slaying bats?”

“I don’t know why you were getting on my case last week about me blowing my cover, Giles,” said Buffy. “I think my giant Pegasus blew my cover.”

“Shh,” said Willow.

“Ms. Calendar, I am definitely doing the open mic,” said Rupert, ignoring both Buffy and Willow with an impressive amount of dignity, “and I very much hope to see you there.”

The girls looked from Rupert to Jenny, then from Jenny to Rupert, then exchanged a wide-eyed, vaguely unnerved look. “Are they—” began Buffy.

“They can’t possibly be—” Willow agreed.

Jenny found herself very much enjoying this. “Also,” she said, “if you want to come over for Netflix and chill tonight, I would love that.”

Rupert, who definitely didn’t know the connotations of Netflix and chill, gave Jenny a large, delighted smile. Buffy and Willow now looked downright horrified. “Keep it in your pants, Ms. Calendar!” said Buffy very loudly.

“See here, Buffy,” Rupert began reprovingly, “that is no way to talk to a teacher—”

“Oh my god, he doesn’t know what it means,” said Buffy. “Giles, do you know what Netflix and chill means?”

Now, Jenny thought, was probably a good time to make an exit. “See you tonight, I hope!” she called over her shoulder, right as a furiously blushing Willow was whispering an explanation to Rupert. As the library doors swung shut, she heard Rupert’s indignant and reproving, “Jenny!” but chose very cheerfully to pretend she hadn’t heard it.

(He did come over, anyway.)

[elizabethrobertajones]

14x02 watching notes

I appear to be fully booked for the whole weekend through to Tuesday so this may be the only thing I post about the episode until then, hope you all are having as much fun as Cas will at the party he’s apparently gonna throw to prove he’s cooler than all the other angels.

-

*readjusts my beanbag chair from Professional Sloucher to Serious Typing Mode* It's 5:13am and I've been awake 45 minutes watching this thing download and paused the new Adventure Zone episode for this... Mittens assures me it's well-recieved, so I'll go ahead and assume we burned enough sage to ward off the worst of whatever happens to their episodes...

Or, of course, Speight is directing.

So, expectations are pretty nebulous, because at this point in the story I really don't have demands, hopes or fears, except maybe that Buckleming don't handle or if they do, don't maul having Dean back. I DO miss Dean. It's very possible if he showed up in this episode everyone loves it because Dean-o is back.

I've never voluntarily called him Dean-o before. I think Gabriel's influence over the season is contagious.

Speaking of which... *hits play*

-

Are we getting a recap of Christian Keyes getting smushed because he, also, is alive? (er, the vessel, I mean) It would balance out Nick a great deal but it's also almost too much to ask I feel

-

14x01 recap: good, no sign of wirework. 14x02 recap: bad, everyone is levitating.

-

Also hilarious - no recap whatsoever of the past episode, because we have entered the Buckleming AU. Which is either Speight's shade or Buckleming's hubris that they don't need no canon to tell them what to do.

-

Nice. Creepy. Good start, sir. 10/10 would immediately go over and try and play that cursed piano despite my fear I would die instantly.

-

asdhdjsfkdsf the detail that Mikey took  his hat off and a dramatic shot of it sitting there with the same reverent detail as the other spooky things from the rest of the intro shots

-

Interestingly the vampire that Mikey is bleeding is presented in much the same way as Lucifer was in 13x21, left to just stand there and dribble essence from the neck which making small choking noises. This is either stuck pig imagery, or the suggestion from unknown powers that be directing this to suggest that the entire Lucifer concept is being bled dry by wringing Nick out of it too.

-

This isn't going to end well.

While he's doing that, I would like to ask if that's a smidge of his own grace, or if he went and found Metatron's or something.

It also is very reminiscent of Lucifer creating demons - experimenting and playing to create the worst of the worst. Alastair and Lilith had white eyes and Lilith could do some sort of evil smite. The first demon, and the only one we've ever seen do that. Fandom long headcanoned that Lucifer used his own grace to make her, and it makes sense in a weird way that as he gets more corrupt, so do his creations - from pure white-eyed demons to murky yellow eyes to red and pitch black. Also: get more stupid. Azazel is the best and smartest, and each YED we met, if we assume they're in age order... Asmodeus is so dumb as a pile of rocks that you have to assume Lucifer realised that whatever he did to perfect the recipe in Azazel was tapering off and the good good stuff was over, so no more YEDs before you find out what Asmodeus's little sibling would have been like. His next known canonical attempt to make a demon isn't using his own grace, but using the Mark of Cain to corrupt, er, Cain.

Mikey is falling into this exact same nonsense from the opposite direction of his brother, AU or otherwise - humans are bad, corrupt evil things are better because they're less complicated and as an angel, humans give me a headache. Michael seems at least to have believed that there were good people - if he could just flipping find them - and that if he smote all the sinners maybe some good people would be left. It's coming at the same conclusion from opposite problems - he has earnestly sought out the best in humanity and then ended up scouring even the worst like Kip and those killers he mentioned, and finally settled on monsters, Eve's corruptions of humanity into bloodthirsty creatures motivated only by hunger. And now he's playing with them and using his own power to corrupt them further.

-

PS: Eve is going to be SO PISSED

-

That IS a very effective way to smite a vampire.

-

He's very clean and efficient and while he's "getting his hands dirty" in the metaphorical sense, there's a very careful remove in the actions we see on screen, of him standing watching very impartially.

-

He also sounds a shade more Dean-ish in that quip, and let's just go ahead and assume that the quip unlocked Dean a lil, or else that being in this vessel so long is beginning to wear on Michael - the influence goes both ways, and it's like seeing Captain Holt from B99 crack and quip, except this is the lawful evil version.

Plus, the flippy flippy and all... He's getting comfortable. I bet Michael might have been able to do SOME cool flip with a knife but trust me, you're possessing the second most blade flippy guy on this planet, second only to his husband, so that's a full perk of being in the Michael Sword and nothing else.

-

No one has asked Cas how he feels about AU Bobby, which is weird because he and Bobby were BFFs back in the day.

Trust me, it happened off screen. Sometimes Cas flapped up smelling like whiskey and cigarette smoke and Dean would be like dammit did you just come from poker night with Bobby and I wasn't invited?

(True behind the scenes details from season 5)

-

AUBobby wants a beach vacation as much as Dean does, though. Well, he wants to hunt by the sea.

-

Okay I never knew "veracity" could be used as a synonym for "voracity" but google assures me that people are literally just really lazy about it because I THOUGHT AUBobby meant voracity, but he SAID veracity, and I was like, why is he saying angels aren't known for telling the truth??? and then my other part of my brain that is more sensible but works slower caught up with the context... This language is stupid. I apologise to second language speakers for that line. It was said "veracity" but it means "voracity" because we are a garbage culture, as english speakers as a whole.

So yeah, angels aren't known for their partying, no offence, party!Cas.

This is now 2x between here and 13x20 that Cas has been directly accused of not partying, plus how he went to a party in 13x22 even if he stood stock still the entire time, so I have to assume that the rise of party!Cas is gaining narrative and symbolic momentum and we WILL see him kicking back by the end of the season.

"None taken, I tend to agree with you." TEND, as in, other angels are stuffy assholes who never party, but I, party!Cas, have stood with my arms by my side and a stoic expression, all through your welcome to paradise!earth party, so *I* am in fact, cool.

-

He misses those poker nights. Ellen and Jo taught him well.

-

AUBobby has a perhaps Jim Beaver-honed response to "it's Dean" when worrying about what's up with it. Or, of course, as much as he may have come to like the guy since the AU rescue, this was still a lil test of why they had to be concerned, leaving it to him as the one guy in the room who is still getting to know him, to say what is unspoken by everyone else.

-

Sam then prompts Cas to give us some clunky exposition on why he can't come, because Michael will sense him.

Buckleming, you literally are the ones who say Cas down in a chair and had him tattooed to ward him against angels. That was your thing. You did that. You.

It may be a sign of improvement that Cas is being left behind with specific explanations for why, but it's still hard to read Misha's expression as between Cas Is Sad He Can't Go Near Dean, which is crazy he's not putting up a fight and going anyway, and I Have To Say This Line To Explain It And They Don't Teach You How To Say Bad Exposition In Drama School.

"Yeah sorry"

This deserved at least 2 more lines of contention and scowling, or, of course, Sam proposing this to Cas on the spot, or Cas himself regretfully announcing that he had to do it to give them the best chance in a self-sacrificing way, then rationalising it with having to stay behind to babysit.

-

Cas just said Jack wasn't an infant. He's a year old. He's barely even a toddler yet. You really read that many parenting books and don't know that?

Okay yeah. Anyway lumping Nick and Jack together as charges to watch - a suggestion somehow that they're a joint burden? It demeans Jack to Nick's place, in the context. Cas hasn't actually had a great deal of on-screen parenting to Jack except like 2 nice moments basically bookending the entire time they've both been alive on the show in 13x06 and 14x01, and I'm going to have to chalk this up to a lil anxiety about bonding with the sulky teen Jack that it's something Cas now feels apprehension about. He's the father who's rarely home and clocked in the least time nurturing Jack directly, while Mary has a wild lead and Sam and Dean both also a good chunk of it, with Sam pulling weeks ahead of Dean, of course.

