#Ruler of Apocalypse

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

IN THE DEATH-GRIP OF THE TRUE GOD OF EVIL -- RETURNS TO DARKEN THE DC UNIVERSE ONCE MORE.

PIC INFO: Resolution at 875x1280 -- Spotlight on DC house ad for "Genesis" Vol. 1, a four-part comic book limited series/crossover event published weekly by DC Comics in August 1997. The series was written by John Byrne and illustrated by Ron Wagner and Joe Rubinstein.

Sources: https://forum.sanctuary.fr/t/page-s-de-pub/185608/225?page=9 & DC Wikia.

[merakiui]

Bro you don't even KNOW how much alien azul is rotting my mind. ESPECIALLY HIM CUCKING INDIA OHHMYGOODD UR A GENIUS BRO

AAAAAA THANK YOU!!!!!! I'm happy he rots your brain because he rots mine a lot!!!! orz my two favorite loves in horror fiction are androids and aliens. I just adore them!! >w< and so I like the idea of creepy-cute alien Zuzu who is so down bad for you that it leads to him cucking Idia. >:D

Also,,,, maybe all of the overblots should be aliens!!! Consider alien Riddle who is a plant monster and he can create all kinds of unique, never-before-seen species of flowers. It's amazing how fragile and dainty he looks, but he's nearly indestructible in design. And coupled with the wide variety of flora he can create at will, he makes for quite the powerful subject. He's very preferential to the rose. <3 those usually bloom frequently in his enclosure when he's in a pleasant mood, but if that happy mood sours you will find his containment chamber is filled with the sharpest of thorns and poisonous plants.

Essentially, you can have many cliché shoujo moments with alien Riddle because if he's happy there will be dozens of roses in full bloom, bright red and smelling so sweet. Or if he's flustered he just,,,, disappears into the foliage sprouting from his person, allowing himself to be swallowed by leaves and branches and thorns. It's unexpectedly cute!!!

Omg omg or alien Jamil who is something like a naga!!! :0 but then he's also a little like Medusa with the snakes that take the place of his hair and, rather than turning others to stone when they look upon him, he can hypnotize them!!!!! Jamil who hypnotizes you into setting him free, but you're just so good and obedient for him that he unintentionally grows far too attached. <3

[the-priestess-of-dawn]

Been thinking about a postgame scenario that goes in a direction I don't think canon would ever take in a million years, but like... I think it could be really compelling...

And that's the idea of Chrom becoming Plegia's king after Grima's defeat. And specifically giving up his claim to Ylisse's throne to do it (leaving it to Lucina when she's old enough).

Because here's the thing... The game ends with Grima's defeat/Robin's return in the sacrifice ending. It doesn't address what happens to Plegia at all, and while I personally maintain that Aversa is the most qualified candidate to rule, her canon ending provides that she goes back to the village she was born in. So, fine. Let's give her that.

But SOMEONE has to do SOMETHING because realistically, Plegia is in dire straits. Validar, the king and the leader of the Grimleal, is dead. He gave, like, ALL of Plegia's resources to the Ylissean League (well, okay, we don't know how much, if any, he left in reserve, but... He really needed Walhart gone and it's not like he had any reason to think that anyone would need resources once Grima was running around, so... chances are good there's little to nothing left in the wake of the averted apocalypse). And the population has been utterly devastated, because not only did people (exactly how many is unclear, but presumably it took more than just a couple) have to sacrifice themselves to renew the fell dragon's power, but Grima was also spawning Grimleal onto their back at the final battle. Their losses are so immense...

So first of all, Chrom is definitely responsible for taking all their resources and setting half of them on fire (Now to be fair, Flavia and Basilio are also responsible, but... Idk, I kinda feel like they'd bicker with each other over who has to do the crappy parts of the job and then agree that they should just ask Chrom if he can do it. Like "Haha, if you didn't want to deal with thieves ambushing the Longfort to steal construction supplies, you shouldn't have gone and beaten me at the last tournament!" "Oh, shut up. Let's see if Chrom can send his thief friend over to talk these guys down. Or kill them, whichever." I mean, Chrom is always going to be their guy who knows a guy.) There's just no way Chrom would abandon the surviving Plegians who need help anyway, but especially not when he knows the war with Valm would've ended before it could begin without them.

Of course, there's the historical hostility between Ylisse and Plegia to consider, but... If anyone's protesting, it's probably the Ylisseans. Because the survivng Plegians, uh... probably were never Grima's most devoted followers in the first place (if you really wanted to give Grima your life, you'd rush to the front of the line at the Dragon's Table, right?) and even if they used to consider themselves true Grimleal, the religion's leadership is destroyed, and—for the purpose of this scenario, I'm considering it post-sacrifice ending—the fell dragon is gone and not coming back. These people narrowly avoided becoming Grima's breakfast or Grima's meat shields. They all almost certainly know someone who wasn't as lucky. And the one who saved them... Well, it was Chrom, wasn't it? Because he believed in humanity enough to challenge the concept of fate, a fate that the people of Plegia were surely taught was inescapable. Despite their history with Ylisse, it's hardly unreasonable for them to see Chrom as a savior to them specifically. The second coming of the Hero-King who ought for the lives of all humans, really.

And yeah, I'm going here... Chrom is Marth's descendant. Marth was Altean. Former Altea is is modern Plegia, so technically, the people can argue that he's actually theirs.

Doesn't it sort of make sense, even? Plegia is ruined, the god to whom the theocracy was devoted killed. "What we need is to restore the glory of ancient Altea!" And who better to help them than Chrom, Marth's successor in blood and in spirit?

But Chrom would frown and say no. Of course he's going to help them restore their country to prosperity—or at least to independent, peaceful functioning. But king? Sheesh, that's going too far. Come on guys, you don't really want that. Besides, he's already ruling Ylisse...

Except, he's not ruling it as Exalt. At least, not at first he's not. He forswore the title when he started his rule and in canon he is only official welcomed as Exalt after Grima's defeat. But what if he just... continued to not accept it. It's not like he ever wanted to be Exalt. He only has the right to rule because Emmeryn died—because he failed to protect her. It has nothing to do with any of his successes.

But if the Plegians made him their king, then it would be because of his own accomplishments.

And in a way I also can't help but find it heartwarming, because it was the Plegian people who got him to truly understand Emmeryn's ideals. He wanted peace, he wanted to follow her path, but it wasn't until the Plegians took her sacrifice for the peace offer it was and refused to continue fighting Ylisse that Chrom was finally able to comprehend what it meant that Emmeryn believed that all people wanted the same thing, that peace is something for everyone and not just purehearted saints like her who would never hurt a fly. So wouldn't it be sweet to expand on that existing connection? For the people who once bore a grudge against him and his nation to say, actually, our home is your home and you belong with us... For Chrom to reach back and decide that these are his people and that he will protect them...

Especially because that's what he's always done for Robin. Your father doesn't get to determine your path for you, your past doesn't dictate your future, you always have a place beside me because we are two halves of a greater whole. This AU is definitely a chrobin AU, because when Robin gets back I want them to rule at his side (after all, I do have feelings about Grima's loyalty to a people who have been praying to them to end their suffering for a thousand years).

Now, I do think that Chrom would never leave Ylisse while little Lucina was still growing up, but... Honestly it would probably take quite some time to establish a castle for Plegia's new ruler anyway (especially if they go super hard on the Altean revival theme and want it to be IN former Altean territory, which has become the "border wastes" and undoubtedly needs some help... But EVERYWHERE in Plegia needs help, so what better time to give the land some attention?) So when Lucina is an adult she can take over as Ylisse's true Exalt, and Chrom can focus his efforts on the other side of the border. I think he'd still be awkward about the whole thing, approaching it like "Well, I guess I'm here if you all still want me..." but Robin's there to give him confidence and the people there are SO excited for their hero to come and live with them and together they all usher in a new era of peace and prosperity as Ylisse and Plegia themselves become like two halves of a greater whole.

[mimithesketchfigure]

THE HIVE RULER (MOXIE REDESIGN)

[AGE]

- ???

[HEIGHT]

- 3’1

[WEIGHT]

- 37kg

[NATIONALITY]

- ???

[POWERS AND/OR WEAPONS]

- Red Claws, teleportation, warping reality

[CHARACTER BACKGROUND]

# [REDACTED]

[EXTRA INFO]

- she took the form of ~~Kana~~ when she was offered with her blood

[frayedcircus]

a silly little costume design for the queen of hearts in a zombie apocalypse i made for a theater class a while ago

if i spelled anything wrong then no i didn’t

(some vague lore and design stuff in the tags if you’re interested)

plus some other versions i made bc i’m indecisive:

[scattered-winter]

they really put their entire pussies into the social commentary in this show huh

[valapocalypsecollection]

[heavysighing-dreamyeyes]

Blood Bag

DC vs. Vampires AU, but The Vampire King won. ~3.2k words

There's no warning, no notice for an apocalypse. There wasn't any preamble, when vampires established a new order to the world.

