#also me: pulls out the “in the end times the bible says there will be many false prophets”

[lonaami]

i just

hm

[thomaskong]

4 minutes fancon highlights‼️‼️‼️

Let me just start off saying this was genuinely SO fun. Like it was silly! It was entertaining! Sometimes it was sexy <3 Even sad! And of course always exciting. I wasn’t expecting it to be THIS fun lol

the fanservice was genuinely SO good. Like. The inside jokes within fandom type fanservice. Like ฮ็อบ y’know

When Den/Job asked the audience what Great’s name was and everyone went MUAYYYY—MULTIPLE times (me included!)

Tymegreat going on what I would call a post-waking-up-from-their-4MP-date and having a little dress up dance moment??? Tyme/Jes kissed Great/Bible’s cheek and of course everyone lost their minds. They also “won” (Great/Bible couldn’t win one of the two so he straight up unlocked the machine and pulled it out😭) the iconic cats in a recreation of their date in Great’s 4MP hehe

THE ACTORS WHO PLAYED YOUNG GREAT AND YOUNG TYME HAD A PERFORMANCE TO BUTTER BY BTS AND IT WAS GENUINELY SO FUCKING FUN AND THEY WERE LIKE BREAK DANCING ??? THEYRE SO GOOD!!! LITTLE UDON IS SOOO CUTE (honestly maybe the main highlight for me…)

Bon Jovi cover from Jes on the drums and Bas on the guitar. Genuinely so fucking cool.

Even the dance stages that weren’t related to the show were so fun. Like jjay doing mmmh by Kai…. OHHH LORDDDD. Jes and Bible are good dancers! And also they’re so hot😁 I have to emphasize this guys😁

Full cast ohm hiwwhee cover!

Tyme/Jes and Den/Job had a scene as when they were in med school and it was so sillay and a little gay of course. Very entertaining I love the dynamic these two have

BUMP APPEARING FOR ONE PERFORMANCE LMFAO. IN THE SAME LITTLE SKIT TITLE/JET AND DOME/MIO HAD A LITTLE GAY MOMENT AND THEN BUMP KISSES BOTH THEIR CHEEKS AND RUNS AWAY SKSKDJKS (it was like. Them as freshmen)

“If this love triangle was a musical…” coming on screen right before a musical between korn/bas, tonkla/fuaiz, and win/jjay made me lose my SHIT. it was LITERALLY 4 minutes: THE MUSICAL. Fuaiz was cunty as hell. Bas is honestly a great performer. And jjay got water dumped on him very dramatically/sadly as it “rained” LOL

Dome/Mio singing billkin’s lahn mah ost to Tonkla/Fuaiz. V sad </3

DENKORN PARALLEL UNIVERSE. IF GREAT INSISTED FOR KORN TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AFTER GETTING CUT IN THE NECK. AND EVEN FUNNIER THEY PARALLELED TYMEGREAT THE WAY DEN WAS LIKE …yeah I’ll take care of this guy Bee. AND IT GOT SO GAY LOLLLL

THE LIKE LITTLE DANCE PARTY WE HAD AT THE END??? Job was DJing and the cast was jumping around with everyone, going into the audience, and just having so much fun lol (esp Jes hehe)

PONGTONG WERE HERE AND THEY PULLED EM UP ON STAGE TO DANCE WITH THEM!!! Even the young actors danced too and mio was like carrying them it was very cute hehe

Just. Apo’s presence for the auction is always <3 and btw they raised over ฿400k for HIV research!!! They also kept kissing their photos LMAO (since the couple photo was last, jesbible kissed it at the same time kdksjd)

SEASON TWO BEING ANNOUNCED!!! It seems like 8 hours is about when you dream👀 and yes there was lots of screaming (tbh, it was nonstop screaming the whole time ofc)

ALMOST FORGOT. THE WAY THE COUPLES SHIRT MERCH WORKED FOR ALL OF THEM (in terms of characterization (mostly) and ship wise—including ghost ships LOL). Those wearing white: jes, jjay, bas, and mio; those wearing black: bible, fuaiz, job, and jet

[antiquepearlss]

Southern Headcanons

Old Corona lowkey gives off southern small town vibes so here’s some southern Varian + Quirin headcanons because I’m not projecting at all.

Starting off strong with a classic- Varian loves sweet tea. He makes it homemade and it’s 90% sugar and it’s most of what he drinks. Quirin isn’t a big fan, but he’ll drink it occasionally when Varian makes it. Same with Lemonade; Varian loves it, Quirin is neutral.

If Quirin isn’t working, he’s relaxing in a rocking chair on his front porch.

Varian is the type of person to watch tornadoes instead of seeking shelter. Quirin has to physically pick him up and drag him to the basement.

There’s a creek in Old Corona that the children all frequent. 

Most of Quirin’s diet is biscuits and gravy. It’s the southern old man meal. And southern fried steak. And fried potatoes with gravy. Also coleslaw, and fried green tomatoes, because again, old man.

Varian likes fried chicken and waffles, peach cobbler, pulled pork, chicken and dumplings, and cornbread. He ate coleslaw once and died a little inside.

Neither of them are big fans of catfish or shrimp, they’re just not big on seafood. Ulla was a fan, however.

Neither of them have thick accents, but with certain words it shines through. It also shines through if they talk fast, or for Varian, if he gets really excited. Or it comes out at random moments. Eugene and the girls make fun of him for it, Rapunzel thinks it’s cute, Lance thinks it sounds cool

Quirin has Bible verse decor in his house. He’s not even religious. Those just kind of materialize on your walls the first time you say y’all.

Quirin and Ulla had an apple themed kitchen.

Quirin absolutely has said “bless your heart”

Ulla wore gingham, a lot.

Varian has mason jars. Everywhere. And also reuses those butter containers. He managed to get them to contain acid.

Old Corona has a lot of potholes.

Varian’s favorite place to go as a kid was with his father to Rural King. He loved looking at the machinery and the baby chickens.

Varian knows how to use a riding mower and is quite skilled at it. He tried to teach Eugene (his city kid cousin) and he crashed into a tree.

There is little to nothing to do in Old Corona except for the occasional festival.

Oktoberfest goes hard there.

Quirin isn’t the most social but he does have the southern hospitality down. He’ll invite you in for lemonade or tea. He’ll just, barely talk. (He strikes me as the type to be quiet and awkward in small/intimate settings.) He also brings new neighbors homemade food.

Neither Quirin nor Varian care about sports, but they watch football to feel included. Sometimes they’ll root for opposing teams just for the fun of a playful rivalry with eachother, even though they have no idea what they’re talking about.

Quirin likes old country music. Varian claims to dislike country music, but listens to it sometimes. He never heard the end of it from the girls when they found out he loves Cary Underwood. Ulla had a collection of Dolly Parton vinyl that was passed down to Eugene for….some reason.

Quirin also likes some bluegrass and very much enjoys the blues.

Again, Quirin is not religious, but church on Easter used to be a must. Mostly because it was the only time he and Ulla could get Varian to wear a suit, and he looked adorable in one. (Now all Quirin has to do is ask Rapunzel to make Varian nice clothes and he’ll wear them gladly.)

Ulla planted a lot of magnolias in their garden. And hydrangeas.

Old Corona has a lot of block parties and just, spontaneous potlucks. 

If Varian wasn’t with his parents he was probably with the resident Old Person in Old Corona. He didn’t have many friends growing up, but older people loved him.

Quirin watches Andy Griffith.

Old Corona has one gas station and it has the best slushies. Whenever Rapunzel visits they go there.

Eugene kinda hates Old Corona. He’s a city boy. Rapunzel likes the open-ness.

Old Corona is the prettiest in the Fall.

Varian conveniently spills acid on nearby confederate flags.

[bloobydabloob]

Any tips on getting better at realism? I've been drawing very cartoony works forever but I really want to branch out and draw more realistically and hone that style but Everytime I try it never feels human 😔

Suuuure. Sorry it’s fairly long, answer under the split thing.

I’d say mainly just practice drawing from reference first. Before I started doing any sort of more abstractive or non referential realism, I spent time practicing with maybe 20 or 30 paintings from reference.

Here are just some that I made during that time. I think they really really helped me to learn the principles of painting appealing realism, different kinds of people, color, skin, lighting, and anatomy.

In terms of actually drawing realism (whether from reference or not) I think the most important tip I can give, as well as the most overlooked ironally, is stylisation. Most realism that I see doesn’t connect at all with me which I think is maybe what you’re talking about when you say your portraiture doesn’t “feel human”.

Learning to draw realism in my eyes is largely about learning how to shortcut every single thing you can. So instead of drawing everything exactly how it is using an image, learn how to stylise realism in your own way. I find that if you don’t find a way to simplify the process, it can end up being A : Busy and B : hard for you to create more realistic images from imagination or from real life instead of photographs.

Here is a 40 minute drawing I just drew from a random photo I pulled off Pinterest + small explanation on what helps me to break down an image. I simplify realistic portraiture by adopting somewhat of an angular style, but the best realism / semi realism artists I know of draw realism using their own stylisation methods.

I also personally find that it helps to start by blocking in instead of sketching with lines, but I understand that this is a personal preference and might not work for you.

I also say this for everything but there is no “cheating” in art and anyone who tells you there is fundamentally doesn’t know anything about drawing, especially in the learning process. Cheat if you want. Use grids to plot where things will be, colorpick, trace, liquify, transform, whatever. Although I do also recommend that you only use this as a way to learn and don’t rely on it as a crutch, it helps a lot to be able to draw independently of all of these factors. But I learned to draw partially *by* being a kid who traced and colorpicked and fucked around. Who cares

This applies to everything too but just practice a lot. I’m too embarrassed to show but when I first starting drawing semi realistic art without reference it fucking sucked. Like *really* fucking sucked because I am extremely extremely faceblind and I mean that. It takes me 3 seasons of a show to recognise an actor’s face. But because I’ve drawn hundreds of faces now I know what I’m doing kind of. I also never post any realism art immediately because oftentimes if I don’t look at it for a day or two, I’ll come back to it and notice that something doesn’t look quite right. I would say that definitely helps.

ALSO very important but look at it from far away or a little version. I always look at my drawing in the digital navigator on FA and it helps me to notice when something looks dumb.