A sense of Dad Who Is Always At Work Forced To Bond With Child While Mom(s) Are Gone, to use some heteronormative tropes, feels like it's at play. The dad who is always away on business trips is forced to spend time at home over Christmas with the kid while the other parents are on a wild vacation to Florida... What fun scrappy bonding experiences do they get up to?! :D

Of all the tropes flying around, to stick to heteronormativity, Cas has always been "the father" to Jack while others around him waver between maternal roles or not. But even in the very start, he "completed" the parental "set" with Kelly.

Is that enough airquotes to be clear I support non-traditional family structures? :P

But it puts Cas also in a place of having some of these toxic masculinty types of fatherhood, of being away for work all the time and not putting in the work for the kid or being too eager to fight and sacrifice himself than to be there. Hard as he works to protect them all, his connection IS that of the guardian angel who watches over, the one sworn to protect, who most often talks about his bond to Jack under that obligation and that promise to Kelly, the sense of a duty to protect Jack, but very little in the way Sam especially fell hard on the side of "nurture" in the nature vs nurture debate and put in all the emotional labour associated with the mother in traditional parenting structures.

(This was good for Sam to do considering Dean had done it for him, and because Dean did it for him - being both mother and father - he's largely exempt and can dip in and out of how he parents Jack with impunity, given he had his moment about this in 12x22, days before Jack was born, and was therefore freed from character arcs grappling with it in the same way)

-

Cas is like "Nick is a MESS" same, buddy.

"He was housing, he deserves a shot at rebuilding his life" Sam is talking about himself here, which is weird because Nick was the topic of discussion a moment ago

I feel weird that Sam is admonishing Cas here, because Cas has not lain on the floor and thrown a tantrum about not going to save Dean, as ungrateful as he is being about babysitting Nick... it's making a weird conflict between Cas and Sam which is now veering into a philosophical argument about Nick, which makes me feel that if this is not just weird Buckleming dialogue issues where they find it hard not to write things as a conflict, Sam and Cas haven't had the rosy bro bonding time together while Dean is gone that it seemed, or that, like with Sam snapping at Mary about her optimism, Sam's in a Mode about this where he's on his last rag with everyone secretly because of lack of sleep. And Chief!Sam may also be struggling with being an authority figure among his own family, as every single one of them "outranks" him in age, parenthood, experience or scowliness, and Sam once described himself as "the least of all of you" meaning Bobby and Cas specifically of the people who in this room he'll find himself naturally deferring to. Sam's leadership is natural among the AU peeps but perhaps a struggle that with his family, he's still the leader, but there's no Dean to have the final word, and that in itself is an awful reminder, when he finds himself being the last word on a subject without Dean's input.

I have to assume this is like 5am and AUBobby showed up early to work to see Mary and the rest of the AU peeps aren't around yet

-

Cas then throws in the line about how all he can see is the supreme agent of evil, which is fuckin hilarious that it was Sam's trauma yesterday and we know angels are much more likely to relate to the glowy blob possessing a face, and anyway most of Cas's worst Lucifer trauma came from being POSSESSED by him, seeing him wearing Sam's face, or being beat up by Vince fucking Vincente. You only really ever saw Lucifer as Nick in 12x23 and the last few episodes of season 13, bar like one encounter back in 5x10. That is a very very recent association.

Unless, of course, he's still MIGHTILY PISSED that Lucifer killed off 2/3rds of his poker game and that's where his "supreme evil" trauma comes from.

Let's go with that.

-

Do you think Eugenie forgot that Lucifer was an hallucination in season 7, and also that Cas was dead during that?

(don't @ me about him seeing hallucifer in 7x17, he said in 7x21 that he stopped seeing hallucifer pretty quickly and I'm going with Edlund canon when in doubt :P)

-

"You talking about my dad again"

Jack. Hon. You have absolutely no relation whatsoever to Nick, except via whatever family line ties him extremely vaguely to Sam as a similar vessel of Lucifer. I don't even know how to describe where that puts him on your fucked up family tree, but trust me, you don't need to worry. Biologically, you are the son of an ex-president of the united states.

But yeah, snarky!teen Jack is here in full force. I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with the baby's angsty melodrama years :'D

-

Do you think

and I ask this hypothetically while full of dread that I am right

do you think Eugenie has forgotten that Jack is not Nick's biological son

-

Jack getting the good good framing of standing with his back to the war room, trapped in the library, as he's grounded. This central framing demands the eye to seek out wings, but in this case they're kinda furled behind him, if you see them as the dark shadows of the room beyond.

Of course the war room/library symbolism is always a thing, that action is the former, home the the latter, so this is clever to show Jack's desire, but also that he is stuck, and we see the bar patterned lights on the floor in the war room which are used as prison imagery. Jack's effectively locked out of the war room with a baby gate.

-

"Let's move," Sam says, with a virile pump of his gun, leaving Cas and Jack to feel impotent at home.

-

Sam does not get the dick imagery often enough

-

Blargh Nick again. Hello fuckface. Listen, I just wanna say before we get into this scene, that I've almost universally seen Mark P eyerolled at but said "at least he's a really good actor so the scenes were really good even if he sucks as a person and we hate Lucifer". I do not agree. I think he's a ham who over-acts and it was annoying as Lucifer but by this point expected and had at least transitioned slowly, but seeing Nick do the whole routine of standing up from bed, and then blowing on his stab wound and wincing and fanning it? That whole thing was just... too much for me. Nick should have been still and quiet and sad, but as soon as he started doing that it harked back to Lucifer in 13x13 when he was cold and hungry and over-acting rubbing his poor empty tum tum and rubbing his freezing arms. What made Mark P so good in season 5 was that Lucifer had a slow, cold and STILL menace to him, that while he might have gestured widely and been violent, especially in his dramatic scenes he was still and menacing. That's all gone by now and he acted Lucifer as a clown, and fair enough as an acting choice I guess when this isn't my favourite character or actor, but now it's salt in the wound that Nick was supposed to come across sad and vulnerable, and instead of bestowing some gravitas on him and taking us back to the start and actually TRYING, Mark P fell into clowning as if he thinks doing these funny things is what his fans who are apparently out there want to see, and my stretched to breaking point lie I repeated to myself about "oh he's a good actor at least" shattered because he was just playing the fool again, over-acting as if to gain cheap sympathy points, when his stillness and sadness and NOT overacting was literally the only way to have pulled Nick off without it being annoying.

This is a cake and eat it, well Lucifer is dead but I'm still here, and now I will act almost exactly the same, kind of dealio and I'm pissed and not standing by that self-comforting lie any more because every single step of the Lucifer journey so far since 11 we've placated ourselves with various phrases and concepts to make it okay to do all this but keeping Nick around is where the story breaks and so too does my patience for forgiving it.

-

*Cas employs his Anti Nick Shoulders* I deeply approve of these shoulders

-

Could they not give Nick, like, a sudoku book or something? He is just sitting here wallowing in having been Lucifer.

-

Omg Cas is getting to use this to actually talk about himself. I'm actually liking this. Cas self-reflection is a wonderful thing. Everyone can relate to Nick, even if they hate it. Every single person will file in here and talk about themselves to Nick at some point or another.

Nick's like "why am I heeere" and Mr Giant Teddy Bear is like "I know right?"

-

Wait is Nick's son called Teddy? That was unfortunate mind-melding with BL I just did. *shiver*

Also hilarious: a chosen flashback to Nick holding a teddybear beside the crib and I swear to all that is holy that Speight is deliberately implying after reading the line "Teddy" that Nick said yes to Lucifer on behalf of his wife Sarah and this bear.

I can SEE his face making a note here about what flashback to cut to.

His sparkling eyes are reflecting off this screen so much I'm getting glare from it.

-

*Mark P cries a lot* There are a few little leaps in this conversation to get to the point too quickly but overall this wasn't a bad scene... Perhaps because Cas carried it enough with his sinscerity that Nick wailing was at least balanced and the directing matched the intensity of it all. Speight really is good at making things work and this was pretty brutal which means that the overacting is compensated for, and Cas inserted enough genuine emotion from an empathetic character.

It's all hovering unspoken about family where Nick does it for his wife, even if he regrets it now and feels like he has become a monster and is wracked with a guilt Cas can heavily relate to as it drove his season 12 early actions intensely, and his child. Cas also did it for family, and they give this definition of family where it could be anyone beloved in the family, so that platonic overlap is there between Cas and Nick's motivations. But implicit is that Nick's wife was the one that made him say yes, and Cas stands over Nick in much the way that Lucifer stood over him in 5x01 when appearing as Sarah. Cas is/was the wife in the scenario in a weird way to Dean, for whom he chose to be possessed to save from Amara, aka the monster that had come into the house and would kill his beloved ones in their beds.

-

Promo scene! Aw AUBobby and his rusty FBI skills.

