#I will make a bible out of the scraps you have given me

[i7propagandamachine]

Binary Vampire prequel sorta?

Feat. some of my raw sketches lol. Idk first time posting here thats not some low quality shitpost ig

Since most ppl agree that Binary vampire parallels with actual revale it shouldn’t come as a surprise I made banri a vampire too. In my headcanon him and yuki were some kind of vampire duo who hunts together for food. Oh and they live together in some abandoned castle (from banri’s long dead family maybe). You could probably also put something about Yuki-vampire initially being isolated because of his vampirism and Banri-vampire opening him up a little on the idea of not having to spend eternity alone.

Then their notoriety for killing increased and got the attention of famed vampire hunter Kujo Takamasa while on his search for the First Vampire, Zero. Takamasa originally approached them peacefully and promises them safety if they join him in searching for Zero. Being a prideful vampire, Yuki doesn’t shy away from showing his disinterest and annoyance with the man. Takamasa is turned away from the castle and things were normal for a while. That is until villagers head to their castle shouting for the demons be killed. Shit hit the fan, they fend off for a while until someone shoots the chandelier it falls into the ground ala phantom of the opera (you could tell I love me my gothic fiction).

This almost falls into Yuki-vampire but Banri-vampire pushes him away just in time but ultimately gets him instead. Its basically the stagelight incident but make it

✨Gothic✨

The chandelier causes a fire trapping the vampires as the villagers make their escape. Unbeknownst to anyone this was actually a plot by Takamasa to drive the duo away from their home and maybe consider joining his side. His plan is a fail though as Yuki-vampire is too distraught over banri vampire being unable to regenrate from underneath the chandelier and himself collapses from all the smoke (I am so sorry for making vampires really weak in this one).

Years, decades, pass and the old castle is now a ruin of its former glory. Sometime in the middle, yuki-vampire regained consciousness with banri-vampire nowhere to be seen. With his hesitance to approach humans, he is unable to regain his powers causing the wild beasts of the forest to rampage (and ig he adapts vampire vegetarianism?). It was then that a young orphan enters the ruins in search of a demon but instead finds a curled-up weakened man, finally kicking off the plot of binary vampire. (Sorry for the naked yuki it is not canon my own demons possessed me)

I haven’t read any fanfics or anything of that sort after the anni released (which reminds me I definitely should) so sorry if there were any similarities 🙇‍♀️

I lowkey wished they had separate names for the charas like they do with the kujis unless we are just supposed to call them “Orphan” and “Demon/Vampire”??

I also made sketches of other charas (mostly those related to revale) as au-compliant charas in the binary vampire sequel im cooking so look forward to that. Anyways thats it from me *bites and sucks ur blood*

[katakaluptastrophy]

This may be something you have already covered, or considered and discarded, but. Thoughts on Jod being trans?

Because it seemed slightly odd to me, that a AMAB kid going to his grandmother’s house would be allowed to play with his mum’s toys. Especially if they’re “traditionally girly” toys, as opposed to being told to run around or given a ball to do sports.

Whereas a little AFAB kid would gladly be given his mum’s dolls by a traditional grandma and told to play nicely and quietly. Not identifying with the Barbies so much as finding them so pretty (especially compared to the Ken dolls that look nothing like him, which he feeds to Ulysses the dog).

And then, two or three decades later and finding that he is now God. He has consumed the Earth and her siblings and made her anew.

How easy is it to change the bits about himself he never felt were right? To remake himself as God in the flesh? To look upon himself and say, it is good?

"When I was seven, you know, all Nana had to play with in her house was some of Mum's old toys. And my favouite out of all of them..." He gave a long, shuddering sigh. "My favourite was her old Hollywood Hair Barbie," he murmured. "I loved her little gold outfit and her long yellow hair. She was the best. She got to have all the adventures. There was also a Bride's Dream Midge, but Mum had cut Midge's hair into this weird mullet. It was Barbie for me." She looked at him. He looked at her. He added, "Not Hollywood Hair Ken. Mum had him too, but he was a creep. I gave him to Nana's dog to eat."

This is what we get when John is describing the "scraps of id" that lead him to make Alecto look like some kind of nightmarish Barbie. The 'id' is, psychoanalytically, the most instinctual, basic part of the self. If John is being truthful here, then he's expressing something very basic about himself and his motivations in making Alecto.

I'm not convinced that we can infer anything about his Nana's attitude towards what toys a child should be allowed to play with. John is probably born somewhere between the mid 90s to the mid 20s, so it's just as possible that John playing with his mum's old Barbies is evidence that his family was fairly progressive. Or too poor to afford new toys. Or just ambivalent about the toys he played with.

In terms of John and gender, or at least John and masculinity, this interview has an interesting insight into what Tamsyn might be doing with that:

the God of the Locked Tomb IS a man; he IS the Father and the Teacher; it’s an inherently masc role played by someone who has an uneasy relationship himself to playing a Biblical patriarch. John falls back on hierarchies and roles because they’re familiar even when he’s struggling not to. Even he identifies himself as the God who became man and the man who became God.

Though of course, to quote a different interview, this is a series where "readers will end up STICKY and GREASY with GENDER and BIBLE" and where Lyctorhood is "a huge genderfuck".

So I think there's certainly scope for trans readings of John, which shift the framework for the way that John is positioning himself in relation to his masc roleplaying of god. There's a number of elements that would have a very different resonance in such readings, not least putting Alecto into such a specific version of a woman's body, and the tension between his own exercise of bodily autonomy and his utter restriction and violation of others' bodily autonomy.

Personally, my take is that John is meant to be a type of cis man I'm sure many of us have met - one who is at pains to demonstrate his feminism, who perhaps finds the boundaries of masculinity confining to some extent, but who is ultimately unwilling to examine how deeply those boundaries are part of the way he views the world and interacts with others. And with John, this is writ large, quite literally: endowed with godlike power, he falls back on the patriarchal image of god. John may go out of his way to tell us that the maternity problem was important to him, that he played with Barbies, that he *cares*, but at the end of the day that introspection doesn't translate into his actions.

Regardless of how John came to his relationship with masculinity, he's stuck with - or perhaps in context we could say haunted by - a very particular conception of patriarchal masculinity.

[sir-davey]

Writing a book wow ✍️

Alright, lemme introduce you to a project I’ve been working on for a few years now 😘

I have been very dedicated to it, and it’s been through many, MANY changes because of the concept for it, which has been hard for even me to develop and have it make sense lol

Also here’s some art I made for it, hehe

This novel in question is, “The Book of Saul,” a fictional retelling of, well you know, King Saul. But strictly through his perspective and how he sees the world around him, which is shown in a very symbolic way. Everything about this story is symbolic with it presented through symbolic imagery that Saul experiences. Within the story, Saul would go through seven visions, given by Ze’ev, his evil spirit, detailing his state of mind and his gnawing grudges.

Basically, this story brings light to Saul’s mentality in the Bible in other means of interpreting it, in which Saul is honestly never sane and he has a lot of issues lol. Also, the story goes through his entire life, and I mean going back to when he’s around 15, which is where the story starts (other than his traumatic flashback that I’m not going to talk about loll) So it’s an origin story as well, but it ties into the whole idea of what drives Saul forward in the life he lives.

Also, there’s generational trauma 🥶 that explains Saul’s abuse for Jonathan (although there are many more aspects to it, Saul’s past is partly the reason for Saul’s abuse) in which Saul’s father, Kish, is the biggest asshole you’ll ever meet lol. And yeah, there’s a reason why, and yet, he’s an asshole through and through and there’s no redemption for him. Kish doesn’t want to be associated with his son which spirals into endless abuse and neglect (kind of explains why Saul has little to no confidence in himself and is constantly paranoid).

There are also prominent characters I’ve come up with, such as Saul’s mother, Hodesh, and basically the character of Saul’s evil spirit, Ze’ev, who is a shift-shaping demon wolf that guides Saul to seek his truest intentions while bringing fear into his heart so Ze’ev can feed off of him. Firstly, Hodesh holds a special place in Saul’s heart. And it’s to the point where he becomes obsessive of her, trying to find answers through her since she is the bearer of his life (also she sings really well, making it the origin for Saul’s musical needs). Ze’ev, on the other hand, stems from Saul’s traumas/fears and becomes prevalent later on to weaken Saul and to bring him to a place of chaos and terror so much so it hinders Saul seeking for the answers he’s been looking for for all his life.

And some other things about the novel: Saul’s childhood is absolute garbage, yet Ahinoam has always tried to alleviate him from his burdens. His relationship with Ahinoam, however, is at first very, very strong but becomes unstable when Saul’s drama with Rizpah comes into the picture, which is all Saul’s fault by the way lol. Him and Ahinoam though have a strong connection, despite their troubled beginnings with each other, and Jonathan is basically a combination of them in good ways lol. Jonathan is really prominent in the story too, and I’ll maybe make another post discussing David/Jonathan’s relationship in the story, because I’m still trying to figure out a symbolic way to add them into Saul’s narrative.

One thing about Jonathan is that Saul in his visions constantly imagines a scary version of Jonathan, which is supposed to be serious, but I’ve always found it funny loll. Like Saul would be waking up screaming from Jonathan drenched in blood and then sees a perfectly normal Jonathan smiling at him.

So ANYWAYS,

I’ve been working on this novel for a long while, and it has gone through a lot of changes. I have written the first draft for it, but I’ve recently scrapped the entire draft because the whole story has entirely changed lol. The first draft actually dwelled on Saul’s childhood, but the narrative ended up being really pandering and stupid while not adding anything to the story, if I’m being honest 🥶 I mean, there was a chapter of 10k words of just little Saul talking to little Abner about some plan of sneaking out to go and see the Philistines. They’re like 7 btw. You’d spend five chapters of an annoying, 7 year old Saul who thinks he’s tough and brave in every sentence he says loll.

Alright that’s enough rambling 😭 I doubt anyone would read this other than me, but if you have, then you’re amazing and I applaud you greatly 😎👏👏 I ramble a lot because I’m a nerd, and I’m very passionate, and uh- DAVID FOREVERRR 😍😘✨🫶 EEEEEEEEEE

Also, any ideas/suggestions would be AWESOME 😎👍✨

[mangora]

Finally watching episode 9 so here are some live notes:

•Aiden falling over when Tess gave him the water bucket was a peak visual gag

•Alec??? Alec hello???

•Yul with Kai’s shirt…toxic yaoi scraps…

•Oh my god fuck this guy

•Grett you poor baby holy shit???

•LETS GO RIYA GO OFF QUEEN

•Riya looked up to Grett omg…

•FUCK HIM UP ALEC oh my god I hate Yul Grett needs to dump his sorry ass

•I don’t really know how I feel about how they’re portraying Gabby’s mental health. Idk it’s just kinda off

•I love Jake but how much longer are we going to do this TomJake subplot fuck me it’s so boring

•The Ally and Jake beef is kinda sucky too. Also what’s Jake been doing for the last nine episodes if not trying to improve? Wh

•Jake I could fix you

•Tom’s totally lying about his boyfriend huh

•YEP okay

•Also Aiden and Tom bonding over their scars is kinda cute

•Tom still thinks about him??? Okay we’re getting somewhere I’ll let them cook

•Emily I love you so much Emily. Trevor too. Power friendship

•Girl why are you eating a raw carrot. Creature

•I’m still sad that we didn’t get any real Jake/Ellie interactions after they set up a rivalry between them in season one. Come on. Toxic friends. Or rivals who can’t let go of a past platonic bond

•When are we going to get a non-elimination episode it’s been like eight eliminations in a row now I think

•Jake…buddy…

•FUCK EM UP GRETT

•“Ok ok I’m sorry” immediately when Ashley tells him what to do. He’s such a lapdog I love him

•TESSALLY CRUMBS

•JAKE!! FUCK YEAH KILL HIM!! HE’S SO BACK!!

•I’m so proud of him

•Tom <3 I don’t really like him this season but he’s still my cutie patootie yk

•ALLY BABYGIRL YOU DID IT

•Can you guys tell who my favorite team is yet

•I feel like Gabby isn’t really acting villainous yet. Kinda let down on that front tbh

•Yul kinda seems vaguely attracted to Tom

•If Riya goes home…

•Why has no one voted for Yul yet

•Sorry but when did Grett like make up with Gabby? Wouldn’t it make sense for Gabby to still hold a grudge against her for season one? She holds grudges, we know she does, she did it in season one and she’s doing it now

•Listen I get Gabby’s anger but Tess, Aiden, and Tom are right like all of these people would betray Gabby at any other point given the chance and Alec fucked Ellie over multiple times

•Man I miss their friendship actually

•IF RIYA GOES HOME…

•OH MY GOD IS IT TESS

•FUCK

•ONC stop voting off some of your strongest characters before the merge challenge fuck off I’m so sick of these eliminations

•Gabby kinda ate tho

•“Someone say bye to Ally for me” sobbing

•Gabby you’re so babygirl I’m going to miss your friendship with Tom so much

•OLIVER’S BACK

•Wait are Tom and Jake going to talk next episode then? I mean I guess I’m excited but…also not really because it’s probably going to end how it always does. With them just moping and not resolving anything. Augh

Overall the episode was okay I guess? Animation is wonderful as always but I’m really sick of the same like three plot threads being drawn out and of an interesting character going home every single episode without being fully developed beforehand. I feel like the writers— as much effort and love as they’re putting in— aren’t very organized and could use a lore Bible or a clearer outline, because some plots and character arcs are just dropped randomly, and some aren’t resolved in a very sensible or well-paced fashion. That’s not to say the writing is entirely bad, the writers clearly have some good ideas and the dialogue gets better every episode, but I think they need to balance the story better and plan out what they’re going to do with each character more effectively— it would also be nice to have some more relationships between characters instead of each character having 1-2 focal relationships with a few vague allies or enemies outside of that, considering how much time we have left with the season still. But that’s just a matter of preference on my end, I <3 complex relationship webs.