Anyways hope this helped at all… lalala. I don’t know man. Don’t take my words as bible I’m just some guy and I am also not a professional and realism is definitely not my strong suit. Tutorials are bullshit and if you think any of this advice sucks for you then don’t take it and forge your own path. Bless

[ikeoji-subs]

Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 2 Eng Sub

VS SMELLS and VS AGE GAP RELATIONSHIPS

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translation notes:

about Fish Cake Man (7:28)

As we state in the subtitles, this guy’s monologue isn’t something we’re equipped to translate and if we did, it probably wouldn’t make much, if any, sense to English-speaking viewers. We learned from Snow’s Japanese friend that he's a comedian who is famous for doing this particular bit. After we had already finished most of the subtitles, I rewatched seasons 1 and 2 of the show and found that he was also in the other two seasons. In the first season, when Mob is explaining about how he's a side character and intends to keep it that way, he looks at a gardener on his university campus who is pulling weeds, illustrating that the world of BL needs to include some people who are unlikely to ever become main characters. That’s this dude. He appears again in season 2, when Mob is scouring the university for signs of Kikuchi after reading his goodbye letter. In every appearance, he's shown wearing the same sort of nondescript work clothes and cap and seems to work in some kind of maintenance or cleaning capacity at National BL University. –Towel

His name is Nou Misoo (脳みそ夫) which means brain tissue. I believe there's a pun here I'm missing but you can check our his sillyness on youtube, instagram or tiktok. –Snow

about “the gods decided to smite me” (10:24)

The first version of this line said that Mob “received divine punishment” for his Mob Move. That was already a great line! But I thought it had the potential to be a little more specific and evocative in an English-speaking context. At first, I was just trying to think of something a bit more specific to replace “received.” I thought of a few possibilities, including “I was smitten by divine punishment.” But since “smitten” is barely used anymore except to describe someone who's in love, it had the wrong connotation. Then I thought about how another tense of the same verb, “smite,” avoids those connotations and has a kind of King James Bible quality. But if I was going to say “smite,” I’d have to change the sentence from passive voice to active voice (which is generally best anyway) and give the sentence a subject who is doing the smiting.

I thought a unitary, capital-G God would make it sound a little too Biblical, possibly tipping it over into sounding overtly Christian. I knew that some religious traditions practiced in Japan, like Shintoism, included multiple gods. So I tried “the gods decided to smite me.” This seemed to balance out the Old Testament-ish aspect of “smite” a bit. The end result seemed more vivid than the earlier version, and it seemed like something Mob would say.–Towel 

about “select shop” (11:30)

Observant English speakers might notice that when the guy who used the same shampoo as Mob talks about where he got it, he uses a term made up of English loan words. He says he bought it at a “serekuto shoppu" (in English, a "select shop"). While both parts of the word are borrowed from English, the term you get when you put them together isn’t commonly used in the US. I ended up replacing it with “boutique,” which gets across some of the meaning. But I’ll explain in more detail here. 

It turns out that a “select shop” is a kind of smallish shop with carefully curated items that all fit a certain aesthetic. A business like this might be called a “lifestyle boutique” in America, but it’s slightly different from any business model used widely here. The big selling point of a shop like this is the fact that they’ve already vetted and coordinated these products. Their offerings are tailored for a particular niche, so that if you’re into the general idea a select shop is going for, you’re likely to be interested in a lot of what they’re selling. The items for sale will also have been hand-picked by a professional who’s able to find just the right thing in a way that a typical consumer wouldn’t be able to. 

You can imagine what kind of college student would not only shop at this sort of place but declare it proudly. Even if Mob was going to fall in L with a B, this guy would be a bad fit.–Towel

about “a listless ne’er-do-well” (19:04)

The more literal translation of this part goes “a man like this, without ambitions or vitality.” It’s a nice turn of phrase, definitely, but I thought if I could localize it a bit it might evoke more of the right feeling. I thought it would be more typical in English to express this in terms of an adjective plus a noun describing the kind of person he’d appear to be, rather than saying he was without these qualities. From “without ambition” I got “ne’er-do-well” and from “without vitality” I got “listless.”–Towel

Tag list: @absolutebl @bengiyo @c1nto @come-back-serotonin @lurkingshan @my-rose-tinted-glasses @porridgefeast @sorry-bonebag @twig-tea @wen-kexing-apologist

[fiddlefordisms]

Canon Details and Analysis of Fiddleford McGucket Part 1

I'm writing a series of meta posts centering around everything we know about Fiddleford McGucket as well as what can be gleaned from those details and some theories of mine. At the very end of this series, I will also do a detailed look, analysis, and theorizing about Fiddauthor (a ship which I love) - however, this series of posts will be focusing mainly on what's actual canon (and thus written in terms of Fiddleford's friendship with Ford) and will be mainly focused on Fiddleford's character even as it stands outside of his relationship with Ford. Because he deserves to be his own character outside the context of a romantic relationship, and he deserves it in general.

Fiddleford was raised on his father's hog farm in Tennessee. We've received very few details about his family life other than that the hog farm belongs to his father, Fiddleford has a cousin named Thistlebert who believes in aliens, and Fiddleford's grandmother who does not approve of "coffee" (whatever that is). What we can glean from this is that Fiddleford is pretty familiar with his extended family. We also know he grew up "dirt-poor."

In Journal 3, Ford mentions that Fiddleford crosses himself while stepping over graves and chastises him for saying "what the devil." Tennessee is also located deep in the Bible Belt. This tells me Fiddleford was likely raised Christian and because of the "crosses himself" thing - likely Catholic. He's the first McGucket to ever go to college.

Fiddleford has anxiety issues, possibly an untreated disorder - a fact commented on by Ford in Journal 3 (knee-bouncing, a tendency towards pulling at his hair, his superstitious nature might lend to this as well, and the "SORRY" photograph mentions that he's "mighty nervous" about his first day, he also mentions having the hiccups that day - probably due to how nervous he is). Given how these things go, it's probably been with him since childhood, and he was probably belittled for it. Especially given the stigma around mental health issues, it would not surprise me if Fiddleford has been told multiple times "to get over his anxiety."

Before meeting Ford, Fiddleford had a low sense of self-confidence (and even after meeting Ford, it might still not have been the greatest). His very first day of college, after being laughed out of class, he's already arranging for a tractor (the joke is he's Southern and from a farm) to pick him up. He was going to drop out of college on his first day had it not been for Ford. This tells us that he was led to believe that he was "not right" or "not smart enough" for college. Because it's only his first day at college, he probably didn't get these ideas ingrained in him from the campus itself. Theories? A few. One: His father probably wanted him to stay and help out on the farm - maybe even take over the hog farm one day. Two: Fiddleford easily leaps to the idea that he "got his math wrong" and that his theory must be incorrect because everyone else thinks so. This tells us he does not consider himself "brilliant" despite the fact that he is HIGHLY intelligent. He's also at Backupsmore instead of a first-rate school. Because Fiddleford has a lot of anxiety, I think it's highly possible something that could have led him to believe this is test anxiety. Schools put so much importance on testing, and because of his anxiety, Fiddleford might not have been able to perform very well on tests. He probably really excelled at doing his homework, though, and probably already had a bit of an inventing streak. He might have been persuaded by a teacher to give college a try and probably had an interest in it due to his affinity for machines and likely a love of mathematics and physics (and possibly chemistry given that Old Man McGucket mixes up a voice-changing serum at one point). Fiddleford mentions in the "SORRY" photograph that he thought making a friend was more impossible than solving relativity. This is extremely sad and points to Fiddleford having been lonely through his childhood and school years up until college. It's not hard to imagine that he might have been bullied for being a "nerd" as well. People tend to look down on those who display Southern mannerisms and interests (Fiddleford plays the banjo, has a strong Southern accent, and was probably raised to take pride in his Southern upbringing) as "dumb hicks" - and this might be a cause for even more bullying while he's in Backupsmore and continued confidence difficulties.

[kiteblue42]

Is Eric Kripke America’s Tolkien?

So I started Supernatural for the first time around 6 months ago for which I blame Tumblr entirely (where do I claim compensation?). In fact it’s very good and fun and I can’t believe I missed it when it was live.

Ok so bear with me I’ve been sick for a few days a combination of high temperature plus rings of power trailer drop may be making me delusional, but I got to thinking … why did this show have such a hold not just on this site, but also on so many fan artists and fan fic writers. (I mean it has a strangle hold on Ao3)?

Then the RoP trailer dropped and I got to thinking is it because it world builds from a US stand point like Tolkien world built from a European standpoint?

Then because I am sick and can’t sleep I am sharing my stream of consciousness o: Kripke as Tolkien, Sam as Sam, John Winchester as Gandalf, Castiel as Beleg and Dean as Turin Turambar - and maybe now I’ve got this out of my head I’ll feel better….:

I attempted to put this under a cut so hope it worked!

:readmore:

Source material

Most modern fantasy stands on the shoulders of JRR Tolkien who basically ingested a ton of European myths and languages (with focus on Northern Europe) and spat out the middle earth legendarium.

Eric Kripke (plus writing team) seems to have ingested a ton of US urban myths and US pop culture and spat out “Supernatural-verse”. Because it is *US myth making* it is distinct from a lot of other US writing that builds off Tolkien and / or European myth arcs (I’m looking at you Star Wars, Westeros etc).

And the themes and sensibilities therefore pulled out by Kripke are *not* the same as Tolkien’s themes and sensibilities. This makes it different to a lot of modern genre fiction (in whatever form) that either builds on or seeks to subvert the themes in Tolkien’s work.

(There’s also a lot of genre fiction that is satire or allegory for the real world, but that is another category to me and not really world building in the same way - incidentally the Boys fits into that category along with Good Omens).

Both ofc back end off the Bible but this is English literature based story telling and no one escapes the Bible or the bard.

Structure

We usually think of Tolkien in terms of:

(1) Hobbit - entry level nicely structured “there and back again” story for children, darker than expected. Main hero arc -Bilbo.

(2) Lord of the Rings - the pretty perfect fantasy master piece - very accessible clear meaningful themes and tidy /satisfactory ending. A number of hero arcs, but clearest drawn are Frodo / Sam.

(3) Silmarillion (&etc) - this is where the legendarium really gets built. It’s not neat, it’s not accessible, some of it is *not* a good read but the ideas here build the world. We have a creation myth. The “good” “wise” guys turn out to be more complex and flawed than we thought. The evil guys are extremely toxic but entertaining and bring the drama. There are epic doomed romances between immortal beings and mortal beings. Everyone messes up and makes catastrophic world destroying errors on the regular. People get cursed and can’t escape their doom. I can’t think of any real traditional hero arcs (maybe Beren or Luthien??). Note Tolkien didn’t finish this and it’s put together by someone else.

Now let’s do Supernatural

(1) seasons 1-3 - Horror procedural-

Entry level solid procedural hunting / horror story. Sam W is here in the traditional hero role. Dean is like your Thorin initiating the adventure. John Winchester is in the Gandalf role (he knows what’s going on and holds the secrets but is not available to the adventurers at all times). Maybe there something deeper and darker going on? This is your Hobbit equivalent very accessible but not particularly unique.

(2) season 4-5 - myth arc - lots of fans will say this is the perfect part of the story and a masterpiece of genre writing. It’s neat with clear meaningful themes and a tidy satisfactory ending. A number of hero arcs though Sam’s remains the most clearly drawn. Dean is more like your Aragorn or Faramir at the end of 5, Bobby in the mold of a Theoden and a Castiel in sort of Gandalf type position. Baby ofc is Shadowfax. This is your LoTR equivalent

(3) seasons 6 - 15 - the Legendarium- this gets a lot of criticism but it’s where the legendarium really gets built. It’s not neat, it’s not that accessible, some of it is not great to watch, but the ideas here build the world out. We have a creation myth (hello Chuck & Amara). We have hero doomed by the narrative (most notably Dean Winchester, though also Castiel). We have epic love stories between mortals and immortals. Yes I am comparing Dean & Cas to Beren & Luthien (!) though Turin & Beleg would perhaps be more appropriate (there’s a good case for Dean = Turin in this universe). The good guys turn out to be more complex or darker than we thought. The evil guys are extremely toxic but entertaining and bring the drama.

