#and this little cosmic worm in particular

[nanuk-the-bat]

< &Friend?#@!>

[grenade-maid]

Signalis, Authority, and History

There's a level of nuance to how Signalis presents the violence of the authority of the nation that doesn't call attention to itself but which I really appreciate. Which is basically just, all the officers and cops and spies who make life hell for people like the Gestalt mine workers, Ariane, and the Itou family--we get little glimpses into who they are in Adler and Kolibri's diaries and despite the propaganda and the authoritative tone they take in official communications, for the most part they don't seem to actually be particularly invested in the hard line of national ideology. They uphold it though, viciously, both because things were worse under imperial rule (we don't get hard details on what it was like but it's mentioned in passing enough that I believe it) and because they're scared that if they don't they will be decommissioned and easily replaced. They are literally stamped out of a production line after all. There's a subtext of well, if I don't do it my replacement will anyway and I'm not trying to die so what's the point of rocking the boat?

I think Kolibri stands out to me most clearly on this because in communications from the block warden regarding Ariane there is emphasis put on how it is unacceptable and suspicious that she should be so interested and invested in art and literature that does not serve the purpose of furthering the goals of the nation. But we know that Kolibris themselves are bookworms, Adlers are fiends for stimulating experiences, and both get miserable FAST when deprived of art and puzzles and entertainment and hobbies. Y'know, just like anyone. Far be it from being a paragon of The Nation only interested in productive labor, we are reminded that the block warden, too, hates this shitty town and wants to transfer but is denied. They're hypocrites, but not monsters, nor brainwashed puppets of the state.

The monstrousness at play is not contained within any particular subset of evil individuals, or even an inherent universal force of evil contained in the broad notion of The Nation. There is no cosmic evil force that makes them all do these things to each other. The monstrousness is within the social systems, the mechanisms of how authority perpetuates on a structural procedural level, held in place by fear and tangible threats of violence, each link in the chain restraining the next through those threats out of fear that if they don't, then they'll be next. Regardless how many, if any, of those people in this chain are true dogmatic hardliners, they must act as such because failing to do so opens them up to danger.

Here then I think of the quote that is so prominent, "Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl", from Lovecraft's The Festival. This is not just a chilling abstract visual that conveniently evokes a mineshaft-- in Lovecraft's story, this line refers to worms which ate the decomposing bodies of wizards whose wretched souls had remained after death, complete with the terrible powers they gained through contracts with demons. Those worms inherited both their power, and also the evil. The Nation, despite having overthrown the Empire, is built on imperial technology, in particular Replikas and bioresonance. So too, then, we can imply that The Nation inherited with those things some of the monstrousness of The Empire as well. There is no end of history, nor clean break with the past, no matter how violently it may seem to be rejected. That which remains from the past--and something inevitably always does--creates the present.

This is a game that is not shy about evoking East Germany. And I think all of this provides a sophisticated picture of repressive authority that we rarely see in fiction of the English speaking world, especially in games. The year the S23 incident takes place is notably 84, but, frankly, I find this to be more compelling and illustrative than 1984 (and I'm a librarian and have taught English classes so I get to say that). Orwell, let's be honest, presents a fairly one dimensional picture of authority, where people seize power and wield it against others out of seeming mustache twirling evil or malice.

Here though we get a more humanistic view. Authority did not come from nowhere and is not wielded arbitrarily out of gleeful cruelty or mindless brainwashed allegiance. People aren't "just following orders". Individuals have rich inner lives. They make decisions, and those decisions are based in the context they're in. Even the decision to carry repressive tools of the past into the present is a decision that was made strategically with the big picture in mind. Nobody woke up and decided to be evil that day. Everyone operates on self interest, and, we must assume, an earnest desire for things to get better. Even the [spoiler] program which served as an inspirational demonstration of The Nation's power, you can imagine the chain of officers and bureaucrats who genuinely wanted the people of the nation to believe in the future, to confidently trust that everyone was working together towards something great and beautiful. And, through a long chain of those people who couldn't say "No" without being decommissioned, we ended up with something unbelievably cruel.

We get to know Adler and Kolibri and the other officers not to say well they're human too, maybe it wasn't so bad that they condemned all those people to agonizing suffering, but to remember that if we keep looking for true monsters we will not find them. There are no monsters and there are no demons. There are only people making decisions. A better world is possible. A better world, where Adler is just a paper pusher who does puzzles after work instead of signing papers to authorize torture, where Kolibris are librarians instead of spies and cops, where EULEs can gossip and play piano and ARARs can do maintenance on facilities that don't contain torture rooms, is one that would not have led to the Ariane and Elster's tragic cycle and ultimate end.

Authority and its attendant cruelty is not contained, radiating forth from The Great Revolutionary and Her Daughter, it is within the social systems of control. When those two women die, that cruelty will continue so long as those social systems continue. Like Lovecraft's worms, no matter how long dead the evil of the past is, so long as it continues to be fed upon, that evil will not only remain, but evolve into something new in the present. A better world can't be achieved through the death of the old world alone, even if violent overthrow is warranted. There is no end of history. There is no clean break from the past.

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."

Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

[midweekblues]

Finally, after a slow night at work and much ruminating, I hereby present my own True-Detective-Night-Country world-famous ramble stew. Tipping my non-existent hat to one Mr @rhavewellyarnbag

Something something Sedna of the many names, Arnarquagsag, Nerivik, Nuliajuk, the one who would not marry, the wife of all.

What's you name, girl?

Navarro, Eve, Angie, Evangeline, Missy, your mother never told you your real name (the one of the Real People) and some think you have forgotten it.

Sedna of the many names many stories Arctic wide, Alaska to Greenland, many stories and in all of them she lives under the sea, in all of them she ends up there because of her father.

Her mother? sometimes a shaman (voices. episodes.) sometimes entirely absent from the narrative (died in chilbirth), sometimes a background character following her husband.

Her father? oh, he always throws her in the sea, sometimes in a panic, sometimes in a rage. She would not marry the man he told her to.

Why?

Well, is that the right question?

She would not marry the man he told her to, because she was already married to her dog who was a man, a shapeshifter, so they kept it in secret.

So many secrets here... do we trust Qavviq the dog-man, the home-brewer? or is he gonna die a terrible death?

i dunno, man. Annie keeping it secret. Danvers keeping it secret. But Everyone here knows.

Sedna whose fingers were cut went she went overboard and she tried to hold on to her father's kayak. Sometimes her whole hands, bit by bit.

So many fathers here, too. Hank, raised by an animal to act like an animal. His son trying to be better than him. The son's son drawing the woman with no hands, no fingers, spooking his father.

What is it with white people getting spooked about other people's religion? Not me, i was raised catholic. A lady with no fingers is no big deal. But maybe i mean white-white. Not opening that particular can of worms right now.

Oh and of course Travis. Fucking Travis Cohle. And his little interpretive dance. That was a man drowning. Or several. Didn't Lund cough up some filthy water when he woke up corpsicled? Cause of death: Spooketh. But also maybe drowned. 

The lady under the sea, the lady with no fingers, cannot untangle her hair. Her hair traps the marine animals and she gets agitated and there is storm and famine. Her hair under the sea, her hair maybe like the sea, and who hasn't dyed their hair sea-blue, sea-green, when they missed so much? i have. Wear the monster's face, wear her hair, whatever you can manage.

The lady with the sea-hair beautifully painted on the door to the warehouse where the people gather. And the people are pissed. 

Something in the water, and no one seems to be asking questions. Not even the wrong ones. Tsalal is the mine is the thing under the ice, now she's awake and y'all done fucked up.