[blacktobackmesa]

⛔ ? :O

Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

Oh, absolutely! Focusing on hlvrai, I've got two to talk about: the New Years fic and the Housesitter's Guide.

The first work I ever started was a goofy-ass story about Gordon logging into the game on New Years Day to find that the Science Team's New Years Eve party had gone off the rails with Darnold as the bartender, and now everyone was dealing with bonkers reality-warping hangover effects that only potions can give. I'd recount all of the effects, but while I know I got at least five pages out of the idea, I can't seem to find it anywhere in my folder. I know that Tommy's personal gravity had flipped like that one Calvin and Hobbes arc, so he was walking on the ceiling as he opened the door and invited Gordon inside. Benrey's Sweet Voice abilities were cranked into full gear to the point where any attempt to talk just launched a volley of fruity tennis balls out of his mouth. Bubby got body-swapped with Sunkist, who was just passed out on the couch and not enjoying being locked in an old guy body. It was beautiful, dumb crack, very much flavored like magic anon ask blogs from the days of yore.

I abandoned it for a couple reasons. One, it was a holiday fic that I didn't finish by January 2022. Two, the tone and plot weren't really up to my personal standards. Heck, there wasn't a plot at all, so I ran out of steam pretty quickly.

The second fic is one that I do still have the files for. I thought about writing a fic that was formatted as a housesitting manual that Gordon would give to someone if he needed to be out of town and wanted his computer to be supervised. It would have essentially given me a "series bible" for my Streamman continuity-- a reference guide to how Gordon would explain every part of the home program. However, while I like works in that sort of nonstandard format, it was just... really boring to write. It's much more fun to develop the world as I go and post bonus details on tumblr.

Also, since this was also an early work, I hadn't decided if Gordon knew Bubby and Coomer were a couple in this draft. I knew that they were together, but Gordon...

"[...Y]ou know how I am with these things, and after a certain amount of time I can’t ask without looking stupid. If you want, you can ask them yourself and tell me what they say. Please don’t tell them I don’t know. I know I can’t control whether you do or not. But they have enough things to make fun of me for, I promise."

Gordon's based on me. I have the worst relationship radar. I have watched people exchange deeply personal Valentine's Day gifts and said out loud that they have such a great friendship.

[the1987kid]

"Fresh Start," He said

When the thought of the new year started hitting me, it always felt that God would do something new in 2024, and we would be starting over again.

I was convinced that God and I would scrap all the things that happened to me in the past, especially the nightmares of 2023. I had already wired myself to let go of all. I started writing about how, thankfully, regardless of its routes, God decides the outcome of things, and isn't that all good? I was so high, sure that from the ground I was on, there was no other way but up.

December 26, Christmas was over, and I just couldn't wait for 2024 to begin! A fresh start is like the air in the early summer breeze that uplifts the little child in you. I was so convinced that this was really the path that God and I were heading - a fresh start and a new beginning. I was so convinced that I even preached about it in front of my friends, 'I am fully trusting the Lord with these new beginnings!'

The next thing I know, the very things remaining in my hands started slipping away.

Morning came, and I was scheduled to talk with my supervisor regarding my work performance. I honestly like where I'm working, another Bible ministry where I get to hear more life-moving testimonies. I like being here, knowing those stories, and going to places and talking to people just to know those stories. But for the most part, I guess, maybe I'm more into my position. If a dress, something that's really nice, I would call 'my style,' but something that doesn't really fit me. It hurts to admit that, but it hurts even more to hear it coming from other people. That day, I was told that I don't fit in this job, and I can't be trained for this. Doesn't that just hurt? Quoting from my very first post (which seems to be very proof that I'm really bad at this), 'I’ve always been fond of writing, but I guess writing doesn’t like me as much as I like it.' I lost my position and was given 2 weeks to transition. What is happening, God?

I have to admit, I was devastated. I was so upset that I approached God like a child in tantrums. It felt like every single ounce of strength in me got all drained up. In rage, I told Him that I had enough! That's it! I have no more strength and willpower left! I SURRENDER!

And though these two words gushed out forcefully, it gave me an unexplainable feeling of relief. Maybe that's what God is waiting for? For me to finally give up my pride of carrying myself and finally letting Him be the God that He is in my life. It felt like He really meant it when He said that we'll be starting from scratch.

Today, as I sought the Lord, He told me once again to cast lots and take a chance. The very words from my previous writing are now the very words that encourage me.

Thinking back to how He spoke to me in my previous devotions, He's right. His words are true. I would never really understand what He's doing, but I can throw my dice and let Him decide where it will fall, which one He will prosper and make successful. Thinking about it, I guess we were clear on where I wanted to go, and we didn't talk about the how. Maybe things aren't going my way because they're going God's way.

This time, at Your Word, Lord, I will take a chance.

[tal-yadin]

Ok let's jump into it, i did promise to write an actuall post.

it got LONG so check it out under the cut: (how did it end up like this??)

First thing first, this episode was vegas' episode. No doubt about it, no debate, and bible just ate the whole thing for breakfast. I mean it okay? i was having so much fun watching him on screen, just, every scene he's in is golden.

Now that i've said it let's go into more detail. 

i’ve said before in my ep 5 post that the vegas is tailoring his persona to porsche and we see that full forsce in this episode (it helps of course that they have much more screentime together). 

In fact, the entire way the minor family operates is much, Much more suited to porsche’s nature - and i might just write out a whole saparate post about the minor family vs the main family, because the power dynamics are fucking facinating - but the point is that the informal and street thug-ish vibe the minor family has got going is much more suited to porsche than the high brow splendor of the main family

So vegas is back on his bullshit, aided by the fact that kinn is stuck in the hospital and the fact that he’s been given premission to have porsche on call until his task is done. and the dude is sure leaning into it. heavily. it’s not working as well as it did in ep 5 because porsche’s situation has changed - he’s not as isolated, he and kinn have resolved (some, maybe) of their issues and he’s in much less need of someone to lean on.

it’s an ineteresting contrast between kinn and vegas actually. kinn has authority on his side. his word is law, the only person that outranks him his his dad. when faced with someone like porsche who won’t yield to that authority, kinn first resorted to force and is slowly learning to lean into personal connection. porsche is much likelier to do what kinn wants him to do if kinn asks.

vegas has no authority, at least when it comes to the main family (and the whole point is comptetion so it’s Always a comparison) so he probabely learned that lesson much earlier. if he wants someone to do something, he has to make them want to do it.  being liked is a powerfull tool for someone like vegas, who has virtually no authority because of who he is. being straightforward isn’t an option so he manipulates instead.

so yeah vegas really shone in this episode, although i’m pretty sure nothing will ever top this hoe’s fucking smirk after he told porsche that kinn shot his ex. i honestly thought he was bullshitting completely, but according to next ep’s preview kinn’s ex IS assumed dead so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who the fuck know. i’ve seen a bunch of theories but at this point this show is gonna make clowns out of us all.

next thing i wanna talk about is pete. petey. my best sunshine boy. you are officially on the freak scale. like we thought you were normal but the way you looked at vegas when all the other BGs were looking away and clutching their pearls? my boy was sporting a boner, i’m calling it now.

jokes aside, i’m really excited for this development. i’ll be straight (ha) with you here, i was not particulary invested in the vegaspete storyline from the get go. like i knew it was a thing in the novel, i knew it was supposed to be problematic, i was kinda dreading having to watch it go down. 

then the show did such a good job with smoothing over the more fucked up aspects of kinn and porsche’s relationship in the first half and i figured they’d find a way to handle it that wouldn’t make me want to put my head through a window. (my guess was originally that they would scrap the romantic element of it entirely and just leave it as vegas the villain and pete the victim)

but this new aspect of pete’s character opens the door to some much more interesting options (my favorite amongst those is these two ending up in some real kinky s/m relationship), like actual relationship stuff. the main concern in this case is the whole consent problem and they’ve been doing such a good job handling it so far that i’m holding out real hope.

next i’d like to talk about korn’s scene. again papa korn is feeding kinn the compan line and again he’s doing it in a really ambigiuous way. like he keeps introducing kinn to important aspects of ruling the family (and essentially the crime world in general), but he never, ever actually tells kinn what he should do.i find it a super interesting detail to their dynamic because korn is still holding absolute power, but he’s deliberately Not wielding it against kinn. 

korn Will turn kinn’s attetion to important details but he Won’t tell him how to act next and subsequently kinn get to make his own choices (even if they’re not the ones korn would have made). in ep 5, it was kinn who decided porsche’s punishment - he makes a mistake, that korn had to step in to help him fix by giving porsche the week off. 

in this episode, kinn isn’t jumping through the hoops korn is presenting him with. korn tell’s him that his feeling are affecing his judgment, but kinn still goes to porsche in the minor family house, twice. it’s an important distinction and i think it’s also part of korn’s agenda. korn’s not going to live forever, kinn’s going to have to make his own choices one day without korn at his back.

Now onto the main event.

the scene of kinn and porsche on the balcony took me through the whole fucking range of human emotion, like what the fuck XD like first it’s romantic gift giving (”the gun and yourself” lukjfhgidjfksg) then it’s the lame ass dick jokes and then tenderness and touching foreheads and forehead kiss can you please let me live???

the scene where porsche checks on kinn in the hospital and kinn gets pissy about porsche being cosy with vegas was Gold ok? like the way porsche sprawls back against the couch with this huge ass grin on his face as soon as kinn gets pissed and immediately comences being a little shit about kinn’s jealousy? like kinn my man, your boy has never backed down from a challenge in his life, he is constantly and at a moments notice ready to throw hands XD nxndbdk

and now to that final scene, hang on to your butts folk this is gonna be paragraphes and  paragraphes of me ranting and raving about apo and his fucking acting ok? ok

the beginning of That scene porsche is being damn near carried into the bathroom by vegas. please allow me to point out just how casual vegas is about the whole thing, like this bitch is selling the drunken shananegens angle even while he’s taking porsche’s shirt off, like that’s what i call commitment to the role.

then he goes in for the kill and porsche is Not Into It. like it’s instant discomfort and he gets a hand between them to push vegas off immediately, but vegas is smart, vegas is smooth, he’s got porsches practically sitting on the counter and he puts himself between his legs as soon as he leans in, which means porsche has got zero leverage to push back against him (his legs are off the floor and there’s no wall at his back to push against).

He is also, note, not very agressive about pushing when porsche resists him, like he’s definitely leaning in but he’s not pushing hard enough that porsche resorts to actual violence. he’s not restraining his hands and he’s not grabbing him, it’s all very subtle. which leaves porsche to try and curl away from the unwanted advances instead of reacting with violence.

[Gif by @parkjiminmochi ]

i’m dying, i’m dying this is where it starts beacause, the way porsche curls in, trying to turn away even while vegas has him boxed in? uhg it’s killing me. and then kinn comes in and at first porsche is smiling, he’s relieved and then kinn turns to yell at him and his face falls, there confution and upset and also geunine alarm because he can’t understand why kinn is mad at him. 

and then kinn slaps him, it’s not hard, it’s more of a pat, but there’s enough sting to it that it’s insulting and porsche flinches.

[Gif by @roqueruiz ]

and this is the first time we see fear from porsche in this scene. and apo did such a fucking marvelous job because there’s a definite difference between the expression on his face before that slap and after it, sort of a sinking realization of what kinn is thinking at this moment - what he’s accusing him of - and his mind immediately leaps to what vegas told him about kinn’s ex, to the consequences of kinn believing he’s been betrayed, even and maybe especially by someone he loves.

in ep 6, kinn said he didn’t know porsche could be afraid of something, but the truth is, porsche gets afraid - On Screen - a few time that we’ve seen. it’s just that porsche does not react to fear the way most people do. i’ve said it earlier didn’t i? no matter what kind, porsche Does Not back down from a fight. Ever. 

after that little slap? porsche pushes kinn away - kinn is agressive so porsche is agressive back. it’s what’s been giving kinn so much trouble with porsche from the get go, kinn is used to people backing down from him, porsche has never done it. not once.

he pushes back. he gets angry that kinn is accusing him, isn’t trusting him,he throw’s kinn’s ex in his face and when kinn retaliates by calling him a whore he slaps him, hard. it doesn’t matter how much it hurts and how scared he is and who’s on the other side - porsche does not back down from a fight. 

(when kinn said THAT? I was HOLLERING. I paused and i screamed and my god was that slap the least that he deserves, i can’t even with that fucking man - skfduhfa’lij)

when porsche tries to storm off and kinn grabs him he struggles. he’s angry and hurt, he’s feeling vulnerable emotionally and physically - he does not want kinn to touch him. even while kinn herds him against the mirror he turns sideways, creating space for himself, leaving himself room to move and gain leverage against the mirror if he needs it (he’s gearing up for a fight, it’s what he expects).

[GIF by @liyazaki ]

and then he tries to turn the other way, he tries to push kinn’s arm off and head towards the exit and kinn closes the distance and pins him up agains the mirror. 

and that’s like a fucking switch has been flicked right there.

[GIF by @liyazaki ]

look how he fucking curls in ok? look. (apo why are you doing this to me?) he tuck his arms close, like he’s covering himself. his shoulders go up and his head goes down and he’s trying to make himself as small as he can and I bet he holds his breath too right at that moment. FUCK ME OK?

you just know that his mind went to the night he got drugged - pinned against a glass surface with kinn at his back ? - fuck it you KNOW that that’s what he’s thinking about.

it’s definitely where my mind went, the lighting? the position? I damn near flashbacked to that scene, you can bet your ass that porsche definitely did. and that’s that fear i was talking about, because porsche is afraid. (has got a damn good reason to be afraid because this has happened before) 

and you know what? kinn thinks about it too. he does. he sees porsche curled up like this and he knows. he apologizes. he takes a step back. and even though he’s still boxing porsche in, he’s Not touching him anymore. he’s giving him space. he’s giving him choice.

in the end it’s porsche that turns around to face kinn, he let’s kinn touch him, let’s him kiss him and when porsche pushes kinn away he barely has to put any pressure behind it at all and i think it’s a lovely, lovely contrast to vegas earlier who wasn’t using force exactly, but definitely didn’t back away when porsche was trying to get him to.

you guys know what happens next and i won’t talk about it because i could barely stay sane watching it so i’ll just say this: HOT DAMN

p.s. porchay was the absolute cutest this episode and kim going snooping and finding his wik shrine was actual comedy gold.

also where was my boy tankhun? where was he? GIVE HIM TO ME

[starklyscifi]

The Devil is in the Details

“What has you so convinced the future is neatly ordered?”