There aren’t really any straightforward hero arcs which is one of the reasons Sam fades out a bit and Dean comes forwards as a character. The stories are messy and tragic.

Landscape

Middle Earth - if you read the books or watch the movies or show it’s clear that Tolkien’s (sub)creation is a love letter to the mountains, lakes and woods of England and Europe. It’s also a cry of anguish for their destruction. Both the beauty and destruction are heightened (Europe doesn’t really look like this and really never did - as for the movies they were shot in anew Zealand and then digitally enhanced…) This is as important as the characters and plot - and stands out in particular in the Hobbit and LoTR where there are long descriptions of landscapes (or long shots of the same in movies / shows).

“Middle Americana” - it’s clear that as much importance was put into the look of the landscapes in Supernatural as to the characters or story. In this verse the look is long open roads, beautiful mountains and big skies that are a declaration of love for America, and the run down small towns seem to present wistful sadness. But again it’s not real it’s heightened. The cinematography in first few seasons is particularly thoughtful (and perhaps Kim Manners is to be thanked for that). The show is shot in Canada and the motels / gas stations in middle of no where needed to be built because they didn’t exist in reality. Again the landscape - the open road, the small towns, the big sky, the motels / dinners / gas stations in the middle of nowhere are as much a character as anything else.

I could go on but I suppose if anyone read this far you get the point (and more importantly it’s now out of my head and I can think about something else!).

Ultimately it will take some time to see if this could be right - in terms of genre fiction Tolkien is everywhere and you can’t escape it (even if you never read or watched any Tolkien!). Time will tell if the Kripke verse has the same impact on creatives and audiences, but I just look at the A03 archive and notice how many people know what happened on Supernatural without ever watching it (!) and think hmmm these are the readers and writers of tomorrow after all.

[drconstellation]

Once and Future Royalty

Just, stay with me on this one. I know its going to look crazy at the start, but trust me, I know where I'm going.

It all started with the 537AD scene in Wessex in the opening montage of "Hard Times," S1E3. Yeah, the one where Aziraphale is supposed to be a knight of the Round Table and Crowley is role-playing the Black Knight, and they are both so super-squeaky shiny clean - not a speck of dirt or mud on them. wtf! It looks out of place, unrealistic, and was bugging the crap out of me, like a stone in your shoe. It just didn't fit. I mean, why put a myth, a legend, into that sequence? Oh, OK, yeah, the preceding stories from the Bible, like the Garden of Eden and the Flood, aren't "myths" as well, you say? Hmm. In the context of the Good Omens AU, being a biblical based story, they belong there far more than the legend of King Arthur.

King Arthur, who supposedly united Britain under his rule during the late 5th century and early 6th century, was shown to have the divine right to rule by wielding the mighty sword Excalibur. Some stories tell of Arthur pulling Excalibur from a stone. Some tell of him receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. Either way, it was bestowed upon him by divine grace. Despite his triumph in battle, he left no heirs, as his queen, the fair Guinevere, was barren. She had a long-running love affair with the greatest knight of the court, Sir Lancelot, but despite this being an open secret in court Arthur would not put her aside. The knights of the Round Table in the court of Camelot were near-paragons of Christian virtue, and there are many tales of their search for the Holy Grail, the cup from the Last Supper of Jesus Christ.

In the end, mortally wounded in battle, Arthur was taken away for healing, and never seen again. It was said he would return when Britain was at it most direst hour to save the day once more. A "messianic" return.

The Once and Future King.

Now, I'm no Arthurian novice; I drank up all of T. H. White as a teenager, read the Dark is Rising multiple times, Marion Zimmer Bradley's interpretation and what ever else I could lay my hands on for a good couple of decades. And there is LOTS of King Arthur stuff around. You are not left wanting for anything new to read or consume. And I'll bet there are a fair few of you also out there who know a quite bit about the legend as well. Oh, and I can't tell you how many times I have watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I still walk around quoting it day-to-day, like the good little Gen-Xer I am, having grown up on that stuff. So I really should have listened to my intuition when bits of Monty Python kept popping up in my brain in response to other parts of GO I was thinking about. (Staaay, I said, stay with me here....)

I kept chewing away furiously on the Wessex problem, growling in feral frustration at it, but also kept reading and sorting out some other ideas and metas at the same time. Eventually I found the key in a tiny little post, about a small detail in the 1941 Blitz episode S2E4, of all places. I wanted to slap myself with how much was staring me in the face so obviously once the door opened. And the damn beauty of it is, that I already written about some it, out of context, without knowing the why.

OK. Where to start this journey...hmmm, back to Monty Python, because, guess what - the Wessex scene is actually riffing off one the more famous skits out the the Holy Grail. The scene is a masterpiece of political satire, from start to finish, but the relevant part here is this sequence:

In case you missed the salient points: Arthur claims he is king by divine providence, because he was given Excalibur by the Lady of the Lake. Dennis the peasant protests this waterlogged method of determination, mentioning ponds, watery tarts and a moistened... well, I hope you get the idea about where this is going.

Meanwhile, in 537AD, Wessex, as the mist swirls around them:

"It is a bit damp," complains a shiny silver Aziraphale.

Yes, Excalibur would be a bit damp after it emerged from the Lake. (vidavalor! Get your mind out of the gutter! I'm trying to have a serious discussion here! Please! And I wasn't even going to go anywhere near what the sword in the stone is really meant to be referring to...it's not even relevant to the discussion at hand, I swear! Well, there is going to be sexual relations mentioned but - oh, never mind...)

Right. Where were we. Lets leave those super-clean elite pretendy knights to swim off through the swirling mist back to their dry homes to write and file reports to head office, along with Patsy and the hired Igors, and Dennis can keep playing in his lovely muddy filth after he finishes protesting being repressed by the divinely-deluded Arthur. I've got a bit more to say about what Aziraphale and Crowley might represent here later but you need some more context first, so lets move on. I just needed to show you the first bit so you can see the Arthurian theme stretches across both S1 and S2, and will likely appear in S3 as well. More about that towards the end.

Ah, before I forget...another ref from the Holy Grail we need to cover:

This GIF, unfortunately, doesn't have the full exchange between the peasants, which is this:

P1: "Who's that then?" P2: "I don't know. Must be a king." P1: "How can you tell?" P2: "Because he doesn't have any shit on him."

Ah. Er. OH!

Have you made the connection?

Who have I been emphasizing as being unusually clean in their Arthurian setting? That's right, Aziraphale and Crowley.

What's this implying? That they are royalty. Celestial royalty. Maybe not kings, but how about princes? You know how we've been discussing whether Crowley was a once at least an Archangel, and there is even a hint that he was a fallen prince of Heaven given during the replay of Gabriel's trial? (Not the prince, but a prince - a seraphim) And that Aziraphale may have once been Raphael, and may be again in the future? Once and future royalty. To me it adds weight to the past discussion, and helps to explain the assumed authority expressed in these two scenes here: On the left, Aziraphale takes control inside the book shop as the angels and demons argue who is going to punish Gabriel and Beelzebub (finally found it after several months!) and on the right, Crowley is shouting at the assembling demons in the street that they are "out of order."

Onward, Patsy. (I hope you're still with me.)

1941, the Blitz part 2, minisode.

We've found Excalibur! On to Camelot!

[Edit note: I've added a few GIFs and screen shots into the sequence of parallels above because I was thinking over a few things since I posted and felt this actually sat better. To try and explain, as they don't exactly match as I would like, in the Holy Grail movie, King Arthur and the knights he has gathered rock up at the foot of Camelot and gaze up in awe at it. "Camelot!" Arthur declares to the party. "Camelot!" Galahad echoes in excitement. And a third "Camelot!" comes from Lancelot. What do we get in GO? Aziraphale leaps out of the Bentley (Crowley's black horse) and declares "The theater! Sophocles! Shakespeare!" I swear, if you put the two side by side, they would match. It's not just a reminder of how much time Aziraphale has seen pass by, or that we are seeing a tragedy play out. But damn it, I could so just see Aziraphale attending a Sophocles performance in Athens back in the day...]

Camelot was King Arthur's castle and home of his court. In S2 of GO the Windmill Theater is established as our court of Camelot where our 1941 Blitz-era Arthurian drama is to play out, involving Furfur and the zombies.

Yes, poor old Furfur. Two's company, three's a crowd, as they say. Now we know we're in Camelot, we need to be reminded of the central tragedy of the Arthurian story, that ultimately led to the golden kingdom's fall. Lady Guinevere, Arthur's queen, famously loved Sir Lancelot, and the two were passionate lovers. It was essentially a love-triangle at the top, with Arthur being jilted, but he wouldn't/couldn't discard his queen. Where do we see this playing out in 1941?

Furfur, pleased with himself for catching an angel and a demon in the act of consorting together (with the help of the zombies,) barges into the backstage dressing room, and confronts the lovers with their crime. But who is playing who in the Arthurian love triangle? I would say Furfur is clearly caught in the role of Arthur here. Consider the following exchange:

FURFUR: Hmm, well, well, well… What have we here? AZIRAPHALE: Sorry, have we met? FURFUR: Oh, no, you never had the pleasure, but… we have, haven't we? CROWLEY: Have we? FURFUR: What do you mean "have we?" You know we have. We were in the same legion. Just before the Fall. Doing dubious battle on the plains of Heaven. Remember? CROWLEY: I remember going into battle, I don't remember being there with you. Sorry. FURFUR: I was right next to you. We did loads together. You use to jump on me back, little monkey in the waistcoat. Anyway, whether you do or whether you don't, it doesn't matter. I'm here to inform you, as a representative of the Higher Powers of Hell, that you, Crowley, are in breach of the Infernal Code. Consulting and collaborating with an angel, Fell the Marvelous, aka… [opens book] Azirapalala. Azirapapap. Aziphapalala. AZIRAPHALE: [annoyed] Aziraphale

Furfur claims a past intimate relationship with Crowley, which Crowley spurns offhandedly. Crowley is playing Guinevere here, jilting Furfur/Arthur, which leaves the demon-smiting Aziraphale standing in for the handsome hero Lancelot (with his French connections, no less), and doesn't he make us weak at the knees when he drops his voice an octave in dominating disgust. (Is it suddenly getting hot in here...? Phew!)

Interestingly, looking back in S1 at 537AD Wessex, though, I would say that Crowley was Lancelot as the Black Knight, a role that Lancelot sometimes played in the legends, and Aziraphale would then be the fair maiden Guinevere. It certainly plays into Crowley's long term role of playing the knight who comes to the rescue of Aziraphale's princess in distress. Excalibur was no where in sight, perhaps still beneath the waters of the lake. Nor Arthur. Perhaps it was still too early in the story then...