The lady with no fingers that lives under the sea gets pissed off sometimes. Main thing driving her mad is greed and ungratefulness, apparently.Those who take more than they need and those who do not honor their prey. The seals have souls, and so do the whales and the walruses. Those are Sedna’s children, not exactly like children, born from her chopped fingers like Eve from Adam’s rib. 

Sedna (90377 Sedna) is also a dwarf planet hanging around Ceres. This season feels like the Belt. As oppresive as S1 made Louisiana look (humid, hot, that heavy heavy sky) this creeps me out more. What's worse, air thick with miasma or no air at all? Women walking out to the dark, a tiny circle of light and then the vast nothing. Very cosmic horror. Also i miss Naomi Nagata and i miss Camina Drummer. Funny that Danvers' kid was named Holden. But i digress.

You know how scientists are, naming stuff after goddesses. Pieces of rock, sometimes lifeforms. She's awake alright. 

Who are you, girl? Eve? An angel? I am reminded too that Evangelion means Good News. Are you catholic, Navarro? Was your father catholic? What did he drink?

Something in the water, something in the ice. Crabs are bottom feeders, aren't they? How fucked up is an ecosystem where the carrion-eaters die off? Maybe stuff isn't dying at the rate it should. Caribou spook relatively easy, but maybe they know something we don't, too. Micro earthquakes and magnetic fields and shit. Guess we’ll find out.

[evolutionsvoid]

It seemed like fate was determined to insult them at every turn. There was no other way to explain this horrendous run of terrible luck. For such an elevated being, a powerhouse of the very cosmos, none of this kind of stuff was supposed to happen. This rotten destiny was more befitting for mortals, those useless little creatures that skittered across the crusts of planets. Fate should have been grinding those bugs within their fist, not a respectable entity like them! But regardless of the moans and anger, what happened had happened. It is just a lot to take in.

It all started with a duel, a cosmic scuffle, if you will. Two great beings run into each other in the vast nothingness and disagree how the stars should be aligned and how reality should be woven. What starts with reasonable debate had led to harsh words, which was not uncommon. The insane escalation to all out violence, however, was a bit uncalled for. Perhaps that particular god had been having a bad day, not really sure how else to describe it. Things get out of hand, they tried to beat their foe into submission, and instead wound up getting torn to pieces in the chaos. Unpleasant, but by no means lethal for such an entity. This was more of an insult, a spit in the face, where then the winner stormed off to fix this chunk of space to their liking. Quite rude, but once they reassembled their torn flesh, they would be ready to enact some well earned vengeance. However, fate and gravity had caught a chunk of them, and started pulling them to some horrible little planet. Such forces normally didn't bother them in the slightest, but when reduced to a floating cloud of gore, they couldn't fight back. They tried their best to gather their strength and pull themself together in time, but it was too late. Gravity won and they started plummeting to the planet's surface. 

Falling to this wretched planet was a real pain, but it would be nothing more than a nasty setback. Now stuck in a mortal realm, they would be forced to put themselves together without being caught by the local pests and also avoid starting any obnoxious cults. These wretched creatures had small minds that broke at the slightest truth, and also had a tendency to latch onto the smallest cosmic crumb with a feverish obsession. If any of these annoying creatures found their sacred flesh, then no doubt they would whisk it away to lock up in some temple and flap their gross tongues at in some foul attempt at prayer. Then they would have to take their partially formed body and retrieve their missing piece, as they couldn't go home to the stars without all things in order. It would involve annihilating another stupid cult and listening to the worms scream and beg in terror. Younger entities would find it amusing, but they had been around long enough to find it so pathetic and bothersome. And it looked like this was what was going to happen, as they found their pieces falling upon a populated area. Ho boy, here we go. Once they splattered down, it would only be a matter of time before someone scooped them up and started screaming about the cosmos and the flesh of god. These things can't come up with anything else, can they?

Now here is where the real mockery occurred, where the fates really had a good laugh. It wasn't bad enough that they were going to fall near some pathetic civilization, but it appeared it was near a facility that they prepared food. Fields of mindless bovines chewing vegetation, and some outdated factory churning animals into meat. Or more specifically, an outdated factory with terrible sanitation practices and open grinders. Their precious chunks fell into this wretched place, and the tiny brained humans simply scooped these fallen meat pieces off the floor and tossed them in with the rest! Mistaking their godly flesh as that of mere beasts?! A greater insult has never been uttered! So into the meat grinder went their chunks, but that wasn't the worst of it. Their blood fell upon the fields, painting the vegetation. Just as useless as their two-legged brothers, these dumb bovines kept gnawing away at it and swallowed the bloodstained grass. Now many parts of them were stuck in countless cows, while the other fragments were being fed into a primitive machine. Reduced to bloody ground beef, with their sacred flesh diluted within this foul paste. In time, the cows would be slaughtered too, and more of their body would be added to this cruel joke. 

By the time, they regained enough of their pieces to at least function, the worst blow had been dealt. Though a small wad of meat was able to wriggle out of the production line and escape the hooting apes and their grasping digits, the rest of them was packaged and sold over the course of weeks, spreading every drop of blood and flesh across this horrible land. One batch of tainted cows was ground up and sold to this corner, while the next batch was ground up and sold to that corner. The very essence of their being scattered like stardust, forced to suffer the humiliating fate of being put on store shelves and consumed by these filthy animals. These mindless beasts would gobble up this sacred essence without realizing the honor they were unfitting to receive, and store it within their blasphemous guts. They would go on living their useless lives, while they had to suffer the most horrid of fates. But no, they would not give up here. A being like them wouldn't just quit and let these monkeys violate their body like this. 

Cobbling together a body took a long time, especially working with such diluted essence and inferior materials. What they scrounged together was laughable, but it would have to do. Now was the task of rebuilding their body, and getting home, but that was no easy task. Finding all their pieces would be arduous, and this mortal flesh is a poor substitute. It would take a whole lot of meat to get them even close to complete, but right now they wouldn't think too much on that. It was time to start reclaiming their power and essence, as well as blow off a whole lot of steam. These horrible creatures would get what is coming to them, and more. Reducing them to a bloody paste would be fun, now that they were driven to such horrible lows. Maybe there is joy in grinding these bugs to a bloody pulp. Or maybe it was just a way to make this ordeal less grueling. Find the creatures, rip them to shreds and add them to your own mass. Find the essence locked away in stores, or trapped inside foul cuisine. Collect it, add to the mass, and maybe they could finally get home. But once again, mortal flesh is very poor in rebuilding a god, so many sacrifices will need to be made....   

-------------------------------------

"Lef'Tib"

This is an old one, just a silly little idea I had once. Not much else to say!

[greetingfromthedead]

C64: Journey to December

For more information on the series (tags, CW, etc) click the banner!

Series Rating: 18+ / Explicit

Chapter: 64/84

Words: 1.8k

No particular warnings for this chapter.

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You set out the same afternoon after making sure you have all the supplies you need. Reaching December will take a while, but you get to check out the other villages and towns in the meantime. Maybe someone has more hints about what is going on.

"What do you know about December?" you ask Vash when you're far enough away.

"Well, the ship it's built on got very lucky during the Big Fall; it landed nearly completely parallel, leaving most of it in tact. Most plants and people survived, and it has always been the biggest city since the beginning. It has the strongest military force, bigger even than July; they named themselves the rule of the law, they enforce the decisions of the Seven United Cities Government. They have the largest collection of cosmic weapons; they were able to salvage a lot from their ship after the fall." Vash looks deep in thought as he lists what comes to mind.