-

The coroner talking about a spree killer harks to Dean's issues balancing being a serial killer with a saviour, as I talked about pre-episode with the themes connected to Dean being possessed by Michael, and channelling all the worst of him. In this case, the torture AND the wantonly killing vampires

-

God damn Mary's red suit is awesome though.

-

"neck wounds" I thought Mikey healed those? I guess I can see residual scarring on this body so maybe healing vampires isn't as neat as healing people, because corruption...

-

"Why is an archangel hunting vampires in the first place" HAVE YOU MET DEAN? This is how he blows off steam when he gets a HANGNAIL. You think being possessed by Mikey will stop him?

-

"Huh" Sam says. "huh," I say, because they actually did some Smart Detective Work to come to that conclusion and perhaps this is just because BL needed the next lead but we've never actually seen them ask this specific question about people coming to identify mystery bodies to find the next lead ever. And perhaps because even if it happens off screen it's a dead end in all their other cases, but this was still something BL wrote that put a clever concept in Sam's head, and I am at the bottom of the barrel with them when I'm complimenting them for not making the characters act like complete idiots.

The other thing is, this cuts out an entire scene of them in a motel opening a laptop and googling surveillance footage, and I don't know if they have been banned from writing the everyone sits around and googles the monster scenes, at least since they made Crowley pop in and google a photo of the president in 12x08, and then Dabb openly mocked them for it in 12x23, but it's a pacing GODSEND to have the characters act intelligent and ask questions that solve problems instead of relying on the magical answer box to tell them where to go next.

See again: low low low expectations. Whether it's Speight clean up work or they've been told off, this is great stuff, and files off a lot of the edges that make their episodes wearing on a cosmic, soul level, that between the weird content, they're also just clunky and poorly paced.

-

Cas n Jack sceeeene.

It's Jack's desk! I'm so happy!!

I asked hypothetically the other day on a promo pic and I'm so happy to see Jack has his own lil desk in the library. He looks like a kid doing his homework

my heart is swelling

with all the table meta - it's another thing where they've changed stuff around to give Jack a space, a place he calls his own in this large weird Bunker. That table had to be dragged from one of the side offices or store rooms and set up for him because it's never b een there before, but now Jack has an alcove of the library he calls his own and he can sit there and do his research... And the alcoves give a sense of an enclosed room space, something comforting and like... library womb like.

The Bunker has adopted him :')

It's so weird seeing a character in this show who habitually doesn't wear a ton of layers around the Bunker - he's been in a t-shirt with nothing over it in both episodes, grey. He's young, open, honest, but hasn't found his way yet, hasn't got a tribal colour scheme. No plaid, and has only worn beige and blue in neutral Cas colours, his main father figure in a sort of aspirational sense, even if Cas is the dad who's always out on work and not there to raise his son.

Jack's identified as human in 13x23 but in a way he is a homunculous - the concept of what was originally believed to be how babies formed in a sort of medieval/rennaisance time (perhaps still is by BL) that the sperm was a tiny weeny complete person and they just got put in the womb with no other input from mommy and grew there. There's definitely a weird shade of homunculous implications in how Jack's parenthood is talked of, and of course he was then born as a fully formed man, which is a sort of transliteration of this nonsense belief, but the concept that he practically was a small adult Jack and then a big adult Jack and at no point an actual baby. Even in the womb in 12x17 we saw him turn and stare at the camera, betraying a sort of primal intelligence, the idea of a bored god waiting in the womb to be born, learning and acting from within.

And only now is he sort of set up to stop being a baby and start being a man when it comes to handling adult intellectual stuff and he's not learning from scratch but is treated like he has a more solid baseline for the world around him these days. He's learned enough to join society, but not enough to have carved his place yet. It's a very strange cusp of growth, and perhaps a good metaphor for being a teenager, in a way: that you realise you have been very stupid up to this point but now you are very smart and ready to be an adult (except, unfortunately, adult peoples will look back at this unformed humonculous version of themselves with the greasy hair and poorly understood radical political opinions and whatever, and be like, WOW, I was an idiot.)

-

Oh my god are BL really going to keep writing Good Cas Lines this episode? This stuff where Cas schools Jack gently and lovingly with knowledge Jack has been up all night reading then Cas is like yeah this is stuff angels know from angel sunday school but I'll be kind about it and validate what you just read... Like, the lesson is the act of the research, more than the knowledge. It's up to Jack not to feel stupid that he did all that work and Cas was like, yeah. I knew that. I'm an angel.

-

OH MY GOD Cas is actually having the chat I wanted with Jack about how he felt when he lost his grace

*shoves a fistful of popcorn in my mouth*

Jack all hurr blurr you don't understand I want to go run to my room and slam the door because I'm a teen and I have just discovered human tragedy and angst, NO ONE IN THE HISTORY OF EVER HAS SUFFERED AS I HAVE

and Cas is like, *ruffles his hair* it's okay little buddy, I too was a homunculous in season 9, which Lizzy has a weird deja vu feeling she wrote about but would not for the life of her know where to find that because it was probably buried in watching notes

-

"what did you have left?" "well I had Sam and Dean... but I had something else"

me: *clutches chest, gasps, hangs on tenterhooks*

Cas: "I had myself"

me: FLAILS WILDLY

Sorry, this isn't very meta, I've just written so much on the nature of grace and of Cas, and whether he has a soul or not still, but he is very much talking about the time when as a human he had a soul and was "himself" without his grace, and though he felt the loss of his POWER he didn't feel a loss of his CORE SELF, of who he is (which is an ongoing question they're all answering about themselves, with Jack Homunculous Winchester as the main example to channel the others through). It's really important to me that Cas has this core self, this certainty of who he is beyond his duty, his grace, everything that is forced on him by Heaven, but that this part of him who he may or may not know is his soul is there and filled with, well... Cas's nougat centre. Because Cas has been playing THAT game far longer than Jack has :P

"The basic me. As Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles"

Dean is reaching through Cas to mock him for us when we don't have him in the room to directly accuse Cas of having a harp, and I love that Cas loves Dean so much that he lets Dean drag him for having bells and whistles (which Cas will take literally) even though he's not here.

That's true love.

-

They share what is possibly the grossest smile ever and I am going to weep to see all this fondness for each other and for Dean being expressed. Like, ugh, families loving each other and being all wholesome and sweet. What is this garbage.

-

"You know, Sam and Dean... they weren't born with their expertise" yeah because they're not fuckin homunculi

Cas is basically equating Jack to going back to the start that they had, a do-over on his life, that he lived his first year as a magical all-powerful baby, but in a weird way, losing his grace makes him more settled, gives him a chance to understand himself without his power and learn that he still has a core self, a soul with all the good stuff in it, and to begin again and learn things the slow way, but a way in which he will grow more naturally and take the lessons that are needed to form the real edges to a character that turn into maturity.

"They've been at it since they were children"

and so have you. filed under: ow.

Literally no one on TFW had a normal safe happy childhood free of monsters metaphorical or otherwise.

-

Anyway Cas then reminds Jack that he has to do things slow to be as good as Sam n Dean, and moves on to it's important not who you were in your past - because this fuckin one and a bit year old already has a gritty past - but who you are and what you will do with the FUTURE. And Cas still wholeheartedly believes in Jack because of Jack once showing him a vision of the future that they might have - the happy ending, world without monsters, all that jazz that Dabb era is eyeing up  hopefully.

-

Oooh Mikey's going to a partyyy.

That fuckin ring on his little finger. It's coded especially in media that he's either in a cult or gay. It's such a weird lil detail for Mikey to have added to the ensemble that I almost wonder if he smited a guy to borrow it wholecloth and took every detail. Though he's a fucking fashionista so maybe he can't resist adding a detail like this.

After all he wore dirty war-torn clothes for years in the AU, but even then had a sense of grandeur about it, an over-dramatic flair with the long coat that said that he dressed well, even for the scenario, and different, standing out from the rest of his minions.

Now he's here on paradise!earth, with all the tailors you could ask for, so he's going to dress like the lord of this planet it's begging for, in all the finery you can drape his fine sword in.

Sword does not approve of bowtie.

DEAAAN! HEY! I'VE MISSED YOU ILY

"GET OUT"

"I don't think so"

WOW, RUDE. There's rules about this, buddy!

"You can't!"

"oh but I can, because, see, I own you." It IS Michael who punches the mirror... I was certain it would be Dean, but it's Michael lashing out at his angry reflection, shattering the image of Dean. What a metaphor. In the Mark of Cain arc sometimes Dean looked at himself in shattered mirrors but it was a passive shattering. This is a statement from Michael that he can see Dean and he's shattering his entire self, refusing his right of consent - in a BL episode it's ironically hilarious so long as nothing else dub con happens, that this is the actually seriously applied good use of consent stuff. And Michael talking about owning Dean - it's that presumptiveness about others' consent that was Dean's biggest downfall in putting Gadreel in Sam, the cosmic karma lashing back out at Dean that he can't punt Michael out like Sam heroically punted Gadreel out, because Michael OWNS him. Dean is historically, cosmically, always for eons before his birth, been "the Michael Sword" - a true vessel with this guy's name inscribed on the hilt, and Michael has calmly taken full possession of his ultimate weapon, because well, why not.