I had originally suggested in my very first post that Furfur was given a stag as his demon avatar because he was wearing horns for being cuckolded by Crowley. But I wasn't quite thinking about it in context with the Arthurian legend! The stag is also often associated with royalty, plus while wandering around the medieval bestiary website that someone linked to, it interestingly notes that the enemy of the snake is the stag and the stork (Shax's avatar.) Ah ha!

So how can we extrapolate this knowledge into a possible appearance of the Arthurian theme in S3?

Will we see the love triangle of Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot come back into play and cause more chaos? I'm wondering if it might have something to do with the Fall.

Or will our lovers bring down a divinely-appointed ruler via their committed behind-the-back defiance of expected propriety?

Will Excalibur appear from beneath the waters, perhaps in another form, to declare a new king?

Could it even be a combination Jesus/Arthur, King of the World, returned? And they turn out to be a very naughty boy, disappearing into the night clubs of Times Square, New York, and that's how they lose him? (Social media viral sensation, anyone?)

I wouldn't be half-surprised if Greasy Johnson's name turns out to be Arthur, actually.

And no, I haven't forgotten that Adam's dad was named Arthur as well.

Bring on S3!

**Bonus**

If you've made it this far and you're thinking:

Let me leave you with this last connection.

In the back stage change room, remember Furfur delivers these lines:

FURFUR: What do you mean "have we?" You know we have. We were in the same legion. Just before the Fall. Doing dubious battle on the plains of Heaven. Remember?

On the first level, he is referring the Great War in the Good Omens AU.

On the second level, Furfur is paraphrasing Milton's Paradise Lost.

On a third level, I can (and will in a future meta) connect this back to the training initiative paintball fight at Tadfield Manor in S1.

And even deeper on a fourth level, if you do know the Holy Grail movie well, you'll remember there is an odd little subplot in it, that infers that the whole King Arthur and his knights thing is merely a full-on violent cosplay that is murderously rampaging across the countryside in the present day with the police in hot pursuit. It's a strange juxtaposition between reality and dream, and you aren't quite sure what it is real or not. The ending is bizarrely and abruptly surreal as the two story lines collide in the heat of battle, as the police turn up and arrest the combatants. A bit like this:

[roll-for-gaslight]

for whosoever believeth in him (shall not perish but have everlasting life)

An exploration of the older Applebees siblings' relationships with religion tw // religious trauma, child abuse, let me know if I need to add anything else

AO3 Version: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55677883/chapters/141332254

Part One: The Prophet

Part Two: The Proselyte

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."

-Proverbs 3:5-6

Bucky has a lot of memories throughout his childhood of hearing Kristen repeat that verse, so quiet he’s not sure whether or not he was meant to hear. He wasn’t Chosen by Helio the way she was, but that only served to make him more devoted; he had to make her proud and do his best to not embarrass their family. Kristen never did anything wrong, not like he did. Since it was her favorite verse, it was his as well. 

"I can do all this through Him who gives me strength."

-Philippians 4:13

It’s nice when your sister is Chosen. It means she gets magic before anyone else her age, and she always does the coolest tricks when you ask. It also means you rarely have to feel sick or hurt for more than a few moments before it’s fixed. Bucky appreciates that last part probably more than anything. Bricker and Cork are the two who get themselves hurt a lot, especially as they all get older and Bucky grows out of some of his clumsiness, but ever since Kristen got her spells he can remember the nice, warm feeling that accompanies each one. 

Riding a bike is hard. Kristen never fully got a handle on it, too unsteady and incapable of keeping her sandals firmly planted on the pedals. On the other hand, Bricker is already speeding down the street and asking if he can ride his bike to school instead of riding with everyone or taking the bus. Bucky’s fine at it, but he’s learning a lot slower, and Bricker is currently literally riding circles around him in an attempt to get him to hurry up since they’re not allowed to go off alone. Kristen is out in the front yard to keep an eye on them, laying on her stomach taking notes and highlighting verses for her next bible study group. She glances up at them occasionally as they go up and down the street shouting at each other, but doesn’t get involved. 

“Come on, Buck! I’m tired of waiting for you!” Bricker says on his right, preparing to take another lap around him. Bucky can see the top of the hill at the end of their street coming up, and prepares himself to rocket down it once they turn around so Bricker will stop complaining. 

“Just chill! I’m going as fast as I can!” He insists, turning with Bricker still by his side. He kicks off hard as Bricker groans in annoyance. He cuts in front of Bucky the same as he has been, but Bucky’s going much faster than he was on the way up the hill and suddenly they collide, tumbling one over another with bikes left sliding on gravel behind them. There’s an unbearable pain shooting up Bucky’s leg, starting at his ankle. He’s screaming loudly, unable to keep it in as he cries for help. Bricker stands up, seemingly scraped up but otherwise fine, and his eyes go wide when he looks at Bucky’s foot twisted the wrong way. 

The sound of Kristen’t bare feet hitting the pavement comes first, then her shouts of concern as she gets a little closer. Bucky isn’t fully aware of any of it until she’s kneeling down right in front of him. 

“Easy, Bug. You’re going to be okay, I promise.” she says softly, a small smile on her face. She takes some slow, deep breaths and Bucky mimics her. She pulls him close, running her hands through his hair until he’s calmer. He remembers, distantly, a time when it was just the two of them who were around, a version of Kristen who called him Bug because she couldn’t quite say his name. That version of her couldn’t heal him, but she held him like this when he fell down anyway. The pain is still there, but the panic isn’t by the time she pulls away. “Okay! I’m going to set it, then heal it. It’ll only hurt for a second, then you’ll be better so fast you won’t even remember what you were crying about.”

Bucky nods, and Kristen readjusts to do as she said she would. She lifts his leg to put his foot in her lap first, then quickly sets it into the correct place before Bucky feels it. There’s a slow-spreading warmth, different from the swelling that had already started, and it eventually flows through his whole body. He smells the familiar scent of popcorn and every part of him relaxes. He didn’t notice when he closed his eyes, but when he opens them he sees Kristen, smiling at him. 

“All better, Bug?” she asks, and he nods again. 

“All better. Thanks, Kristy.”

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is Sol’s will for you in Lord Helio.”

-1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

It’s his first Harvest Festival. Not necessarily the first one he’s ever been to, but the first one that counts: it’s the first time he’s joining in on the big kids' continuous prayer. Last year, he had to stay with the little kids like Bricker and Cork. This year it’s just him and Kristen! He knows that last year she stayed out longer than anyone, he helped her by bringing her water and stuff, but he hopes he can stay out as long as her this year. Maybe if he’s here beside her, if they’re doing it together, it’ll be easier. 

Kristy is standing to his left, and he has to admit, just privately, that he’s not focusing so much on his prayers anymore. By the time they’re a day in, his eyes keep wandering just slightly to check on her, and he can’t quite keep his legs underneath him the way he needs to. He’s focusing more on the need to keep himself upright than the words he knows he’s still saying. There’s a river of sweat pouring down his back, and in his peripheral vision he can see his own hands a burnt, lobster red. 

All at once, it becomes too much. He feels his ankle roll and both knees buckle, sharp pain hitting him right before he falls. He hits the ground hard, all strength gone from his body. He knows if he stays like this, he’ll be kicked out, but right as he thinks someone’s going to come get him he feels a rush of strength and the air takes on a buttery popcorn scent. He looks up at Kristen, but her face is turned up towards the sun. He mimics her pose from his place on the ground and it doesn’t take long for her to fall to her knees beside him. He watches the crowd around them ripple outward, others taking her cue. The Book of Helio says to hold no idols above him, but Kristen is about the closest any of them will get to feeling his light until they cross those golden gates. Many of the people at these festivals treat her like she speaks only with Helio’s tongue. Maybe she does. 

The break comes, but Kristen doesn’t move. She passes him her water bottle, and he knows her request before she has a chance to vocalize it. 

“Can you fill this for me, Bug? I’m going to pray through the break. As much ice as you can crush in there, please.” she asks. 

He nods in response. “Yeah, Kristy, I can do that. I’ll let mom and dad know,” he says, offering her a smile he knows she can’t really see before he hurries off. Mom and Dad question him about Kristen’s absence only once before turning their attention to why he did decide to come back. Was he quitting? If Kristen was staying out there, so should he. 

He drinks a lot of water and refills both of their bottles before he heads back. There’s no chance that he’ll make it through another day, and he dreads their disappointment then. 

He’s the first to return to the field, to Kristen, and as he approaches, others follow. It feels, inexplicably, like there's something pulling them all closer the same way gravity pulls them to the earth. The moment everyone starts to get within earshot of Kristen’s prayers, louder now in the empty space, they begin to crowd in a little circle around her. Bucky feels her familiar magical warmth and recognizes what’s happening a moment before she begins to glow. Within moments, her feet are off the ground and the holy light surrounding her almost hurts to look at. She doesn’t seem phased by the magic, instead she’s placed back on her feet with the grace of an angel. It makes her seem strange and otherworldly, nothing like the clumsy Kristen who trips over nothing and stubs her toes on every table leg. 

The glow fades but the feeling remains, and it takes him several minutes to work up the nerve to approach her again. Everyone else takes turns paying their respect to her, so he lets them finish before he takes his place beside her. He wants, desperately, to reconcile his sister with this impossibly perfect version of her beside him now. He reaches out to grab her hand and give it a squeeze and make her feel real again, but her skin is too hot to the touch and he has to yank his own away before he’s burned. He kneels down, placing their water bottles down between them, and he doesn’t stand up again.

He makes it through who knows how many more hours on muscle memory alone, but the darkness is too much. His eyes keep falling closed, his limbs shaking, and then there comes a point where he just can’t keep up with it anymore. All at once, he can’t help but collapse in on himself as the world goes black. 

He wakes only when he has to for the next few days. He wakes when Kristen does, lets her know he’s okay, and she hugs him tightly. She’s back to her normal self, her comforting warmth a far cry from the searing heat she had been radiating during prayer. He falls asleep leaning on his hand a few minutes later, and he feels her gently help him lay his head down properly so he’s not at such an awkward angle. He wakes up when they pack up their things into the camper and when they arrive home, then sleeps again until it’s time for day camp on Monday.

 “A false witness will not go unpunished, and whoever pours out lies will not go free.”

-Proverbs 19:5

Kristen hasn’t been home for a few days. He doesn’t know much about what’s going on with her, just that she had a really hard first day of school, but something seems off about her. It’s Friday, and she hasn’t been home since Wednesday. He wonders briefly if she’s going to be back in time for Church on Sunday, but he dismisses the thought because he can’t imagine her missing it. 

It hasn’t been that long, but he really misses having her around the house. Without her, it falls to him to mediate between Bricker and Cork each time they argue, and to cook dinner when their parents work their nightshift. He feels lonely, like there’s too much empty space in every room. He didn’t realize how much they had all relied on her before, but it only took a few days for him to notice the difference. For every minor issue, his instinct is to call out for his sister’s help. He barely stops himself each time. 