"Yeah, I think I heard about all that, but I've never been there myself," you answer.

"I've also heard some rumors that despite the strong military presence, there's an underground organization basically taunting the December forces. I don't know much about them, but I think we will find the Snatchers there, or at least they are connected. If the rumors are true, of course. Who would do something like this..." Vash's sad voice trails off, and you look at him.

"Hey, we'll get to the bottom of this. We will do all that we can. Alright?" You smile at him, hoping to take away at least a tiny piece of his burden.

"Thank you," he says, looking over to you again. "I appreciate you sticking by me."

"You won't get rid of me that easy," you laugh. "I will fight every fight, no matter how bad things may seem."

You travel through a few more villages, and as before, everything seems almost cheery on the surface. The people are kind; the women and elderly are going on with their day, some carrying weapons but nothing unusual. There are fewer men around, and those who are there send suspicious glances your way. The children seem as happy as ever playing catch or ball on the streets. You try to get more information out of the people about the kidnappings, but neither you nor Vash turn up any new and relevant details on how to find the people.

You don't get very far in the hours you move. Darkness has overtaken the land before you find a rocky spot to set up camp at. Things go as you're used to: Vash sets up camp and puts on some food while you settle the birds, give them food and water, take off the gear, and give them some attention. As you work, you look over to Vash; his glasses are pushed up onto his hair as he sets up the little gas burner. The sight of him brings a smile to your lips, even the simplest of things he does with purpose. He can be a bumbling idiot, running around town with tears and snot running down his face, but there is so much more to him, and you're lucky to be able to see it all up close.

Vash senses your gaze and turns to look at you. His eyes narrow in a smile as he gives you a little wave with his prosthetic. You're about to wave back, when your attention returns to the toma, due to Vash's snapping at a little flying worm by your head and then eating it up.

"Good girl!" you praise the bird, giving her another pat. The toma makes little noises at you, and you are reminded how Vash's bird has always liked you a lot. You give her a few more pats before going to Vash.

"And here's my good girl!" He says it with a smile as you sit down beside him. You give his earring an ever so light tug as a mark on him listening in on you. It pulls a laugh from him, and he gives your cheek a kiss. The smell of gunpowder reaches your nose, and while he is always associated with it on top of his regular scent, today it is very strong, reminding you just how desperate the people in this area are.

"I have a feeling we're walking into something even more serious than we might realize," you think out loud as you settle in more comfortably.

"Yeah... human trafficking has always been an awful underlying issue on the planet since the beginning that nobody has been able to truly eradicate, but I have never heard of it being this bad before. Whole villages are being abandoned because of the relentless attacks." His voice is somber as he pokes the stew in the little pot.

"How can the December government let this happen right under their nose?" you ponder.

"They say it simply runs too deep, the underworld is too powerful, and it plainly buys off everyone coming after them, but there might be a more sinister reason for it..."

"You're saying the December government might be connected to it?"

"I hope not."

"Our priority should be to rescue the people and sever the link between the human traffickers; we can't take on the whole of the December underworld. Not without casualties." You know the reality of things, but you're not so sure Vash does. His unwavering moral compass sometimes makes him more reckless than heroic. You know it's a slippery path; if he bites off more than the two of you can chew, then it just means that more people will get hurt.

"But if nobody does anything, it will happen again." His eyes are nailed to the pot.

"I know, but we can't be everywhere at once, and the people who have been kidnapped are traumatized enough, we can't allow anything more to happen to them. One step at a time."

"I know that you're right, but I don't know how to stop," he sighs. "I can't leave anyone in a tight spot."

"You need to realize how many lives you can carry without spilling and operate in the means of that. You can't save the whole world on your own; not even I alone can help you carry that burden. It takes a village. You need to let people help you, but until then, you'll do the greatest good by operating within your means. Still, I know you better than that... I know you will always put yourself on the line first."

"I'm sorry..." he says, leaning his chin onto the knee he has pulled up against his chest.

"You don't need to be sorry for that, Red," you say, leaning your head against his shoulder. "I know you well enough to have accepted it. I'll drag you out if need be."

"Thanks, Sweet Pea." You hear the smile in his voice.

"I'm on your team, Sprout," you say lightly, "whatever it takes. You aren't alone."

He looks over to you, and his eyes reflect a mixture of feelings. Sadness, happiness, guilt, and love are all in his gaze. Vash feels so fortunate to have you; his heart is lighter than ever. You bring peace; he isn't alone anymore; he has someone he can trust with everything; you will have his back; you understand him. You believe in him. But there is fear in him that he might push you too far, that you won't be there forever, and that he will cause you pain.

He takes the little pot from the fire and turns off the burner. Having his hand free again, he straightens his back so he can put his arm around you, the other still resting on his pulled-up knee.

Days pass and the eeriness grows; the villages get more sparse, and every third one is abandoned or has only a few lonely people left—they have been hit by bandits and plunderers, and many homes have been torn apart. The people get more reluctant to talk to you, the closer to December you get. You don't happen upon anything—no ruffians, no kidnappers, no suspicious cars. It makes you feel uneasy, and Vash shares that feeling. Sometimes you stay in abandoned houses, trying to leave them better than you found them, and sometimes you camp out in the desert.

You considered taking the steamer until you discovered that even a Humpback won't go through this area and takes a different path, avoiding the villages and little towns completely. This confirms for you that the governments of November, December, and July are aware of the problem, but try to pretend that there is nothing wrong. It makes you feel sick—the negligence, the disregard for human life.

You reach the next little village after dark. The lights called you there from afar, but when you arrive, you see it has been abandoned just like the rest; only a windmill is left still spinning, producing electricity for lights nobody needs. You get off the bird to take a better look. There is no doubt that it's not just a sleepy village; you hear nothing and see no sign of people. Furniture has been thrown out into the streets; rooms in the houses have been smashed apart and raided for what little was left.

"We should stay the night here, probably; it's very late," Vash comments as he too comes off his bird. "We're just a few days away now. Yet we still haven't found out much more detail about what is going on or where to find them."

"Yeah," you sigh, "I'm surprised. Considering how bad the issue is, how come we haven't seen them or haven't heard about them?"

"I'm not sure, but I hope it means that the people have been safe too; perhaps it means they haven't come anymore," Vash speaks as he checks out the houses, looking for a fitting one.

"I think that might be hopeful thinking. Maybe they've decided this area has become too wary of them and have picked a different direction to go in," you ponder.

"This might very well be, but I hope the news is better." He sounds so sad and disappointed.

Over the sounds of the windmill and Vash's voice, you suddenly pick up a low rumbling. Your head turns, and your eyes start searching for the source. It comes from somewhere far away. Vash notices your distraction and looks at you for a moment before following your gaze to notice the headlights heading towards the village.

"Who do you suppose those belong to?" You ask quietly, as if the car from far away could hear you in some way.

"If they're coming here, then we will find out soon." Vash shrugs and takes your bird from you. "We might want to get them somewhere safe, just in case."

"Yes, you're right," you nod, eyes still trained on the distant lights when Vash walks off with the toma.

Author's Note: I realized too late the error in Studio Orange's promotional material about the cities (intentional on their part or not) and wrote with the understanding that December is rumored to have a dark underworld, but actually it's September. I had gotten too far at that point and fixing it would have been too much work so I left it as is.

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[nebulouscoffee]

✦ ✄ and ▵ for ‘Who We Are’?