UGH and then Michael takes control again by way of talking into the mirror and his reflection behaving normally because he's wrangled it back into control. A+ DIRECTION, SIR.

(Also because it's not Dean - maybe it's not so much a meta detail but the expectation might be that Dean would lash out at Michael BECAUSE he's angry and lashes out and smashes mirrors so many times, but he has no control to even move an arm to lash out... He's utterly trapped, just like Cas was tied to that chair.)

-

I love seeing Cas storming confidently around the Bunker running stuff while the others are out, being the one who is looking over Jack, taking the calls about their findings, and now dealing with Nick wandering in to angst some more. This is Cas at home and although it's still weird the AU peeps are ALL taking a day off coming into work after seeing how embedded they were in the hub, it's wonderful to see Cas here and without the AU peeps it is more cozy in the sense of being more like the home they privately kept.

-

Nick comes in like I WANT TO SOLVE MY COLD CASE THIS IS MY RANDOM DISTRACTION FROM THE PLOT

but then Cas puts his hand on his shoulder and he flicks back to Lucifer in an instant, trying to dissolve Cas in a panic from being touched. Cas is understandably completely and utterly freaked out.

And for all our talk of Rowena and Sam and their trauma from Lucifer, of course Cas has had a lot too even though I'm kinda eye-rolly about him talking about Nick as the face of all evil, of course this episode has been about his Lucifer trauma so far. It's really interesting to see Cas rattled by something because he is so solid most of the time - last episode he exuded "fuck you" from every pore for every moment except briefly when Jack was dragged into the room. But Nick has him on edge and now there's some Buckleming fuckery afoot with ongoing vessel issues, we're seeing the very strange visual of a Cas who is legit freaked out.

-

Anyway I really like how smooth this was, even with camera changes. Speight is really wringing excellence out of them, and the script, weirdly, and maybe because it's Nick so Eugenie is focused, is actually contemplative and full of interesting emotional conversations, which they often seem to blow off whatever the brief. Even with the dialogue hindrances, the real meaning and depth is being plumbed by the scenes as a whole.

-

So yeah, here is where I have to grudgingly say MarkP can play evil kinda well but also considering, again, FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN CAPITALIST PARTY? This is his calling, and he is a caracture of the man who plays the devil.

And this is something rather scary and sinister about what's going on with him which genuinely is played with some of that season 5 gravitas, which is super weird to see because I have got so used to him being a clown, even in his previous episode.

I have to say, due to that, I give Speight a lot of credit because he's really, really good at his job.

-

"What went through your head just now?" I ask that a lot, and thanks for the reaction gif, Eugenie.

I need very little prompting to assume you are writing Nick and Brad is writing the rest.

Nick is a fine line of guilty and confused, and hiding his intent, either because he doesn't know, or he DOES. It's good. Credit where credit's due.

-

"Some of his influence still within you" it's CRUEL to give that line to misha.

Kinda meta that there's a cockles joke from an old JIB or something about "influence" as jizz and 13x21 and all the jokes about Gabriel's grace.

But we're getting to a 9x11 parallel in the structure of the episode, but Cas is left behind with Nick rather than Sam, and Sam gets to be out there looking for his brother... And of course Dean within Michael experiences a shattering greater than the Mark of Cain did to him...

-

"Lucifer may have inflicted more damage on your psyche" yeah no shit we were warning you he would have the Hallucifers

Cas does the most terrified slow shoulder touch ever - there's a real right shoulder wrong shoulder thing going on. Last episode he clasped Jack on the correct (left) shoulder, and this time he tries to touch Nick on the right and nearly gets smote, and then this touch is on the same, as he discerns what's wrong with Nick, and I get a mirror of 11x11 where Lucifer did the wrong shoulder touch to Dean, and have him the only inkling something was up with Cas, that Dean shrugged off because, ow.

-

Anyway white man has angst. Nick has the Hallucifers and he has to find out who killed his family. He's got like his entire own TV show premise of nonsense going on here and it's going to be crammed in between everything else.

Bet you anything real monsters did it

-

"And then what

Dude's got nothing to live for

we're so over these murdered wife revenge arcs

-

The old flipperoo of it being terrifying for a monster when 3 scary hunters bust in weapons drawn. The vampire has a terrible apartment and she didn't even get a new car - it's like she went from one crappy life to the next and the only thing that changed was she was now a miserable vampire. I'm sympathetic to her for now :')

-

Oh look how surprising, this side of the story is being 2x03 still - aside from AUBobby snarking that vampires "never do" anything wrong, in the position of one who never learned a grey area because lower Winchester exposure, the vamps are feeding on animal blood, and mourning the loss of their nest. This is another Lenore. Of course we started the episode with them in the morgue finding vampire teeth on seemingly human victims, as in 2x03, and the killer is the deadliest hunter in the universe - the heavily Gordon themed side of Dean which has been symbolised by vampires the whole time from Lenore to Benny...

-

OH this is the girl from the cold open. So I assume she's going to explain how she got away. We have to assume the cold open was several days ago - long enough for her to lie low, Michael to ditch all the vamps, AND for them to be discovered again and moved to the morgue and then for this branch of TFW to come out here. Which explains that Michael must have already moved on and be ready for his party in the present day, which is a stretch of time enough to form his next plan.

-

"I-if you let me go!" yeah AUBobby lunges at her when he assumes the conversation is over, because he never dealt with this before, but looks over to Sam now, and then Mary does.

We cut away before we find out if Sam decided her fate, so that current silence on the subject may be left ominous or may explain a lot about Sam when we find out whether he had her killed and has turned ruthless, or is still soft Sammy who dealt with Lenore and knows how it goes.

-

Mikey, what are you up to?

-

He's tapping Dean's charm but with a hint more of Jensen's whiskey smoothness in his voice than Dean's coarseness, so this is legally defined as assault.

This is horrifying. GIVE IT BACK.

I'm calling the police. Michael has made off with Dean's entire seduction routine to trap this monster, and I am horrified.

Weirder still hearing him just casually called Michael. Brrrr.

Ooh she's a werewolf. Somehow I hadn't managed to work that out in the glimpse in the promo and thought she was a new monster type.

I guess Mikey is shopping around.

-

Wow she really has prominent teeth. I wonder if that's a sexy trait in werewolves.

-

He takes a drink as he menaces towards her - he's still got that calm drifting through kinda attitude that Michael had even in the AU when he was Christian Keyes, and he's starting to have fun, which is really really bad.

I don't think Michael has ever had fun in his life.

He's like the perfect little kid who does well in all his studies then sneaks off and drowns the family cat in the back of the garden as an outlet.

-

"Now. Summon your master."

Is this the elusive Werewolf Alpha who survived even season 6 because the show just Could Not Figure Out What To Do With Werewolves until season 9

-

Nick  has an ENDLESS series of white shirts to indicate he's a sweet innocent dude now

because,  you know we have a hard time dealing with that

-

Nick is ranting like a privileged white man

I mean his family is dead, I just struggle with Nick for obvious reasons

and as soon as his mannerisms cross a line, he loses me again

-

He's kinda weird with Cas as well because he knows Cas, kinda, and he has to be 100% on board with all the nonsense, so he's just A Bloke dropped in this life now but casually chatting to an angel. it's weird. "You know what a cold case is, Castiel?" liike, he knows Cas doesn't always know stuff but he is also just going off on one.

I think poor Cas has decided since the Nickifer moment that he needs to spend more time actively watching over Nick, and once more is trapped with a ranting annoying man

this is his curse.

-

"But you're not dead. You have a second chance."

"you don't understand"

Ah, teenagers, such a problem :P

but seriously, this is hilariously the third converastion this episode Cas has been in where he directly relates to the very specific weird metaphysical problem that Nick or Jack is going through because there's literally NOTHING that Cas hasn't already been through. He might yet make an excellent therapist just because of how many weird torments he's endured.

-

Cas speaking with fondness of Jimmy :') Such a feeling of Jimmy being a good man who went to Heaven, and for Cas, raised as an angel like this, being in Heaven with your soulmate is the ultimate happy ending for good devout people - in 4x20 when he's still in Claire he tells Jimmy he served well and will go to Heaven like it's a reward, and despite everything he still seems to default to that, especially for the comfort of knowing this about Jimmy of all people, because of how directly responsible Cas is for destroying their lives, and knowing that at least they got this is a WONDERFUL coping mechanism for angels to tell themselves it's all okay, when they get the correct vessel with the proper permissions and they're a good and pious person who prayed for it etc etc.

Cas and Lucifer remain the only angels we've ever seen actually court their vessel properly, although it's implied Anael did similar. Most others have hopped right in without securing full and informed consent. Er, not that Lucifer does, but at least he has full and informed bullshit trickery, which, um. Is a thing?

-

Nick how DARE you call Cas a "stone cold bodysnatcher" who's no better than Lucifer. Jimmy is gone and Cas has had this vessel remade for him like six times since then. It's the Jimmy Model Vessel mk.VI, as sculpted by God or the Empty.