Kristen misses Church and for the first time ever, Bucky wonders why they worship Helio. He asks his mom, and she puts it in no uncertain terms: because it’s either worship Helio or go to hell forever. It’s their job to try and help as many people as possible find the light, but only those who have the potential for holiness, like other humans. He remembers Kristen, earlier in the week, talking about how her adventuring party has two elves and a half-orc and a goblin and even a tiefling. He can’t help but feel worried about her. Selfishly, he thinks that if three days without her have sucked this bad an eternity would be torture. 

She doesn’t come home for more than a night at a time for weeks after that. 

She said she’d always be there for him. 

How could she lie like that?

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

-Psalm 34:18

Church camp is fun, for the most part. It’s not like the Harvest Festival, where everything is extreme to prove true devotion. It’s more fun, teaching them about Helio without having to hang out with their parents and getting to swim and play games to do it. He enjoys the nightly campfires and the songs they sing, though he wishes that Kristen could be with him. He brings some of the gold she left for him for the vending machines, and he makes friends in his cabin.

They make Sol’s Eyes crafts and friendship bracelets, do a daily prayer circle, and spend a decent amount of their time in the lake. They rose early every morning for Dawn Sermon and stayed in the sun almost all day, staying up late each night after their nightly sermons talking to each other and growing close. On the last night of the week, they’re brought out for a campfire after dinner and told that things were going to run a little differently that night. The sermon was going to last longer than usual, and they were encouraged to add their own testimonies as well in order to give themselves over to Helio completely. 

It starts out fairly normal, even a little slow as most people are hesitant to share. Bucky doesn’t even think he has anything to share, anything he’s overcome that’d be worth talking about. It doesn’t take long for things to pick up, several people crying as they deliver testimonials about struggles within the faith and temptations away from the holy light. He thinks of Kristen, about how she was supposed to be Chosen and how she was supposed to be there for him. He hasn’t seen her in almost a year. He stands up next time they ask for volunteers, and he can already feel his eyes prickling with tears as all attention turns to him. 

“My big sister, Kristen, was Chosen by Helio the second she was born. I grew up really looking up to her and depending on her. She said she’d always be there for me and that she would never do anything to hurt me. She could do amazing things with her magic, like heal people, so she went to be an adventurer. On her first day of school, she got detention and started an adventuring party with the people in there with her. They started to lead her away from the light.” he says. Tears start rolling steadily down his face. It feels like he can’t catch his breath, the words falling out of his mouth faster and faster the longer he goes on. 

“She left the faith, and left our house. There’s a part of me that misses her, but I’ve been working on accepting that she’s a sinner now. She’s even telling people she’s gay and she moved in with a werewolf. I’m really scared for her and I want her to find her way back. I can’t help but think that maybe there’s something more I could have done to stop her from leaving in the first place.”

By the time he’s done telling his story, he’s overcome by the sobs that shake his whole body. He can’t stop himself from crying, and several people he had become familiar with over the course of the last week all surged forward at once to comfort him. It felt good to finally put a voice to his deepest anxiety, the idea that he had somehow pushed her away and that he would never see her again. He felt hands on his back and someone running a hand through his hair to comfort him, like Kristen used to do, and suddenly it’s all too much, he can’t breathe as a deep sadness swallows him. He would trade each and every person here to have Kristen be the person comforting him right now, but that’s impossible. She’s gone from his life in a way he can’t fix. 

It’s a strange feeling to grieve someone who’s still alive. 

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

-Proverbs 22:6

Being the oldest kid in the house sucks. Bucky has never felt so much pressure, not just to take care of his brothers, but to be perfect in every way. Kristen abandoning them means that he’s supposed to help represent their family. His parents decide that he’s going to be a paladin, like them, and he ignores the ache in his chest. He thought he’d learn to be a cleric like Kristen, but being a paladin is good enough. He can still heal people, even if his light is nothing like hers. 

He spends a lot of days sparring with the practice dummies in their basement, their dad’s old sword strapped to his side. It’s too big for him right now, but his parents say he’ll grow into it. They push him to be better, so he pushes himself harder than he ever has before. 

When they’re at home, his brothers turn to him to resolve every little disagreement. At Church on Sunday, it’s his job to keep them quiet. He trains every night in the basement. He’s in the top of his class in every subject. (If this is what it was like for her, he almost understands why she would want to leave. Almost. That doesn’t mean he’ll actually do it.)

Maybe, if he’s good enough, his parents will stop wishing he were Kristen. 

Maybe he will too. 

Maybe, if he’s good enough, Kristen will just come home. 

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to Sol. And the peace of Sol, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Lord Helio.”

-Philippians 4:6-7

Bucky’s first day of high school is the best day he’s had in a while. He was hoping, in the smallest, quietest part of his heart, to see Kristen again. He didn’t say anything to his parents about it because he could hear their disappointed voices in his head: Kristen is a sinner, you need to stay away from her. Don’t let her influence you. 

He sees her the second he makes it on campus, surrounded by her friends for a brief moment before most of them head off to class. Beside her are the goblin and the tiefling, who he knows is Fig Faeth from her band, but he ignores them. 

She talks to their parents.

It doesn’t go well. He’s not sure he’ll ever understand her again.

He doesn’t really see her again until Spring. 

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

-Romans 8:31

His adventuring party doesn’t seem to like him very much. His dad says it’s because they’re sinners, too deep in their own self-centered desires to see the goodness of Helio’s light. He wants, more than anything, to be friends with them. He sees Kristen and her other “Bad Kids” around school, and they always seem to be having fun together. He cuts back, as much as he can morally justify, on telling them about Helio’s word. It doesn’t have to be the only thing he talks about, especially if it’s making them uncomfortable.

Two months in, they brush off his proselytizing with nothing but an eyeroll and the occasional polite smile. 

Three months in, he mentions the Harvest Festival and his friends look at him with wide, horrified eyes. The wizard in his party, named Cordelia who everyone calls just Del, pulls him aside. 

“Bucky, are things okay at home?” she asks gently. For someone who spends so much time with her head in a book, she’s surprisingly perceptive of the feelings of those around her. He’s surprised by her question, so she rephrases. “I’m only asking because the Harvestmen have kind of a really bad reputation, and I want to make sure you’re safe.”

Bucky nods in response. “Of course I’m safe!” he says, but there’s something hollow in his chest that makes it feel like a lie. He hesitates for a few moments before he speaks again. “What kind of a bad reputation?”

Del frowns slightly, though it doesn’t seem judgemental. She takes his hand and starts to lead him farther away from the rest of the party, off towards the library. She takes him straight towards the religion section, which he’s familiar with from class, but she moves past the books on Helio and onto the secular section. She pulls out a book titled On the Subject of World Religions and hands it to him. 

“Here,” she says, a kind smile on her face. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your faith, I just think there’s a chance you weren’t told the whole story about everything Helioic people have done. This might help you get a little more perspective.” 

He opens it that night and sees Kristen’s name in the log of people who have previously checked it out, several times in a row covering the last few years with the most recent check-in only a week or so ago. It must be her favorite book now. 

He’s never read a book so fast. 

“I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”

-Ezekiel 11:19

Kristen’s new god is dead and made of crystals that have a gravity of their own. She’s all about doubt and mystery and, according to his parents, all of the scary things Helio’s light is supposed to protect them from. They have a meal together, the first one in almost two years, and she says she wants to go to church with them.

A little part of his heart breaks, when she says that, for the goddess relying on her. Kristen sure does make a habit of abandoning people.   

He dedicates a prayer her way next time he’s alone, and he likes the cool, quiet breeze that follows. 

“In the same way that your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares.”

He starts praying to Cassandra whenever he thinks of her because he doesn’t want her to feel alone. Then he starts praying to Cassandra whenever he has something on his mind. He starts replacing his morning prayers to Helio with prayers to Cassandra, Her silvery star light replacing the sun’s heat that usually sits behind his spells. He does his best to hide it, but his parents are bound to notice eventually. 

There’s a part of him that feels guilty. There’s a much bigger part of him that feels free for the first time in his life. 

Everything comes to a tipping point when Mac sees the book that Bucky (foolishly, stupidly, how could he ever think he’d get away with this) left on his bedside table. 

“How dare you bring that filth into our house? Do you not remember Kristen, how books like that led her away from the faith? Do you want to burn in Hell along with her?” his father is shouting at him before school. 

Bucky feels a familiar panic grip his chest, but not the same way it used to. It doesn’t hold the same weight as the first time he heard it. He thinks briefly of Cassandra, of her comforting darkness and the forest he’s seen flashes of as he prays. It couldn’t be further from the hell he’s been told about. He shoves the book into his bag, keeping his head down so the frown on his face can’t be seen. 

“I’m not like Kristen, and I’m not betraying Helio. I’m just doing some reading for class,” he lies, and he feels something pull away from him. A wave of regret hits him immediately, and a new fear takes hold. He doesn’t want Cassandra to be upset with him. 

Mac is still shouting, but Bucky isn’t listening anymore. He knows his dad will have to stop soon for work anyway, so his eyes slip shut. He sends out a silent prayer to Cassandra, expecting to feel the wrath of a goddess in return. He’s met instead with that same cool breeze as before, wrapping around him to soothe his fear. 

When he eventually makes it to school that day, he picks up a copy of the deity change paperwork in the office. 

“Bad things happen to good people because things happen all the time, and it is up to people to determine whether they are bad or good.”

Of course Mac and Donna find out. It’s a late-Spring evening, right at the start of dusk when the sky turns to vivid shades of pink and purple. All three boys are in the backyard doing their own individual things. Bricker, because of course it’s Bricker’s fault, gets himself hurt trying to ride his bike off the roof and into their cheap above-ground pool. He saw some viral video of Aguefort’s beginning of the year party that Bucky hadn’t attended and decided he wanted to do a “shrimp jump” of his own. 

He misses the pool. He screams, and Bucky is the first one out by his side. 

“Hey! It’s okay, just try and calm down, I’m going to heal you, okay? I’m just going to heal you and you’re going to be okay.” he says urgently.

 He carefully ghosts his hands over each injury, each one fixing itself as he does so. His magic glows faintly purple and his eyes flash with silver, a familiar cool breeze whipping up around them for a few moments. Before he knows it, Bricker is staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes. Bucky backs away, but when he turns to go back inside his parents are watching him from the doorway. 

Donna’s voice breaks the silence after a few long moments. “We need to speak to Pastor Amelia.” she says, and Bucky feels the fear like a spike of ice in his chest. He knows, with certainty, that if he lets them bring him to Church he’ll lose Cassandra. He’s not sure what to do, how to escape, and he screws his eyes tightly shut for a moment as he tries to think it through.

When he opens them again, he sees a twilight path on the ground ahead of him, trailing out the back gate and away to somewhere he can’t see. He knows, instinctively, that this is Her guidance. He glances over at Bricker, still staring up at him with that same expression, and his parents, who look more angry than anything. 