Jason, your Jason, had only whispered the basics as he held you to his chest. Had only told you he has to try and stop their leader, that if you knew anymore, it would be dangerous.

You knew being Red Hood was risky, but you had hoped, as you watched him leave your apartment, that he would be safe. That his family would protect him where you couldn't.

You waited for him to come back to you. To come back with the world saved and him unharmed.

He doesn't.

The world ends. It was quick, bloody, and ruthless. The world ends, and something new rose from the gore and destruction left in its wake. A new world begins, one led by The Vampire King, who reigns over it with sharpened claws and even sharper fangs.

The lucky ones got to continue with their lives, struggle to adapt to the new normal, their new rulers. The really lucky ones, the ones who were already powerful and godly, got changed into something unkillable.

The unlucky ones, you, got chosen for a far worse fate. Blood Bag. Vampires and humans alike spit it like a slur, like you're something less all because the bite marks that litter your skin. As if any one of you were given a choice.

You hadn't asked to be taken to the castle fortress that the Vampire nobility called home.

You had been in your apartment, watching the world fall apart from the safety of your home. Watching in a dazed horror as Dick Grayson's signature smile, now adorned with pearly fangs, flashed across the news, when he just appeared in front of you.

You'd said his name, jumped to your feet to touch him– to hug him, grateful he was safe and alive.

But he'd stopped you. Said he wasn't Jason anymore. Said he was just Red Hood now. It didn't make sense at the time.

Jason was Red Hood, and Red Hood was Jason. You didn't realize how wrong you were until you ended up kneeling alongside other humans in front of The Vampire King.

He had given a lavish speech about your new place in the world. That the humans staring up at him in fear and awe were special. Chosen to serve in his court. That being a Blood Bag was an honor and a privilege.

You might have believed it if they hadn't dragged you to the dungeons after.

You were left there, cold, confused, and hungry for almost a week. Your cell mates come and go, but the ones that return always come back with their skin covered in deep, telltale puncture wounds.

They whisper stories of the grand parties, the growing crowds of spawns, the brutality of The Vampire King, and his court.

You wait for your turn, and wonder if maybe when you are chosen, you'll be one of the prisoners that don't come back.

You don't get any warning, when it's your time. Two spawns with sunken eyes drag you from your sleep, hauling you from the dungeon and across marble floors.

They taunt you, proclaiming that you're a gift for The General. That you'll make a fine pet, a good blood bag, if he manages not to kill you tonight.

A part of you wants to scream. To cry. To beg. To hope as you have every night since Jason brought you here, that he'd come back for you. But your hope runs out as they force you into a lavish bedroom.

Two new spawns take over from the guards, they wash you, dress you, and soon enough, you almost look like you haven't spent a week in a cell. They leave you sitting on the soft bed and an order to not disappoint.

A part of you wants to use the moment, to seize the opportunity to escape. But you're so tired. So hungry. So thirsty. And the bed is so comfortable. But whatever comes next for you could be worse than that cell.

The door swings open, and you jolt from your thoughts. You're expecting someone fearsome. Someone terrible and evil and threatening. But it's Jason.

You think he's going to free you, save you. You believe it wholeheartedly. Until you see the glint of his fangs.

He steps towards you, eyes focused and dark, and you realize who The General is. You realize what he's going to do.

The first time Red Hood feeds from you, you feel nothing but pain. It's agonizing, to feel your life being dragged out of you and drank down by someone who could so easily kill you.

There's no ceremony. He sinks his fangs into your throat and leaves you exhausted and dazed on the bed while crimson drips haphazardly down his chin.

The second time isn't any easier, he only takes what he needs. His fingers don't brush over your skin to soothe you. He doesn't speak a word of comfort. He only presses gauze to the bite wound before leaving you to recover alone.

The third time is different. He lingers when he's done. You might be crying. You're too tired and dizzy to be sure.

But you're not so far gone that you don't notice the way he presses a kiss to the puncture marks. Like it's a twisted apology.

His hand traces lines over your back. He holds you close, even after he's done draining the blood from your veins.

The way he feeds from you changes after that. He treats you like you're precious. He presses kisses to your skin before he bites.

He licks away the trails of blood and tears. He presses his face to your pulse and doesn't move until your heart finds a steady pace.

He still doesn't speak. He hasn't since he told you he's not Jason anymore, but he hovers when he's done. He brushes his fingers along your jaw, watches you as you fall asleep.

It's not until you're brave enough to leave the room that you learn your status as Red Hood's Blood Bag has privileges.

It turns out the bedroom you've constantly been left alone in is yours. You can wander most of the castle and its gardens freely. No one else tries to feed from you.

But it doesn't stop the taunts and jeers. Doesn't stop the spawns or the high-ranking nobles or human servants alike from spitting curses at you.

But no one touches you. No one seems to want to earn Red Hoods, and in turn, The Kings, ire.

You hadn't realized the protection that his marks had offered you.

Not until you started to hear the whispers that followed you, the murmurs that warned of sinking their teeth into the only Blood Bag Red Hood seems interested in. How any bites or scratches not his would be a death sentence.

The months of faded scars that mark your skin serve as a warning to them. But to you, they're a stark reminder of the new world you're forced to navigate.

They become memories, in a way, of the mistakes you've made.

The bite on your palm marks the day you spoke to another Blood Bag out of turn. You can't forget the panic that sparked in their eyes as a spawn dragged them away. (You haven't seen them since)

The bite on your shoulder marks the night you tried to run. You had barely made it to the garden walls when Red Hood had lazily appeared at your side. It didn't take words to know he'd been aware of the moment you left your room.

Mistake after mistake, bite after bite, create a sick patchwork of art over your skin.

You try to cover the ones you can see, for your own piece of mind, but the extravagant outfit you're wearing now? The one that's been picked out for tonight's ball? Does little to hide exactly what you are.

It's rare for you to make an appearance at any of the Vampire Kings events, and the times you have gone have been incredibly short and spent entirely at Red Hood's side.

But the chatter that floats about you in the ballroom suggests The Vampire King had expected your presence. Each snide smile and quiet laugh sends a chill down your spine.

You'd expected this night at court to be like any other, one or two dances, and then a quick return to your room.

You're proven wrong when Red Hood is pulled from your side at the request of The King.

You're not completely sure how long you've been left waiting at the edge of the grand dance floor, but it's been long enough that your feet ache, and your shoulders feel tight.

Long enough that you don't think twice to slip out of the loud, music filled room and into the darker, quieter halls.

It's another mistake.

A spawn, drunk on blood and his own immortality saunters into your path. "A pest," he drawls, eyes eerily fixed on the juncture of your neck, "a pretty pest, but a pest nonetheless."

You offer a customary nod, safe under the illusion of safety the marks scattered over your body brings.

The spawn shatters the illusion when he snatches your hand with supernatural grace, "Be still, pest, I thirst."

"You can't," You protest quickly, the words spilling before you can think on them.

He pauses, head tilting in a mockery of interest, "and why ever not?"

"I'm–," You start, then pause, saying it aloud feels too real. "I'm Red Hood's," You finish, voice weaker than you mean it to be.

The spawn drags his claw over the palm of your hand, laughing as the drops of blood begin to form in a line of ruby dots, "You? Pretty pest. Not even the lowest of us would want to keep a Blood Bag that's been shared by so many."

"I haven't been–" You breathe out, but his claws only dig deeper into your skin, turning your words into a wince.

You don't tear up, don't cry or beg. It hurts. It always does. Even the idea of being fed on hurts. But your next thought keeps you quiet.

Maybe this spawn will lose control. Maybe, in a way, you can finally be free. The thought makes your heart rate spike, and you're not sure if it's in fear or anticipation. You're not sure if death is something you're ready to face.

He doesn't give you a moment more to think on it. The spawn pulls your palm to his mouth, fangs glinting as he prepares to bite down.

He doesn't get the chance.

A flash of red catches your eyes, and suddenly, your wrist is no longer restrained.

Your mind can't quite keep up with what just happened, and by the time you've even registered his presence, Red Hood has his claws buried in the spawns chest.

If the sight of blood wasn't something so common in The Vampire Kings court, you would be sick. It's messy, loud, when Red Hood rips the spawns unbeating heart from his chest.

You stumble to lean against the wall, when Jason tears the spawns head from his body and crushes it beneath his boot. You don't get a good look at what's left before Jason is in front of you, blocking your view.

He grabs your wrist and presses you flush to the wall. He offers you no warning before his tongue traces the line of blood on your skin.

It's something you should be used to, but you still make a noise of surprise, still instinctively try to pull away.

Jason only shoves a leg between your thighs, trapping you between his body and the wall behind you. His grip on your wrist tightens, and his head bends down again. His gaze doesn't stray from yours, almost like he wants you to watch.

Jason slowly licks at the cut again, then drags his fangs down your hand and to your wrist. He never blinks as he bites into your skin, adding another mark among the many others that cover your skin.