Thank youuu <333

✦ what was your easiest fic to write & your hardest? - 'Progress' might've been the easiest; it was only about 3k words long (and, unlike almost every other attempt at a oneshot I've made, didn't accidentally turn into a multichapter!) I also just think my desire for Kira Nerys to be happy is a very powerful force. Like I wrote it over one evening😂 Hardest would probably be a tie between 'Butter Through An Hourglass' (Sisko falls through time fic), 'When The Fighting Stops' (the life of Kira Nerys as told through Bajoran prophecy), and 'Live With It' (Sisko & Garak post-canon Cardassia dialogue-only). But since I have posted none of those, I'll admit the last two chapters of 'Who We Are' have been giving me trouble

✄ what’s your editing process? - step one: keep editing things even as you write the chapter so you end up making very little progress. step two: go back and edit some of the previous chapters actually! why not! step three: agonise over tiny little phrases forever, make 204 changes, and then close the doc for two months. step four: revisit it and find like 15 new ideas to incorporate now. step five: only open it again a whole month later and go "hmm this chapter is about 3000 words too long actually! gotta cut it down! time to be merciless!!" and step six: somehow end up making it 4759 words longer instead

(lol okay editing is not my strong suit, but I do have ONE good tip, which is change the font or switch to reading on your phone between edits. Just seeing those same lines but visually different always makes me notice things I stop noticing in the same format!)

▵ pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite line - ooooh this is hard, because I know it's from the Trippy Ezri Joining Section but it's all so intertwined I really don't know how to pick it apart! My favourite bit is probably when she sees Benjamin in that cosmic kitchen and talks to him outside of linear time lol, but it's more that whole concept than any one line in particular. Though I do like this moment a lot:

Benjamin is watching her with some undefinable look in his eye. “Memory is a complicated, confusing, and… phenomenal thing,” he murmurs, his voice low and clear as the space between stars. “And yes, it can be poisonous at times. Believe me, I know. It can kill. It can drown. But- Ezri, if you want to survive when the tide comes in-” He reaches out, gently cups the sides of her face, and suddenly, everything feels so simple… “You let it take you.” She lets out a shuddering breath, wishing she could look in his eyes forever. “I’ll die.” “No.” Benjamin smiles. “You’ll soar.”

This friendship means so, so much to me, and I really wanted to capture the way these two characters seem to be like, cosmically bound to each other? Platonic soulmates who will find each other in every lifetime, etc. Ezri is struggling with this massively traumatic non-linear experience, losing herself as 300 years of memories are suddenly being dumped into her brain- and here in the middle of it is the one person who can make it make sense, finding her in the dark. Giving her a safe place to catch her breath, but also the pep talk she needs to stop rejecting the symbiont and get through the joining! And basically, his advice is let go. Don't try sorting things out, don't make sense of things, don't psychoanalyse yourself- and definitely don't try to make Dax's emotions/memories linear. Now, is this a hallucination? Is this the worm telling her to find Benjamin through a half-conscious dream? Is this Benjamin himself, helping her out non-linearly from the Celestial Temple post-canon? Who knows! The important thing is, Ben knows a thing or two about living multiple lives, and how emotions can displace a person from time- and yes, he is going to explain it to her through food metaphors :)

[firstcurse]

Inspirations / blog canon recap.

I'm  due  for  a  big  old  rambly  headcanon  post  so  lets  do  it.  In  light  of  a  couple  updates  on  the  Stranger  Things  Writers  account,  including  them  promoting  Evil  Dead  as  relevant  to  Stranger  Things  in  some  way  and  recently  adding  a  picture  of   the  novel  "A  Wrinkle  in  Time"  for  the  same  effect,  the  brain  worms  are  wiggling  again !!   I've  personally  referenced  the  Evil  Dead  multiple  times  regarding  my  theories/thoughts/headcanons  on  the  Mindflayer  so  the  ST  writers  account  confirming  "some  part"  of  the  Evil  Dead  universe  is  reflected  and  taken  for  inspo  in  Stranger  Things  excited  tf  out  of  me,  and  the  content  found  in  A  Wrinkle  in  time  continues  to  further  add  to  my  personal  theories  on  that  in  particular  as  well. 

I  mean,  A  wrinkle  in  time  is  also  loaded  choc  full  of  religious  and  spiritual  themes,  tied  hand  in  hand  with  the  supernatural  and  science  fiction  and  I've  mentioned  that's  precisely  where  Stranger  Things  is  thematically  ( Although  the  fandom  doesn't  seem  to  believe  it. )  The  dark  amalgamation  of  religious,  cosmic  and  sci-fci  horror  is  genuinely  my  favourite  thing  about  Stranger  Things  as  a  series.  

Although  being  honest  my  PERSONAL  headcanons  and  portrayal  on  Vecna  and  the  Mindflayer  are  not  necessarily  meant  to  promote  Christian  values  or  Christianized  views  on   morality  or  good  vs  evil  as  is  the  case  with  a  Wrinkle  in  time. More  to  the  opposite,  actually. 

As  I've  been  over  in  another  headcanon,  personally,  I  more  display  the  Mindflayer  as  "god",  or  an  allegory  of,  rather  than  an  allegory  for  Satan  as  seems  to  be  more  the  case  with  "The  Black  Thing"  in  "A  Wrinkle  in  time"  and  could  very  well  be  the  case  with  Stranger  Things  canonly,  but  I  also  wouldn't  say  thats  what  Stranger  Things  is  going  for  given  we  can't  survey  season  5  or  how  anything  with  Vecna  and the  MF  is  going  to  go  just  yet.

But  none  the  less  I'm  excited  by  the  little  "updates"  and  the  "clues"  they're  giving  and  I  wanted  to  talk  about  a  few  of  my  insane  weirdo  takes  as  well  involving  Vecna  and  the  UD  specifically.

I've  surely  mentioned  some  of  these  things  before,  some  in  great  detail,  but  others  less  so, so we're gonna run over some stuff again. 

So,  essentially  as  far  as  it  goes  in  my  HCs  RN  Vecna  is  the  one  who  "shaped"  the  Upside  Down  to  look  like  Hawkins.  Like,  I  actually  have  two  theories  on  this  and  I  like  them  both  but  I'm  using  the  slightly  more  insane  one  for  my  own  writings  and  thats  the  one  I'm  mostly  gonna  be  rambling  about. 

As  far  as  my  headcanons  go  and  the  one  I'm  CURRENTLY  working  with  in  threads  and  such  is  in  a  nutshell  I  think  the  "yellow  /  red  world"  we  saw  Henry  and  the  Mindflayer  in  is  more  of  a  pocket  dimension  to  ultimately  what  became  the  Upside  Down.  I'm  probably  not  gonna  be  making  a  whole  lot  of  sense  here,  especially  if  you  haven't  read  my  other  HCs  about  the  Mindflayer  and  Vecna,  and  the  references  I  take  from  H.P  Lovecraft,  specifically  Azathoth,  Nyarlathotep  and  the  Crawling  Chaos. 

But  anyway,  essentially  the  Shadow  /  Cloud  mass  isn't  the  mindflayer's  true  corporeal  form.  Its  more  a  manifestation  of  the  mindflayer's  "Astral  form"  or  some  fragment  of  it  anyway.  And  it  was,  shall  we  say,  "trapped" in  this  "pocket  dimension"  before  Henry  linked  up  with  it  and  freed  it. 