Then he runs. 

He follows Cassandra’s light not just away but past the hospital, past the school, and past the Far Haven woods until he reaches a place he’s only heard about in passing: Mordred Manor. 

He stops short at the front door, taking a moment to work up the nerve before he knocks. When Jawbone, the school’s guidance counselor, opens the door he pushes down his immediate impulse to step back. 

“Hey there, Kiddo, is there anything I can do for you?” he asks in a kind voice, a soft smile on his face. Bucky takes a deep breath. 

“I need to talk to my sister.”

"Then if people want to believe in the nighttime and that you can stand in the woods alone in the dark and not have to be afraid because you're united there with everything else that's in the night there with you, and that the world is a mystery, and that's beautiful, I would be happy to do that.”

Kristen isn’t home, so he waits in the living room for her. He talks to Jawbone for a little while, and is finally starting to relax when several people come tumbling through the front door. The Bad Kids are as they usually are every time he sees them, completely caught up in each other. The Goblin, who by now Bucky knows as Riz, is perched on the shoulder of Fabian as the two talk over each other. Their wizard Adaine is chattering excitedly with their barbarian about something vaguely arcanotech-y. Bucky’s attention zeroes in, all at once, at Fig and Kristen in the front of the group, shouting louder and louder as they get excited about the presidential campaign. He sees the moment Kristen notices him in the way she stops dead, her voice cutting out mid-sentence. Fig follows her eyeline and grins when she sees them, and at the sudden quiet all other eyes turn towards him as well. 

“Hey, Adaine, do you want a snack? Yeah, you do, we should all go to the kitchen right now except for Kristen!” Fig announces, and then they’re gone. Kristen recovers quickly, her eyebrows scrunching together like they do when she’s worried. She approaches and sits down beside him on the couch, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder as she looks him up and down in search of anything wrong. 

“Are you okay?” she asks, offering him a small smile. “I’m glad you’re here, of course, but it didn’t seem like you were very interested in ever being here considering what our parents have to say about it. Did something happen? Do you need help?” she asks. 

Bucky pulls her into a tight hug. “I’m okay. I’m better than okay, I think. Can I stay here for a while?” he asks, and she nods immediately. 

“We have plenty of rooms. We’ll get it all figured out,” she assures him. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

He hesitates for a few moments, then resolves that he’ll have to say it out loud eventually.

“I’ve been praying to Cassandra,” he admits softly. Immediately, Kristen’s eyes well up with tears. “Is that okay? I think I maybe like Her a lot more than Helio. I think she’s who I’ve been getting my magic from for a while.”

Kristen pulls him into a tight hug. She’s murmuring something reminiscent of prayer as she holds him there for a few long moments, and he feels her magic wash over him, so similar to his own now. She pulls away after a few long moments. 

“Of course that’s okay, Bug. That’s more than okay. I’m so glad you’re out of there, I’m so sorry I left without being able to explain anything to you but I’m happy you came to me. I love you so much.” she says.

“I didn’t know what to do, but then She led me to you. She showed me the way here.” he explains, and Kristen smiles brightly through her tears. “I don’t think I can go home again.”

Kristen shakes her head. “No, you’re not going back there. My friends and I will go get anything you want us to, and you don’t even have to worry about it. I’ll handle our parents.” she assures him. There are a few long moments of silence before she nods, seemingly to herself, and meets his gaze determinedly. “I have something to show you.”

She takes his hand to guide him away from the living room and into what looks, on the outside, like an abandoned chapel. Inside, it’s clear that it’s been transformed into a bedroom and worship area for her. Kristen takes him past her bed to the altar and sits cross-legged in front of it. He mimics her position, facing her, and she takes his hands. 

“Have you seen Her forest?” she asks, and he nods in response before she continues. “Good. If you want to, we can pray together and go there now. Cassandra hasn’t been doing well recently, but I think together we could help her. Would it be okay for us to do that together?”

“Of course it would,” Bucky responds immediately. Almost in unison, they close their eyes, each praying silently to Cassandra. 

Their eyes open at the same time and suddenly they’re both in the twilight forest he’s only ever seen flashes of. There’s a dirt path that leads deeper, and they follow it side-by-side until they see Her. She’s in a small clearing, sitting cross-legged on a solitary tree stump in the center with her eyes closed like she’s asleep. There’s a small black cat in her lap that blinks up at them before leaping down and coming to circle their ankles. 

Cassandra’s eyes open suddenly, and the goddess lives again. 

[godslove]

Dear Anon,

Beloved, when was the last time you read the Bible, prayed to God and basked in His presence for at least 30 minutes? Some pray and stay in God's presence for up to 4 hours. It's possible. I want to quote a man of God when he said that “I have never seen a man of God with a strong prayer life and reads the Bible/the Word of God that doesn't have peace.”

Why do you feel that way? Why are those the thoughts you think? There are 3 voices that we hear:

God

Satan—the enemy, spirit of the anti-christ, the devil, the one who fell from heaven/the fallen, the evil one (this is a long topic for another post. Read Revelations 20:7-10 to know his destiny in the end times.)

The flesh—the corrupted, sinful nature of the devil mixed with the pure body that God created. In Genesis, man took the sinful nature when Adam and Eve gave into temptation.

‭¹⁹ “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, ²¹ envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

—Galatians 5:19-21

We have to pray to cast out demons and its whispering lies of gaslighting, slander, gossip, condemnation, self-hatred, self-doubt, hatred towards others, deception, depression and fearfulness. Sometimes the thoughts we hear are not ours. The emotions we feel are not from God. It's either the enemy or the flesh. The flesh grows or shrinks depending on how much you feed it or starve it. It's the part of you that always wants more and complains or blames other people when you don't get what you want.

‭“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.”

—Galatians 5:16-17

God only gives us a spirit of power, of love and of self-control. Anything other than that is from Satan.

We pray with faith in God's power:

¹⁴ Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

—‭1 John 5:14-15

We lift up our burdens to Him and lay them all at His feet. When we pray, we let it all go and let God be God. Our loving Father will always give the best for His children.

The answers you are seeking are in the Bible. When I read the Bible, He reveals to me the answers I seek about everything in life. When I asked for deliverance, He was faithful to deliver me when the pain was too much to bear.

And He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”

— Jesus Christ, The Prayer in the Garden, Mark 14:36

There is purpose in every suffering dear. Sometimes the pain we experience can be excruciating but sorrow that brings you closer to God is better than comfort that pulls you away from Him. Don't look at others and say that “God has favorites” because we don't know the personal problems they are going through which we have no knowledge of. We all have our cup of suffering. Followers of Christ are not free from the winds of trials and tribulations, especially in this earthly life.

The more you walk closer to God, the more the enemy tries to pull you away from God either via pleasure (the worldly temptations) or pain (problems in all areas of life). If that happens, pray to God and stand firm in your faith.

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

⁴ Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

⁵ Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.

⁶ He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday.”

—‭Psalms 37:3-6

God answers prayers dear. Your heart posture has to be right first. When you pray, approach His throne with thanksgiving and praise. Remember the sacrifice Christ has done on the cross for each and everyone of us, God's children. Remove the shame and guilt because ‘it is finished’. When you are already purified from sin, grateful and peaceful, that's when you can ask God to help you bring yourself closer to Him and experience His loving presence. He is always with us dear, He longs for His children to come to Him. Listen only to God's voice.

‭“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

—Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:33-34

If you have prayer requests kindly send them so I can pray for you. If you have questions, I'll answer them as best as I can. I read it all. It's alright dear. I'm here. And so are the rest of our brothers and sisters in Christ who walk this journey with you. God bless you! *Hugs*💐🤍

[britcision]

I dunno if I touched on this already but I am Obsessed so you’re stuck with it

Just

Idk the Adventurer’s Bible calls it “cruel” that Mithrun told Thistle that Delgal wanted him dead in the end, but… it just doesn’t read that way to me

No one questions that Laios and co didn’t want to start a fight and just wanted to talk, but I feel like Mithrun was coming from a pretty similar place

He gives every prospective dungeon lord a chance, speaks to them more readily than anyone else, and always offers them a chance to back down despite clearly believing they won’t take it

And I mean I can’t 1000% cite it so I might be wrong, but… I think it’s also the only time he openly empathizes? He’s more emotive, with more facial expressions, but I can’t really think of another time he openly talks about what other people want

He’ll drop all his own trauma without batting an eye, but with Thistle and then with Marcille he tries to work out what their motivations are, what they want to wish for, and use his own experiences to warn them it can’t work and they won’t actually get it

It’s kinda cursory, but much less than Lycion asking Laios to give up on Marcille; he’s seeking a connection to spare them his fate, and while seeing Thistle catatonic doesn’t noticeably phase him, he’s pretty disinterested in the dungeon lords when you compare it to his reaction to the winged lion

(Full feral, 30 seconds flat, not a word before it’s peanut butter murder time)

The dungeon lords are ostensibly natural enemies as much as the demon is, and all the other Canaries are pretty focused on eliminating the dungeon lord as the first priority, and I dunno if any of the rest would even bother asking them to stand down

Lycion sure as hell doesn’t bother trying to justify to Laios why he shouldn’t go side with Marcille; he just asks him to abandon his friend, no, entirely expected, and he’s pretty clearly just humouring Kabru

Officially, they have to kill the dungeon lord to get a shot at the demon, and with a direct shot Mithrun loses his shit

But either dungeon lord alone? He doesn’t even try to seriously hurt them until he’s made the offer, he gets them temporarily incapacitated at best and he’s perfectly happy to let Laios free Marcille if he thinks he has even a vague shot at it

And sure, it might all be calculated to throw them off their game, to find weaknesses and rattle them before the fighting starts, but then why would he agree to let Laios help her stop being a dungeon lord without a fight?

The other captains sure as hell aren’t buying in, but Mithrun signs off without question, and it also might be that he just doesn’t care about the dungeon lords; any way he can get to the demon works

But he could have killed Marcille instead of trying to restrain or search her

He’s a fucking madlad, the time he used tackling her and starting the pat down could have begin with cape-decapitation to solve the problem before it occurred

He could have sent the plank into Thistle’s chest, not his arm to make him drop the book - that’s even a bigger target

They’re the Canaries. They already heard Laios say he wanted to be the dungeon lord. If they’d tpk’d the entire party there, it’d have been their job description, and we only got a dramatic final showdown because he gave Marcille a chance to just hand the books over… or let him take them

(Bet Pattadol and Lycion regretted pulling him off her, optics be damned, for at least a couple hours there)

Idk I just think it’s interesting that despite being the character with no wants or opinions on most things… he really does try to save the dungeon lords, and his squad follow his lead until they can’t even in his absence

(Talking to Laios and Chilchuck even after he’s fucked off, giving Laios even a cursory chance to quit)

It just… doesn’t add up that he told Thistle what Delgal wanted to be cruel, not on top of everything else

It wasn’t fucking tactful, but it was true, and if Thistle had believed him and realized that what he was doing was pointless…

That woulda been the fight. Wrap on Dungeon Lord Thistle, just a hop down for the other book, the status quo is mostly intact but the Island is saved

I don’t think it’s necessarily cruel to not want to kill someone

(But then the Golden Country woulda had to deal with King Mithrun Who 10000% Is Leaving To Find Another Demon Murder Opportunity, so like it was never an option narratively… which makes it all the more interesting that he tried)

[jokerislandgirl32]

Henry Here I wanted to say how the heck did Varina Get her name and also is there any Embarrassing baby pictures of Vari so that I can show it to Marissa?