The clock on the wall ticked, as clocks were wont to do. Counting down the seconds to her freedom—dependent on navigating this minefield. Recently, Annie felt she was one wrong word away from a 72 hour hold in these sessions. But as usual, she was turning the question over and over in head, long after walking out of her therapist’s office.

Words seem to fail her, keeping their meanings for themselves instead of convincing the people around her she was not, in fact, going insane.

“Ma’am?”

Losing track of her place in reality, now there was a new sensation. A little spice to mix up the constant feeling of having spoken all these words before. The barista at the coffee shop looked worried, eyebrows furrowed together.

“Um, chai latte with oat milk, please.”

She stepped out of line.

“You know that chai already means tea, right?” asked a man in a blue shirt.

“I didn’t call it a chai tea latte,” she muttered, the familiar sense of deja vu fluttering through her chest. She’d had this interaction before, she was sure of it.

Her therapist would tell her it was apophenia—seeing patterns where there were none, faces in the wallpaper.

A potential symptom of schizophrenia. Especially with her family history.

Annie pulled a battered blue notebook from her bag, flipping it open. The notebook was filled with scribbles, right up to an abrupt halt in the middle. Where she’d given up on the attempt to keep up her own mind.

She flipped a sheet back and forth, trying to make out her own frantic handwriting.

“Chai latte, oat milk, for Annie?”

Annie came home to a familiar scene. Her mother’s wrinkled, calloused hands, holding tissue paper pages of her cracked leather Bible.

“Did you go to your session today?”

“Yes, Mom, I went.”

“And?”

Annie didn’t know what her mother wanted her to say. Or, rather, didn’t know what her mother expected her to say.

“And it was as helpful as ever.”

Her mother sighed. “Annie.”

“What, Mom? Do you expect me to walk in one day and everything’s just magically back to normal?”

Her mother folded her hands, crinkling the thin pages. The problem was, that was exactly what she expected. Maybe a reasonable thing to expect when she was convinced it was all in her daughter’s head.

“Pride goeth before destruction, Annie.”

“That’s not what’s happening, Mom.”

“Only the Lord knows the secrets of the future.”

Annie scrapped her chair back. She walked past the living room, heading for the stairs and the safety of her own room, passing her grandmother in her rocking chair, keeping the cat prisoner on her lap. The nightly news played on the TV, a shooting spree at the mall, a picture of the gunman flashing on screen.

Her grandmother winked at her.

“I look forward to the day we can have a conversation that’s more than you quoting bible verses at me,” she said, over her shoulder.

“The Lord detests all the proud of heart. They will not go unpunished.”

The next day, Annie was again standing in line at the coffee shop, flipping the last page in her notebook back and forth. Something was bothering her about the writing, distracting her while she was trying to order.

“Uh, chai tea latte with oat milk, please.”

“You know that chai already means tea, right?” the man in the blue shirt said, as Annie stepped out of the ordering line.

“You know that’s obnoxious, right?”

“What?” he said, with a smile, “Imparting knowledge?”

Repeating yourself like that, she thought.

“No one asked.”

The smile wavered. The man shrugged. “I’d want to be corrected, if I was doing something wrong.”

Annie ignored that, focusing on her notebook and deciphering her own handwriting. She could make out “blue shirt” and “coffee” and “TV.”

“Wow, looks like someone needs penmanship lessons.”

“You know what?” Annie said, snapping her head up, “You need to….”

She was looking at his face, actually looking at his, for the first time. No, not for the first time. She knew that face. She knew him. Not this conversation, but him. She’s seen him before.

“Do I know you?” she said, in answer to his raised eyebrows.

The man laughed.

And she knew this conversation—they’d had this conversation. Hadn’t they?

“I doubt it. I just got in from New York this morning. Never been here before.” He carried on with something about the friendliness of the people, but Annie wasn’t listening. That was a lie.

She knew it was a lie.

He’d been here yesterday, hadn’t he? He’d said something to her.

Something about chai.

A shiver went down Annie’s spine.

He’d said the same thing moments ago. Don’t you know chai already means tea?

Annie went sprinting out the door, just as the barista called her name. She knew where she’d seen his face, too.

Just got in from New York this morning.

She was shaking.

She knew exactly who he was. And where she had seen his face. On the news, last night. For once, it all made sense. She was seeing the future, seeing the fingerprints of God, not faces in the wallpaper. And this time, she could prove it.

Running across the crosswalk with a “don’t walk” sign, the notebook slipped from her hands without her notice. The notebook landed on the sidewalk, the wind flipping through the pages filled with unrecognizable scribbles.

@flashfictionfridayofficial

[theneighborhoodwatch]

that's odd - somehow you managed to reblog the first version of this post even after i already edited it?? normally i wouldn't make too much note of this, but i edited the post because i noticed One Big Glaring Inaccuracy on my part: the cross cufflinks don't actually come from the 2019 draft, but showed up some time around 2020 when welcome home was first being reworked before being scrapped when the website launched. probably not a big deal to anyone else, since it doesn't really change the core ideas discussed in this thread, but for accuracy's sake, here's the edited post.

i couldn't find any marlo phone concept art with 666, only 999 - but i still think it's interesting that they latched onto that number, given that Apparently, in numerology (aside from the Obvious potential significance of most repeating number sequences being referred to as "angel numbers") 999 is associated with completion, release, new beginnings, all that good stuff - your current situation is coming to an end, new opportunities will present themselves, and if you haven't let relinquished control over that situation? it's time to let go. of course, as with all pieces from 2020*, the jury's out on whether or not this actually means anything for welcome home.

(side note, i'm gonna be totally honest, and i'm not passing judgement on You when i say this, but since you reminded me: i really cannot stand the idea that sally's backstory is meant to parallel lucifer's fall lmao. i could see myself coming around to it if canon actually does lean more on it in the future, but right now it just feels so... i dunno, literal? corny? on the nose? it's giving creepypasta, and not in the good way.)

as for personal experience - i don't have much to say except Yeah. i didn't grow up in a super fundamentalist household; my mom has always been a very devout christian and signed me up for a lot of bible study groups when i was a kid, but she's also always been more comfortable practicing at home. BUT i did have a lot of friends who grew up in Very similar circumstances as what you described, and long story short i was not surprised to learn that most of them either went no contact after they moved out or ran away before they could.

i think i said something Very Similar regarding the neighbors a while back? i don't think their minds are being literally limited, but like. actually hang on let me get my notes:

i hesitate to compare any of the neighbors to children outright bc they Are all canonically adults. but i think they all have some degree of immaturity in their own way. their environment doesn’t seem to have given them much room or encouragement to grow for obvious reasons (something something status quo is god) and based on what we know so far it's just that wally seems to exhibit this the most.

y'know?

what i'm curious about is how home feels about all of this, if they are indeed meant to be an Embodiment of it all. you could argue, in this context, that the black maybe-mold is a sign that they are beginning to show their True, Monstrous Form - but as i've said many times in the past, i'm hesitant to cast home as any sort of pure villain. so if we instead take the black mold as a sign that they are sick, perhaps it's not a stretch of the imagination to say that they, too, suffer from this stagnation, or at least the neglect that has come with it? combined with wally being desperate to get some eyes back on home the town, i wonder what that could be saying... but i feel as though coming up with a single answer to that would be exceeding what we currently have to work with, which isn't much. i'll stop here, for brevity's sake.

*yes i'm aware that this audio was reuploaded in 2022, but the Original post/the art itself was made in 2020, iirc.

I've been thinking a lot about the houses, specifically how they might correlate with WH's theme of religion. The parts in the livestream trivia where Clown talked about the houses is really interesting, how Home is the only "alive" house but all the neighbors believe their houses are alive to some capacity. And the fact that the holidays are to celebrate their houses, where human holidays are usually to celebrate deities/religions.

The only thing on the website that still has this religious theme is the So Below page of Wally (possibly) worshipping Home. Perhaps Clown removed the cross cufflinks and Baphomet imagery so WH could be an allegory about religion instead of straight up about Christianity. The houses/Home could be metaphors for deities and the neighbors are their followers, even if their perception of religion and what it means is probably very different than humans'.

i was wondering why i had a hard time answering this message yesterday, and i think it's because i never really saw welcome home as a story about christianity or even religion as a whole, in either its current iteration or its earlier drafts. i think there is a very good chance that it's one aspect of welcome home, but... how do i say this.

when i see posts from clown talking about what he feels welcome home is about, i get the impression that at its core, welcome home is a story about alienation - from society, from one's environment, from one's peers, even from one's own self - and Specifically about alienation that comes as a result of changing (or at least desiring change) in an environment that upholds stagnation/the status quo/etc. as The Ideal. not Quite the same as but very similar to nostalgia poisoning, two peas in a pod. and i don't think it's a coincidence that this can also be lobbed as a criticism at the practices of Many christian denominations in the usa, a country in which christian hegemony is still very strongly felt in many aspects of daily life (let alone back when welcome home was airing in-universe or when its supposed creator, ronald dorelaine, was growing up.) i suspect that part of the reason the christian symbolism seems to have been reworked into something more subtle between welcome home's 2019 concept and what we have now is because:

A.) it would have been rather on the nose, even hokey, to have the world of welcome home (the in-universe show) be a textually christian one (or have the christian subtext be so strong that it might as well just be text) when you don't really Need welcome home to be a religious production to demonstrate the idea that art is shaped by the culture/society in which it exists and/or its creator(s) hail from.

B.) it was less ... nuanced? idk if that's the word i'm looking for, but - i do not think it is a coincidence that wally's old cross cufflinks were a holdover from his design for a draft in which he seemed to be much more overtly, Aggressively antagonistic in his status as the center of attention, and was pitted against a much more straightforwardly heroic character who was on more equal footing with the rest of the neighbors. i Suspect that if any of what i just said comes into play, then perhaps the current iteration of welcome home is the way it is because it leaves room to acknowledge that even people who are hurt by this upholding of stagnation as the ideal willingly perpetuate it anyway, for a number of reasons.

BUT. to get back to the actual ask, since we have no idea what's actually gonna happen in welcome home at this point in time, let's say that none of what i just talked about comes up even once and that the concept of The Home is really what we should be focusing on here wrt the religious symbolism. i think it's less that the houses themselves are metaphors for deities and more that, like - the importance of homes in the world the neighbors live in is so great that the only way it can be expressed in terms that a human could understand would be through the lens of religious/spiritual beliefs. i am intrigued by the idea that each neighbor has their own relationship to this belief though, and how that may effect their environment in the future. Much To Think About.

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

madeline miller’s ‘the song of achilles’

Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus (1855) by Nikolai Ge

What I loved about The Song of Achilles: this and this and this. 

My interest in classics began circa 2005, with Disney’s animated series based off of their rendition of Hercules. Fast forward to several years later, to when I stumbled across one of my grandad’s books; several of my rose-tinted childhood memories would be tainted by the knowledge that the actual Heracles had very little in common with Disney’s adaptation of him. 

The historical period that I was really invested in for most of my preteen and early teenage years were the Dark Ages, and Medieval Europe in general; so my Greek mythology phase was short-lived, and my knowledge of it is… well, I know Dionysus fucked himself with a wooden dildo to fulfil a promise he made, and that he’s perhaps the only decent bloke up there on Olympus (I’d tell Zeus to go fuck himself but he’d probably go through with it), and also that Dionysus is BTS’s best song since Boy Meets Evil, and that Stray Kids did a bangin’ cover of it late last year. 

In other words: vague and superficial. 

But I know enough to tell you that Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles is one of the best books I’ve ever read, hands down. 

The story of Achilles and Patroclus and the Trojan War is pretty common knowledge, I’ll warrant, but just in case: SPOILERS AHEAD. 

Retelling a story almost everyone knows isn’t easy; you’ve got the plot down and how to get there, but you’ve got to write it in a way that doesn’t read like a middle school book report you scrapped together a night before the assignment was due (… not that I know what that’s like, haha). And Miller does an excellent job of it; her diction? Brilliant. Her prose? Incredible. Her characterizations? Completely not ever been done before. 

The Song of Achilles is told in Patroclus’s first-person point of view; most of it is about his early years with Achilles; Patroclus’s banishment to Phthia, meeting Achilles, befriending Achilles, and then both of them being tutored by Chiron (a far cry from Disney’s funny little goat man). The Trojan War takes up less of the book than I thought it would, at first (which, of course, I’m infinitely grateful for- since we all know how THAT ends) (#RIP). 

Which brings me to one of the biggest questions I had up to the last few chapters before the end of the book: how will the story go on after Patroclus dies, since it’s in the first person? (The first-person POV threw me off at first; it’s been a while outside of contemporary YA that I’ve read anything in that POV, and it was a bit jarring- but the further I read, I realized that it was the best option for the book; it gave the story a depth, a level of emotion you couldn’t’ve achieved in the third person.)

And call me a masochist, but Patroclus’s death and the aftermath ended up being my favorite parts of the book. I’ve read stories that have given me actual, physical pain (one of my top two Harry Potter ships is Wolfstar, go figure), but this is the first time I’ve actually read something that made me cry (despite the numerous Ao3 comments I’ve left that are variants of ‘omg I’m crying’). Like, actual, physical tears welling up in my eyes. 