Because  again,  taking  heavy  inpso  from  Azathoth  and  myths  surrounding  the  being  from  the  HP  Lovecraft  universe,  there  is  a  concept  that  Azathoth  was  somehow  "imprisoned",   although  as  essentially  the  creator  of   all  reality  it  can  never  really  be  contained  or  "stopped",  Azathoth's  omnipotence  remains  even  in  its  discombobulated  or  'unconscious'  state. 

And  I'm  very  much  going  for  the  same  vibe  with  the  Mindflayer.  Its  true  corporeal   form  is  simply  incomprehensible,  and  it  interacts  with  the  world  through  its  'dreaming'  or  'astral  form'. Another  fun  bit  of  info  is  if/when  threads  come  up  where  Henry  references  concepts  such  as  Inari's  Web  or  figures  in  creation  myths  such  as  the  Spider  Grandmother,  they're  all  actually  related  and  connected  to  the  concept  of  The Mindflayer  and  my  likeness  of  it  to  Azathoth.  The  mindflayer  is  a  thing  that  simply  exists  across  and  between  multiple  dimensions. 

Though  parts  of  it  have  been  "contained"  in  some  places,  although  how  it  got  trapped  in  some  places  I  haven't  decided  or  specified  yet  but  I  like  to  think  it  had  less  to  do  with  other  cosmic  deities   deciding  it  needed  to  be  stopped  and  more  to  do  with  its  own  "mindless"  hunger. 

So  anyway,  as  I  also  mentioned  and  continuing  with  the  weird  horror  theme,  I  portray  the  Upside  Down  as,  quite  literally,  a  living  organism,  ( I  have  done  a  pretty  lengthy  post  on  that  in  particular  floating  around  on  one  of  my  blogs )  and  potentially  part  of  the  mindflayer's  actual  corporeal  form,  a  bizarre  world  that  is  the  inside  of  a  gargantuan  deity  that  represents  all  reality.   

A  world  that  happens  to  be  sitting  parallel  to  the  "cursed"  town  of  Hawkins.  Where  Henry  originates  from.  Truly,  Henry  coming  to  live  in  Hawkins  was  the  worst  thing  to  happen  to  Hawkins   and  probably  the  world  because  Henry  was  born  "sensitive"  in  my  HC.  He  was  born  with  clairvoyant  abilities.  ( Its  been  suggested  Victor  could  have  been  somehow  "sensitive"  as  well  given  he  is  the  only  other  character  in  the  Creel  family  apart  from  Henry  who  had  the  sense  of  a  "presence"  in  the  Creel  house. )  

Due  to  Henry's  clairvoyant  abilities  he  was  able  to  receive  "transmissions"  from  "the  Mindflayer",  currently  residing  in  the  otherworld. It  was  because  of  the  Mindflayer's  influence  that  Henry's  powers  heightened  the  way  they  did.  You  could  even  say,  in  a  way,  it  gifted  him  those  powers  and  groomed  him  to  take  his  eventual  path  with  them.  Not  helped  by  Brenner,  and  the  Lab  at  all  of  course  because  they're  another  huge  factor  in  this. 

The  Mindflayer  "chose"  Henry  to  be  it's  intermedium.  And  I'm  not  going  to  say  the  Mindflayer  always  wanted  to  "Destroy  the  world"  or  that  its  "evil"  or  anything  so  "simple",  because  more  the  reality  is  that  its  just  "hungry."  It  rots  and  consumes  Hawkins  for  that  far  less  morally  aligned  reason.  Its  indifferent  to  humanity  and  morality  because  both  of  those  things  are  entirely  beneath  it.  ( As  Dustin  explained  in  season  2,  the Mindflayer  thinks  itself  superior  to.... Everything  and  if  you  are  in  fact  an  ancient  cosmic  deity  wheres  the  fault  in  that  logic  exactly ? )  Destroying  the  world  isn't  its  goal,  rather,  its  not  destruction,  its  renewal. 

Because  as  I've  also  mentioned   many  times  before  I'm  defo  taking  some  inspo  from  the  Legacy  of  Kain  series  and  the  depiction  of  the  entity  known  as  the  elder  god.  Essentially  the  Elder  god  has  an  influence  over  life  and  death  because  it  feeds  on  death,  or  rather  it  feeds  on  souls,  but  its  not  so  simple  because  by  feeding  on  souls  the  "elder  god"  also  "spins  the  souls"  back  into  the  "wheel  of  fate",  hence,  while  everything  is  destroyed  by  the  elder  god  it  is  also  renewed  by  the  elder  god.  It  is  essentially  the  "cycle  of  life"  or  "fate"  personified  as  a  monstrous  squid  like  abomination  that  resides  in  the  "otherworld",  that  is  depicted  as  a  dark/warped  version  of  normal  reality  full  of  monsters. 

AND  that  is  also  a  kind  of  aesthetic  I'm  going  for  here  because  I  think  it  works  and  LOK  is  just  another  thing  that  I  would  be  VERY  SURPRISED  if  the  Duffer  bros  and  the  ST  writers  didn't  actually  have  in  the  piles  of  inspo  because  it  def  has  so  many  similar  elements  to  ST  going  on  BUT  THATS  for  another  post. 

Because  ultimately  I  haven't  fully  decided  if  the  MFs  intentions  are  anything  beyond  "eating",  I  think  its  something  that  simply  EATS  and  eats  and  death  and  destruction  feed  it,  so  it  has  a  bit  of  a  habit  of  influencing  the  world(s)  around  it  to  create  death  and  destruction  again  for  no  big  reason  outside  of  this  is  its  nature  and  its  simply  hungry  but  part  of  its  feeding  leads  to  'renewal'  because  technically  it  is  reality  itself. 

Which is  also  Henry/Vecna  comes  into  it  for  me.  Because  as  the  human  intermedium  he's  given  this  a  human  element.  He  brings  the  "human"  side  in.  We  cant  fully  comprehend  why  and  how  the  mindflayer  does  what  it  does,  but  Vecna's  different.  He  was  human  once,  he  still  has  somewhat  human  goals.  In  my  HC,  Vecna's  aware  of  what  the  mindflayer  is  and  he's  heavily  on  the  side  of  "renewal".  Which  is  another  human  aspect  of  him;  he's  seen  the  good  and  the  use  in  this  unfathomable  omnipotent  thing  that  just  rots  and  eats  everything  it  touches.  Ultimately,  Vecna  understands  what  the  Mindflayer  is,  and  he  serves  it,  however,  he's  also  using  his  link  to  it  for  what  he  thinks  is  good.  He  wants  to  change  and  "renew"  the  world  and  the  Mindflayer  is  the  key  to  that.  Its  a  tool,  but  so  is  he.  They're  tools  for  each  other.  

The  Mindflayer  brings  about  judgement  and  destruction  onto  mankind  and  the  corruption  of  human  civilization,  allowing  Vecna  to  "reset"  it,  in  his  hopes  into  something  better,  meanwhile   the  Mindflayer  uses  Vecna  to  open  the  gates,  to  free  it  and  thus  supply  it  with  a  massive  supply  of  "food"  during  all  this  that  continues  the  unending  cycle  of  life  and  death  across  all  the  universe. 

But  I  haven't  completely  decided  how  much  of  Vecna's  goals  are  influenced  by  the  Mindflayer's  "corruption"  or  direction  because  I  also  think  that's  an  element  as  well.  Cos  for  example,  I  think  while  Henry  always  wanted  to  use  his  powers  to  make  a  change  in  the  world  I  don't  think  he  ever  wanted  to  destroy  everything  to  rebuild  it.  