Hey, Henry, Zach Varmitech here. Since I’m one of the people responsible for naming Varina, I’ll be answering this ask.

See below cut for full explanation ⬇️

Wellll, for starters it’s a bit of a complicated story. We knew Varina was going to be a girl early on, and this was hard for us since we had just lost Alexandria within the same year that we got pregnant with Varina.

Because of this Violet and I were very hesitant about picking out a name for Varina. Violet and I were both afraid of getting attached and losing her too if we named her, so we put it off until Mother’s Day of 2015, exactly 3 weeks before Varina was born, since she arrived early.

That morning Violet finally found the courage to go into the nursery the Zachbots and I had put together for Alexandria. Violet had not been in there since shortly after we lost Alexandria, so going in there was a big step for Violet in the mourning and healing process of losing our first child.

I found Violet asleep in a rocker with her mother’s Bible spread out on her lap. She had been reading it, taking solace in the following passage her mother had highlighted:

In the margins of the Bible her mother, Virginia “Dawn” Tyler, had written the names of Violet and all the babies she’d lost prior to and after having Violet. I knew then, kind of in the back of my mind, that Virginia should be part of Varina’s name.

For Violet’s mother, and for Violet herself, because Varina was the descendant of these two beautiful, strong, stubborn, loving, and unbelievably kind women, and she deserved to share a name with them.

After Violet and I spoke that morning; it was quite a long and heartfelt conversation about Varina, Alexandria, our relationship, Violet’s mother and father, and their similar struggles with having children; I hesitantly brought up the fact that we hadn’t picked out a name for Varina:

“I don’t wanna force you…it’s your choice, but we haven’t thought of a name for Baby Varmitech yet…last time we waited too, and then I ended up naming Alexandria after…after we lost her…that was hard. I just…I’d like to give Baby V a name now..but it’s up to you, we can wait…” I explained, tripping over my words, looking at Violet anxiously, hoping I had not upset her. Violet stared at her belly, rubbing a hand over the bump, she looked up at me with watery eyes, her lip trembling, “you’re right…she does need a name…I’m not sure if I am ready to name her, but maybe you can? You gave Alexandria a beautiful name, I trust your judgment.”

I felt myself relax, but I began to panic at the same time, “I-I don’t even know where to start…should I just look through the phone book and pick out a name or something?”

Violet laughed and pulled herself out of the rocker to go to a bookshelf in the nursery, “well, that’s an idea, but maybe a baby name book will be easier? The names are listed alphabetically with meaning, origin, and everything. This was the book my dad got for him and my mom when she was pregnant for the first time with Sterling. My mom ended up picking most of the names for my siblings and me, but they used this book a lot, it helped in their quest to find nature inspired names for all of us.”

I took the baby name book and started leafing through it. Me being me, I automatically went for the Z and V names. With Alexandria, I’d named her after my mom (my mom’s middle name is Alexandria) because she looked like my mom, and I used Rinella as her middle name because of the teacher who had helped keep Violet safe from her ex Travis on many occasions.

So, I didn’t get to use Z or V names the first go-around, but I wanted to…and with all our children after Alexandria they ended up getting Z or V names, but I digress, back to Varina…

As I was looking through the names my attention was drawn to two names in particular: Vera and Varina. These two names had been circled by Violet’s father with notes written in the margins expressing his interest in them.

Initially, Violet and I were hooked not on Varina, but Vera. Varina’s name was supposed to be Vera Vanica. We loved the meaning of Vera, which was: True. And the name Vanica means “gift of God.” So the name would have meant True gift of God. And since she was our rainbow baby after Alexandria, this would have been perfect.

But…this was not the name we used for her…we used it one child later…for Vera…for Varina we decided to go with her name for a few reasons: the meaning, the fact that as I mentioned before Varina would be partially named after her mother and grandmother, and the fact that Violet’s father had written this exact name in the margin of the baby book: Varina Virginia.

When we saw this name we read the meaning Violet’s father had come up with for the name, having scribbled it in the margins of the book: Varina - Strange, yet to be discovered; Virginia - Pure. The child, then, would have been named for the fact that she was a pure, unexpected gift. And our Varina was just that. She was our rainbow, a pure, unexpected gift after the storm of losing Alexandria and nearly our marriage.

And…because that all got a little heavy and depressing, here are some embarrassing baby photos…oh our child, our child…how we love thee…even when she’s too much like me…and her mommy.

(JIG Note: All images came from Pinterest, I tried to add the links to them but I, I mean the Zachbots, messed up. Btw I legitimately have a picture identical to the third image of me as a baby doing that, like mother like daughter).

Hope you enjoy, Henry, Marissa, and @bejeweled-wahlberg

-Zach V-

[itstheinktank]

Hey folks, Kuro here! It’s time for another update. Here’s everything you need to know about what we’ve been up to, and where we are going from here. 

DWAYNEMCDUFFIE.COM The biggest news of all is definitely Dwayne McDuffie’s website relaunching. A surplus of scripts, production information, and series bibles were posted, and it’s literally a dream come true for me. Reading through the forums was part of my daily routine for years growing up, and after his passing, losing the website really hit home. I’ve been waiting a decade for it to relaunch, but when it did, I had already planned to go out of town for a few days, so the timing was terrible on my end.

Let me tell ya, watching everyone dig through the website while I couldn’t participate in the madness was tough, but now that I’m back, I can’t wait to dig into it as well and see what I can find. We’ll definitely be doing at least one video on the subject. As for when that’s coming out, I couldn’t say. But please feel free to let us know if there’s anything specific you’d like us to address, and you can guarantee I’ll be taking notes! Thank you Dwayne for still keeping our world turning after all this time.

UPCOMING VIDEOS & COLLABS

In previous updates, I’ve announced another upload hiatus. This means that we won’t be posting weekly/ bi-weekly for the time being. We will be releasing videos irregularly, such as the recent MultiVersus video, and the previously-mentioned Dwayne McDuffie Website video, but we can’t make any promises as to when we’ll resume regular uploads. There’s just too much going on for us at the moment, which I will get into further into this thread. In the meantime, I’ve been making a lot of guest appearances on other channels, and still have a few more lined-up. So keep your eyes peeled! I’ll do my best to pop up around the fandom where I can. 

5 YEARS LATER & AND BEYOND

These are our two biggest projects, and thus, have the most updates already, so I’ll keep it brief. 5YL Episodes 10 and 11 will be releasing together, and are quickly escalating down the pipeline. Patrons and YouTube Members have frequent check-ins, and we’re thrilled that the series has come so far. Even if you’ve already seen the webcomic version, you’re not gonna believe what we’ve pulled off for this version of the series!

Unfortunately, Ash was hit with an illness that kept him out of commission for a few weeks. But the cogs are now turning again for AB Episode 13. We’re happy he’s back on his feet, and we’ll be on another extraterrestrial adventure before you know it!

BEN 10 BREAKDOWNS

Breakdown production has obviously halted due to our hiatus, but I still feel the need to address it again, as it’s one of the biggest hits and longest-running series of our channel. I may sound like a broken record to those that keep up with our posts, but for those that don’t, I want to reiterate my love for making the Breakdowns. These other projects taking priority does not conclude that I dislike making those video anymore, or that the Ben 10 Breakdowns are canceled. One way or another, I am determined to finish this series, and I’m looking forward to sharing more of my thoughts on Omniverse and the Reboot with the community.

STREAMING & COMMISSIONS

Recently, I have been streaming on multiple platforms during my Drawing with Kuro broadcasts. You can still find me every Tuesday on Twitch @ 2:00pm EST, but I am also broadcasting to Instagram and Facebook, too. For the time being, our second channel, The Rust Bucket, will be included in that line-up, with the goal to eventually move the streams right here on the main channel, too, but we still got some kinks to figure out before taking that plunge. 

You can commission me here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i_H7yM9I2oTmPkfSpWSUwhpm8YdZ0OhmzK-_nYNGXBA/edit?usp=sharing

THE FUTURE OF THE INK TANK

5 Years Later & And Beyond have been a huge part of our journey. Even after those projects are completed, I don’t see us ever dropping Ben 10 content as a whole. Though naturally, we will gravitate more towards other projects, including original works and IPs. I am happy to say that production has already begun after receiving some exciting news. 

My plan was to plant the seeds for our future as 5YL comes to the end, and then only prioritize it when the timing is right. But unexpectedly, we’ve been given an opportunity to enter a new avenue that would be detrimental to let fall through the cracks, and thus, we’ve spent the past few months curating a super secret project that will now be a part of our regular work schedule going forward. If this sounds vague, that’s intentional, but my hands are tied! I don’t know when I’ll be able to let everyone in on the secret. 

I’m not a fan of stretching ourselves further than necessary, especially if it keeps ya’ll waiting on the projects we already have in the pipeline. Though “What will you do when 5 Years Later is over?” has been a popular recurring question for years, and now I finally have an answer - I just can’t tell you yet! But it’s important for me to let you know that despite the large amount of content we’re working on that you’re aware of, there’s much more going on behind the scenes. So rest assured, we are ALWAYS working on something, whether or not we’re able to give updates. 

That’s all I got to say for now. Thank you for reading! Until next time, Keep it Fizzy!

[meeks-just-wants-to-scroll]

Hello !!! :3

I'm slowly getting through chapter 3 of hare fox moon and I've been wondering:

What's the writing process like??? Since in the notes of I believe chapter 1 it says its all from a discord channel so I'm really curious about how you and cupidkiss go about writing???

Also I love your responses to my comments !! Glad they bring joy :3

Signed- snail from ao3

The writing process of HFM kind of just… came out of somewhere? It got far far smoother as we went on. The first couple chapters initially were rough when released to AO3 but since then I have gone back one or two times and revised.

Initially the rp wasn’t even going to be uploaded to AO3. I just decided to archive the roleplay on a google doc because I had a long ass roleplay way back with another person and I regret I never archived it. It was only a couple chapters in me and Paigey realized we were onto something good. I took up the duty of archiving, revising, and uploading the roleplay because it was my desire to fan fiction it.

Why discord?:

Because me and paigey talk on discord and we felt it was most convenient to just make a discord server for keep everything organized.

General: commentary on the events on the roleplaying/ live reactions. It also functions as a catch all channel for any topic that isn’t captured by others.

Rp: channel where we take turns sending responses. Once a message is uploaded, I can copy and paste it into google docs (with minimal formatting issues).