There’s this particular scene, in the ninth chapter, where Chiron is telling Patroclus and Achilles about Heracles, and how he, unlike Disney’s well-intentioned, bumbling himbo, goes insane and kills his family. Achilles, my sweet summer child, is quite reasonably agitated by this; how it was unfair, how Heracles’ wife and children paid for the gods’ tiff with Heracles with their own lives. And Chiron says: 

“… Perhaps it is he greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.” 

Go ahead, Miller; twist the goddamn knife. It’s not like I needed my heart, anyway. 

Also, unrelated, but I find it interesting how countries that are continents apart end up having quite similar legends. My roots are from an entirely different continent than Greece, but we have a folktale quite similar to the legend of Aesclepius. 

But I digress. 

Character-wise: Achilles; half-mortal, hero of the Trojan war, the greatest warrior among men. And despite his demigod status, he remains so human. And this might be controversial, but… he comes off a lot more fleshed-out than Patroclus himself. Which is perhaps my sole gripe with this book. 

Patroclus is… well, he exists. He’s the son his father never wanted. He kills a boy. Falls in love with Achilles. Spends a concerning amount of time describing Achilles’ feet. 

Honestly, up until the chapters in Troy, he doesn’t have much of a personality. And maybe it’s because Miller wanted to remain as true to the Iliad and Odyssey, and, if my memory serves me correct, neither of them give a lot to Patroclus in the way of character development; but still, he comes off a bit- bland. Of course, towards the end, his character gets a bigger role than ‘loves Achilles’; especially seen in how he defies Achilles to spare Briseis, and then dons the armor and subsequently gets himself killed (#ApolloIsOverParty), but up till then, he’s pretty meh. 

Briseis is another one of my favorite characters; it was a bit difficult for me to divorce my perception of her from Emily Hauser’s For the Most Beautiful. Her friendship with Patroclus (and, by extension, Achilles; even if he did screw her over afterwards) was perhaps the only good to come out of the war. 

And then we have the obligatory: fuck Thetis and FUCK Agamemnon (thank you, Clytemnestra).

Achilles and Patroclus’ love was wonderfully written, and I love how them being queer wasn’t the central focus of the story (admittedly, the ancient Greeks were markedly more casual about homosexuality than the bible-belt world we live in today). A lot of the (non-fanfiction) queer lit I’ve read tends to make everything revolve around, “bUt I aM bOy,,, aNd I LiKe bOy,,, bUT hOW???”, and homophobia is the biggest obstacle to their relationship. And those stories are realistic and need to be told- but we need literature with more variety. 

My final verdict: a work of art. I’m going to read Circe and Galatea.

[blueskittlesart]

So, please be serious here: what exactly is so bad about Voltron? I heard that the fandom became terrible at some point, (?) but I genuinely have no clue about what went wrong beyond that!

ok let’s get into it but i am going to warn you this is a HUGE shitshow. im putting it under a readmore because its so much and i dont want to subject anyone to this unless they actually want to know lol

there are 2 main issues that i can remember with voltron itself, not even touching the fandom, and those are bad writing and queerbaiting/homophobia. 

I could go on and on about the bad writing, but the gist of it is that about halfway through voltron’s two-year production schedule, the writers scrapped the show’s bible. which, i feel like i shouldnt have to say this, but you really should not do. after this point the story went EXTREMELY off the rails, ending with the unforeshadowed death of a main character which didn’t really make sense in context. (i didn’t watch season 8 but from what I heard her death was like.. pretty graphic for a kids show too). 

Aside from that, what appealed to me and many people about voltron in its first few seasons was that it was a very character driven show and each character was given a good amount of development and screen time. However, by about season 4 certain characters were being unceremoniously pushed aside in favor of others. After the mess that was the end of voltron, it came out that the head writers were doing this kind of thing to spite the side of the fandom who heavily critiqued them. 

next let’s get into the queerbaiting and homophobia. this is where it gets REALLY messy. i beieve one of the showrunners had promised lgbt rep at a panel in 2016, but i can’t confirm that. basically, everyone believed that there would be lgbt rep and everyone had been waiting a very long time for said rep. 

So let’s set the scene. it’s the voltron panel at san diego comic con 2018. at this panel, they plan to show the first episode of the upcoming season, season 7. after they show the episode, the panel, which includes the two showrunners and a few voice actors, take questions from the audience. In the episode that they play at the panel, there is a short flashback scene where one of the paladins, shiro, talks to another man, adam. Adam was a character we had never seen before. Adam and shiro were implied in the scene to be close, but there was no explicit confirmation in this scene of weather adam’s relationship with shiro was romantic or not. After the episode finished, the audience was allowed to ask questions. One of the questions was, of course, regarding adam and shiro. one of the showrunners confirmed that they were not only together, but engaged, and that we would be seeing more of adam in the upcoming season 7. cue fandom chaos. everyone is freaking out that they finally got the lgbt rep they had been waiting for, everyone is praising the writers and making fanart of shiro and adam and wondering what kind of great reunion scene the two will get when season 7 drops. 

then season 7 drops. adam and shiro do not get their happy reunion. In fact, the only scene with adam in it in the whole season, aside from the short scene that was shown at sdcc, is a very short cut where adam dies in a fighter crash. 

and yes it’s two years later and i am still angry about this so the rest of this is going to be worded very angrily. shiro got a two second scene of him looking sadly at a plaque with adam’s name on it. shiro did not get to reunite with his fiancee. adam was never even explicitly confirmed to BE SHIROS FIANCEE in the show. if you were watching it without the context of the sdcc panel, you could write it off as them being close friends. (in fact, there was a seperate dub recorded of the scene in episode 1 where adam specifically calls shiro his ‘best friend’ NOT his fiancee, but we’re not even gonna get into that shitshow.) basically, they buried their gays, and they buried them BIG TIME. it was especially heinous in the eyes of many (me included) because they released the news of shiro’s sexuality at sdcc with that episode and then ripped it away from us when they killed adam. 

at the end of season 8 there was a montage of clips showing what happened to the paladins after voltron. Shiro’s showed him getting married to a male background character he had never actually interacted with, presumably a half assed apology from the writers after the uproar after season 7. 

aside from the whole adam deal, there was an f/f alien couple (zethrid/ezor) who were implied to be in a romantic relationship and then immediately afterwards tried to torture the main characters. we love gay villains! so quirky and not at all homophobic!!

there’s more i could get into: undertones of racism, fatphobia, facist apologism, etc, but those are the two MAIN points of the shitshow that was voltron. Again, this is ONLY within the show itself, not even touching all the fandom drama, which would need a whole other post. i hope this clears some things up lol i cant believe i experienced all this shit firsthand

[stylishanachronism]

So uh, this Got Long, but here, have a couple of thousand words about Edér's narrative (and like... the game structure as a whole, I tried to stay on topic but I've got a couple of dozen essays somewhere (some are even cited because that's what I do with my life) about this nonsense so.) and also his character development, because those aren't actually the same thing. It is probably the Worst essay I have ever written, and that's saying something.

Anyways.

Edér's character thread (not his character development per se but the thing that permits it if I'm making any sense whatsoever) in both games is very much both 'grappling with religion' and 'grappling with choices he didn't know he was making' but also 'grappling with choices he made based on incomplete information' and the consequences of all three. (Honestly, speaking as somebody who, if I had a character thread, it'd be the same damn one, I was really pleased by how well they handled it in both games (the fact it’s not supposed to be his narrative in Deadfire nonwithstanding). Most series don't, but that's a completely different kettle of fish.) 

So like, in the first game, when you find him he's basically stuck at the point where he feels utterly betrayed (by his god, by his church, by his community, even by his family, sort of), but also like nothing he did mattered in the short or long run, and despite his best efforts, every time he's tried to help he's just made things worse, so there's really nothing he can or should do, and even if he did, it wouldn't help or matter, so why should he bother? Like he's flat out 'yeah, they're going to kill me next, just killing time 'till that happens, what of it?', which is a hell of a lead off, given you don't find out the rest of it until later and the fact that despite all that, he’s not particularly suicidal. And he's so desperate to feel like he's doing something he wanders off with the first wild-eyed possibly-crazy definitely-sicker-than-a-dog person he comes across, without even squaring up his debts or closing up his house or quitting his metaphorical job, (Obsidian show me your setting bible, I need to know what the Dyrwood exports and if ring lace isn't on that list somewhere I'll make every single developer eat the ring shawl I haven't knit, I have Opinions about this, but also, kettle, fish.), just because they gave him the thinnest, most ridiculous scrap of a hope that he might get answers that make the rest of it okay! And he doesn't! He never gets those answers! 

...Well, sort of. He doesn't get the answer to 'What did Woden, the brother I idolize above all else, know that I didn't?' for vaguely bullshit reasons (look I'm just saying if I can articulate 'yeah, that was really Eothas, and yeah, Woden basically had a fucking pentacostal moment and then got his brain steamrolled' (...more on that later, that's actually relevant), the Watcher ought to have been able to do the same, which changes the lack of answers to 'why didn't Eothas just... do something to prove it was him' and/or 'if it was that obvious, why did it come to that?', which are the questions that the narrative's actually concerned with (and also sort of get addressed in Deadfire, but More On That Later), Obsidian Where is Your Setting Bible I Have Questions), but he does get to come to terms with what he actually did, Not Knowing What Woden Knew (and it's a solid ending either way! I liked the consequences! Either he tries to make amends for what he sees as a dereliction of duty, not just to his god but to his community on a spiritual level (the Night Market ending), or he says 'fuck you, I failed but so did you, Eothas' and he sets out make amends for what he sees a dereliction of duty to his community and his community alone, on a practical level (the Mayor ending) and either way he's no longer stuck feeling worthless, and he has a purpose again, more accurately has learned to forge his own purpose, and he's good at whatever it is he's doing!)

And in the meantime, he's been doing good shit! Lasting shit! Even when it all goes to hell he's making progress, which is excellent for his state of mind (and you see that reflected in not only how he treats the Watcher but also how he reacts to shit like giant setbacks (Maerwald! What Happened to Woden! That time Defiance Bay was on fire! Hell even the wolf encounter in White March, that's something Gilded Vale Edér would have wanted to do, but probably wouldn't have been able to bring himself to do or would have but like, Knowing one or both of them would die for it, and by the earliest point you can hit that, he can just… do it) and this is the part where I do not talk about romance novel tropes because that development is also where he starts being the Romantic Lead for realsies. It’s very interesting! But this essay is trying to stay focused.)

Anyways that's… a lot of words to say the heart of his first game character arc is that he learns to live with what happened without ever knowing why, for better or for worse, it did, learns to forgive himself (and everyone else involved, more or less) and any way you cut it, he makes his own purpose, and he ends up okay at the end. 

(Going off on a momentary tangent, one of the things I really liked about the first game is how focused it was? Like all the quests, even the stupid ones, asked serious moral questions about various things, and made you stick to the answers. I've talked before about the Dyrford questline, which is ugly on every front, but doesn't pull any of those punches either, and doesn't have a clear 'right' answer, but they're really all like that to some extent, and especially the character quests. Like, Edér's is about religion and forgiveness, Aloth's is about authority and 'divine right v free will' so to speak, Grieving Mother's is about doing horrible things with the very best of intentions and living with that, Sagani's is about deciding what's important enough to hold on to when all else is lost, etc. etc., and even the tiny ones have questions like ‘if murder is the only way out of an abusive relationship, is that the right answer?’ like there's no quest you could cut without actual ramifications to the overall storyline or the worldbuilding, and that was Great.)

...Which brings us to Deadfire, and this is where it might get a little weird? I need to stress that my first playthrough was bugged to hell, my second was... almost as bad, tbh, and I didn't manage to finish any of the DLC (mostly due to charming things like invisible indestructible final bosses, for example, which still have not been fixed), and by the time I hit the third go round (because it turns out turn based is a ton more fun) I was extremely confused about the actual order of events, due to the aforementioned bugs, so some of the conclusions I've drawn might be a bit off base. (Also Deadfire suffers from sequelitis, by which I mean it has a bunch of internal and, uh, intertextual contradictions of established canon, and it’s not particularly tightly plotted, among other things. I still really liked it! But the worldbuilding's cracked a little bit.)

So Deadfire opens with Eothas bursting out of the earth like a really big chick in a really small egg or something, killing a lot of people in the process, and Edér going 'oh shit, my god just more than half murdered my bff!' and, touching back on what @brightoncemore said earlier, racing off after the statue he’s piloting on basically a hope and a prayer, Watcher in tow, on the half chance this might save their life. It's a hell of a thing, but it means that the opening of his Deadfire arc is 'Dear Eothas, why the Fuck do you keep doing this (to me)?', and depending on which of his endings he's coming off of, this is either a further betrayal from someone he'd managed, not to forgive, but to move on from, or a further betrayal from someone he had managed to forgive, and whose forgiveness in turn he'd spent a solid five years seeking. It is not 'huh, wonder what my old flame's up to?' (not that Elafa was his old flame, but more on that later, and alternately if it is the old flame is Eothas and the answer is ‘being a casually murderous dick for inscrutable reasons’), and nor is it a 'my biological clock is ticking and I didn't manage to adopt Vela properly', which to be honest is what I got out of his bit of his actual personal quest, more or less. (Spoilers: his personal quest is actually Bearn’s personal quest, and he’s not even a recruitable companion, which is rude considering Tekēhu, among other companions.)

What happens to the Watcher is rather more intimately tied up in his character arc in Deadfire, which is where the real trouble comes from; the developers Did Not Want the romance, so they kept trying to walk it back (remember I don’t find this particularly tightly plotted), while all of his character development was tied up in the same tropes that make him the Romantic Lead (we aren’t even going to mention the fucking wedding), and frankly it’s a mess.