Another  thing  I  personally  take  reference  from  and  will  be  VERY  shocked  if  the  ST  writers  aren't  as  well,  is  Silent  Hill,  which  I've  mentioned  a  lot  of  times  specifically  surrounding  the  link  between  Henry  and  Will  and  Alessa  and  Cheryl  and  the  similairties  I  think  there  could  be  there,  but  another  element  here  for  me  is  the  fact  Alessa  and  what  was  done  to  her  is  considered  the  catalyst  for  much  of  the  terrifying  shit  going  on  in  Silent  Hill  and  its  link  to  its  "dark  mirror",  the  other  world,  which  looks  near  identical  to  Silent  Hill  except  dark  and  twisted  and  full  of  monsters,  and  the  lapse  in  dimensional  barriers. 

( Also as a  fun  note  the  "otherworld"  of  Silent  hill  is  also  depicted  as  the  place  "god"  lives,  so  yeah ). 

And  this  does  in  fact  mirror  Henry  in  a  way  given  we  can  definitely  say  Eleven  pushing  Henry  through  to  the  Upside  Down  really  "sealed  the  fate"  of  Hawkins  and  brings  me  to  the  fact  that  yeah,  I  headcanon  Henry  is  the  reason  the  Upside  Down  was  reskinned  to  look  like  the  Dark  Mirror  of  Hawkins. 

Why ?  Because  he  wanted  to  build  his  own  world,  his  idea  of  a  better,  safer  one.  This  just  becomes  a  little  more  literal, supernatural  and  psychological  with  Vecna  and  the  Upside  Down.  There  is  a  heavy  "foreshadowing"  to  this  in  the  scene  with  Eleven  and  Henry  where  Henry  says  "We  could  reshape  the  world.  Remake  it  in anyway  we  see  fit." 

Henry  reshaped  the  Upside  Down  to  look  as  if  it  was  Hawkins.  And  I  wonder  if  a  part  of  him  did  this  to  find  his  way  home,  since  he  returned  to  the  Creel  house  and  seemingly  stayed  there.  We  also  know  Vecna's  version  of   the  Creel  house  and  the  actual  Creel  house  are  not  just  direct  copies  of  each  other  but  they're  also  apparently  in  the  exact  same  place  as  each  other,  and  a  lot  of  the  Upside  Down  could  be  seen  as  a life sized  "map"  of  Hawkins  in  a  way.

But  I  also  have the  headcanon  that  after  Vecna  reshaped  the  UD  for  whatever  reason  or  REASONS  he  did,  that  was  it  for  him.  He  exhausted  the  power  he  had   and  went  into  hibernation  mode.  This  feels  like  it  could  also  be  very  true  because  there  is  no  sign  of  Vecna  anywhere  until  the  back  end  of  season  3.   

And  I  feel  like  canon  could   have  explained  this  with  when  they  had  Will  mention  the  Mindflayer  doesn't  "activate"  its  minions,  so  to  speak,  until  it  needs  them.  It  wouldn't  have  necessarily  needed  Vecna  during  season  1,  because  Eleven  had  accidentally  opened  the  gate.  The  gate  was  "closed"  in  season  2  but  a  small  fragment  of  the  Mindflayer  that  had  been  expelled  from  Will  had  already  escaped  and  went  on  to  wreak  havoc  in  season  3.  

Season  3  apparently  follows  the  Mindflayer’s  attempts  to  kill  everyone  of  a  threat  to  it  ( Specifically  Eleven ) and  reopen  the  gate ,  which  fails,  and  then  suddenly  Vecna  comes  into  it  full  force  and  opens  the  gates  for  it,  and  given  the  way  the  D*ffers  and  the  writing  crew  have  worked  to  tie  S4  and  the  previous  seasons  together.  I  don't  think  Vecna's  absence  and  appearance  is  coincidental  or  that  Vecna  was  always  just  sitting  around  twiddling  his  thumbs  waiting. 

So  what  I’m  saying  for  now  is  basically  that  Vecna/Henry  made  the  Upside  Down  look  like  Hawkins.  I’m  not  giving  specifics  for  why,  outside  of  the  fact  he  had  a  longing  for  his  own  “ safe  world“  but  Hawkins  was  the  only  place  he  "knew"  to  based  it  off,  and  that  Vecna  also  wasn’t  an  “active”  presence  in  the  UD  or  the  initial  invasion  of  Hawkins  during  season  1-2. 

During  season  1-2  Vecna  didn’t  have  the  power  to  actively  participate  in  this.  He  was  drained  from  using  his  powers  to  reskin  the  Upside  Down  and  was  in  a  semi  comatose  state.  ( Although  he  is  still  present  within  the  hivemind  and  thus  had  some  understanding  of  what  was  going  on  through  the  mindflayer's  interactions  with  Hawkins,  the  party  and  the  demogorgons. )

The  mindflayer  officially  “reawakened  him”  due  to  needing  him  to  “reopen”  the  gates  and  he  could  do  this  after  the  Mindflayer  absorbed  Eleven's  powers  and  transfered  them  to  him  to  give  him  a  jump  start.  The  initial  opening  of  the  gate  in  S1  was  an  “accident”  that  occurred  because  of  Brenner’s  meddling  with  Eleven’s  powers  and,  to  put  it  in  a  very  oversimplified  and  condensed  way,  once  the  mindflayer  got  “a  taste”  of  the  real  Hawkins,  it. wanted  more  and  started  upping  the  ante  when  it  came  to  trying  to  “break  out”  or  rather  “merge”  Hawkins  with  itself/the  UD  and  perhaps  this  was  always  where  it  was  leading  to,  given  if  Henry  continued  to  use  his  powers  the  way  he  was  he  would  also  break  the  barrier  of  the  UD  and  Hawkins.  

So  I  also  wanna  say  Vecna’s  actions  of  reskinning  the  Upside  Down  may  have  ALWAYS  been intended  to  to  be  part  of  a  merger  between  Hawkins  and  the  Upside  Down  but  he  ran  out  of  juice  before  he  could  finish  the  job  and  it  just  so  happened  that  Eleven’s  contact  with  the  Demogorgon  finally  popped  a  big  enough  hole  in  the  barrier  between  the  UD  and  Hawkins  to  really  get  the  ball  rolling  on  things  again. 

Anyways,  like  I  said  I  do  have  OTHER  theories  and  tbh  I  constantly  think  about  the  way  the  Demogorgans  behave  in  the  VR  game  and  it  just  throws  me  out  on  a  lot  of  stuff  because  you  don't  know  how  disappointed  I'm  going  to  be if   the  writers  do  some  generic  shit  like  the  Upside  Down  was  just  an  alien  world  that  was  conquered  bc  teh  evils.  Like  that  would  feel  very  lame  to  me  and  hopefully  I'm  just  reading  too  far  into  the  few  seconds  we  got  from  the  VR  game  and  NONE  THE  LESS  my  own  personal  headcanons  seek  to  generally  disregard  whatever  canon  might  be  doing  with  any  of  this  anyway. 

[savior-of-humanity]

"Something about you reminds me of something familiar. Are you special? Are you on a mission?" He knows it is not the best approach to give to someone... or something, but his curiosity takes the best of him and he finds himself hoping to discover what he was witnessing. (for The Worm-In-Waiting?)

It was not a rare occurrence for the Waiting Worm to visit those that they watched over.

Usually, when the Worm manifested in a timeline, it was in less... involved ways, as uninvolved as saving one from death or bestowing them with a myriad of powers was. All to change the balance, to change fate. One might say it might've been for the entity's own amusement, and they weren't exactly wrong - but it was primarily out of a sense of love and care for them, like a parent with a child. To watch them grow and succeed in their journey, regardless of whether they got a little boost or not.