He drops your wrist and steps back once he's had his fill, "You were letting him feed from you. No one else feeds on you. Haven't I made that more than clear?"

"It's not my fault," You protest weakly, "He didn't believe me when I said I was–"

"That you were what," he asks, voice low and almost threatening. You find that entirely unfair, considering you're the only that almost had their life drained.

"That they're yours," a happy voice supplies with a chirp, "Maybe it's time you did something to show that, don't you think, Little Wing?"

You immediately drop your head at the sight of the Vampire King leaning against the wall. You can't help but think, by the cocky grin growing on his face, that he witnessed the entire thing.

Red Hood scoffs, like the idea is ridiculous, "They're covered in my bites. What else could they need? That idiot should have known–"

"But they didn't," The King supplies with a smile and walks over to you to lift your chin with a sigh, "and your little pet could have died for it."

Red Hood stiffens, and you can feel the tension growing in the corridor. He shoots a glance towards the decapitated spawn, as if he's considering removing the rest of their bones piece by bloody piece. "So what do you suggest," he finally asks, voice low and measured.

If you didn't know better, you'd think he was on the verge of ripping you away from the Vampire Kings clutches.

The King only shrugs in return, "You should have shown them off more. Taken them to court. Feed from them during parties."

Red Hood goes to speak, but The King continues to talk as he tilts your chin back and forth, "Blood Bags are symbols, after all. Power. But you've always kept the things you like tucked close to your chest. Haven't you, Little Wing?"

"I don't– I don't like them. I just don't want some spawn watching me eat," Red Hood counters, and neither you nor Dick miss the way his fingers twitch towards you.

The Vampire King nods sagely, "Then I suppose you won't be interested in keeping them."

Red Hoods head snaps up in the same instant the Vampire King spins you around, his fangs catching the skin above your pulse, "And if you're not interested in a Blood Bag," he drawls, voice low and lazily as he trails off, leaving the implications of his threat in the air.

It leaves you wide eyed and frozen. The Vampire King presses closer to your back, drawing you by your hips as his free hand curls around your neck. His fangs don't quite break your skin, but the cold promise of them doesn't waver.

The ball hadn't scared you in this way. The spawn hadn't left you with tears filling your eyes, terror tightening your throat. Not even the dungeons had made dread fill every cell of your body.

Jason drops to his knees, any facade, any lie he had been trying to maintain disappears, "I want them. I want them. Please–"

The Vampire King laughs, and his fangs leave your throat. He shoves you, and you stumble to the ground into Jason's waiting arms. He keeps you caged tightly to his chest, his hand cradling the back of your head.

"I was only teasing, general, truly, you're the only member of my court who's proven time and time again you're deserving of your status," The King drawls.

You can't see him as Jason keeps your face pressed to his shoulder, but you can hear the sick glee building in his voice.

Jason tenses as Dick continues, satisfaction dripping from his tone, "The resistance camp you personally slaughtered? The leader's head left on spikes? I couldn't have done it better myself."

"I'm– I'm honored to have impressed you," Jason says steadily, fingers digging into your skin. You think if he still had a heart, it would be beating just as fast as yours.

The Vampire King hums in response, as if he's suddenly grown bored, "Go enjoy the gala, Little Wing. Remind the raff who you are. And what that makes them."

Jason doesn't argue, just hauls you towards your feet and drags you towards the ball. You keep your gaze lowered, but you can still see him checking over his shoulder, as if he's worried the Vampire King will change his mind.

"What he said– about a resistance–" You begin to ask, desperate for knowledge, but more desperate to finally hear his voice again.

"Don't. They won't win," he answers sharply, not giving you a chance to ask more questions as he pulls you into the ballroom, and drags you to the dance floor.

He doesn't let you find your footing before he's spinning you around the dance floor, arm hooked firmly around your waist.

You try to ignore the remnants of blood, his boots leave on the sparking floor.

Every cell in your body screams at you to talk again, to demand answers. To know how he ended up like this. To know why all he seems to leave you with now are questions and scars.

You open your mouth to ask, throwing whatever decorum you should have in front of The Vampire Kings court to the wind, when Jason drops you into a dip.

Your breath hitches, and his lips find your pulse.

The sounds of the ball seem to fade around you as you stare up at the decorative ceiling lined with mirrors and gold.

He kisses down your throat, curls his hand tighter into your back and all you can think about is how odd it is, to know the room is so full and yet there's nearly no reflections in the mirrors above.

Jason runs the tip of his nose back up your neck, following the veins under your skin.

"You've always smelled so good," he murmurs. It's the only warning he gets before he sinks his teeth into your throat, drinking you down in the center of the ballroom for everyone to see.

It draws a whimper from your lips, and it only seems to encourage him to hold you tighter, to lick every trail of blood that spills from the marks on your neck.

He kisses the punctures his fangs left when he's done. It feels less like an apology this time, and more of a claim.

When he finally lifts you from the dip, when you're finally able to steady your vision even as it threatens to swim, he shows you his teeth, and his lips are dyed in the color of your blood.

"Brava," the distinctive voice of The Vampire King breaks through your hazy mind. Your eyes never leave Jason's, even as clapping begins to sound throughout the ballroom.

You're not sure what it means. You're not sure if The Vampire Kings' interest in you is just some passing folly.

But Jason's eyes are dark, intense, and they flicker with the weight of knowing. But there's more to it than knowing. It's clear in the way his eyes never yours either. There's a desire, a want, a need to keep.

To make it an unshakable truth, that whatever role you're meant to play in The Vampire Kings world, you're going to do it at Jason's side.

His eyes hold a promise, and he seals it with a bloody kiss to your pounding pulse.

[cuppajj]

BURNING SPICE IS APOPHIS

EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY MOMENT!!!!! IF GOLDEN CHEESE COOKIE REPRESENTS GOLD AND WEALTH AND RADIANCE AND THE SUN THEN BURNING SPICE COOKIE REPRESENTS DESTRUCTION AND APOCALYPSE BECause Burning Spice is the Apophis (Apep) to Golden Cheese’s Ra. Do you get me. Ra is the god of the sun, creator, and first ruler of the world like how Cheese created and ruled her kingdom. And is shiny. Meanwhile Apophis is the lord of chaos. Destruction you might even say. And there is nothing it wants more than to destroy Ra. Like how Spice wants to destroy Cheese yeah?? If there is no snake symbolism with this man when he comes out then i am going to FLIP

[thenightling]

For those keeping score here are all the TV shows based on the work of Neil Gaiman from the last ten years. Lucifer - Loosely based on the version of Lucifer who quits ruling Hell and opens a piano bar, from The Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman. Originally aired on Fox and then moved to Netflix for seasons 4 through 6. Neil Gaiman also got to play God in a bonus episode for season 3. The full series can be watched on Netflix. And is available on DVD. The plot deals with Lucifer, the ruler of Hell, up and quitting and moving to Earth where he opens a night club called Lux and takes up playing piano. In the TV series he befriends (and eventually falls in love with) a woman homicide detective named Chloe Decker.

_______________________ American Gods - Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. Aired on Starz. The plot deals with a man called Shadow Moon who gets dragged into the strange world of Old and New Gods vying for power.

________________ Anansi Boys - Originally written by Neil Gaiman as a spin-off of American Gods, the TV series version was filmed for Amazon Prime and is currently in post-production (Not yet released.) The plot deals with the sons of Anansi, the African trickster Spider-God.

__________________ Good Omens - Showrun by Neil Gaiman and based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Also Neil Gaiman has a small cameo in the first season. Available now on Amazon Prime. Seasons 1 and 2 are complete. Season 3 has not yet started filming and will very likely be the final season. Season 1 is currently available on DVD. The plot deals with two "differently competent" entities, an Angel and a Demon, who have come to love life on Earth and each other. And now must work together to prevent the apocalypse.

______________________________ The Sandman - First episode was co-written by Neil Gaiman, based on the stories and original characters created by Neil Gaiman with a few borrowed DC comics characters. Currently on Netflix. Season 2 is in production now. Neil Gaiman also voiced a ghostly bird in the bonus episode segment Dream of a Thousand Cats. Season 1 will be available on DVD and Blu Ray at the end of this month. The plot deals with Morpheus, the King of Dreams, who accidentally gets summoned and captured by occultists who had been trying to capture The Grim Reaper. After over a hundred and six years in captivity Morpheus finally escapes and has to track down his tools which had been taken from him when he was captured. He also comes to realize he had made many terrible mistakes in the past and struggles to set those wrongs right.

_________________________________________ The Dead Boy Detectives - First official spin-off of The Sandman. The Dead Boy Detectives were originally planned as an HBO Max series (now just Max) but moved to Netflix after the success of the first season of The Sandman. Based on characters who first appeared in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman is involved in the production. The plot is a pair of ghost teenagers decide to become detectives and are really bad at it. These two characters made a previous appearance in Doom Patrol on Max (Formerly HBO Max) but had been played by different actors.