-

*sobs about Cas saying what happened to Jimmy was his greatest regret*

SUCH GOOD CAS STUFF this episode

-

The alpha werewolf is a white guy in a suit, surprisingly.

Michael, also a white guy in a suit, sits opposite him, and they're pretentious about their cognac.

-

"She thinks you're a god" that's the second time that's happened. He kinda liked it when it was applied directly to him but not an accusation of BEING Chuck, just that that's how he comes across.

-

Oh good he's just the leader of the pack, not the Alpha.

Still wanna know who that is

-

His sales pitch is about their purity in wanting to kill to eat to live once again. I find it hard to believe a werewolf with snooty opinions about alcohol who wears a suit like that doesn't have some human sins, but it seems that Michael is judging them by their monstrousness first, and waving aside their other habits in favour of the big picture of how they live their lives.

-

"Fully tested" you fucking liar

He's talking around the truth... It's fascinating watching him threading the line of judging people for sinners without falling into that himself.

-

I do wonder how he knows about wine unless his previous vessel did... or he's taking from Dean's pop culture and deadpan bullshitting it. Sorry, I'm still stuck on that detail. Character stuff always entertains me so much more than plot :P

-

"Believe me, it's an absurd dream" He's passively observed at least like 3 attempts to enslave the human race for food just in the last few years. He knows.

Mikey, you can't go around promising that, they know it doesn't work. Dick Roman couldn't pull it off, and you don't have his business acumen.

-

"Why be the huntED when you can be the huntER"

ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN AAAAAH turning over EVERYTHING he works for

UUUUGH

-

Okay, Jack's wandered off and found his grandparents without a single warning and I am WOUNDED.

-

They seriously need to put more warning in for these things because ow ow ow ow ow

-

Oh my gooood he's named after Kelly's daaad

-

Look at these nice grandparents

-

"So you were like her intern" oh ne the intern jokes of last summer have come around and stabbed me

I repent

-

Oh NO nerdy little Kelly

this is awful

where is this episode coming from? I can't believe someone's managed to wrangle Buckleming into doing good stuff with everything so this is actually emotionally well-told

this is probably their best episode yet and i'm half an hour in

-

"We have a grandson!"

This is emotionally mauling me like an angry bear

-

"Jack kind of looks like her!"

*Jack attempts to speak from a lump the size of a planet in his throat*

*Lizzy types from within the bear's mouth, as it tries to stuff my down ITS throat*

-

NOUGAT GOT HIS HUG

-

Sam spared the vampire girl!!! YAY

-

She's called Lydia. You assholes literally used that name before for the Amazon Dean hooked up with

-

I can't believe Michael took the time to change his suit. He has a suit for business and a suit for meetings.

-

"the hunters" Oh that's cold. Dean, can you hear how he dismisses your FAMILY?

-

Oh nooo he metatroned her. This was a traaaaaaap and she was bait

-

Aww Lydia :(

-

He smites like Lucifer killed demons with his mind

it's so scary

-

How can Cas be mad at Jack I just nearly cried at a Buckleming episode

anyway he and Jack are having the equivalent I am your dad and I  set curfew, vs I am a grown up I can go out when I want argument for his teen son he's unfortunately not engaged with much.

-

"the only real family I have left"

Cas gets SO PISSED

I AM YOUR DAD, SON

-

But he pushes it down and asks if it helped because Cas is good and nice and loves Jack

-

Once Jack reveals that he looked like the weirdly photoshopped Kelly on a horse (oof) Cas gets mauled by the same Feels Bear and relents completely because he's legally not allowed to cry but he wants to

-

"I suppose there are worse ways to be human than to be kind," he says as speight exploits the fuck out of the bunker set, having them sit either side of the door between war and home, tables in the centre, them on the pillars flanking it. It's a wonderful image. I'd go into it more but I suddenly think I have no time at all

-

"So they're going to kill him," lil Hamlet of Nougat says all firmly, re: Michael

Cas switches gears from "this precious child" to "uuuh" immediately

-

"And if he doesn't leave?"

I can see Cas being that meme where everything is an action blur around his face to express deep horror as Jack keeps prodding worst case murdering Dean scenarios

-

Listen, when this little ball of damp feathers you call your son is joining in with the entire universe challenging you if you have the guts to see Dean killed for the greater good, you have a problem that EVERYONE can see

-

"Dean doesn't matter!"

*shock lines intensify*

"You're all so focused on trying to save Dean"

Yeah, he does the same for all of you.

This is the pier conversation from 11x14, but 1000x more intense.

-

Cas is like "?????????????? HOW DARE?"

-

Cas can not comprehend a world where Dean dies, but our lil Shakespearean hero is determined that it has to  happen because he WILL kill Michael, it's been put on his shoulders and he WILL DO IT DAMMIT.

(later)

-

Cas did not have this in the parenting books

-

"Do you think he'd want it any other way?"

"no but i love him"

-

I can not BELIEVE Jack got a flounce off stage left and Cas is the one left shook

damn, kids are hard

-

Nick has also wandered off to meet some relatives.

Cas is the worst at keeping his chickens in the coop

what was he doing

lying on Dean's bed sniffing the pillow

-

Oh dear, but it's the neighbour who as this conversation goes on I'm starting to assume was the one who killed his family.

Is he gonna go all Lucifer on this guy?

-

Uhoh, bulletproof werewolves

man I am gonna miss my bus if anything else happens

-

Mary saves AUBobby <3

-

Hi Deanchael, come to torment this poor family

You know you coulda brought Cas because he knew you were here the whole time anyway

-

DEAN! HI!

That was a really cool move Dean.

"Sammy"

<3

-

"It's me"

Unless it's NOT

-

"He just left"

"why"

"i don't know. I don't know!"

me too bud

-

Hey look Nick killed the guy with a hammer

What a surprise

-

Welp now I have to take my 3rd choice for bus to yoga but I finished and now I will be gone all weekend byeee love you yell about this later <3

[agameofsouls]

backstory // jackson + lyra

so, jackson and lyra are ocs that i created for a group rp that i used to run a year or so back. the history and lore was really really deep, and i actually spent months writing it and tying little pieces together to make a blend of rural folk village / supernatural monsters / scifi horror whatever that made me really happy to think about and plan out.

i actually had an entire notebook filled with different arcs and conflicts i wanted the group to work through, including a huntress, a dragon, blood spells, etc. unfortunately, we only got about half way through the huntress before things died out due to busy personal lives, and what have you.

this is just a small directory and explanation to certain parts of that world that are integral to the development of jackson and lyra as characters, and things that they have experienced from their old home, as well as links to posts from the group page with even more stories and information.

mostly, this is for my benefit so i can sort of feel better referencing their backstories knowing that this exists for anyone to read that’s interested.

also, i just really want my old favorite stories to see the light of day again. nightmare was honestly so important to me as a writer, lmao.

NOTE. this is a long post!

the town itself

Nightmare has been around for two hundred and forty horrific years. It was originally created by the legendary group called The Eleven, which consisted of: Five witches, two vampires, three werewolves, one necromancer, and several children belonging to most of the members.

The story is that left their homes in Salem, followed by groups of hunters, and traveled all the way down to Tennessee before disappearing into the Smoky Mountains, losing their would-be killers forever. It took them a while and a lot of settling down and uprooting before finally deciding on a permanent home, but they did it, and here we are: hidden, secret, and safe. ( more here )

essentially, the town is self sufficient, isolated in deep within the smoky mountains. there are several sister towns spread across the us, typically either in more wooded areas, or deep within the rarely traveled plains of the midwest, or the deserts of the mojave.

they are connected by ‘trails’ that are only traveled by those in the know, and nomads travel from town to town with goods to trade on a regular basis, and often bring newcomers with them that they found along the way.

the government system is fairly simplistic as well -- each species that resides in nightmare has one representative, whether because they were elected or are the only one of their kind, that sits on a council.

the power is usually passed through the family of the current council member, and doesn’t often switch hands unless something drastic happens. in the case that there are no familial relations of the current council member available, they will select another member of their species as their ‘heir.’

lyra + jackson

in this world, lyra lived a very carefree life. she was a bit of a criminal, and would often get into trouble on purpose just to have the sheriff of the town, tris, arrest her. she developed a crush on him, and they eventually started seeing each other, much to the dismay of lyra’s mother. she hated that tris was older than lyra, as well as a shape shifter. she thought he was dangerous, but lyra wouldn’t hear a bad word against him.

she also had a best friend, a witch named antonia, who she would drag into all sorts of trouble with her. the two were inseparable, except for when the law man came around. lyra never let toni go down with her, and always took the heat. freya always forgave lyra for any wrongdoing she did, and was the kind of mom that instead got upset with the guards rather than her own daughter for her ever growing criminal record.

on the other hand, jackson lived quietly. even in a place like nightmare, necromancers were still feared. their power was different than that of any of the witches, and it was mysterious. it made other people uneasy, and they didn’t have a lot of trust for young or new necromancers like him.

so he typically stayed home, tending to his plants and decorating his house to look like an hgtv model home. he also sold his fruits and veggies in the town center at his little produce stall, and made some extra cash that way. it was a far cry from his previous life, but he liked it.

he made friends slowly, and eventually befriended lyra. the two, along with toni, became close friends and would often spend time in jackson’s home having tea and snacks during the day, and going to parties at night. toni, while she spent her time with jackson and lyra often, still had a slight distrust of jackson, and would often make excuses to not join them on ventures. this left a lot of time for him and lyra to be alone and bond, and he quickly became her second most trusted friend in town.

when shit hit the fan and it was time to leave, they went together, trying to make sense of all the shit they had been through. after everything, they are inseparable, and would probably die for each other. there are very few friends as close as them, and they depend on each other to survive in the outside world.

the problem

For some reason or another, though, our population has started falling, and not because our citizens are leaving, either. Something’s been coming around when we don’t know it and making people drop dead left and right, whether it’s from a sickness or people being outright murdered, we don’t know.