So you’ve got the shoe-horned in ‘I’m head over heels for someone I literally never mentioned before, whoops she’s dead and her kid, who might be my kid (spoilers: he’s not, the timeline doesn’t work, not that the timeline works anywhere ever), is going to do something Really Stupid’ thing that his Named personal quest, which is just barely even about him to begin with, while meanwhile he’s yelling at gods and making the same big sweeping decisions from the first game as he gets more information about what did/might have/could have happened. Like, there’s one revelation in the base game (Eothas is the reason for his rad magic armor, and despite Edér feeling betrayed and abandoned for almost two decades(!), he really was paying close attention to everything Edér did, and I at least got the impression that part of the reason Eothas is trying to make amends is because of what happened to Edér due to his actions, like he’s here to ‘help’ kith in general, and Edér in particular, and the Watcher makes a particularly convenient tool to do so), and then BoW and FS each have another (that instead of St. Waidwen, it might have been St. Edér, and it was pretty much the flip of a coin that decided it the way it was, and also that Waidwen didn’t know what he was doing but he did it with intent anyways, so they were both betrayed on multiple levels (I left the first game convinced Eothas had just steamrolled Waidwen’s brain the same way he’d steamrolled Woden’s, so it was very interesting to discover that that didn’t precisely happen), and also that there was a distinct difference between Waidwen, who theoretically went into this with his eyes open, and Woden, who didn’t. There’s a whole series of essays in that alone, but again, kettle, fish.), and what ought to have been his ‘defining choice’ (v whatever happened to Bearn), is his whole thing at Magran’s Teeth, where he demands Eothas be better (which, if it had been his personal quest, could have been reactive on ‘I was right, you’re just as bad as the rest’ if he comes to the conclusion Eothas sees all their lives as playthings, and he doesn’t actually care he just wants to be Right, or the canonical ‘Do better you fucker’ if he comes to the conclusion that Eothas just Doesn’t Get It, with a reprise at Ukaizo, because I loved the narrative callbacks that actually exist and it would have been a really good place for one.), instead of what we got (I went and looked them up, what the fuck), which was… completely backwards for his character, holy shit. Either he goes and camps on Elafa’s grave because her kid was a moron (well… kettle, fish, here is another essay and this one’s already too long, we don’t need a discussion of cults and Bearn’s equal desire for a purpose, which is a narrative foil they could have done something with but never did), or he decides to parent this kid who he firstly doesn’t know, secondly doesn’t know him, and thirdly in a place that’s been pretty wrecked that he’s completely unfamiliar with for what’s seriously no reason (Bearn is…. arguably 17? 18? The timeline never works, but that’s about where he’s written, also kettle, fish, arguments that don’t go here.) since the boy is almost an adult to begin with, none of which has anything to do with his need to have a purpose, or the fact he explicitly follows the Watcher around as part of that, and they’ve gone back to the Dyrwood either way. Like it’s just… such a reversal from his growth in the first game, basically dropping him back where he started at the very very beginning, mired in hopeless, apathetic guilt over something that he actually had fuck all to do with this time around.

Anyways, the whole thing where the developers rooted his endstate choices in something that, to be really frank, could have been deleted without doing fuck all to the narrative (remember how all the quests in the first games were important? Yeah, no, a solid chunk of the quests serve little to no real purpose in Deadfire, even the ones I love.) is unfortunately a Thing. Tekehu’s lack of a quest is the Watershaper’s Guild questline, it straight up should have been his personal quest, he’s got the only solid one in the game, Xoti’s feels like it was supposed to be a callback to Grieving Mother’s, but in reverse, and while I loved it, it doesn’t go anywhere, not for her character (either she does a shitty thing for a good reason and goes crazy and can’t regret her choices, or she does a good thing for terrible reasons and doesn’t learn from that either, so far as I can tell) or for the narrative as a whole (there is also an essay about Gaun’s place in the worldbuilding here, kettle, fish), Seraphen either asks the important questions and Gets It, or he doesn’t and he… doesn’t, and either way it’s literally never addressed again, Maia’s has backwards consequences for some reason, which completely defeats the purpose of a character development quest on top of being basically Sir Not Appearing in this Game to begin with, Aloth’s doesn’t really do anything for his development either (his is all elsewhere in the game, too), and as much highly appreciated narrative context Pallegina’s provided, it didn’t make any sense for her character where it was (in either state) in Deadfire, not to mention it was confusing as hell. (Also, narratively speaking? Rekke should have had one, as should Ydwin, on the bias (she’s bugged to shit, and therefore keeps vanishing from my playthroughs, but what I’ve managed to see of her opens a lot of doors, so to speak). They’re both more plot important than some of the *actual* companions, and it’s terrible.)

And like, I get it, Deadfire had a *lot* more moving parts than Pillars did, having character quests that were any more timeline/location dependent would have been a terrible idea, it’s already so easy to fuck up the order of events without even trying, simply because you can just travel anywhere at any point just by picking a direction, and I have the very strong feeling that a lot of the existant character arcs were not intended to be as important as they ended up being, but still. Still. I expected a lot more out of… pretty much everything.

Speaking of: the very last sequence of the game. Eothas, doing the thing. Breaking the wheel. Murdering the world. Ending the Game. Whatever you want to call it.

Dear Obsidian: what, pray tell, the Actual Fuck.

One of the things that I got out of the first game, like not even extrapolating it’s right there in black and white in the text, is that the Wheel? Co-opted by the Engwithans, who essentially bolted a tap onto it to power their gods, but who neither invented nor really affected it in any way, shape, or form. Like, I think it’s Iovara who says that the gods are built on an existing system, parasites on a natural process? I’m not citing this and I don’t remember, but it’s in the last sequence of that game somewhere, and I’m 99% sure it’s one of her revelations. Anyways, smashing the physical wheel should have done fuck all to the metaphysical process, even with the Valians eating all the adra, like the question of ‘what do we do now???’ should have been about ‘how do we keep the gods alive, and do we even want to?’ not ‘oh shit, how do we keep the fucking world running’, that’s not the thematically relevant question. Like the game spends the whole time asking nitty gritty questions on the theme of ‘do we need the gods or do they need us?’ (Pallegina’s whole quest, for example, everything about the godlikes ever, a solid chunk of the underpinning of all three DLCs, the weird shit in Cignath Mor, like it’s woven through e v e r y t h i n g.) The fact that the final deciding question is instead ‘who gets the leftover power’ (and that you can’t talk Eothas out of the thing, or tell him to tip it back into the wheel in like, a useful way) honestly felt like a cop out to me. Like suddenly the narrative weight is on a random god and/or group of people who spent most of the game squabbling over stupid shit while the Watcher tried to save the world again, this time with Real Actual Obvious signs of shit going down. Like in the first game? The Watcher doesn’t figure it out until almost the end of the game, but what you stumble into stopping is both highly subtle and *really* awful on every level, and the consequences are going to be worse, but nobody knows anything about it and you’ve only got the clues you have because you made a bunch of stupid decisions a dozen lifetimes ago, like, you don’t have proof and there’s no way to get it until everything’s over and done with. Deadfire? People have seen Eothas! He’s wandering around, wrecking ships and causing tsunamis and basically being Obvious as Fuck that he’s the thing causing all these problems, and letting him keep going is a Bad Idea, And Yet. Literally nobody in the entire fucking game can focus on the real problem for five seconds until it’s too late, and even then they can’t let go long enough to fix it. And yes, I know, the developers intended it to be more politically minded, they’re not focused on Eothas because he’s far away and this particular thing blowing up in their faces is right here, but…. that’s not how it worked as a narrative? Not even a little? Eothas is on top of your super secret laboratory and he ate your lighthouse or whatever, but that’s not important right now because oh no there’s a different lighthouse that’s a weird color (yes I know the diseased adra pillar is not a lighthouse give me the metaphor) really, really doesn’t look like being politically minded, frankly it looks like, well, real life right this second, and let me tell you, if I had a god I was hell bent on yelling at for being a dick telling me I had to pick who ended up in charge of the fate of the world, I’d be yelling him into not doing that using any trick I had to. And obviously that wasn’t applicable when Deadfire came out, but the sentiment remains.

And what complicates this is that I loved most of Ukaizo. Like up until the final two minutes I found it really narratively fulfilling, more or less (I remain cross enough about said last two minutes it’s rather scrambled my actual impressions of the rest, but I remember being very excited), and then that happened (and the game crashed because I had technically defied the gods again I guess) and then I was very cross.

If this was a real essay, I’d have something to say here about looking at the narrative as it is, not how I’d like it to be, or maybe about how Edér ends up with multiple narrative foils that literally never see any use, and that’s another essay right there. If I were editing this into something readable, I might have actually come to a point at some point, and I could talk about that instead, but I guess I’m just going to say that I wish the developers had owned what they’d built, instead of trying to head it off. Like, cheers, you built one of the more rewarding romances in modern fiction, tell me more about Edér’s relationship with god, don’t murder a perfectly good female character to give him something to be sad about so you don’t have to acknowledge that.

[sugarfreecapsicle]

i saw the light

moodboard by the incomparable @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan

moodboard by the lovely @sebashtiansatan 

A/N: first of all, big congrats to @marquiswrites on her milestone! She’s a wonderful and creative writer who deserves every ounce of recognition she can be given. I’m thrilled for her and even more honored to be able to participate in this challenge for her. second of all, thanks for putting up with my crazy and this series - here’s hoping I can somehow keep this going!

warnings: religious ceremony (christian), mentions of deity, prayer, hymns, ANGST

pairing: bucky x reader, southern usa au

country mile masterlist

Molten dread seeps from your chest to your toes and piles, feet to knees. Hallowed ground, from both childhood memories and divine merit shackle you to the gravel. Weathered steps precede the equally aged white doors. Music hums from the other side, choir warming up, some attendees mingling and chatting about their week prior to the balmy Sunday morning.

“Well, look at you!” You pivot and grin at the decades-old Buick Sam assists his mother out of - this morning her suit matches the car in alabaster white, accented by a pink ribbon tied on her hat and a coordinating purse. Sam loops her arm in his, grinning proud. The Wilsons, in your experience, mirror the same smile: bright, joyful, genuine.

“Look at you!” A laugh as you tuck some hair behind your ear. Mrs. Wilson hobbles along by a patient Sam to meet you where you stand. “You look so pretty today, Mrs. Wilson. You tryin’ to impress somebody?”

She laughs heartily and swats at you with her well loved leather Bible. “Honey, I’m just here to make sure Jesus knows I’m tryin’ to behave myself and keep Sammy in line.”

“Mama, you know I don’t make trouble,” Sam retorts, feigning some minor offense. Of course his mother pays him no mind.

“It sure finds you easy, son,” she murmurs and jabs his side with her elbow. “Let’s get in there before the reverend thinks I’m not comin’ today.”

Another common quality in the Wilsons: they quietly sneak through your safeguards and guide you in the right direction. You flank the elderly woman and find solace in the whine of the stairs underfoot. Power in faith, Mrs. Wilson would’ve called it had she known your entrapment in the parking lot.

The three of you make it up the stairs carefully, balancing Sam’s mother between as her knees aren’t what they used to be. The comfort of her habit to sit on the right, in the third pew from the front where she can feel the sun beam through the stained glass depiction of Jesus in the garden of Gesthemane settles in your chest.

Before you can scurry away to one of the back pews, she gently pats the seat to her left with a coy grin. “You always have a place with my family, baby.”

So you sit and feel a bit more prim as the townsfolk make their way in, Coulson mingling with the present congregation. In the seersucker suit and tie, a small cross pinned to his lapel, a cracked and worn leather Bible in his hand that now wore a golden wedding band. Light gleams off it from the hanging metal-work lights so out of date you marveled at their resilience.

Even the pillars in the church are the same - a fresh coat of white paint to match the exterior, stained glass windows depicting the life of Christ only a little dirty from recent rain, low pile green carpet from the door at the back up into the choir loft. 

“Good to see you this morning,” Coulson greets jovially, hand extended to you for an always firm shake. He passes onto Mrs. Wilson and Sam quickly who both answer him with pearly white smiles. You grin, a knot in your chest. “It’s been a long while since you’ve been in town - we’ve missed having you here.”

“It’s..” you clear your throat and hold a hand to your chest, still politely grinning, “it’s good to be back, Reverend.”

Coulson nods, hands folded over the Bible in front of him as he chats with the Wilsons about the restaurant, the family band and if Sam wouldn’t mind helping tune the guitar this morning when you notice a barely put together attendee enter from the side door.

“Well if it ain’t the Barnes boy,” Mrs. Wilson mutters in your ear. Coulson quietly shifts along to the far aisle and walks to meet with more of the flock.

Bucky smiles and nods with one of the deacons, hands clasped between them in welcoming. As expected, the young farmer traded in his plaid shirt and red dirt mottled denim for black chinos and a clean tattersall button down. Tucked in, of course, similar to the small knot of hair just above the collar of his shirt.

He moves to the left side of the pulpit and makes himself comfortable at the piano. Since when had this developed? The Bucky you remembered couldn’t sit still long enough for anything like a piano lesson. For all the nostalgia, parts of this little world shifted out of place, a memory disjointed.

Steve appears in your periphery looking spick-and-span as ever with Peggy not far behind in a pretty blue pencil dress. Both greet you warmly with hugs and jump into the conversation as your now full pew inventories the goings on ahead of you.

“Bucky’s been playing for a few months now. It’s the only way we could get him to show up anymore,” Steve answers your unasked question. Apparently you’d been caught ogling.

Your Bucky - if you could even call him that anymore - loved being social at church. He could do without the sermon and the singing, but the congregational greetings just after the reverend’s first song fit into his heart lock and key. He beamed, shaking hands with anyone he could reach, even crossing the aisle to visit with as many as he could. Age never mattered to him then - he’d shake hands as heartily with an elder as a baby. 

This new Bucky fusses with his sleeves at the piano bench alone. Not frowning, but not smiling. 

“Y’all are comin’ by for supper after the service today?” Mrs. Wilson leans over to address both Steve and Peggy, expectant eyes and a nodding head.