[headspace-hotel]

Just spent a couple hours digging into this book. I'm not even sure what has worse environmental impacts, the paper the book is made of or the opinions printed within.

Is "post-colonial" literary theory a joke? It's distressing that a book printed in 2021 by a reputable academic press can be so painfully Eurocentric, and I mean PAINFULLY. The philosophical and literary frameworks drawn upon in most chapters are like what some British guy in 1802 would come up with. In most of the chapters, every framework, terminology, and example is inseparably fused to Latin, Greek, and/or Christian philosophers, myths and texts, even down to the specific turns of phrase. You would think only Europeans had history or ideas until the 20th century.

Don't get me wrong, non-european and even specifically anti-colonial sources are used, and I don't think all the writers are white people, but...that's what's so weird and off-putting about it, most of the book as a whole utterly fails to absorb anything from non-European and in particular anti-colonial points of view. The chapters will quote those points of view but not incorporate them or really give their ideas the time of day, just go right back to acting like Plato and Aristotle and Romantic poets are the gold standard for defining what it means to be human.

In brief, the book is trying to examine how literature can shed light on the climate crisis, which is funny because it completely fails to demonstrate that literature is good or helpful for the climate crisis. Like that is for sure one major issue with it, it shows that people *have* written stuff about climate change, but it sure doesn't convince you that this stuff is good.

Most of the works quoted are rather doomerist, and a lot of the narrative works specifically are apocalypse tales where most of Earth's population dies. The most coherent function the authors can propose that literature fulfills is to essentially help people understand how bad things are. One of the essays even argues that poetry and other creative work that simply appreciates nature is basically outdated, because:

“One could no longer imagine wandering lonely as a cloud, because clouds now jostle in our imaginations with an awareness of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants” (Mandy Bloomfield, pg. 72)

Skill issue, Mandy.

The menace of doomerism in fiction and poetry is addressed, by Byron Caminero-Santangelo, on page 127 when he references,

the literary non-fiction of a growing number of authors who explicitly assert, some might even say embrace, the equation between fatalistic apocalyptic narrative and enlightenment…they are authoritative in their rejection of any hope and in their representation of mitigatory action as the cliched moving of deckchairs on a sinking ship

He quotes an essay “Elegy for a country’s seasons” by Zadie Smith, who says: “The fatalists have the luxury of focusing on an eschatological apocalyptic narrative and on the nostalgia of elegy, as well as of escape from uncertainty and responsibility to act." Which is spot-on and accurate, but these observations aren't recognized as a menace to positive action, nor is the parallel to Christian thought that eagerly looks forward to Earth's destruction as a cathartic release from its pain made fully explicit and analyzed. Most of the creative works referenced and quoted in the book ARE this exact type of fatalistic, elegiac performance of mourning.

I basically quit reading after Chapter 11, "Animals," by Eileen Crist, which begins:

The humanization of the world began unfolding when agricultural humans separated themselves from wild nature, and started to tame landscapes, subjugate and domesticate animals and plants, treat wild animals as enemies of flocks and fields, engineer freshwater ecologies, and open their psyches to the meme of the ‘the human’ as world conquerer, ruler and owner.

This is what I'm talking about when I say it's dripping Eurocentrism; these ideas are NOT universal, and it's adding nothing to the world to write them because they fall perfectly in line with what the European colonizing culture already believes, complete with the lingering ghost of a reference to the Fall of Man and banishment from the Garden of Eden. It keeps going:

“Over time, the new human elaborated a view of the animal that ruptured from the totemic, shamanic and relational past.”

Okay so now she's introducing the idea of progression from shamanic nature-worshipping religions of our primitive past...hmm I'm sure this isn't going anywhere bad

“While humanity has largely rejected the colonizing project with respect to fellow humans, the occupation of non-human nature constitutes civilization’s last bastion of ‘normal’ colonialism. A new humanity is bound sooner or later to recognize and overthrow a colonialism of ‘nature,’ embracing a universal norm of interspecies justice.” (pg. 206) 

OKAY????

Not only denying that colonialism still exists, but also saying that humans' relationship with nature constitutes colonialism??

Embracing limitations means scaling down the human presence on demographic and economic fronts…(pg.207)

ope, there's the "we have to reduce the human population"

Embracing limitations further mandates pulling back from vast expanses of the natural world, thus letting the lavishness of wild (free) nature rule Earth again” (pg. 207) 

aaaaaaand there's the "we have to remove humans from wild nature so it can be freeeeeee"

don't get me wrong like I am a random white person with no particular expertise in anti-colonialist thought but I think this is an easy one. I'm pretty sure if your view of nature is that colonialism involving subjugating humans doesn't exist any more and actually humans existing in and altering nature is the real colonialism so we should remove humans from vast tracts of earth, your opinion is just bad.

Anyways y'all know I have an axe to grind against doomerism so it was probably obvious where this was going but good grief.

[professorsparklepants]

Agatha Heterodyne is amazing. She has two dead parents and her father was raised to be the ruler of an evil city state with an army of demonic super soldiers super soldiers and a region known as the flesh pits and a reputation of razing Europe to the ground once a generation and he decided to be a hero and single handedly brought peace to a continent that had been destroyed by feuding megalomaniacs for over two hundred years through sheer charisma and brilliance until he mysteriously disappeared fighting a zombie apocalypse, and twenty years later his town is so reformed it's a tourist destination and there's an entire type of commedia del arte troupe modeled after him.

But the narrative actually revolves around her mom.

[spider-jaysart]

For the Supersons week 2023 bonus prompt: In another life

@super-sons-week

(Click for better quality)

This is an au of mines called Species swap where Damian's an alien and Jon's a human instead. Besides my apocalypse one, this one is also one of my most faves! And for fun, I also named it Earth 59

(More under the cut)

Damian and the Batfamily, plus the Al Ghul's, are hero aliens instead of humans (though, the Al Ghul's are more like warriors here like Tamaraneans are for example) and Jon and the Superfamily are the humans in this au who save people on earth with their highly trained combat skills and helpful gadgets.

The Al Ghuls live on a far away planet called "Lazarus planet" and Damian grew up there with them (just like in his origin). All aliens there were trained to fight very skillfully. Damian too while growing up there was trained to fight very skillfully as well, since he's going to be the ruler of that planet one day when he grows up.

But then Talia had no choice but to send Damian to his Father's planet on his 10th birthday, since some vicious aliens from another planet had came to invade their home and wanted to assassinate all of their people during that day, so she had to do it to keep him safe until the war was over. She quickly leaves their planet and uses one of the mini traveling spaceships to drive Damian to Bruce's planet, which is Gotham. After landing there and finding Bruce, she leaves Damian there with him to be taken care of while she's gone.

So for the mean time while Damian has to stay on Bruce's planet, he begins to finally get to know his Father and finally learns about the rest of his unknown Batfamily members for the first time as well. And while all of that's happening, after some time, the Al Ghul's later win the war on their planet and Talia goes back to go get Damian. Though, Damian has already become attached and didn't want to just leave his Father and his other family so soon after getting to finally know them for only just such a short time, so Talia lets him stay a little longer because of that. After that, her and Bruce both later decide on an agreement about sharing equal time with him, letting him usually spend one week on Lazarus planet with the Al Ghul's and the next one on Gotham planet with the Batfamily so that it'll be fair

With the Superfamily, Jon, Clark, Lois, Kara, Kon, and Chris live on earth as humans and fight crime protecting people (just like the Batfamily as humans). They train a lot to stay strong and also own a lot of gadgets. And just like how the Batfamily would, they have things like a Superrang, Supermobile, and etc. They also all wear masks to hide their identities

Damian's never been to earth before, not even his Mother. Though, he's always heard stories from his Father, brothers, and Grandfather about earth and it's humans, since they're the ones who have actually been there before. He was always curious about what it was like over there but he never dared to visit it, especially since he was always told by his family that he wasn't ever allowed to because of certain reasons that could possibly endanger him

One day though, during a mission in space with his brothers when he was 12 years old, which involved a bunch of dangerous aliens who owned powerful electric, laser guns, he fell down to earth after being severely shocked and knocked out by a strong laser blast. He fell down in planet earth's direction, later crashing into a video game store while Jon and his family were nearby, busy dealing with a mission of their own. Jon, after hearing the crash, went to go take a look at where and what the loud sound was caused by and saw Damian just laying there knocked out in the store with the ceiling rocks on top of him, since he had destroyed the stores roof during his crash into the place

After the rest of the Superfamily found out about it, they took Damian with them to the Fortress of solitude to find out who he was (he was still knocked out), since they knew he wasn't from earth after looking at his unique outfit and long unusual sharp, large sword. As soon as Damian woke up, he tried to fight them and escape, feeling endangered since he didn't know them, but they calmed him down and then kept him inside of a clear cube that he couldn't break through at all with his super strength so that he could stop, which just got him upset again but even more than before

They let Damian out once they found out that he wasn't a threat and tried apologizing to him. Jon excitedly then tries to become his friend and tries showing him around Metropolis during that same day until they can get him back home. Damian's clueless about earth things and only knows a little bit about the things that his family has told him about it before, so Damian ends up curiously asking Jon a lot of questions about everything around earth and in Metropolis, while Jon tries to answer them all for him (he thinks that Jon is a very smart person cause he knows all the answers to his every question lol). So they both get to bond a little and know eachother better that same day (they also fight some crime together while walking around the city)

Meanwhile, the Batfamily and the Al Ghul family are both panicking very much and are trying to find Damian as fast as they can since he's still missing. So once the Batfamily and the Al Ghul's got to earth, they got into a mini fight with the Superfamily, thinking that Damian's in danger with them. But then Bruce remembers Clark being the same exact boy he had met as a kid when he himself accidentally crashed onto earth many years ago in the past and got his help to go back home, so it all gets figured out in the end and peace is quickly made between them both and all is finally understood

Both of Damian's family finally found him after that and tried to take him safely back home, but he refused and didn't want to leave since he found everything so interesting on earth, plus he was also just starting to like Jon too. After arguing back and forth, they decided that he could visit sometimes, but only with supervision from whoever is available to go along with him during those times to make sure he's okay. Damian was pleased with that decision.