The recent deaths are causing some tensions between groups and have cause productivity to dwindle as well. Some parents won’t send their kids down to the school and community events have begun to see a decrease in attendance as well. The Council is working on finding the source of the problem and a solution, but with even the Elders finding it difficult to work together, some people are afraid that this is the end of Nightmare.

so, basically, there was a sickness spreading, but it was only affecting certain groups, such as the witches and sirens, specifically. it had slowly started to spread to other species as well, enough that a true ‘pattern’ hadn’t been picked up just yet. no one could figure out how it spread, and no one could figure out a cure or a source for it.

there was no magic that could stop it, no potion that could slow it. it seemed to suddenly hit a person, and within a matter of hours to days, they were dead.

what the townspeople didn’t know was that the sickness was entirely created in a lab. freya, the alpha of the werewolf pack and current holder of the werewolf council seat, had been contacted by a mysterious organization from the outside world regarding a research project into special beings.

the organization wanted to study the dna of supernatural beings, to see what made it different from humans, and if it was possible to cure, or if it was possible to weaponize and turn regular humans into these creatures.

they wanted to see if they could modify regular human dna to pass it on like any regular trait and have it manifest in their children, thus manufacturing witches, werewolves, or even hybrids of any of these species. it was a long shot by far, but they were willing to pay for any help.

for a while, she helped the organization by gathering dna samples and sending it off to a drop point. it was harmless. they compensated her well, and she was able to provide the town with wealth and new things that they never had before. but then, operations at the organization switched hands to someone with a little more darker intentions.

this new head had led the scientists in the direction of extermination -- treat the genetic markers like a virus, create a serum that destroys it, kill the monsters, ensure the survival of pure humans. now, this worried freya, and she pulled out almost immediately, until the head made a deal with her -- provide the dna of the creatures you don’t like and we’ll stick with them. your kind will be safe.

she quickly bought into this, and brought her brother in on the situation, and continued to provide dna from witches, shape shifters, and sirens alike, always avoiding her kind. the organization gave her a satellite phone, as described in this post, and she began to poison the town slowly through the well systems.

the huntress

in the midst of all the chaos and fear caused by the sickness in town, something perhaps worse came to nightmare via an old legend called the huntress, fully explained here.

Legend tells of an ancient hunter made immortal and unstoppable by a group of religious witches to destroy the races of monsters. Their chosen Huntress was taken from her life of poverty and misery and used in a forbidden ritual dedicated to the dark gods. During this ritual, half of her soul was ripped from her body and placed in a token of the Huntress, for safe keeping. The gods replaced the missing piece of her mortal soul with pieces of their own, effectively making her one of them, therefore making it impossible for her to die by normal means.

the story ends with the huntress being trapped in a chest, passed down by the bloodlines of the original witches that created and later imprisoned her. a ritual was to be performed during a full moon every century, but that instruction eventually fell to myth and then became hardly a memory, and the whereabouts of the chest were eventually forgotten.

it turns out, like a lot of things do in this town, that the chest ended up in the attic of the council building, just waiting for a little something like the hunter’s moon to come out and let the huntress out to play. 

That moment finally came as the moon reached the highest point in the night sky, casting moonbeams through the trees and onto the buildings in town. One in particular hit the attic window of the Council Hall, illuminating the small, dusty area. It rested on the wooden panels of a particularly dusty and battered looking chest that hadn’t been touched since the Founders chucked it into the attic – which was the last time the chest had been touched.

Just minutes after the light of the moon touched the chest, it began to rumble, softly at first, and then violently. The rumbling then spread to the attic itself and then to the building, making ceiling tiles fall and the wood flooring and walls crack. A dark smoke, moving almost like liquid, began to seep from the seams of the chest and surround it, hissing whenever it came into contact with the wood. Finally, the rumbling stopped, the smoke disappeared, and all was silent.

BANG

It sounded as if several canons had gone off in unison, temporarily deafening anyone in the vicinity of the Council Hall. As the sound went off, a burst of magic exploded from the chest, sending wood pieces flying through the attic and either becoming lodged in the walls or blowing holes right through them like a shotgun blast. The burst of magic flew through the entire town, knocking every living being off of their feet and also knocked the wind right from their lungs. Several light bulbs blew out with the blast and windows shattered, and some people even dropped dead, causing more terror and panic than the initial magic had caused itself.

the rest of the huntress returning to this world can be read here!

after her return, one of the ghosts alerted the town to an ongoing crisis by ringing the bells and causing an even bigger alarm than her arrival did. that can be read here, and so can the official death count from the morning after.

this arc was never finished. i like to think that the town eventually solved it, that they were able to find her token and destroy it. i imagine that it was crushed by either tris or toni. but it was in a climactic moment. fire raging around them, the huntress standing with an arrow ready. the hero drops the token, and crushes it beneath their boot.

with a scream, the huntress let a final arrow fly, killing the hero, just as the trapped piece of her mortal soul came flooding back into her, and forcing the immortal bits out with another flash bang of magic. it forces the huntress onto her knees, and another of the heroes, either lyra or jackson, was able to take the sword and kill the huntress with it.

in the end, a majority of the town was killed, and it was evident to most people that the population would never recover from what had happened between the huntress and the sickness. a few dozen people decided to stay and rebuild, having faith that things could ever go back to normal.

others left, whether to rejoin regular society, or to join the other sister towns for a while, it wasn’t specified. but this event essentially blew nightmare off of the supernatural haven map for a while.

it was from this that jackson and lyra decided to leave. they had witnessed so many friends and family members die, and they both wanted out of that life. lyra left behind her mother and her future as alpha of the pack. jackson left his home behind, and off they went.

[badstreetbitten]

FRANKINCENSE — FAITHFUL HEART; BOB MORLEY is JACK NAVARRO, a THIRTY-ONE year old WEREWOLF. He is said to be INTUITIVE but SARDONIC as well. Let us welcome THE STEADFAST into the Institute with open arms.

BIOGRAPHY;;

raised amidst southern live oaks and spanish moss, jack seemed destined to follow in the footsteps of his father and forefathers. unfortunately, it wasn’t the handsome, historic side of savannah that he was fated to join, but the city’s seedy underbelly. 

the navarro family had arrived in savannah a century before and they’d asserted themselves as swindlers and hustlers, doing damn near anything necessary to make a buck. sometimes it meant claiming that the home they rented was a part of savannah’s rich history and charging for tours, sometimes it meant cheating at cards, and occasionally it meant outright stealing from other residents and selling furniture to other families looking for antiques. 

as the sixth of eight children, jack often found himself getting lost in the chaos of the household. most of his eldest siblings had already gotten involved in the family’s schemes and were constantly scheming, and the middle children played pranks on one another in little tests to see what might work when they started on their own careers. jack, however, was a quiet and modest child who didn’t much care for trouble. 

in school, he rarely asked for help and shied away from the adults in the classroom and at after school programs, but it was obvious that he preferred to be there than home. summer breaks were particularly challenging, for he didn’t want to have to deal with the challenges of his home life and his siblings, so he often hung around the city and picked up odd jobs. 

by age sixteen he only ever returned home when he needed sleep. jack took care of meals and his other care all on his own. it went almost without saying that he moved out as soon as he possibly could. he’d worked as soon as a ma and pa restaurant was willing to hire him as a dish washer, and had saved up enough to move out by the time he was seventeen. 

he was still managing to go to school, and thought of it as something of a refuge, but he’d never done particularly well. the eagerness of his early life had worn off and he’d become more interested in working so that he could get by in his life outside of the classroom. despite this, he managed to graduate on time at eighteen. 

jack did not apply to go to college. as far as he was concerned, he didn’t have the money to spend or any idea of what he wanted to do. 

by eighteen he was working as a bartender at a tourist trap in atlanta. he worked hard, and though he wasn’t particularly flashy or outgoing, he was a hard worker. one night, after the bar had closed, jack was on his way home when a stray dog sprang from behind a dumpster, knocked him down, and bit him on his right shoulder. he’d tried his best to protect himself, to cover his head and face, but the animal managed to get ahold of his hand and leave a scar there too.

after he was bitten, jack did his best to bandage his injuries all on his own and tended to them carefully. strangely, he couldn’t get them to heal. they seemed like fresh wounds even two weeks later and he found himself feeling ill and more pained with each passing day. the day of the full moon, he was too pained to work. he called out, was promptly fired for missing yet another day, and spent the day trying to recover when finally it happened. 