Plot ideas: this was more active earlier in the story when we were organizing ideas, but it’s basically where we shot ideas and planned what would come next in an arc.

Prompts: similar to plot ideas but far more loose and general. This was a channel for art ideas, silly story ideas, character creation ideas, AU ideas, etc.

Art: where we exchanged art of the RP and characters. This channel mainly exists so I can find art quicker and don’t have to filter through something like general channel for a drawing.

Refs: author Bible channel. Quick place to find ref sheets, character desc, maps, mood boards, and whatever else we need to quickly pull up.

Photos: posts not made me either of us that we send to the server. Yet again exists so I can find images or links sent easier.

There are more channels but they are unrelated or AU related.

In rp channel we initially used Tubberbots for Boone and malt because…. Idk. Thought it’d be cool. Near the end I stopped using my malt tubberbot because it prevented me from existing my messages.

All the rp gets put into a doc and revised by me. Everytime we send a rp response, it gets a once over read, then another scan by me when I am in revising mode. Once there is enough written to be one whole chapter, I do a revise of the entire chapter in one sitting. It is during this step I turn all *italic words* into Italic words because discord copy and paste doesn’t copy the text effects across to google docs.

Once I do that final review, I copy it and upload it to AO3. There are 2 google docs. The first one got so full it would crash and so I made another one. It’s holding up better than the last one, even if it is longer.

Would I recommend roleplaying like this? Hmmm. Not particularly, but I can’t think of many better ways. Discord is familiar and accessible and even though it has formatting issues, it is not the worst.

-

I am happy you’re so engaged with this oc project! I promise you, even when we publish the last chapter to this fic, we will still be enthusiastic to answer and talk about it. :) never hesitate to send me or cupiidskiss asks about HFM.

[pockykierra]

Hi! I'm ex-Mormon, too, and I wanna hear your story!

Fellow ex-mormon!! I'm glad to tell my story of leaving the church, though I'd also love to hear yours! If you're comfortable : )

(Buckle in, because I am, at heart, a writer, and that doesn't stop with personal stories, haha.)

I left the church at 15. Though, truthfully, I had started having doubts around 12. Doubts which plagued me, and made me feel guilt every time I stepped into a church.

But what really set my leaving into motion was a girls camp, when I was 14.

For any never-mormons out there, girls camp is where the girls in your church or your ward (ward being the specific time you go to church) spend a week of the summer camping, hiking, singing worship songs, doing general church things, etc. It is one of the only parts of being Mormon that I look back on fondly, because most of it was just spending a week bonding with girls your age.

Something else to note for this story - between the ages of 13 and 14 I had surgeries on both my feet (one and then the other) due to a tight achilles tendon that was pulling the bones of my feet in weird directions. So during this particular girls camp, I had a boot on my right leg, and I had just barely gotten clearance to be able to go. My doctor was hesitant, before ultimately saying I would be fine if I took it easy - but not before warning me that if I didn't, and I tore my achilles back open, it would take double the time to heal.

With that, I headed to girls camp. A 5 day retreat up in the mountains between Utah and Idaho, where I unfortunately had to sit out a lot of the activities as they involved hiking, swimming, or running. Even still, I was glad to be there.

It was the end of the 3rd day when it happened.

I remember it had been cloudy all day, and the girls camp leaders warned there could be a storm. Still, as the sun started to set, they set us out on a spiritual walk (which, for non-mormons, is something they sometimes do where you walk down a trail, and along the way there will be church leaders who will talk about scripture verses or tell stories from the Bible. I've also heard it called a "god walk" or a "walk with God" before).

As we walked slowly down the trail, the sun now completely hidden behind the mountains, the wind started to pick up, and in the distance, thunder boomed. And yet, the leaders were determined to finish the walk. Even in the dark we kept going, even as a storm picked up around us.

What happened next, I remember vividly. All us girls were huddled together, walking in unison toward the end goal. And then, two things happened, one after another - a loud crack came from above us, which drew our attention toward the mountain beside the trail we were walking, and then a flash of lightning, which illuminated a large birch tree, falling, heading right for our group.

After that, everything is a bit of a blur. I remember being shoved by one of the leaders. There was shouting and screaming as everyone darted in opposite directions. I remember stumbling forward from the shove and hitting the ground, only to look back and see the tree landing right where I had been moments earlier. And then I remember, as the shock wore off, a sharp pain going through my recently operated on leg.

Everyone was yelling, but in the midst of it all, someone checked on me, and I told them I had hurt my leg. A group of the girls picked me up, and we all ran back to our cabins. It was a mess. Everyone was crying, my leg was in pain, the church leaders were trying to calm everyone down.

Luckily, no one ended up beneath the tree.

But in the midst of it all, one of the church leaders got everyone's attention. She said, through her tears, that we were so incredibly fortunate to have experienced what we just did. That what we had just gone through was a divine act. She said God had saved us from the tree. He had reached his hand out for us, and we needed to pray and thank him.

I remember, in that moment, my guilt turning to anger. I closed my eyes as if to pray with everyone, but inside, I was screaming. I remember thinking - why didn't God stop the tree falling at all? Why did I have to get hurt? Why did I now have to suffer the consequences? My leg ached, and I knew for sure that I would now be wearing that boot for far longer than I was supposed to.

I had so many feelings, but I didn't voice them. Not yet. My mom ended up having to come get me, and I ended up needing another surgery to fix what had been broken, adding to my recovery time, and costing my parents more money.

To add insult to injury, the next day, after I was gone, the group of girls who experienced this traumatic event with me all gathered around the fallen tree, and the church leaders took a picture of them. Three weeks later, they gave us all a copy of the photo, framed, and marked with the title "The Miracle of the Tree".

I was frustrated, and that picture only made it worse. But I kept trying. I kept going to church, hoping that it would soothe my anger. I tried for another year, until at 15, I approached the same church leader who initiated the prayer that night, and told her of my feelings. I expected her to have sympathy, and that she would tell me something that would put me on the right track.

Instead, she looked at me as if I was disturbed, and told me I need to go home and have a long prayer, and think about what I just said. That if I doubted God after this obvious miracle, there were some things I had to think hard about.

It was almost a relief, in a way. Her dismissal of my concerns cemented what had been lingering in my mind for years. I nodded, and even though there was still an hour of church left, I walked out. And that was the last time I went to a church service.

Thank you for reading <3

[life-in-the-monster-haus]

I am so so so sorry for just popping in here and bringing back bible talk because I know you got flack for it but I wanted your opinion on this.

Fontana was doing a Q&A on Instagram for September and she answered a question about why Clawdeen and Howleen weren’t related anymore:

But the leaked bible (which I don’t believe you read) said Clawdeen and Howleen were secret cousins and it would be revealed at the end of season 1, which contradicts the show and what Fontana is saying here.

I guess I just want to know what you think cause I value your opinion but I also see fans refer to the Bible leak a lot and I know you were one of the people that didn’t believe it. (You can ignore me too I kinda just stormed in here)

I'll never ignore a well thought out question or a fellow fan who wants to exchange ideas! bring them on!

No need to apologize! The thing with the show bible got quite out of hand, now that the season is over we can clearly see it was a bunch of circumstantial nonsense. I can talk about it now, enough time and fan fare has passed.

I read it and personally? it sounded like it was mostly assumptions and educated guesses based off the direction Nickolodeon / Mattel are going in matters like diversity & inclusion. Not really something that a show staff would write.

I think everyone was HOPING Clawdeen and Howleen would still be related (I was too) but honestly? after the secret dimensional crap they pulled with Clawd & then finding out her mom was still alive, the likelihood of Clawdeen having a 3rd surprise relative she wasn't aware of became more and more unlikely.

I don't really care for the cultural consultant they hired to over-see this season. While the concern of "all monsters of a certain ethnicity assuming to be related" IS a valid concern, I don't think it applies to the wolf pack. In fact I think it brings up way more and weirder questions / implications than the one they are trying to fix.

So now that we know Howleen is not related to Clawd & Clawdeen what does this mean for Howleen? is she no longer black now? they said Hexican heritage so I'm assuming Howleen is no longer black and she is now only Mexican. I take bigger issue with them erasing Howleen's blackness than encouraging this obscure & ancient stereotype that "people of the same ethnicity would all be related" or is she ALSO mexcian and black? it's POSSIBLE for 2 different interracial families to have kids in the same area / school / grade. it's just not very likely. As a mixed person myself I take issue with this... I know lots of half Puerto Ricans in my state but I'm one of three who's Puerto Rican AND Irish and none of us are in the same age range. I don't think the wolf pack encouraged any negative stereotypes because we saw other black kids and other werewolves. it's not a problem to view them all as related IF they are in fact related. There's nothing wrong with having a big family either. Harry Potter did it with the Weasley's there's 7 children in the family but no one said it was encouraging negative stereotypes about redheads.

I love G3 I really do, it's mostly done positive things for the brand and the characters we love. But every once in awhile they kinda shoot themselves in the foot while trying to avoid something they do something way, way worse. for example in this generation they're trying to "tone down" mentions of death because they said it's too depressing for modern kids and Shea has also gone on record saying that monsters like Zombies and Ghosts aren't the remnants of dead humans, they were born monsters. Which is all well and good but then they still do things that only dead creatures do - like Vampires drinking blood - the reason they do it is because their blood cannot sustain life or Zombies eating brains, why do they still need brains if they're a complete being? and where are the brains coming from? Ghoulia made an entire loaf of Whole Brain Bread in the first season of the Nickolodeon show, brains came from someone. So someone somewhere died to provide those brains and if they're not real brains they why are we calling them brains? why not just have it be pink nutrient mush!?

Because THAT would ruin Ghoulia's cool flesh eating aesthetic, no more Brain Puffs or Cup-O-Brains. (which I personally love & I hope they never stop doing this)

See the logistical nightmare that one change created!? If no one has ever died, where is all the dead stuff coming from!? Frankie is literally made out of corpses, why is that okay!? Because their donor parts died a long time ago!? What is the cut off for how long someone has to be dead before we can joke about using their body parts to create a new person!? They have Frida Kahlo's arm and Frida died 70 years ago.

Making Howleen not related to our main wolf pack did something similar. it's created a logical nightmare that I am confident Shea and her crew do not want to answer for because "it's not plot relevant" but it's relevant to us, the fans, we're the only ones who care.

I don't like it and I think their cultural consultant is needlessly walking on egg shells. I don't feel this concern was all that much of a prominent issue with Clawdeen's family during the previous generations - if anything the fans spent WAY more time denying her being black than anything else and Mattel's flat out refusal to give her natural textured hair supported this theory. But at least G3 is trying to correct this... they need to try harder though, a few braids and baby hairs aren't going to cut it I NEED Clawdeen to have some puffs, corn rows or a whole head of braids. (stop putting blonde in her hair mixture while you're at it!) I do not like that Hoween is no longer part of our wolf pack but I guess it's better than her being written out of the series completely.

Sorry I kinda went on a tangent there, but I assume these in depth thoughts are why you guys ask me these kinds of questions to begin with.