So after everything and as time went on, Damian and Jon later became the duo team named Supersons and also best friends in the end too (with crushes on eachother)

Some facts:

Damian and the Al Ghul's are the ones who rule Lazarus planet since they're the royal family there

Those from Lazarus planet are called "Lazarens" and those from Gotham planet are "Gothamites", so that makes Damian a mixed alien who is considered a "Lazamite"

Most characters who are aliens in canon are now humans in this au instead

All planets like Tamaran and Krypton don't exist in space in this au and are instead just big cities on earth. Tamaran city is corrupted under Blackfire's control over it and Krypton is a city that was destroyed many years ago, so it is now abandoned and no one ever visits it

Damian is pretty reckless on earth while fighting and using his powers on humans who are criminals, since he's used to being that way when defeating enemies who are very strong like him back in space. So Jon has to sometimes remind him to be more careful about what he's doing and how he has to be more calmer when handling humans and certain other things

Just like how Damian always visits Jon on earth for patrol together or just hangout or have sleepovers at the Kent farm, Jon also visits Damian's planets sometimes too and they get to do many of those things together there as well

Damian wanted to find a way to be around Jon more though after becoming his friend, so after hearing that Jon goes to school in the early day, he immediately wanted to be registered in too (it's also because they don't have many schools in space for alien kids and he was homeschooled for years by Talia, so he wanted to know the experience too). Talia and Bruce didn't want to do it since they were afraid that he could get caught as an alien if he were to make any kind of mistakes around the civilians over there, but after being constantly asked over and over by their son and seeing how much he wanted it, they finally did it for him. The Superfamily decided to help him out by making him a holographic bracelet that makes him look human (which makes him look like how he always does in canon)

Damian doesn't have his canon pets with him in space in the beginning (only Goliath and Batcow who have some type of alien DNA in them) and has no idea what earth pets are like either because of this, but he does meet them on earth later on. After escaping their everyday cages, they all unexpectedly run out of a nearby pet shop while Jon is showing Damian around the city and they happily run towards the Boy Wonder. Damian prepares to defend himself since he isn't very trusting of them at first, thinking they are going to try and challenge him with an attack like other creatures he's fought before, but he was immediately met with the complete opposite after getting pushed down to the ground by them, getting a bunch of doggy and cat kisses to the face instead. This unexpected love from them quickly made him change his whole view on them, causing him to fall in love with their lovable, fluffy cuteness. The pet store owner tried to take them back inside, but Damian threatened him with his large sword so that he can leave them alone. It scared the poor guy away and Damian happily left with his new pets. After seeing that, Jon had to quickly go after Damian to tell him that's not how things are done on earth and that he has to actually go back and adopt them first for real instead of just leaving with them. After all of that, Damian later puts special collars on them (made by the Batfamily) that help them breathe properly in space so that he can take them home with him

When Jon gets married to Damian in the future when they're both adults, he also becomes a king on Lazarus planet too like Damian

In this au, Damian and the Batfamily destroyed Eberos (the creature from Dceased who was made by Darksied to start the apocalypse) before he could even do anything to earth

For abilities and other little things:

Damian has flight, Superstrength, Superspeed, laser vision, laser beams, and flame blasts that he can throw from his hands. And also, while it may be a learned skill for him in canon, it's actually a natural born ability of his to be able to imitate many voices in this au

Whenever he gets really mad, Damian's hair turns into flames until he calms down again

Lazarens have Lazarus blood in them, so whenever they get cuts or are severely injured, their wounds just close back up (after an hour) and they regenrate whatever part of their body they lost (which usually takes almost a month). They can also live up to 2000 years or even longer because of this. There are also multiple Lazarus pits on Lazarus planet

Damian's big sword is way too heavy to actually be held by humans, so only those with super strength like him can hold it. He can also transfer his abilities to the weapon while holding it during battle and make it light up in green fire, which helps him create bigger damage against enemies and make fast clean cuts through anything too

Not one of them, but Damian is allergic to these giant "shrimp" like creatures in space and will grow a big headache and will also be sneezing out whole fire breath sneezes as if he's a dragon if he's too close to them for too long. He can even take out almost a whole battle field with it too, that's how bad it is (inspired by my friend @paladin-of-nerd-fandom65 's headcanon where Damian is allergic to shrimp). After finding out about this allergy, Jon created an antidote for him that makes it go away faster whenever they bump into these creatures

Lazarens only fall in love once with someone and aren't able to go through it again with other people

Bruce is a Gothamite who is born with a lot of rare abilities that many other Gothamites don't have, so some of them were passed onto Damian too. They're: Super high intelligence, the super clear ability to observe things much better than a human as if they're like robots, astounding quick memory, and the ability to move any shadows with them when they need to stay hidden

Damian's system allows him to eat whatever he wants, especially weird stuff, without any kind of problems. He's still a vegetarian though and even tries to be one with earth food too (sometimes he doesn't understand what any of the meals actually are though and needs help from others to tell him if they involve meat or not)

[harmoonix]

♡Birth Chart Observations

♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹

✈️ Mars and Venus in the same house/in the same sign gives a captivating vibe to the native, the native is very intense and sensual, they want to experience the love at the fullest

☁️Mercury in aspects with Pluto at tight degrees makes the native to be very harshly talking when is needed, they have a sharp tongue and a sly mind

🌁Jupiter aspecting the Moon: Makes the native to be very interested in spiritually and possibly even occult things, they are very wise-talking and is always a mystery surrounding the native/the native can be also interested in their ancesorts/family tree

🌪️Mars and Uranus in negative aspects natives are people who come to spill the tea - like they are not afraid to talk about random and unusual, you can literally talk about everything with them and the conversation can be so interesting

🎑Moon aspecting the ascendant makes the native to be very sensitive aswell, is a pretty placement to have related to beauty, but there are other meanings to these of course, the native can be very soft and very kind (in some cases extremely kind) to people, and also gives innocent vibes, like you know they are so angelic 🪽

🌬️ Venusian Moons (Taurus and Libra Moons) are giving IT vibes, expensive and pretty is their thing, they have such a beautiful aesthetic and style, their vibe is so comforting

🌇 Saturnian Risings [Cap and Aqua Risings] had to be mature from such a young age, because of the lessons they had to learn in the young ages of their lives, it wasn't always easy, honey wanna tell you something if you think Saturn is harsh with you and the way your life is, it is because that is a lessons that needs to be learned, so you can prosper after you succeed. Saturn takes care even if you think is harsh/difficult to have it as your chart ruler 🌹

🌼 Sagittarius Placements can be brutally honest, if you want a good honest advice for something check someone with prominent Sag Placements. Especially Sag Mercury and Sag Sun

🥀 Sun and Moon in negative aspects can show that the native did not get enough love or attention from their parents and could possibly mean that one of their parents was absent either unavailable (emotionally or physically)

✨ Ascendant aspecting Uranus can change their style very often, they can find their style pretty unique from other people and sometimes can happen random to make/do something about your style or look

🌎 Having an Earth Sun and in Earth Degrees aswell makes the native to be more nurturing and so beautiful, earth is a solid element for beauty, having this double earth energy in your chart can make you more grounded (even connected to mother earth and nature)

🤍 Underatted Romantic Placements for 7th house ruler

7th house ruler in the 5th house or vice versa

7th house ruler in the 11th house or vice versa

7th house ruler in the 12th house or vice versa

💥 There is so much drama around the 7th house ruler in the 12th house like is an apocalypse, anyway is just very much misconception about these 2. Your relationship/spouse can be highly spiritual and so intuitive, most times having this gives extremely karmic vibes, and even twin flame energy, let's not talk about the 12th house is the house of Pisces and your spouse can be so romantic and deeply in love