there was pain like he’d never felt in his life. he remembered screaming, feeling sure that he was dying, and the next thing he knew he’d woken up in an alleyway in a part of the city that was entirely unfamiliar to him. 

it was here, he thought, that he would die. he was still in pain, still ill, still bleeding, and he let himself rest in the alleyway. the next time he awoke he found himself in a young woman’s care. she went on and on about warlocks and werewolves and all sorts of things that he didn’t understand. frankly, he didn’t pay her much mind until he’d started to feel better. with her care he’d started to heal, and faster than ever before, and as he felt better he spent more time considering the things she said. pandora was a cornerstone in his recovery and his understanding of the new world that he’d accidentally stepped into. 

even after he left her care, the two remained close. he understood what was happening to him more so because of her, and he went to her with questions and concerns that he had. 

he remained in atlanta, even after pandora had left, and became an integral part of atlanta’s very own pack. he trained with them, honed his skill, and became one of the best warriors in the pack. it was his mission to protect the city, those that he loved, and his pack from the dangers that lurked in the shadows. 

more recently, he was sent from his home in atlanta to help the wolves of london fight the rising demon activity there. he’s only just arrived in the london institute and is absolutely blown away by its beauty. more importantly still, however, is that he’s found an old friend. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS;;

pack members - these are other werewolves that came from atlanta with jack to provide support for the werewolves of london. they are some of his most trusted friends, his allies, and people that he would protect with his life. he chose them to come with him because he knew their abilities and trusted that they would be able to do the job and to do it well. 

trainees - whether he met these werewolves back in atlanta or in london, he keeps a careful eye on these pups and does his very best to direct them. he has provided them with training, guidance, and does everything in his power to keep them from biting innocent mundanes until they get their abilities under control. sometimes they annoy the hell out of jack, but overall he loves them dearly and treats them as his own. 

savior - she took jack in at one of the most vulnerable times of his life, and helped him gain control of himself as well as to understand this new world he’d been pulled into. jack still admires pandora greatly, thinks of her as one of his dearest friends (though they spent quite a great deal of time apart), and is thrilled to see her again in the london institute. from here, he hopes to rekindle their friendship now that he has more experience in the shadow world. [ taken by pandora ward ]

unlikely friends - likely a vampire, this creature is one that his species simply hates, but he finds them somewhat bearable all the same. jack enjoys their sense of humor, their wit, and has taken a liking to them even if he won’t admit it himself. they don’t spend all that much time together, and would never be caught grabbing a beer together, but there is an unspoken trust between the two. 

[funkymbtifiction]

The Effect of Emotional Abuse on Each Type: ESFP

SUBMITTED by hannah-elizabeth-j

I’ve seen a few posts/requests on here about the effects of emotional abuse and the affect that it has on each Myers Briggs type so, as someone who works with a lot of domestic abuse victims I thought that I’d give my two cents worth. I wanted them to be quite detailed to give people a fair amount of information so this will be the general format; a general description of what it will look like, how this differs from similar types (ie. the ENFJ compared to the INFJ and ESFJ) and a character in fiction who acts similar to this (may not be for the same reason and I might not get one for each type but I’ll try).

ESFP

There will be some variation depending on when the abuse took place in their life but there are somethings that will remain the same.

Now I know that on tumblr this type seems to be hard to come by but….

From my observations, an ESFP while in an abusive situation can essentially be broken down into three stages and fortunately, there is a fiction example that I know for each stage.

First let’s start off with stage one or what I call the ‘Early on Daenerys days’ (as I said in the ISFJ post never read the books so this is from the TV show). Think back to the first episodes of Game of Thrones what Daenerys was in the control of her brother. She was extremely timid, rarely speaking up for herself and when she did, there wasn’t much behind it. Well, that is essentially what an ESFP will look like when either they have only been in an abusive relationship for a few months (long enough for the person to be screwing with their heads but not long enough for marriage, kids, life, etc) or for the first chunk of their lives as a child if they are being abused by a parent.

The length of this stage will be totally dependent on the situation they are in but for those who haven’t watched Game of Thrones this is what it will look like; not an ESFP. Or at least not any ESFP image that is online descriptions. Since ESFP’s are naturally so engaged with the world and at that time the world is the very nightmare that they want to escape from, they will tend to go against their own nature and focus greatly on their Ni. Unlike most other types, the grip comes into play when they are in an abusive situation instead of after they have left it. For a while, while their Fi is screaming in their head, “no this is wrong I don’t want this!” the abuser is saying that those thought are crazy and they should feel guilty for having them. So, they go along with it.

Like everyone, they spend a time appeasing their abuser because that is what they are being made to think is the right thing to do. They get their moral system screwed with, hard. Even if you have Fi, trust me these people can still twist your entire worldview, it’s just what happens.

Now at some point, something will trigger a change in the ESFP. It could be anything really, but the point is they will end up seeing that what is happening is wrong. This is when we really start to see the ESFP come into themselves in the next ‘stage.’

This is what I have dubbed the ‘Sirius Black era.’ Sirius actually grew up in an incredibly abusive household so if you really want to examine an abused ESFP, he’s a good choice. In his later teenage years Sirius rebelled, hard. The bold nature of Se mixed with the outrage of Fi is really seen here. Picture a lot of sneaking out, partying, some are brave enough to cheat on their partner if they are the abusive ones.They will do anything just to show the abuser they don’t own them, they speak up, call them out on it, do anything to annoy them and sometimes leave. Now, if they can leave at this stage, that is great but the sad truth is that not everyone can and since the ESFP has just done everything they can to push the abuser, things will often get a lot worse for them.

Here comes the last ‘stage,’ have you watched The Tudors? Those last few episodes with Anne Boleyn when she really started to lose it that Natalie Dormer played to perfection? Because that is what you can expect. If they were unable to leave after the rebelling stage then expect to see something truly tragic, the loss of hope inwardly while outwardly they are a mix of Se recklessness and unhealthy Ni detachment from everything. Eating disorders are often common. I honestly find this really hard to explain so if you haven’t watched the show I’ll just link some scenes that best demonstrate what I mean.

( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ng7dU5faIg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXTtoP4OJyk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9BdTLBREV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ0_OCn0RK4 )

After they have left the abusive situation, it tends to go one of two ways, it depends on when they left. If they left during the rebellious stage, then even though they are no longer in the abusive situation, they often go into the third stage anyway. But if they went through the third stage while still in the abusive situation, what you tend to see is some intense disperse. Screaming, crying, throwing things, through to work through their emotions while at the same time not being able to express them effetely, not just because of the nature of Fi but also the havoc imposed on them and their emotional development at the hands of their abuser. They seem to completely fall apart in a very dramatic way while being unable to speak about it.

Until one day, quite suddenly to the people around them, they stop. They pick themselves up and, although often quite numb for a few months after, they piece themselves back together. They built themselves up into the person that they both want to be and are.

Now down the road of course there will be some things that are harder or flare up issues for them. They tend to identify very strongly with the people who went through what they have and often go into a full time job or volunteer position in something that will help victims of abuse like them. 

ESFP vs ESTP

Look carefully at them while in the recovery stage, an ESTP will reach out to try and talk to people more, an ESFP won’t

Look at how they were in the abusive situation in the early stages, an ESTP will be more detached and ESFP will appear to be feeling it all and killing themselves to try and detach/not feel it

An ESTP is more likely to avoid forming their life to help people from this issue. Now this  is not to say that the ESTP firstly wouldn’t help anyone they happened to meet who was going through it, they 100% would, and they would care about the issue of domestic abuse, they just tend to be less focused on forming major parts of their life from that experience

ESFP vs ISFP

ISFP’s rebel far less, if at all when in abusive situations. Compare Sirius to Harry in Harry Potter. Both spoke up for themselves at a point but while Sirius ran off to James and frequently and in any way possible annoyed his parents (like shoving it down their throats that he was Gryffindor, putting posters up of muggle things in his room, ect.), Harry just didn’t take their shit, but rarely went out of his way to annoy them and never went off to go and live with Ron (we know Dumbledore would not have let him but Harry didn’t always know this and he still didn’t)

Oddly enough since its higher for them, ISFP’s don’t get as lost in Ni as do ESFP’s (this is due to the grip)

Te grip all over the place for ISFP’s

As for fictional examples as I said; Sirius Black (Harry Potter), Daenerys Targaryen (Game  of Thrones) and late on Anne Boleyn (The Tudors), also if you want to see one that never recovered from the anger, rebelling but actually took it one step further and now must control everything so he is not controlled again character, Klaus Mikaelson (The Vampire Diaries/The Originals) .

[aurianaholland]

Auriana's Journal Entries #1

“Bloody Fuckin ‘ell!”

My head snapped up from my yoga pose and looked at my best friend as her boyfriend bellowed from another room in the house. Her eyes locked with mine and she just shrugged going back into her meditation as the distinctive sound of glass breaking hit my ears. I sighed and straightened myself and grabbed my water bottle from beside me shaking my head, they may be dating but when it came to Jarroth and his temper tantrums it was typically my “job” to deal with him.