But rarely did the Worm actually truly manifest in their world; it was almost always in the veil of dreams, or that place between life and death that was the Black Beach. Physical manifestations in where the denizens of these realities walks were typically left to the Arch-Judicators - beings that could be likened to angels, who served the Worm and the Worm alone. For a god that was almost omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, there was only so many places they could be at once.

Which was why they decided to mix things up a little for this particular encounter.

Before the man simply known as Atom was... another man. Pale, sleek black hair, dressed in a finely tailored suit that might have been befitting for a CEO, with silk that was black as night, an undershirt of pale silver, and a necktie the color of rich purple. On his left breast was a metallic silver pin in the shape of an angular infinity symbol, which seemed to glow and shine on its own even with no light being cast unto it.

All in all, he could probably be mistaken for just an ordinary businessman, were it not for the fact that his irises glowed the same shade of purple as his tie, and the almost oppressing sense of deja vu that surrounded him like a thick smog.

"You could say that I am special, yes," the Worm-in-human-skin spoke, not with the voice of billions but the song of a single person. Their voice, even then, was like cosmic silk to the ears, seemingly normal yet with that haunting sense that this person was not human behind it. "I've been told that many times before. But, I would argue that you are special - perhaps just as much as I."

[artbyblastweave]

opinion on scion, poor little meow meow

Three thoughts about Scion. More to follow.

I think that Scion is underexplored as a character in the fandom because it’s very easy to fall into to the same trap that the characters did in Canon. His status as a cipher, idiot-god, and engineered anglerfish lure all serve to elide the fact that he is, in fact, Actually A Character Who Inhabits The World. Cauldron thinks they’re they’re in a Jean Jacket sorta situation, but they aren’t! He’s agentic, he has emotions, he’s got a sense of self. He’s metaphorically literate. He hears Kevin Norton talking about religion and he’s able to draw coherent connections to his own sense of identity. Stuff is capable of catching his interest; he didn’t have to answer that reporter’s question. He’s not solely a humanoid time bomb, floating around mindlessly dispensing good deeds until the big finish; he is mostly that, in practice, but there’s other stories to be told with this guy!

On that note, something I’ve thought for a long time is that his relationship with Kevin Norton- and he does have one- is weirdly underexplored in the fandom given the canon particulars. Kevin is gay, and Scion is using him as a replacement goldfish for his dead wife, and both of them meet while they’re spiraling in the aftermath of their previous relationships ending. Kevin shows up, tries to fill the void for a while, but then stops making himself available to provide further guidance. I’m describing a dynamic that should have hundreds of pages of shipfic on AO3, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone consider the prospect seriously. I think I’ve seen one fic, ever, in which something Kevin says to Scion that prompts Scions emotional growth in a novel direction. That’s a whole genre of AU fic right there! Completely untapped!

Scion is very important, to the overall deconstructive project of Worm. There’s a whole post to be written (not right now, but eventually) about the sheer number of ways in which Scion is riffing on Superman’s mythos and publication history, and I think he does so in genuinely novel ways. Doing a comprehensive examination of the superhero genre was always going to require some integration of the archetype, or it wouldn’t be comprehensive. But beyond that project, he is such a good final boss for the narrative of Worm specifically. In a book about a young woman struggling against broken systems run by traumatized people carrying big sticks, he’s the worst possible system, the biggest possible stick, doing what he does because he’s traumatized at a cosmic level. I see people complain about Scion and his role in the endgame, and I’ve counter-kvetched about that line of thought before; escalation is only bad if you aren’t writing a story about escalation. But Worm scales up! It rhymes at every level! It’s so cool!

[sailahina]

insanity.

(DISCLAIMER: this shit is stupidly long and I blame @secretly-of-course and @lollytea for these particular brain worms. Look what you’ve done to me. I put the bulk of it under the cut so you all don’t hate me)

OKAY SO. okay. the huntlow miraculous au brain worms have been WRITHING.

I know a lot of people have been putting Hunter as Ladybug and Willow as Chat Noir, but I DISAGREE. (respectfully)

1. Willow is terrified of ladybugs and it would be REALLY funny for her to get the Ladybug miraculous

2. She just...she IS Marinette! I know that Hunter being all blushy parallels Marinette, but with Willow it could be interpreted as her shyness/insecurity during the Abomination track. Meanwhile, her true confident badass self emerges once she’s Ladybug.

3. Hunter and Adrien are both blonde bois growing up and existing under the authority of an abusive father figure. Both are highly trained in order to live up to the expectations put on them. (Though in this AU to keep up with canon a bit I imagine he's escaped to live with Luz and is adopted into her family)

4. Hunter and Adrien both infodump and it's adorable

5. I 100% believe that Hunter, if he had met Willow during his GG era, would flirt mercilessly with her. Masked confidence and all that.

I think Willow would be into Hunter but in a sort of detached way? Like he's just the brother of her best friend Luz. Sure he's cute but why would he be into half-a-witch Willow? (Are they also witches in this AU I don't know man I'm just brain melting on main)

Hunter meanwhile is a little clueless. His entire focus is on Cosmic Frontier and sewing and wild magic and and and...

Willow is really charmed by this and finds herself able to listen to his ramblings for as long as he'll talk to her (mostly when she comes around to the house and Luz is getting ready or something)

Hunter is just happy to have someone listen to him, since even Gus can get a little fed up with the constant AUs and theories about O'Bailey and the crew. He'll call Willow from time to time just to rant about whatever current fixation he's gotten into.

Their masked selves though?? Oh Hunter is head over fuckin heels for this girl. She's strong and smart and kind and did he already say strong? Titan this girl works out. Like his good friend Willow! :)))

Ladybug!Willow is kind of annoyed with this overly flirtatious partner of hers, but she sees the genuine nerd underneath peek out from time to time, especially if she's close enough to get him flustered and sputtering, completely dismantling the persona he obviously puts on for her. Sometimes she'll catch him rambling about random facts he knows and the sparkle that appears in his eye reminds her of her very good friend Hunter! :)))

She tries more and more to get this genuine, blushy side of him to appear, eventually getting so comfortable in the dynamic that it starts to spill over into her interactions with Hunter. He and Chat are so similar, after all!

This is when something clicks for Hunter. His sister's friend is much more than just someone who listens to him ramble, and all at once he's a mess around her. Luz picks up on this immediately and teases him CONSTANTLY about it. Willow, on the other hand, is pretty clueless about Hunter's feelings towards her. If anything she's worried he's starting to pull away

Hunter, entirely hopeless without his mask, finds himself showing up at Willow's balcony as Chat Noir. He's comfortable with her. He's able to relax without dissolving into a spluttery mess, and in turn Willow is able to be herself as well, while occasionally flirting back just for fun.

After months of these two idiots dancing around each other maybe a reveal would go something like this:

"So, wildflower, if not this handsome cat who's the lucky person you've got your eye on?" Hunter asked. He was perched lazily (and precariously) on Willow's balcony, leaning forward on his staff with a crooked smile, eyes glittering green behind his mask.

Willow rolled her eyes and pushed him away playfully with a hand.

"Wouldn't you like to know, my mysterious midnight caller." She teased, laughter subsiding a bit as she thought about Hunter. He had gotten so distant lately and she worried she had been coming on too strong. Maybe his feelings weren't what she thought after all.

Chat frowned at the sudden drop in enthusiasm, studying Willow's face. "Hey, Titan-to-Willow." He nudged her gently to rouse her from her thoughts, "are you alright?"