“You couldn’t pay me to be anywhere else but your kitchen, ma’am,” Steve answers kindly, giving Peggy’s manicured hand a squeeze. Another new development. Warmth radiated from the couple, a new love realized. 

“Well, good,” the elderly woman settles back and gathers her Bible and sermon outline in her lap. “Lord knows I need an army to eat all the food I make.”

You sense the roll of Sam’s eyes - always a few steps behind his mother’s innocent manipulation. The din of the room swells briefly, and Reverend Coulson makes his way up the steps to his matching white podium. A full congregation, choir in attendance, musicians tuned. And an eager preacher with the Good Word for his flock.

“Good morning,” Coulson calls into the microphone.

Your religion hadn’t survived your departure from town either, but the enthusiasm of the room was contagious. The music starts, and you find your gaze drifting to the piano as you sing. Sleepy blue eyes meet yours in the moment before a blink, then they’re gone, reading the sheet music in front of him. Probably just his eyes finding a place to rest as he plays, a subconscious thing, not intentional in the least.

The muscle memory of the opening prayer followed by a short hymn - I Saw the Light sung by the reverend himself -  and then choral worship awakens a dormant longing in your bones. Routine, peace, an odd juxtaposition to your inner turmoil. 

Coulson opens his Bible at the song’s end with echoing applause, resting it against his little wooden podium. He has more crows’ feet now, but the smile is all the same. 

“Isn’t it a wonderful day the Lord has made for us?” 

Amen’s scatter around the chapel, and suddenly you realize you’re without a Bible and a small copy of the outline for the sermon. Might as well be considered naked and foolish in the church. Without prompting from you, Steve passes you  a heavy and scribbled old copy of the Word, with him since high school. Peggy follows suit and shares her Scripture with him and sets the outline nearby.

A note on the edges of his outline reads: He stares at you every time you look away.

It’s heavy in your lap, a foreign and old thing, while a shiver pricks at the back of your neck. The feeling of being watched. You dare not look away from Coulson as he emphatically tells the story of Jesus’ miracle of feeding five thousand people with only five loaves and two fish. God provides for us in the same way, he says, creating blessings out of what some would consider table scraps. 

“The Lord abides and he provides!” Coulson laughs heartily and the congregation returns his excitement.

He casts his usual glance at the clock - he’s ready for lunch, ready to wrap up his sermon. One more song to call those who feel compelled to kneel at the altar or prayer benches to entreat God’s mercy - Bucky and the Wilsons play Softly and Tenderly in slowed tempo.

Coulson steps down from the pulpit to the altars and benches, offering to pray with some of those who appear moved to tears, a few weeping as if to mourn a death. He places a hand at their backs, each and every one in their own turn, and murmurs quiet prayers, beseeching God’s intervention to those families. 

Your heart twists in your chest, a rag being wrung out of its heavy laden burden of moisture. Fingers grip the Old Book in your hands just along the edges. Steve doesn’t notice. Your lips work between teeth carefully when you brave a glance to the piano.

Bucky - eyes watery and tender - stares at you like you’re breaking his heart. The song ends, prayers complete, and Coulson dismisses the congregation to flood the parking lot. Sam offers you a ride to his mother’s house, and you accept in a voice distant and foreign. 

The little yellow house teems with friends and family alike, and you manage to weave a path to the living room’s sofa. Faint magnolia wafts about once you plop down, memories of nights spent whispering and giggling in pillow forts made from the cushions bubbling into mind. Then it’s all cheers when the first round of biscuits emerge from the oven.

Steve and Peggy find you soon after and try to maneuver the bottled hallway to get a plate for themselves, portioned by either the matron of the family or her ever faithful son. The process runs like her diner with servings then seating then conversation over a home cooked meal.

Your table with the new couple allows for one more, and you expect the seat to remain empty until Sam manages to make a plate of his own. 

And then Bucky finds his way over and sits unceremoniously next to you, arms brushing against each other and flinching away as quickly. Steve says hello to his friend who responds with a shoveled bite into his mouth and a nod.

Some things clearly remain the same.

Sunday lunch continues like this, bumping elbows and hands with Bucky more often than either of you would prefer. Peggy tries her best to keep your attention; Steve and Bucky share clipped sentences and have their own implied conversation. With only his green beans and some gravy left on his plate, Bucky uses the napkin draped over his knee and moves to depart.

“You need a ride home?” 

The trio wear expectant looks you don’t notice until you look up from your own scant plate. Your cheeks warm under the awkward silence, you quickly wipe away any remnant of food from your lips and mumble out your acceptance.

A flurry of goodbyes, and then it’s just you and Bucky in his truck thundering down the road to your house. He’s quiet, hand resting over his mouth while the other minds the steering wheel. 

“What was up with your staring this morning at the service?”

The engine roars in the tension between you.

“What staring?”

Lazy mid-afternoon air tangles your hair. Your jaw sets tightly. 

“The staring at me, Barnes.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” he scoffs, hand scratching against his unshaven cheek. “Good to know you left all this to go get yourself an ego, though, that’s good for you.”

Subconsciously your right foot shifts left in the dirtied floorboard to pump an invisible brake pedal. The truck pushes onward.

“An ego?” Raised  voice and adrenaline. “Bucky, if someone told you a snake bit your ass, you’d say it was a damn bee even if you saw the thing slither under your feet.”

Your pushing against the floorboard suddenly pays off when Bucky diverts the truck to the side of the road and squeals to a stop. After shutting the engine off, he angles toward you, thin blue against wide black pupils. 

“What’d’ya want me to say? D’you want me to roll out some red carpet for you because the princess returned?” Veins in his neck emerge under sun-tanned skin that fades paler by the white collar of his undershirt. Your throat dries when his silver chain catches sunlight. “You were just gone one day. No goodbye, no nothing. Just gone. You didn’t give a shit about any of us, how we’d feel.”

How I’d feel remains unspoken.

“When have you ever known me to live my life for other people, Bucky?” 

The silence of Bucky’s heart plummeting through the undercarriage carries on as  a coin in a well. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and for a moment, you regret your reply.

“Sorry I thought my feelings mattered to you.”

And what can you say to that? The finality in his own answer keeps your lips shut for the remainder of your ride home. An apology hangs in your throat, in your heart, but finds nowhere to surface. Too little too late.

You don’t even say goodbye when you exit his truck and shut the door behind you. Neither does he.

[pengychan]

[Good Omens] Winging It - Genesis 4:9

Summary: Shockingly, attempting to destroy an angel without consulting God first comes with consequences. There is more than one way to fall, and a thousand more ways to inconvenience an angel and a demon who just wanted to be left in peace. Characters: Gabriel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Rating: T  

Prologue and all chapters are tagged as ‘winging it’ on my blog.

A/N: Uncomfortable realization time? Uncomfortable realization time. But at least this supernatural version of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego is drawing to a close.

***

For a time after the War, Gabriel - as well as everyone else, apparently - failed to truly realize what was happening.

Part of the reason, he supposed, was that they were all busier than they’d ever been. The war had been exhausting but, once it was over - the rebels cast down, out of paradise, away from God - they had very little time to rest. There was so much to do, so much to fix: entire galaxies had been turned to dust as the War raged on, and the Heavenly host  had been reduced by half. 

Which translated to a lot of work… and very little desire to think of what had become of the other half of them, for a lot of excellent reasons. 

Anger was one, of course. How dare they turn against God, against them? How dare they believe they were above their creator, and throw everything in such chaos? They deserved their punishment, certainly, and they shouldn't waste time thinking of them. 

Another reason was pain. Few of them would acknowledge it - surely they were not supposed to grieve the loss of traitors - but it was there, a constant ache previously unknown, worse even than the sting of betrayal. They had lost half their brethren, after all, corrupted beyond salvation, they who’d never known loss before. They weren’t meant to know loss, not built to withstand it.

But the busier they kept themselves the less they thought of the Fallen, and the less they thought of the Fallen the easier it became to bear. So they chose, collectively, not to think of them at all.

Until the day Gabriel tried to, and found that he could not. Names, faces and ranks he’d known as well as his own were beyond his grasp, or at least the vast majority of them. There was a name he could recall, a name he clung to. 

Ba’al.

He didn’t remember their face, nor their rank, or much of anything about them at all, and  yet the last scraps of a memory remained, lingering stubbornly-- Ba’al was stubborn, too -- and refusing to fade away. 

Part of him wanted to hold onto those memories, of course; try to remember the Ba’al he’d known and cared for, before he was lost along with countless others. Only that it was a small part of him, somewhere behind his left knee, while the rest was desperate to be rid of them.

“I tried to warn you.”

“Join our cause.”

“Abandon this folly!”

"Next time you cross my path, I shall take you down."

Certainly, if the memories were fading it had to be God’s will, and he had no reason no intention to defy it. So he let it happen, allowing himself relief before he carried on with his duties, determined as ever to serve God and the Great Plan. They knew there had been a War, of course; they had vague recollections of the fight, clear memories of the victory. 

As time passed, they learned to know their adversaries - the demons the Fallen had become, not the same beings anymore - and it was easy, so very easy, to see them as the enemies and nothing more. 

Knowledge of the fact they had once been part of them meant little, with no real memory of it; no angel regretted forgetting them, or at least none of them said as much aloud.

In Heaven, many things go unsaid.

***

“Archangel Gabriel asked you to find Alison.”

“Yes. He did personally request we seek your sister, and as it is proving more difficult than expected we would appreciate your cooperation--”

“Archangel fucking Gabriel.”

That, Uriel thought, was the reason why no high-ranking angel had ever willingly taken on duties in the lower spheres of Heaven, where good mortals resided after death. Dead or not, virtuous or not, they were still humans. And humans could be… unnecessarily crude.

“Such language is entirely uncalled for in Heaven, and I’d appreciate you minding it,” she said. Had she remembered that Gabriel had referred to himself precisely that way not too long ago, she might have thought otherwise… but she did not, in fact, remember that. 

The formerly-mortal, now eternal soul Daniel Brown didn’t even seem to hear her: he just rubbed his face and turned to look, wide-eyed, at the woman beside him. His wife - Liv, he called her. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. 

Uriel frowned. “There is no need to involve him. As I was saying--”

“It was really the Archangel Gabriel! The guy from the Bible! And-- shit, that song-- Sting-- he got all weird listening to it, I didn’t-- I had no idea--!”

Having been dead and in Heaven for several years now, said wife seemed less surprised by the notion of an Archangel walking on Earth with a dislike for Sting. She patted his shoulder. 

“I heard you, darling. Mind your pressure.”

“Liv, we’re dead. I just-- I thought he was just fucking around!”

“Mr. Brown!” Uriel protested. “Archangels - even former ones - do not… do that,” she muttered, despite not actually remembering whether or not Gabriel did have the habit to, quote, fuck around. She would just assume he did not, as it would be beneath his status.

Since when was it normal for a human soul to speak like that in front of an angel, anyway? Uriel’s experience in dealing with humans was rather limited - on top of her mind she had told a fellow named Noah that rain was coming, and checked Egypt’s doors for lamb blood on one more memorable occasion - but she was rather sure they used to be more polite than… that.

“How did he even-- how do you become a former Archangel?”

“... His employment was terminated.”

“Ah. All right, that’s… pretty much what he said. That he was cast down - I thought he meant he’d been sacked, you know, walked out with his stuff in a cardboard box or something.”

Was Gabriel given a cardboard box prior to being cast out? Uriel didn’t quite remember, so she decided not to remark on that. “Well, either way, what I am here to talk about is your--”

“I thought he was just drunk. I mean, he was, but what he said - off with his wings - was… real?”

It was, of course. Uriel knew Gabriel’s wings had been torn off by Michael while she and Sandalphon held him down, but only because they had written it down and talked about it. She had no memory of the event itself. “I am afraid this is a metter I cannot discuss. Now--”

“Why cast him out?” Daniel Brown asked, refusing to drop the matter. “What did he even do?”

Nothing we did not do as well, Uriel thought, but did not answer. In the back of her mind, a tiny voice murmured that maybe he had done something to deserve it - he must have done something to deserve it. It was the only thing that made sense. They had just… forgotten it. 

“... What he did or did not do is not for me to discuss, much less with you,” she finally said, and straightened herself. “Now, Mr. Brown, about your sister…”

***

“... So you couldn’t find anything.”

“Unfortunately not, but we’re not giving up just yet. We will find out where she is. Uriel went to speak with the mortal, to see if he can tell her anything of use.” 

Michael’s voice was collected, perfectly professional. Sitting across the table with a mug of hot coffee in his hands - he’d almost offered Michael some, before remembering that with one notable exception angels did not, in fact, consume human food or drinks - Gabriel nodded.

“I see. How… how is he?” he asked, gaining himself a slightly confused look. 

“Well, I have not met him, but-- he’s in Heaven. Certainly he’s doing well.”

Ah, of course. How could anyone  possibly be in Heaven and not be doing well? Beyond its gates, there was everything a soul could possibly ask for… but maybe not everyone. Their loved ones may be in Hell, or… wherever in creation Alison Brown even was. 

Is it really paradise if those you care about are missing? He’d never wondered such a thing until now, and suddenly he found he couldn’t stop thinking about it. “He had a wife,” Gabriel found himself saying, looking up. Seeing Michael made the scars on his back ache, but his hands were not shaking anymore and his voice was firm. “She died some ten years ago. Is she there?”

To his relief, Michael nodded. “Yes, I did see that on his papers. He has been reunited with her.”

“Ah. That’s-- good. He missed her a lot.” It should have been enough, knowing he was well, but somehow it was not. He was well, yes, but he was not there. Gabriel had never known an absence could take up so much space, and make it so empty.

There was a silence, a bit too long not to be awkward. Gabriel focused on Michael’s face, on the way she avoided his gaze as she busied herself with her notes on the case. It was almost eerie; Michael had never before, since the very beginning of everything, averted her gaze from anyone but God. As far as he could remember, at least: there were holes, of course, where memories relating to any of the Fallen had simply… gone. 