“Fine, I’ll go see what the fuss is about.”

I entered the room where Jarroth had smashed his whiskey glass against the mantle of the fire place in his study. He was pacing frantically notes strewn across his desk mumbling to himself, nothing out of the ordinary really.

“Jarroth what is going on in here?” I heaved a sigh bending over the broken fragments piecing them together with my mind and floating the glass onto the mantle.

“The Goddamned Hollands.” He shouted at me and instinctively rolled my eyes knowing I had just stepped into WWIII.

“Not this again…”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he growled pinning me to the wall

“Jarroth they are not bad people. I know I don’t have my memories and I don’t know much about your world, however something deep inside me says they are not bad people.”

Jarroth’s eyes flashed black with rage whiskey thick on his breath began screaming, what exactly I couldn’t make out due to the empathic volume he was using, and before I had any time to react in his rage Jarroth brought his hand down on his forehead yelling “BAMF!” In a blink I look around and instead of being in a small house in London I’m now standing on a sandy beach over looing and emerald bay of the most beautiful coast line id ever seen.

“God damn that bloody fucking bastard! Where am i?”

I scanned the beach which was as barren as I’m sure his head is 90% of the time. I should have known though arguing with a mage with space magic however would get me sent to god only knows where and for all I know with Jarroth is he could have meant kill me in that moment and that only added to my rage.

“Some fucking boss you are you fucking prick!”

I kicked the sand angrily before centering myself, my magic doesn’t work as well if I’m not focused. I closed my eyes and took deep even breaths and began listening for civilization which when my ears picked up on the faint noise of a street market it didn’t sound more than maybe an hours walk so at least I wasn’t completely stranded, although barefoot and ill prepared. I began the long trudge towards what I could only hope was a normal town and not some hostile tribe in the middle of nowhere. The weather was hot much warmer than I was used to in London, thank God I had my water bottle otherwise I think I might melt under the sun.

The closer I traveled in the direction of the market the more people began to appear and the more attention I attracted, which is not uncommon with my long pink hair, but I feel like this time it was my pale skin that was standing out just as much in a crowd of well tanned people. I could tell by the conversations I overheard that the dialect was Spanish, not because I understood what was being said past “Hola” but it’s a bloody good indicator. I had the gut wrenching feeling that I was in a foreign country where I don’t know the language, nor do I have a phone, money, shoes, or a way home…I was ready to kill Jarroth. I Wandered the beach until it came to a stone stair way that lead to the street with the market which was far too hot to walk on normally so I just created a invisible barrier around my feet and moved down the market. I was enamored of all the handmade items and the food stalls smelled amazing but as the light grew dim my anger began to turn to dread as I the severity of my situation was setting in. I sat on a bench hugging my knees in an empty part of the market and tried my best to connect minds with Jarroth but he’d shut the connection down when he’d teleported me. I really had lost all hope at this point.

“Disculpe señorita, ¿está bien?”

A rich voice filled my ears and I looked up through tear filled eyes and looked at him with wide eyes unsure of what what being said to me.

“I’m sorry sir but I don’t speak Spanish.”

I admitted this lowering my legs as to not be rude he extended his hand towards my face and wiped a stray tear away from my face before I could pull away.

“I’m sorry, I should have guessed.” He laughed “Are you alright miss you’re crying and you seem a little lost.”

I was warry of this strange man with his thick accent suddenly approaching me in the dark line this it means one of two things, either he’s dangerous, or he’s a mage and I have no way of differentiating between the two. His short dark hair glimmered in the lamps from the stalls but his smile was soft and reassuring. Sensing my apprehension, he sat down beside me.

“I’m a little out of sorts, and a long way from home.”

He noded and leaned into my ear,

“You are either very bold using magic in the open in the way you do you’re like a beacon asking for trouble”

I shrugged using my magic was second nature for me, any time I needed it I used it if someone freaked out Jarroth would usually just calm them down…and when I say calm them down I mean whipe their mind.

“I don’t see the problem, a bubble around my feet that only a mage should notice, besides��” I wiggled my toes, “Not much choice right now “

Talking with this man made me realize how odd my British accent sounded especially next to his thick Latin sounding accent.

“Where are we anyway?” I asked bemused

His look became more concerned the more I talked.

“You don’t know where you are?”

I shook my head “Long story actually.” He rubbed his temples a moment and muttered something in spanish “What’s your name?”

“Auriana,” He smile at the reply and took my hand “Let’s find you some shoes so you blend in…. well ok stand out a little less.”

We strolled the market place and after a brief argument that I lost I was fitted into a beautiful pair of red heels that didn’t match my exercise outfit at all so I also wound up with a new dress without knowing my benefactor’s name. I kept a close eye on him the entire time we shopped until he led me away from the market towards a car and I stopped short of getting in.

“I don’t want you to think me rude but I still don’t know your name and you’re being awfully nice to someone who has nothing to offer you…why?” He laughed and opened the door for me

“My name is Ricardo, and as for being nice that does come at a price but first I need you to get in the car and trust me. Besides I know a guy who can get you anywhere you want to go so we need each other.” I nodded and slid into the car and let him close the door. Mages always come with a catch always. After he began to drive he looked at me and the fun that his eyes had in the market went serious.

“You’re a physic, right?” I nodded keeping my gaze on him and he nodded back, “Can you heal people?” His voice was almost pleading. “There’s been a rumor of physic healers but they tend to be hoaxes but I’m desperate.” I nodded once more and chuckled.

“I can heal, but you seem to know so much about magic why not ask a mage?” His hands tightened on the wheel “Life mages are rare and their help costs more money than I have.” He admitted. “Not to mention the person I’m asking you to heal would raise eye brows if they suddenly were healed.“ I rubbed my chin contemplating how hard my task was going to be, broken bones and the like weren’t hard to fix but things like cancer and muscular disorders those were tricky for me still I’d only just began studying magic and medicine and magic in tandem, not to mention it had only been six months since Jarroth found me in the woods in Oregon.

“So, what exactly are you asking me to heal?” I asked with a heavy dose of skepticism. He stopped the car outside of a small shack and turned the key “My little brother can’t walk any more, we got into an accident and it’s my fault and I’ve been trying to find a way to help him since the accident. I don’t know how you got here and frankly I don’t care I just thank Santa Maria you are, please I can get a space mage to send you home wherever home is but I’m begging you…help my little brother.” I nodded

“Ricardo, you have helped me this far, if you can help get me back to London I’ll see what I can do about your brother’s injuries I can’t promise perfection but I can at least get him upright.” His eyes light up as he sprinted out of the car and around to me dragging me out and into the house. He greeted his parents both of which looked at me with a curious eye and a deep conversation ensued between the three of them while I was pointed in the direction of the brother. I walked back to find a seventeen-year-old boy bed ridden in his room asleep which worked better for me I didn’t have to try and converse. I laid my hands gently on the boys arm channeling my energy mapping his body finding where the damage was and then sewing it back together like a reversing clock with how quiet the room was and his rhythmic breathing I was able to focus more than usual and poured a lot of energy into healing the young man when I knew everything I was able to do hand been complete I went back to join Ricardo who was pacing frantically with his mother praying on the sofa, while his father smoked a cigar.

“How is he!” Ricardo exclaimed as he grabbed my shoulders when I looked at the clock behind him forty-five minutes had passed since we arrived

“He was asleep when I went in so I don’t know progress, but I’ve done what I can for him.” My tone was low and his mother started weeping openly shaking her rosary.

“I understand, let me make a few calls so we can get you home I have to keep my end of the bargain.” He sighed and went to the window. His father told me the story of how the boys had been hunting a vampire and Ricardo’s brother fell down an embankment catching on a fence and broke parts of his back which is why I was needed to heal him, I wanted to know how well the boy would walk but disturbing his sleep wouldn’t be fair and it was something he’d need to discover gradually so the town didn’t yell miracle and start trying to make me a saint.

Two hours passed but finally Ricardo’s contact arrived and with the help of Ricardo’s mother opened a portal into my bedroom for me to return home I said my farewell to the wonderful family and with my water bottle and clothes in tow stepped back into normality and back into 11 pm London Time.

“JARROTH YOU BLOODY FUCK I’M GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS!” I yelled through the house the moment the portal closed. I was quickly intercepted by Tabi wrapping her arms around me “My God Auri where have you been I’ve been worried sick.” Her voice was soft as she kept me on the opposite side of the room for a cowering Jarroth whom looked like a kicked puppy. “Oh I don’t know I just spent my day in bloody Spain.” Her eyes went wide with terror “SPAIN, JARROTH YOU TRANSPORTED HER TO SPAIN ON HER OWN WHY ARE YOU THIS WRECKLESS!?” Tabitha hardly every became cross with Jarroth and this was somewhere between fury and being mortified for her. “Whatever you two were arguing about you are never allowed to talk about with each other again do I make myself clear you two?!” I just nodded knowing if I got close to him I’d have to fight both and I was not up for it, and that is basically why Jarroth and I do not discuss politics.