🕊️ Recently i discovered that the natives with Sun in the 12th house suffered emotionally so much in a past life, i was reading a post about how 12th house placements show how your past life was and the Sun was there, you can find yourself being pretty sensbile and very soft in this lifetime and is perfectly fine to be like because your soul is a sensitive one

🌟 Sagittarius/Aquarius in the 4th house can change their home pretty often, and they like the idea of living away from their family like living in a foreign country or somewhere in foreign lands

Having Pisces/Scorpio or Aquarius in the 2nd house makes you to like cold types of food/drinks more than others, like ice cream or cold juices/ice tea etc 🧊

Aries, Sagittarius/Leo, And Gemini in the 2nd house on the other side like warm types of food and drinks, like hot chocolate, hot coffee, with Aries in the 2nd house you might also like spicy food or seasoning food 🌶️

Uranus in Pisces Generation [2003 - 2010] can be highly intuitive and spiritual, they can get into spirituality later in life but still can enjoy it from a young age. They are into mysticism/unseen things of our world 🌎(If Uranus is placed in the 1st/12th/2nd/10th it can have more influence over the natives life)

✈️🌎✈️🌎✈️🌎✈️🌎✈️🌎✈️🌎✈️🌎✈️🌎✈️🌎

♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹♡🔹

A new post ✈️🌎 with airplanes/sky influence for y'all 💅🏼, do you like to watch the airplanes? They hold a lot of nostalgia for me personally ✈️

Hope everyone reading this is fine and safe with the people they love and never ever forget to have fun and to enjoy the life at the fullest 💖, with the time we realise that life can sometimes have precious and unique moments who need to hold in our hearts 💕 so we can remember them forever ♾️💕♾️

Harmoonix 💋

[dangermousie]

A danmei lover's biased and incomplete het web novel rec list

@mercipourleslivres thanks for inspiring me!

When it comes to Chinese web novels, I mainly read danmei. I tend not to care too much for OP heroine with a hero who dotes on her for no reason as she fights with 14 year olds narratives, nor inner courtyard fights. BUT!!! There are some het web novels I like and so here is my biased and incomplete rec list. Most of these don't have OP heroines, and very little to none courtyard fights.

Before I start, my favorite het web novel authors are: Gong Xinwen, Mo Shu Bai, Peng Lai Ke, and Jiu Lu Fei Xiang. I have yet to read anything bad by them.

Anyway, rec list:

1000 Miles of Bright Moonlight - one of my ultimate favorites, this would make such an epic drama! A smart as hell heroine, a hero who is a monk and a warrior (but also terminally?) ill and such a vivid world and amazing secondary characters (heroine’s brother is possibly my favorite supporting character of all time) and so much angst and happy ending. This has an amazing romance but it’s not romance-centric if it makes sense - ML doesn’t appear for a while. But once he does, it’s worth it!

Accompanying the Phoenix - the one that just got adapted into The Legend of Shen Li, this is high adventure and cottage core and funny and tragic and powerful ML being putty in the hands of capable FL and just EVERYTHING.

Apocalypse Arrival - Gong Xinwen’s novels are made just for me. Her heroines are always powerful as fuck and rescue abused MLs. In this novel, our heroine who lives in the post-apocalyptic world, wakes up right before that apocalypse happens. She forms a survival crew and also rescues ML who has miraculous blood and has been drained of it and is now hunted after the rescue for it. SO GOOD!!!

Black Moonlight Holds the BE Script - so fucked up, so good, with monster hero who learns to love and be human and heroine who learns to love and be human (but from the other side, her tower of perfection.) Much better than the drama which I did enjoy.

The Blue Whisper - the drama was so-so, but the novel is a bona fide angst masterpiece, which really delves into what it feels like to be imprisoned or to love.

Counterattack of the Cannon Fodder Chambermaid - I remember starting this and loving the realistic feel and the heroine and wanting to stab the hero and @mercipourleslivres telling me to be patient. She was right, by the end I was on board with both the hero (who was abused and is rather autistic-coded) and the OTP. Anyway, heroine is a servant who was a concubine in the last life and got killed as part of a rich family’s harem intrigues. In this life, she just wants to keep her head down but her life gets derailed anyway. She gets sold away and eventually made a servant in the household of an exiled prince who takes a fancy to her and she endures it because what choice does she have? All she wanted was to serve out her term and become a small time merchant. This is quite realistic about lack of options for women, especially lower class women or upper class male attitudes (ML is never vicious or mean to FL but it does not initially occur to him to wonder if she fancies him or enjoys being his concubine or w/e.) It is a DELIGHTFUL slow burn tho as they grow to love each other and grow together and become one of the most wholesome cnovel couples out there.

Dandere General and His Lord - hi there, Gong Xinwen! God, I love this one. Heroine transmigrates from modern world into a brutal slave-holding world at war (think something like Warring States era.) Our heroine transmigrates into the body of a noblewoman who just hung herself. When she comes to, she discovers that woman’s twin brother was the ruler of a city poisoned by a rival claimant and the besieging army of said claimant is about to take the city and original occupant of the body and the rest of the family chose suicide as a way to avoid dishonor. Our heroine refuses, schemes with advisors to pass as the brother and rally the troops. Once the invaders are defeated, she keeps on the masquerade and rides off to one of the never-ending wars “she” is summoned to. Our hero couldn’t be farther from this. A slave and a son of a slave, he’s escaped a horrific, starving childhood during which he narrowly avoided being murdered or raped, and ended up in the army. When the story opens, he distinguished himself in battle and as a reward, he and a few of his fellow slave warriors are invited to a banquet, where they are given some alcohol and to be playthings of any nobles who want them. One of them does not survive this but ML is lucky - heroine feels terrible and so “claims” him for herself. Instead she just tends to his wounds and sends him back. She does not fancy him or anything, she is just a human being with a conscience. And the story goes from there.

Demon King's Repayment - another delicious Gong Xinwen tale with a powerful ML dedicated to capable FL. This one is a great fantasy plot (I keep imagining it as an animated series) and a sprawling cast of amazing secondaries (and secondary OTPs - there is, I swear, an OTP that is Dong Hua x Feng Jiu done thru GXW lens) to boot.

Doomed to Be Cannon Fodder - I hesitated to put this one on the list because by the end I was not keen on how misogynistic novel got to original female lead but it was one of my earliest novels and I loved it for 90% and it’s fucking hilarious at times. Heroine transmigrates as bit villainess into a novel, all she wants is not to die, but her new attitude of “pls stay away” catches the attention of her terrifying general husband. Honestly, imo still worth it.

Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir - my n1 novel on this list, smart and fierce and don’t really read this for romance because it does not start until really late, but ice cold heroine x ice cold hero both of equal brains and ruthlessness is everything. I went from loathing the ML to finding him fascinating to adoring him (and yet he softened around the edges only for FL, he never became “nice”) and loved FL throughout; secondaries are epic. If you read only one non-danmei web novel, make it this one.

The Emperor’s Beloved Ugly Girl - my n2 novel on this list. Our heroine is the unlucky laundry maid A’Chou. She is a di daughter of an upperclass family but her family got destroyed in one of the political upheavals of the time and A’Chou, only a small child at the time, was the only survivor and was made an enslaved laundry maid. Due to various events, at the start of the novel she is a laundry maid in a minister’s household and the minister’s beloved daughter is having a fit because she’s supposed to marry the former Crown Prince which may have been great a few years back but Crown Prince had since been deposed, tortured, imprisoned and now is living in the middle of nowhere under conditions that are too meager to be called house arrest. And he’s seriously crippled too. Understandably, the young lady doesn’t want to marry him! She’d rather kill herself and so she does. And so, a desperate plan is hatched - why don’t we pretend the laundry maid is the di daughter of the minister’s household and send her off? And so A’Chu is sent as the bride. She arrives to discover a broke, seriously injured man on the verge of death…and we go from there. This is so gorgeous and tender and slow in just the right way and like AAAAAA! Secondary OTPs (one of which is MM) are also epic.

Futu Tower - the drama (Unchained Love) was a mess but the novel is such a lovely, dark exploration of coming back to life, for the ML from his dark revenge-strewn path and for heroine from not being allowed wishes of her own. She is a tribute bride, he’s a (fake) eunuch, they are both servants who use themselves to achieve goals and find peace and happiness together.

The Grand Princess - a tale where both members of the OTP reincarnate as their younger selves after killing each other in their 50s, and get a new start, this is smart and slow and so good in portraying old souls in young bodies. Their rediscovery of not just each other but themselves and their passion for living is just AAAAAA!

Heroine Saves Gentleman - Gong Xinwen novel so we have a tough martial artist lady saving a very upper class scholar and it goes from there. If elegant gorgeous ML being saved and protected (and lovingly dommed) by awesome FL is your bag, pls come right in.

Husband Be a Gentleman - schemer meet schemer. He’s an idle prince she’s perfect daughter, in reality both are wolves out for blood. Mmmm. Very OTP gets together early and is us against the world.