Why did we forget the Fallen? Why am I recalling things now that I could not before?

The thought was sudden, and it caused Gabriel to frown. Something else whispered in the back of his mind, a voice that had spoken to him in his dreams and which, he suspected, belonged to a certain Prince of Hell. 

They will forget you. Maybe they already did. They have all forgotten you. Forget them, too. 

“... Gabriel? Is something the matter?” Michael’s voice caused Gabriel to recoil. He realized only then he’d been staring for entirely too long, eyes wide and mouth agape, probably looking quite foolish. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to say it was nothing, that she may go.

What actually left him was a question. “How much do you remember about me, Michael?”

It struck a nerve, Gabriel could tell: Michael stiffened, pressed her lips, and was quite a few moments “... I do know who you are,” she replied, and stood. “I ought to go back--”

“But you’re forgetting me, aren’t you?”

Another pause, then a sigh. “We won’t. We have notes about you to-- remind ourselves.”

The notion he was being forgotten about in Heaven hit him hard, but until not too long ago a part of him - the part that every night, as he dreamed, cried and screamed and begged uselessly for his wings not to be torn out -  for he would at least have found some relief in the fact those who’d cast him out would have no reason to seek him out ever again. 

Now, however, there was no relief to mitigate the hurt but rather something else - confusion and something warm in his chest that he dared not name. “Notes to remind yourselves?”

A nod. “So that we don’t entirely forget you.”

“... Why?”

“No one knows. We forgot the Fallen, of course, but this is different. You are no demon, and--”

“No, I mean-- why fight it?” Gabriel cut her off. “If it’s divine will that you forget the Fallen--”

“You are not Fallen, Gabriel,” Michael cut him off right back, frowning. “You were--”

“Cast out,” he cut her off, again. “Some difference.”

“We refuse to forget you.”

“If God wills it--”

“We don’t know if God wills it,” Michael retorted, cutting him off again. It was turning into a habit.

“Everything happens because God wills it,” Gabriel replied, but his voice lacked conviction. Something whispered in his mind that perhaps - just perhaps - forgetting the fallen had less to do with God’s will and more to do with their need to take the path of least resistance, to allow themselves no doubts or regrets that might weaken their faith in God’s plan.

Aziraphale had been no exception then, but he was now. Aziraphale, who had defied the Great Plan. Who had strayed from the path, allowed himself doubt, and… remembered him well.

“Gone native,” they had muttered. More human than celestial, trading a world of easy order and certainty with chaos, second-guessing, twisted paths shrouded in mist.

“How will I know I’m doing the right things?”

“You won’t,” Metatron had said.

“You figure it out, Gabe,” the demon Crowley had sneered. “It’s the gift of free will.”

A long breath, and Gabriel stood, looking at Michael in the eye. “Was it hard?” he asked, already knowing the answer. “Carrying out the order to cast me out.”

She avoided his gaze. “... The hardest thing I ever had to do. It haunts me. Haunts all of us.”

“You cast out many of the rebels.”

“That was different. They rebelled - you were one of us.”

“... They were part of us, too.”

“They rebelled. You were punished for something we all took part to,” Michael almost snapped, finally looking back at him again. “You were trying to do the right thing.”

“Good intentions. What was it that paves the road to Hell again?”

A scowl. “This is ridiculous. I know you’re nothing like the Fallen we--”

“How would you? You don’t remember what they were like. None of us did. It was easier not to.”

Is it really paradise if those you care about are missing?

You can’t miss someone you don’t remember.

“What…?”

“Could you - or Uriel, or Sandalphon or anyone else - carry on with your duties as easily if you thought of the enemy the way you think of me?”

For several moments, Michael stared. Then she spoke slowly, as though letting the words sink in as she uttered them. “... You don’t think it was God to will us to forget,” she said. “You think it was our own doing. Then with the Fallen, and now with you.”

Gabriel nodded. “The path of least resistance. No reason to doubt. Nothing to regret.”

Michael slowly sat. She looked… lost. That was new. “I can’t be. We don’t want to forget you.”

“... I know. But old habits are hard to die,” Gabriel replied, and managed a smile, sitting as well. His hands went back to the cooling mug of coffee. “Believe me, I found out the hard way.”

***

It wasn’t often that Beelzebub, Prince of Hell and Lord of the Flies, asked to view the file of a mortal. It was even more unusual when said mortal was already deceased and in Heaven; the few times it had happened, it had been because they believed there was a chance a mistake had been made and that the soul was deserving of Hell. 

In very few occasions - Dagon could count them on one hand, and a mutilated one at that - they had even won that argument with the Archangel that wasn’t an angel anymore. 

But judging from Beelzebub’s expression as they stared at the file, sprawled on their throne, that probably wouldn’t be the case. They were glaring at it as though they were trying to make it catch fire with the sheer force of will - which happened just now, as the folder burst in flames. The Prince of Hell extinguished them with an impatient wave of their hand and kept reading. The scowl kept deepening.

As the Lord of the Files, Dagon couldn’t stand by and watch a… well, a file risk being destroyed in a fit of anger. “... Perhaps I can help, my Lord. Is there any information you’re looking for?”

“Yes. Anything about this mortal’s sister,” they snapped, turning the pages. “Anything of use.”

“If both our men and Heaven confirmed there is no file to be found about her, then perhaps she really never exist-- huh. My Lord?”

No answer. Lord Beelzebub - Prince of Hell, Lord of the Flies and so forth - had stilled entirely staring at the file, the scowl replaced by a stunned expression that was, in turn, slowly replaced by something else. Comprehension.

“... Lord Beelzebu--” Dagon began, and trailed off with a wince when the Prince of Hell tore off one page and let the rest of the folder fall unceremoniously on the ground. A sudden flare of fire, a cloud of sulphur, and they were gone - leaving yet another scorch mark on their throne and a smoldering pile of ash where the folder containing an accurate list of Daniel Brown’s sins had been only moments earlier.

*** 

"GABRIEL!"

The mug of hot cocoa Gabriel had just picked up - a gift from Aziraphale, that cocoa, and he had to admit it was growing on him as a substitute for the fifth mug of coffee - fell from his hands to shatter on the floor, splattering hot liquid across his bare shins. He yelped, both at the sting and out of surprise, heart jumping somewhere in his throat. A ball of fire suddenly erupting before you while someone bellows your name will do that. 

"Jesus Christ!"

"No, it's me-- don't you ever insult me like that again," Beelzebub said, scowling, and slapped something down on the kitchen counter - a piece of parchment burnt at the edges. "I know why we couldn't find the mortal's sister."

Gabriel looked back, stunned, the scowl gone and the sting already in the back of his mind. "You do? How? What did you find out?"

"He never had a sister."

That... made no sense. "Are you sure? Daniel said… but why? Why would he lie--"

"He didn't lie. He just thought he had one."

"... I'm afraid I'm not following. Are you telling me he hallucinated her, or--" Gabriel began, only to trail off when Beelzebub quite literally slapped him with the piece of parchment. 

"Shut your mouth and just read this, idiot. Daniel Brown’s sins. Well, the relevant part.”

He did shut his mouth, and he did read. It was indeed a list of sins - a young boy’s sins, small things, irrelevant things - lied to his mother over a broken window, copied his math homework, chased pigeons - up to one that was bolded and underlined, a serious sin for that young age. Gabriel read it, and his eyes widened. He read it again, just to be sure, mouth falling open.

Homophobia, hateful speech and rejection of his brother.

For a few moments, Gabriel stared. He suddenly felt… rather stupid for not thinking of that possibility. It made so much sense, now that the key piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. Daniel had thought he had a sister; what he truly had was a brother who hadn’t stuck around to make him aware of the mix-up.

Daniel never knew. He was looking for someone who only exists in his memories.

“... His name is no longer Alison Brown,” Gabriel muttered, looking up. “That explains everything. But… shouldn’t former names remain on record?”

“Former names, yes. Deadnames, no. Those vanish from the records the second they are abandoned - we have standards, you know,” Beelzebub said, looking slightly offended. “It’s the same in Heaven, I assume? They couldn’t find any records of this Alison, either. We were searching for a mortal woman, after all, while we should have been looking for a man all along.”

“Ah-- right, yes. Yes, it is,” Gabriel said, and looked down again. It had been him, after all, to insist that the forms matched in Heaven and Hell. “All right, this is… this is something.”

“Just something? This changes everything.”

“We still don’t know his name, though, and--”

“The surname might have stayed the same. I shall task Dagon to search the archive for every man born in Plymouth in the time frame you provided whose surname was Brown.”

“... I understand it is a common surname.”

“No matter. We’ll find him, so he can know his stupid brother was sorry, get his stupid closure, go to his stupid funeral if he wants, and you can get your stupid conscience to shut up.”

That seemed… a solid plan, Gabriel supposed, at least on account of being the only possible plan. He smiled. “That would be very kind of yo-- ow!”

“If you know what’s good for you, you will not dare finish that sentence.”

“Right, right. My apologies,” Gabriel muttered, rubbing his arm. “Oww, that hurt.”

“Good,” Beelzebub replied, sitting on the table. “For the record, I am obviously not doing this for free - let alone out of kindness,” they spat out the word like it left a rotten taste in their mouth. “I still expect you to hold your half of the bargain. Speaking of which, was there any progress?”

“I… well… the thing is...”

“I tried to warn you.”

“Join our cause.”

“Abandon this folly!”

You can’t miss someone you don’t remember.

Ah, but would bringing back the memories be the wise thing to do? It was a can of worms Gabriel wasn’t sure he was ready to open, a truth he wasn’t sure he was ready to acknowledge. Would it not be easier to let the sleeping dogs lie? Take the path of least resistance once more, as he’d always done, letting all uncomfortable thoughts sink into oblivion before they could breed doubt in his mind?

Old habits are hard to die.

“... All right, I’ll bite. What’s with the face journey?”

Gabriel recoiled, looking up. Somehow, he’d managed to pretty much forget that the Lord of the Flies just so happened to be sitting on his table. “Huh?”

“You changed expression six times in less than twenty seconds, and each one was dumber than the one before. What’s going on?”

“Ah, er-- nothing. Nothing at all.”

Somehow, Gabriel suspected that was not the most convincing lie he ever told. To be entirely fair, he had… very little experience telling straightforward lies. At most, he would simply… omit information that wasn’t strictly necessary. Or tell a lie that wasn’t even a lie, because the person he was speaking with knew exactly how things really were

I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation.

Would you have any objection to me following this up using back channels?

There are no back channels, Michael.

Beelzebub’s eyes narrowed. “You are going to hold your half of the bargain, are you not?” they buzzed, a handful of different threatening notes to their voice.

Gabriel held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Of course, of course! I just-- apologies. There has been a lot going on, and--” he cleared his throat. “I will keep my word,” he added, trying to to evaluate whether trying to lie to the Prince of Hell was a wise option - or even an option at all.

At least for the time being, however, it seemed to work: Beelzebub nodded, placated.

“Very well. I’ll get to the bottom of this, and then I will expect you to keep your word. And if you so much think of taking it back--” a snap of their fingers, a burst of flames, and they were gone. Gabriel wasn’t sure whether the fire was meant to be a threat or simply their normal way to leave, but he supposed it was probably both. 

Well, decision time was delayed, at least.

With a sigh, Gabriel looked back down at the piece of parchment Beelzebub had brought him, read it over again, and finally put it down. He wondered what Daniel would think once he knew. All those years looking for a sister he rejected, without knowing that the person he remembered was no more - maybe had never been. Gabriel would find his brother for him, but it wouldn’t be the person Daniel thought he was. Then again, after a lifetime apart, he would have found himself facing a stranger either way. Unlike angels, who always remained true to themselves, a notable exception aside and Fallen notwithstanding, human beings changed. That, he’d learned.

Would Daniel be happy to meet his brother? Or would he be disappointed? Gabriel wasn’t even certain Daniel’s brother would want to be found, that he would want to come to his funeral at all. Maybe he’d burned all bridges behind him, and had no intention to waste time on someone who rejected him and whom he only remembered as an angry boy. It had been so long since they last saw each other.

“I know you,” he’d said once to a Virtue known as Ba’al.

“No,” they had replied. “You do not.”

Why bring back those memories? Why now? There was no point to it, nothing it could possibly change. What if there had been someone named Ba’al, a long time ago, whom he’d cared for deeply? What if they had cared for him? That was then and this was now. Ba’al the Virtue was no more, and neither was Gabriel the Archangel. 

They were not the same beings anymore.

***

(Okay, so I lied. It wasn't Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego. It was Where's Wally all along.)

***

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” -- Genesis 4:9

***

[Back]

[Next]

[missredherring]

Saving Grace - Part Four

(Fic header by @whirlybirbs. Beta’d by @agentofloveandcourage and @spookylilmoonpie.) 

Jim Hopper x Reader (Grace is a placeholder name.)

Summary: You find a job.

Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four

“Step one: get your car” was complete. That was good right? You were making progress.

The conversation with Hopper had been… different. His expression had been intense. 

You remembered when he would joke with you while waiting for Joyce to finish getting ready. His eyes would crinkle and there was no way to hide his grin. There hadn’t been any hint of amusement just now in his office.

It made you feel weird and you pushed the thought away. You had bigger issues to deal with right now.

The only place with free resources for job hunting in town was the library. You’d spent the rest of the morning looking through the help wanted ads and talking with the librarian, Mary. She’d been in one of your English classes and recognized you. She watched you taking notes on scrap paper for a good hour or so before asking about your situation.

It turned out that someone named Shelby had left to have her baby and the library was looking for a replacement Librarian Assistant. You’d given her one of the copies of your resume you’d made and Mary had promised that she’d put in a good word for you. By the end of the day the rest of your resumes were gone and the scrap piece of paper was scribbled out entirely. 

With that done all you could do was wait. 