I’ll Be the Male Lead’s Sister in Law - one of my all time favorite novels. Heroine is made to marry a disabled nephew of the emperor. He used to be a victorious god of war but went mad and now is basically locked away and kept as a beast. GOD I LOVE THIS NOVEL SO MUCHHHHH! So much hurt/comfort and awesome OTP and after he eventually recovers, all he wants to do is to fight and murder things and dote on wifey. MMM. He’s honestly one of my fave MLs.

I Married a Disabled Tyrant After Transmigrating - if you have a Florence Nightingale complex, this is for you. Heroine wakes up as tribute bride to an almost dead dragon lord and slowly nurses him back to life as his rivals try to murder him. They are both utter adorable babies!

Let the Villain Go - another Gong Xinwen novel, this and Apocalypse Arrivals are AUs of each other. Heroine is surviving in the apocalypse, ML is the “bugbear” of the world but in reality just reacting to all abuse and torture and after she accidentally saves him, devotes himself. Fun fun fun!

Long Wind Crossing - Amazing ML and FL who grow together, clever plot, arranged marriage to love etc etc. Oh, and one point he feeds her his blood to keep her alive, what’s not to love? (Adapted into Chang Feng Du/Destined)

Lost You Forever - this is a short but delicately wistful tale of trauma and loss and love, wrapped in a high fantasy setting but so relatable despite it.

Love In Another Life: My Gentle Tyrant - so so fucked up in the best way! ML cannot live with OR without heroine. It opens on them banging in jail night before her execution (ordered by him) with corpses of men he killed for trying to defile her cooling nearby. If you want healthy relationships with respectful boundaries, gentle and considerate male leads who are modern men in period clothes, OP heroines who have everyone help them and are OP to the max, fluff and wholesomeness, that is about the worst book for you.If you want complexity, dysfunction, darkness, pain and an absolutely lyrical even if fucked up story, come right IN!!!!I am so fucking in love with the melancholy heroine, with ruthless psycho hero and the endless regret and devotion and paaaaain!

The Marquis Is Innocent - our heroine is a beautiful woman married to a warlord who hates her family. (Yes, this was gonna be The Prisoner of Beauty until SZE tax scandal.) Except she's a transmigrator from the future who knows how it ended last time around and has no interest to end up this tragically. This is in my top 5 - FL is smart but believably so (and doesn't have super battle powers) and ML is a believable period warlord. The way their relationship develops so gradually and the way his character changes so gradually as well (and the way they slowly fall in love, her slower than him) is just amazing. It is such a smart, nuanced, gorgeous slow burn. With some gonzo sex scenes :P

Mulberry Song - you like tragic endings? Come right IN! This is short and heartbreaking and wistful and very what-if.

Nightfall (Ever Night) - so long but also so smart and unusual and bloody and tho it’s not primarily a romance, you will never see another ML who loves his FL as much as Ning Que does his Sang Sang. 

Offering Salted Fish to Master - in some ways, this novel is a mess, but I am recommending it because this is a rare example of "nope he's 100% a villain and murderdude and odd, but he does love the heroine" that the author commits to.

Pihanjin - yet another awesome PLK novel, this is once again, like with Marquis, a ruthless man and a beautiful woman getting a second chance on a second go-around. FL is a lot more wounded this time around though. If you LOVE watching ML grovel and slowly, gradually win FL over, this one is for you.

Princess Agents - a dark tale with an incredibly competent and militarily powerful/ruthless heroine and two terrifying men who love her (but neither is as terrifying as she is.) There is an OTP switch halfway through that shockingly makes sense and it's just SO SO GOOOOOOOD

Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage - this is probably the one “typical” novel on this list, heroine is reborn as her youngest self and gets revenge on those who wronged her last time around. It is really really well-written and heroine is competent, hero is doting and powerful etc. It’s not a trope I tend to love but I do when it’s done THIS well.

Rebirth of the Tyrant’s Pet: Regent Prince is Too Fierce: Borgias cnovel style! Our heroine was empress in last life and put her husband on the throne tho he did not love her. However, he had her executed and had his half-brother carry out the orders and heroine died horrifically. She opens her eyes and she’s a little girl again. The OTP this time around is heroine and half-brother executioner. Why do I love it? Heroine is smart and tough but also this is a rare rebirth novel where heroine does NOT decide to seek revenge for past life wrongs because they haven’t happened yet! In fact, she sees ML abused and stands up for him because he’s a kid and no kid should be mistreated and this go around he hasn’t done anything wrong. She also gets and likes her former life husband. Anyway, this is fakecest galore because she’s supposed to be their half-sister and while she knows (from past life) she is not, they do not and fall for her anyway. ML is especially gonzo, at one point carving chunks of his flesh to save her. He’s feral and unhinged and she’s the one person he worships because she protected him and like - it’s all awesome. (I love secondary ML too.)

Reborn to Love Lord Qiansui - yes, this is a eunuch novel! If you like gender tropes reversals, this one is for you. Heroine is a tough martial artist, hero is a smart as hell and powerful eunuch. A real eunuch. Heroine finds out she owes him her life and decides to protect him. This is a total delight and an awesome love story between two really scarred people. And yes, there is sex - heroine literally reads manuals on pegging :P

Return of the Swallow - so freaking long! But really good. Heroine is neither transmigrator nor reincarnator, just a smart period woman. She is a lost family daughter taken back in. Her father is a minister in a dying empire (father-daughter relationship is one of the best things in this novel), her OTP is enemy general, and the smartness and the awesomeness of this all knows no bounds.

Seven Unfortunate Lifetimes - probably the wackiest JLFX novel I read, this is quite different from Love You Seven Times drama that was adapted from it. Our deity protagonists go through a bunch of lives figuring out they fancy each other. It's light like a souffle but just as delicious.

To Be a Virtuous Wife - some people prefer 8 treasures trousseau but I never warmed up to that one. This one is so good, with smart people (who actually enjoy sex, a ratity) and a perfect mix of plot and romance.

Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator - my very first web novel. A lot lighter than a lot of the ones on this list but a total delight. Heroine transmigrates into a novel as the heroine; she has no interest in drama or chasing true love, she just wants to live a nice life with her nice husband. Too bad for her, her husband has reincarnated into his younger self and remembers how she betrayed him, so is not interested. This one is funny and light and romance doesn’t start till late on but a total delight!

Wishing You Eternal Happiness - this is tied with Dreamer as my favorite het web novel ever though it couldn’t be more different from Dreamer, with its hard-edged and hard-souled protagonists ruthlessly cleaving their way to the world and, eventually, each other, its smart cynical air. Except in one thing - the world of Wishing is just as bloody and dark. Its two protagonists are gentle, deeply wounded souls who may find salvation in each other but even something as basic as safety almost seems out of reach.

Jliafu, our heroine, is neither a modern-day transmigrator, nor some exotic princess or demoness. She is very much a period woman of her time, from a weathy merchant clan, whose beauty is her curse. You can tell the novel’s tone from that utterly bleak opening chapter where she, a favorite concubine of a capricious dying emperor, is ordered to be buried alive with him and is not even given the “grace” of white silk but slowly suffocates in the coffin, scrabbling at the lid. There is no grand threats of vengeance on her part, not dramatic opera events. Just despair and death. The whole introductory chapter is haunted by emotional ghosts - the empress’ unrequited love for the monster on the imperial bed (turning into desire for Jiafu’s suffering after he dies), the emperor slowly dying in his prime after waging too many wars, and his fear of being haunted by Pei Youan, a brilliant if sickly minister who died of illness long ago on one of imperial campaigns. There is no triumph for anyone, only loss.

When she wakes up as still a young woman, all she wants is to escape the same fate. There are no plans for power or revenge, only a desire for survival. And so she latches on asking for help from Pei Youan, the only man in her past go-around who showed any consideration and desire and ability to protect her, though he barely knew her. Pei Youan is probably my favorite het web novel ML. Despite his brains and ability, he drifts through life. In modern terms, he clearly has depression. One of the biggest, best joys of the novel is watching these two very good, very quiet, very wounded people discover happiness and love with each other. I sort of want to cry just thinking about it, tbh.

The Yandere Came During the Night - a bit of fluff that’s oddly delightful. Heroine is reborn as a (fake) sister of ML, she hurts her legs saving him and the “siblings” form a bond that ends up in fakecest delight. They are both smart and efficient and he becomes a sexy marquis etc.

[chronologicalerrors]

Why Crowley Was an Archangel, And Why it Matters: A Fan Theory

Neil Gaiman has said that Season 2 is a bridging season, setting up what is to come in Season 3, which will be based on a story he and Pratchett outlined many years ago. This season is therefore moving characters into place and establishing facts and mechanics of the Good Omens universe that we need as an audience in order to understand what comes next. It moved Aziraphale back to Heaven, and removed Gabriel and Beelzebub. This season has also been heavy on the references to Crowley’s past as an angel.

Season 2 of Good Omens has been practically inviting us to speculate on who Crowley used to be. If we’d just been given that one glimpse of him in the first scene I wouldn’t make so much of it, but we also saw him return to heaven in disguise and reject an offer of being returned to full angelic status. We have to conclude that there’s been so many sustained hints at this because it will be important next season!

Some of this has already been suggested by others, but GO2 has taken over my brain and I need to write this all out. So, let’s have a look at what we already know about Crowley’s angelic past in-universe, and what else we might be able to guess at from that. 

What’s special about Crowley’s powers?

Crowley is the only demon or angel who is shown being able to stop time. When asked about this Pre-S2, Neil Gaiman said the following:

We first see him do this in Paris in 1793, and the second time to speak to Adam to avert the apocalypse at the end of S1. The first time was something he did casually, while the second required a huge burst of power – it needed to hold off Satan, after all - and happened at Aziraphale’s urging.

A: Come up with something or… or I'll never talk to you again.

(GIF from fyeahgoodomens. There’s a collection of gifs of Crowley stopping time through S1 here.)

When we see him stop time this season, in Edinburgh in 1827, it’s also directly at Aziraphale’s request:

This bit is absolutely key to me, as this establishes that stopping time is something Crowley can do that Aziraphale cannot.

This also seems tied to the crank handle of his Bentley. When Crowley has stopped time to hold off Satan, he is gripping the handle in the same way Aziraphale carried his flaming sword, and spins in when he comes to restart time.

C: I'm going to start time. You won't have long to do whatever you're going to do.

By itself, this doesn’t mean anything. Until we see the same handle at the start of Season 2, in the hands of Angel Crowley. He uses this to start up his nebula, as a tool for setting time into motion.

Is this the same handle? It certainly appears this way. Like Aziraphale’s flaming sword, was this a gift from God that he’s managed to hang on to for thousands of years (And it just miraculously happens to fit his Bentley)? It certainly seems that the Bentley crankshaft handle is more than it seems, and that Crowley can use it as a conduit for power – as he needed to when stopping time to hold off the ruler of Hell himself.

The link between this object, a relic from his time in heaven, and his rather unique ability to stop time, suggests that Crowley was once an angel of great power.

What rank did he hold?

We saw Crowley return to Heaven, in disguise, in S2 E6, with events hinting that he was once a very high-ranking angel:

So, we know for a fact he was above the level of Thrones and Dominions. So where does this place him on Heaven’s organisational chart? My analysis here is metatextual – I don’t think looking at external hierarchies of angels is that helpful to understanding the Good Omens universe, so I will only focus on what Neil Gaiman has confirmed when asked, or has been demonstrated within the world of the show itself.

Good Omens has its own Hierarchy of Heaven, but Neil Gaiman has clarified that the Archangels we see are amongst the most senior personnel in Heaven. This runs counter to many hierarchies of angels (which are often contradictory in and of themselves) but is consistent with the depiction in John Milton’s Paradise Lost as well as Jewish tradition, where the highest ranking Archangels are given the title of “princes” of heaven. “Prince of Heaven” is also a term that Metatron applies to Gabriel in S2 E6.

Of the heavenly entities mentioned in the show, we can infer the following angelic hierarchy:

God

Metatron (NG confirms here)

Supreme Archangel (Gabriel, now Aziraphale)

Other Archangels (Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon, in that order – See NG here)

Cherubim (Aziraphale at the Garden of Eden, when he was the Angel of the Eastern Gate –NG Confirms here)

Thrones & Dominions

Principalities(?) (Aziraphale after the Garden of Eden – NG doesn’t state if this is a promotion or demotion, but it feels very demotion-y)

Other lower-ranking angels (As a Principality, Aziraphale was supposed to lead a platoon of angels into battle in S1 – so there must be many levels below him – see NG here)

Scrivners (Muriel and the level Gabriel would have been demoted to. Appears to be the lowest rank in Heaven, suggested by NG here)

There are likely many other levels in-between these that have not yet been mentioned onscreen. Saraqael, for example, seems lower down than an Archangel (addressing Michel and Uriel as “your beatitudes” before approaching them in Episode 1), but above Aziraphale. You’ll notice Seraphim aren’t in this list, because they’ve not been mentioned on screen – but I suspect they do exist in this universe and are a class below Archangels but above Cherubim.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Crowley was an Archangel, but confirms pretty explicitly that he was once near the top.

So who was he?

Neil Gaiman has stated that his name when he was an angel was not Crowley/Crawley, and the first scene of Season 2 sees a bit of redirection when Aziraphale tries to get angel-Crowley’s name:

This is quite deliberate, and sets up his name as something important to be revealed later. However, I can’t see why his name would matter to the narrative, unless it’s something recognisable from biblical canon – or, that it’s not necessarily his name, but his rank as an angel that was important.

There are numerous pointed references throughout Season 2 to Archangels, in such a way that feels like the show is setting up for this to be revealed in the future. The misdirection about Angel-Crowley’s name may have been because Aziraphale was likely to have recognised the name of an Archangel.

More than this, I personally do think, that before his fall Crowley wasn’t just any old Archangel, but the Supreme Archangel. This is based on the following 7 points (you know God likes sevens):

The very deliberate way the camera pans to Crowley’s impassive face after Gabriel says “I’m the only first-order Archangel in the room or, you know, the universe.”

2. Metatron’s statement, “For one Prince of Heaven to be cast into the outer darkness makes a good story. For it to happen twice, makes it look like there is some kind of institutional problem.”

While it’s quite clear that we’re supposed to associate this line with Lucifer himself (and yes, I know NG confirms that's who this was alluding to!), it’s interesting that ‘Prince of Heaven’ is a title associated with Archangels in Jewish tradition and very specifically with Gabriel on screen in the universe of the series. That Jimbriel also repeats this line to Crowley in the bookshop specifically feels significant...

3. Crowley also recognises Metatron in the bookshop, where no other Archangel does. Metatron deliberately avoids using his name in this scene, calling him ‘demon’. Which is not inaccurate, but may suggest the Metatron remembers Crowley’s angelic name. It may also explain Metatron’s very dark look at Crowley as he exited the shop – the two of them have some history.

4. It’s never stated explicitly that Gabriel hasn’t always been the Supreme Archangel since the beginning, but there’s enough vagueness in the text to guess at this. When Michael and Uriel are discussing what to do in Gabriel’s absence, Michael and Uriel have this exchange:

M:There is, of course, no question of replacing the supreme archangel. I am the Archangel Michael, you are the Archangel Uriel. U: We aren't in charge. Right now, as of this moment, Heaven does not have a supreme archangel. M: There is always a supreme archangel.

“There is always a Supreme Archangel!” not “Gabriel has always been the Supreme Archangel!” According to some traditions, the Supreme Archangel was the first angel ever created, which would support Michael’s statement: There is always, and there always has been, a Supreme Archangel, since the time of creation. It’s possible that someone else held this role pre-Fall, and Gabriel was appointed as successor after the War in Heaven.

5. The way the other Archangels behave around him. There’s a wariness, but also a strange deference. On being discovered by Saraqael in heaven, they don’t immediately throw him out, but let him watch Gabriel’s trial – even ordering Muriel to show him it. Michael and Uriel then follow him back to Earth without much fuss, giving him quite a look, while Crowley seems to be enjoying himself:

(This also feeds into why I think Crowley looked so different during the Job segment. He knew he might encounter a few Archangels he’s not seen for a thousand years or so, and so appears in disguise.) 6. The lightening! I’ve seen someone point out that Crowley’s electric temper tantrum in S2E1 mirrors the lightening used by Gabriel to travel to Earth in S1E6. This could be a coincidence of VFX, or it could be a Clue.

7. That last conversation between Aziraphale and Crowley:

A: I don't think you understand what I'm offering you. C: I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do.

That’s such a weighted statement, and could be interpreted in so many ways. But, viewed in this light, it sounds like a warning from a former angel who used to be very high up in Heaven indeed – and has absolutely no desire to return there.  

Why does any of this matter?

Obviously just theorising here…

The story is setting us up for a reveal here – Crowley’s status as an angel, and who he was before the Fall is clearly going to factor into Season 3 in some way. Why tease us with it so much and so often if it’s not important?

In terms of the narrative, a powerful revelation would be that Crowley used to have Aziraphale’s new job. That it led him to asking questions about the Almighty’s plan and then, ultimately, falling. And that the Supreme Archangel, for one reason for another, eventually turns against Heaven – it happened to Crowley, to Gabriel (after a few thousand years), and then will have to happen to Aziraphale too.

I could be way off here, but at some point the show needs to explain why Crowley is so different from other demons and has powers that no other demon or angel seems to possess. A reveal that he was once very, very senior in the organisation of Heaven, before asking too many questions and being cast out, would serve as a explanation and be a meaningful development to the narrative of Season 3.

I don’t think we’ll necessarily get a name (because we don’t need one) – but I do think we will get a rank or some idea about who he used to be, and that’s what’s going to be significant. TLDR: Supreme Archangel Crowley!?