The next few weeks were spent with your family and was surprisingly nice. Everyone was in a better mood since you offered to take over cooking dinner from Joyce. She’d agreed to let you stay until you found a place of your own in exchange for helping around the house. You’d never been bothered by cleaning and cooking, and struck a deal. The two of you even shook on it.

God bless nosy librarians. Two weeks later you were folding laundry when the phone rang and after another ten minutes you accepted a job at the Hawkins Branch of the Roane County Public Library. 

Whatever you’d been expecting working at a library to be like, it certainly wasn’t this. Mary dropped a large binder in front of you with a gleam in her eye. That look was just as bad now as it had been in high school. You looked down at the binder.

“Complete Bible on cassette tape?” You read aloud. “Fully dramatized and orchestrated. Wow.”

“Uh huh. Mrs. Miller gets this out every month, and it takes her about that long to listen to it. We’ve asked her why she doesn’t just buy her own copy, and she said ‘Then why would I have a library card?’” Mary shook her head and rummaged in the desk drawer.

“There’s something we need to do with it. Besides reshelving?” You ventured a guess.

“Bingo. Mrs. Miller listens to this every month, and never gets around to rewinding the tapes.”

“Please tell me there’s a cassette player we can use somewhere.” You said a little desperately. The insert advertised the complete Bible on forty-eight cassette tapes.

“Oh, there is. Unfortunately it’s broken at the moment. You’ll have to use this.” She placed a pencil next to the binder with some flourish. She waited a few seconds, drinking in your horrified expression before laughing. “Don’t worry! You don’t have to do them all, just what you can.”

With that Mary gathered up some cataloging supplies and headed towards her office. You’d be manning the circulation desk while it was slow. 

After prying open the binder you started fiddling with the pencil. At a glance it looked like all the tapes were almost at their end. Well, there was nothing to do but start. Picking up the first tape, you started winding.

Of course your productivity could only last so long under the boredom and silence in the branch. You’d moved on from the usual way of winding, and were now spinning the tape around the pencil end like a noise maker. It might not be quite as effective, but it was amusing. Until you flicked the pencil a little to hard and the tape went flying across the room.

“Do you have a permit for that?” Hopper asked as he bent down and picked the tape up. 

The sight of how well he filled out his uniform distracted you for a moment. You weren’t sure if you wanted to talk to him but he was the first person to come in for a while.

“I don’t. You gonna write me up, Chief?” You replied. He stopped right in front of the help desk as he read the writing on the tape. He held it out to you. At this angle he made an even larger figure. You took the tape and went back to winding it back with the pencil and a firm grip on the tape.

“I’ll let you off with a warning.” He said, knocking his knuckles on the desk. He looked around at the stacks with a little furrow between his brows.

“Can I help you find something?” You asked. 

Jim looked back to you and smiled. “You’d be the person to ask now, right?”

“Yes.” You said with a nod. 

He nodded back and ran a hand over his beard. “I’m looking for books on homeschooling. Like workbooks and all that.” 

“Ah.” You said, running through the parts of the collection you’d managed to memorize so far. Shelving books might be a pain sometimes, but it certainly gave you time to familiarize yourself with the stacks. “Yes, they’re over here.” 

Glad to abandon the tape rewinding, you got up and motioned for Jim to follow you. They were two shelves down and on the right. Turning to him you couldn’t help the grin. You were happy that you’d been able to find it on your first try, considering this wasn’t a section you’d paid much attention to before. 

“Homeschooling books are here. It’s not a large section, but it might have what you need.” You said as you turned around. The sound of clothes brushing against each other was loud, and you were suddenly aware of how little space there was between the shelves. Jim had reached over you and taken a book from the higher shelf you couldn’t reach. Bringing it down he only took a step back, but it felt like he was far too close. 

Jim looked up from the book cover and your eyes met. They held for a second and then he smiled and saluted you with the book. “Thanks. This is good enough to start with.” 

“You’re welcome.” You said, already turning and going back to the help desk. The image of his tall figure in the shadowed stacks wouldn’t leave you for a long time.

[theparanormalperiodical]

The Conjuring 3 (2020) - Plot, Cast, Trailer, And Release Date - EVERYTHING You Need To Know

We live in uncertain times.

Will Trump be impeached?

Will Boris Johnson win his electoral majority?

Will Brexit actually happen?

As we draw closer to 2020, it is safe to say that we do indeed live in uncertain times. Yet, amongst the confusion and complexity that politics has spat out at the world, there is one thing for sure:

The Conjuring 3 is going to hit theatres on September 11th 2020.

And alas, the uncertainty commences once again.

What’s it going to be about?

Who’s been cast?

When’s the trailer going to be released?

Well that’s why I’m here, Boo. I’ve compiled EVERYTHING you need to know about the 8th instalment in one of the biggest cinematic universes to date.

Today’s post is going to cover what’s been officially confirmed, the rumours swirling regarding this film, the possible plots, and the release date for the teaser trailer and official trailer release.

Settle in folks…

And let’s get spooky.

What Do We Already Know About The Conjuring 3?

As will all films, small scraps of plotlines, cast lists, and release dates have been left tangled up on the internet for us obsessives to unravel.

We know The Conjuring 3 is coming out on September 11th 2020.

We know that filming began in June and took place in Georgia.

And we know that - as with all of the Conjuring’s cinematic universe - this film is once again based on one of the real life paranormal investigations conducted by Ed and Lorraine Warren.

However, we do not know the exact investigation in question. Occasional whispers on the internet and the odd quote from those working on the film have given us hints to two possible plotlines: a werewolf, and a murder which cited possession as a defence. 

The cast list also gives us greater insight into a possible plot!

(And by insight I mean there is very little to make guesswork of.)

Once again Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmigo return to the screen as your favourite paranormal dream team, and are joined by a variety of new faces:

A younger Ed and Lorraine feature in this flick, suggesting a flashback to a previous case or perhaps a more personal reflection takes centre stage of this film.

Acting alongside them is a plethora of characters engaged in law enforcement: prison guards, inmates, judges… All of which point to a murder case which will be discussed later on in this post. 

One the other hand, 2 witches are also cited in the cast list. This instead points to the former rumoured plot that will too be explored in this post.

And finally, we know that James Wan will not be directing this flick.

The mastermind behind The Conjuring’s saga will instead help produce it, and the writer of Orphan and The Conjuring 2 will co-write the latest instalment. 

What Is The Plot Of The Conjuring 3?

In case you can’t read (if so how in the hell have you been reading this post), there are 2 rumours behind the plot of The Conjuring 3. 

But Boo, you know I got you.

I’m going to take you through every single rumour, and then explain the real paranormal backstories to the cases. 

Vera Farmigo was the first to ignite the rumours running since The Conjuring 2 hit theatres: she mentioned the third film will revolve around a werewolf. 

She then followed up this statement by saying that this concept may have been cancelled; nevertheless, the story behind this is worthy of a 2 hour movie bullet holed with jumpscares.

This is the story of the Southend Werewolf.

Just like the original Conjuring film, the story starts with an object found in the Warren’s house. Indeed, it is a book they wrote themselves - Werewolf: A Tale of Demonic Possession. 

It starts in 1952. 

A 9 year old boy, William Ramsay, suddenly felt an icy shiver take over his body, a smell like rotting meat float around him, and an aggression overcome his mind. He was shivering, he was growling, he was intune to his senses.

He had - or so he claimed - become a werewolf. 

He then finished up his transformation by ripping a fencepost out of his garden. 

Super-human strong was often reported whenever this would overcome him, confirming that all these signs bear a similarity to cases of demonic possession. 

Other events of turning into a werewolf bear similar resemblance, including him attempting to attack and kidnap a prostitute and biting doctors attempting to restrain him. After every event, Ramsay would fail to remember the attacks. 

He even checked himself into a mental hospital in an attempt to get to the bottom of his affliction in the 1980s. 

They found no explanation for these events.

And it was following these similar cases of him ‘turning’ - including one that involved the police and splashed his story across the papers - that the Warrens decided to pay him a visit whilst in London. 

They deduced that this was a Demon Animal Spirit. Having been suspicious of his claims prior to their investigation, they then claimed an exorcism was required. 

So, Ramsay was flown out to the USA, and an exorcism performed by Bishop McKenna occurred. 

At first, the exorcism did fuck all. But it was only when the bishop touched his forward and asked the demon to reveal itself that Ramsay once again began to turn. 

That was the final time that Ramsay ever became a werewolf.

And so the book was written and this chapter of his life was closed.

Oh, and at the end of Annabelle Comes Home, a werewolf like demon appears. And given The Conjuring’s love for a closely tied cinematic universe, perhaps this doggo will be returning to a theatre near you...

The next story is The Trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson

This was the first case in US history from which demonic possession was used a defence in a murder trial. 

James Wan actually confirmed that this was the centre of the movie’s plot - but a twist is never too far up The Conjuring’s writers’ sleeves…

The story starts with the Johnson family clearing out a house they had just rented.

David - then 12 years old - claimed an old man appeared, and would physically push him and attempt to scare him in a beast-like form whilst he was not muttering Latin. 

The old man also vowed to harm the family and steal David’s soul is they stayed. 

So, just like my second year uni flat?

Alongside noises in the attic, David’s frequent night terrors, scratches and bruises on David’s body were strange behaviours which was deduced as paranormal activity.

So, a catholic priest was called and the house blessed.

Unfortunately, this provoked the activity to then worsen. 

And so they gave the Warrens a ring and waited for their verdict.

Lorraine immediately noted a black mist by David - and if that doesn’t tell you its demonic, I don’t know what will. Invisible hands beating David were also cited by family members, as well as growls, hisses, and him reciting the bible and excerpts from Paradise Lost. 

Convulsions in the night, spasms as he slept… It bears a striking similarity to The Exorcist!

Following 3 exorcisms, David went through phases of levitation, not breathing, and even demonstrated a newfound ability to predict the future. Indeed, he predicted the murder that would be at the centre of this story. 

Due to the danger David was reportedly in, Arne - his father - asked the demon to possess him, instead.

The demon agreed.

Having taken control of his car and causing him to collide with a tree, they then met once again in the rental property. Once making eye contact with the demon - something that was warned against by the Warrens - he was fully possessed.

Fit with behaviour similar to that of a possessed David, he would fall into trances, growling and hallucinating. Once they were over, he would forget they occurred.

It is here that we must note the reflection of this story in The Southend Werewolf.

(Yes, I wrote ‘airport’ first instead of werewolf.)

This would build up towards the murder of their landlord, Alan Bono. The murder that was supposedly caused by the demonic possession is a simple and short story - not to ignore the sheer brutality of it, that is.

A 9 year old relative of Arne’s had essentially been held captive by Alan Bono whilst he was heavily drunk. Johnson in an attempt to save her stabbed Bono repeatedly with a pocket knife.

Not only did he growl throughout the attack, the 5 stab wounds were so graphic that one even stretched from his stomach to the base of his heart. 

Only 24 hours later, Lorraine Warren informed the police that Johnson had been possessed throughout the event, and made the initial claims that it was the demon that caused the murder.

Arne’s legal team focused on the possible paranormal influences, attempting to involve lawyers who had fought in similar cases in the UK, and even planned to fly in exorcism specialists to encourage a not-guilty result.

They then threatened subpoenas to the priests who carried out the exorcisms is they didn’t serve to defend him.

Yet despite the attempts to clear his name, the jury didn’t accept his claims.

He was sentenced to a maximum of 20 years, and only served 5. 

This will not be the first time that this case has been replayed on a cinematic level.

What Other Cases Of The Warrens Could It Be Based On?

If there’s one thing that Mean Girls taught me, it’s that rumours should always be taken with a grain of salt.

(Oh, and that I’m a mouse, duh!)

That’s why I’ve decided to consider the other possible cases that could position themselves as the plot-line.

And no, I won’t be including the other cases that have featured in previous instalments of this series, such as Annabelle the haunted doll, nor the Perron family farmhouse, or even the Enfield Haunting.

1. The Amityville Haunting

Not only did it feature in the beginning of the second Conjuring, it’s had enough documentation in the media. From documentaries, to horror films, to Ryan Reynolds…

God, just let it die. 

By anyway: the story goes that in 1974 a man shot every single member of his family, murdering them in cold blood.

Once a new family had been moved in, they began to witness paranormal activity, suggesting the former residents - including the murderer - had been led to this violent end. So, could supernatural forces be behind the murders?

2. The Snedecker House

In 1986 a family moved into a house that was previously a crematorium. From personality changes in their son, to sexual attacks and apparitions, the Warrens concluded that this house was haunted.

In fact, they even deemed the house possessed!

However, it was discovered that the son - who was at the centre of the activity - was diagnosed with schizophrenia. And so, bound by conflicting stories and a hostile familial atmosphere, the story was sensationalised to a high degree. Claims of debunking stick close to this case.

3. The Smurl Haunting

A lesser known example of paranormal - or rather, demonic activity - the Smurls was also a family who were tormented by otherworldly forces. 

Sexual assault, shaking mattresses, people being pushed down the stairs, loud noises, bad smells and family pets being through against the wall…

Lord, it’s a messy one.

That is until the Warrens rock up! Wait, it gets worse?

Writing on mirrors telling them to get out, dark masses appearing, knocking and rapping caught on audiotape - this demon was busy.

When’s The Trailer Going To Be Released?

I hate maths.

I hate using a calculator, I hate using excel, and I hate having to add up my grocery bill in my head and consequently praying if I can afford it.

I need to budget goat’s cheese in my bank balance, okay, do you know the struggle?

But I’m gon’ be getting some good karma tonight.

I’ve done the maths, Boo. I know when the teaser trailer is coming out. And I know when the official trailer is coming out. 

I not only deduced the average industry-wide gap between trailer and theatrical release, I worked out the average gap for the Conjuring’s universe.

Pull out your calendars, lads! It’s time to schedule your life around these key dates:

The teaser trailer is out in early march.

And the official trailer will hit YouTube May 8th 2020.

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