Willow started a bit but recovered quickly, giving him a soft smile that nearly knocked him off the balcony.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Sorry kittycat, just...thinking." She frowned again.

"Oooooh so there is someone else!" Chat fake-swooned, lying back on the railing making Willow laugh which was his favorite sound.

He turned his head to face her, eyes softening. "You know you can tell me anything, wildflower."

She smiled at his nickname for her and sighed. "I know, it's just...such a weird situation and I'm not really sure how to go about it. I don't even know for sure if he feels the same way, I..." she bit her lip, unsure if she should say more.

Chat gave her an encouraging nod, quietly waiting for her to continue.

All at once, everything Willow had been holding back for the last few months fell out in a tangle of words. She talked about "this guy", *gushed* about him, really. How he was kind and thoughtful, funny and nerdy, a little awkward at times but so endearingly sweet. How he cared for his siblings, how brave he was for escaping a bad situation and how proud she was of him for slowly coming into his own.

Willow's eyes were shining, talking about this boy, who to Chat's astonishment sounded like...him? He continued to listen, leaning forward and brain running through every scenario in which he could have POSSIBLY missed this. He could feel his face burning with the blush that must've reached the tips of his ears. He didn't know if he should laugh or cry.

She trailed off, tugging on her braid awkwardly, eyes on her shoes. "Anyway, I—" she dragged her gaze back up to meet his, only to find him practically inches away from her face. Their eyes locked and something in Willow's heart stirred. She leaned forward, squinting at him, causing Chat's eyes to widen as he leaned back in alarm.

"Who are you really?" She asked, hope and fear swirling in her chest.

"Willow, I—AH" he leaned back until suddenly there was nothing to lean on but air and he was falling. "Well," he thought, "at least I'll die knowing the most beautiful girl on the Isles has feelings for me."

Fast reflexes as always and a mumbled "oh no you don't," Willow conjured a soft bed of moss for him to tumble onto. She poked her head out from her balcony to assess the damage.

"You alright!?" She called, already scrambling down a hastily made vibe towards him.

A black-clad arm raised itself in the air with a shaky thumbs up.

He was still laying face-down in the moss, lest he look at her and burn his mask away completely. She flipped down comfortably on her knees beside him, her dress poofing out around her. She poked him with a vine, “Alive?” She asked.

"Hunter's not home right now leave a message." He mumbled out and then froze.

Willow caught her breath, staring down at him in disbelief. "What did you say?" She squeaked, feeling a blush creep dangerously close to her ears.

"I uh, haha! whaaaaaat? I have a concussion! Probably! Who knows what I'm saying! Byyyeeee—" Chat tried to scramble to his feet but Willow grabbed his hand pulling him back down next to her on the moss. She searched his eyes and, holding her breath, placed her fingers under his mask, drawing it gently up and over his forehead. She was struck by how beautiful he was. Blonde hair tousled, cheeks flushed, mouth slightly agape but that was just Hunter. She found herself smiling, and then laughing over how ridiculous everything was.

Here she had been confiding in her closest friend about the boy she liked, only for him to BE the boy she liked. It was too much. She was bordering on hysterics, as the fact that she had just CONFESSED to the BOY SHE LIKED sank in and she started to panic.

Hunter, who had been sitting there waiting for her to finish, (he knew from experience that there was no stopping Willow’s laughing fits) sensed the change and placed his hands on her shoulders, urgently turning her to face him again.

“Captain.” Her eyes met his and he thought he might melt into them but he needed to focus. Needed to make sure. “Did you really mean what you said back there?” He swallowed. “A-about me?”

The laughter had gone away replaced by a mouth so dry Willow didn’t think she’d be able to speak, so she nodded silently instead.

She was leaning forward again, placing a hand on his knee to steady herself. His eyes flitted to her lips and back up to her face, flushing at their closeness. Hunter backed up a little, “I-uh-can I maybe um.” He cleared his throat and tried again, his next words coming out in a murmur, “may I kiss you?”

Willow nodded again, more vigorously this time, which made Hunter laugh softly, raising a hand from her shoulder to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear before he pulled her in.

It was like fireworks were going off in Hunter’s brain with information overload. His hand was tangled in her soft hair (how many times had he daydreamed about running his fingers through it?), her skin warm in the cold night air as if she glowed from within. She smelled like flowers and earth and sun. His other hand found its way to her waist as he drew her closer, meaning to deepen the kiss, but he must have been a little too eager because he just threw them off balance instead. They landed in a heap on the soft moss, Willow looking up at him in shock while Hunter looked down and beamed at her, a huge grin splitting his face, tooth gap on full display.

They both burst out laughing, holding onto each other for dear life as the pure insanity over the last hour hit them fully.

As the giggles subsided, Hunter sighed contentedly, pulling Willow close as she snuggled into his shoulder. He shook his head and chuckled again, looking up at the stars.

“Titan. Next thing you’ll tell me is that you’re Ladybug.”

* * *

[thatoneacecryptid]

My Favorite Things About Every Arc of The Adventure Zone (so far)

I recently finished TAZ Ethersea and really want to just talk about all of the lovely characters that the boys have given us. Feel free to add your own in whatever ways you see fit.

Fair warning, this may be long folks

! There are potentially spoilers for every arc ahead so read at your own risk gang !

Balance

Magnus: Magnus Burnsides’ whole journey throughout the campaign is wonderfully heartbreaking. Protector of a family he did not remember who also harbors a heartache for his second family that he lost. Travis was teased for having a bible of a backstory but I think in Magnus’ case it was entirely essential. So much of that background informed everything about Magnus and his constant protection of everyone (and every animal) around him makes so much sense narratively as well as mechanically and I think Travis did a phenomenal job. 

Taako: Taako is a very deep character with a lot of complexity that you wouldn’t know based on everything about him and I do not want to downplay that at all, however, my favorite thing about Taako is simply the aesthetic and the vibes. A king, an icon. We love to see it.

Merle: My favorite thing about Merle is his capacity for love and goodness. He always choses the path of love and joy and its incredibly important. For goodness sakes he asked the BBEG if they were friends. A sweetheart.

Favorite NPC: Angus McDonald

My favorite section of this season in particular has to be Eleventh Hour, the aesthetics were great, the concept was super cool and we got so many cool moments out of it. 

See You Later is my favorite track from the season followed by Purple Worm.

Balance is such a labor of love and you can feel it through every part of the story and it never loses any luster no matter how many times you relisten to it.

Amnesty

Aubrey: Aubrey Little is a badass and that is incredibly important but I think what I like most about her is that she screws up a lot. I don’t mean that I like that she’s a failure, what I mean is that she isn’t perfect. A lot of the time when playing games like these, there is a tendency (for some, certainly not all, we stan flawed characters in this house) to create do-gooder characters that have perfectly mastered their skills and perfectly save the day. Aubrey is not that. She makes mistakes all the time and recognizes that. The scene where she asks Janelle to take her magic away hits me every time because she thinks, and to a degree rightfully so, that she is a danger to those around her and she would rather give up her super cool magic fire powers than continue to do that. She continues to try and learn how her powers work and how to properly use them so it works out, but the moment was there. Aubrey Little has these incredible powers at her disposal but she is only human and I love her journey to pieces.

Duck: I relate to the tired vibes harder than I probably should for the age I am but that’s probably okay. A reluctant chosen one is an incredibly interesting idea that I am super proud of Justin for coming up with. Duck’s destiny scares the living crap out of him and his reaction, though strange in a narrative format, would most likely be how a regular person would react to being given a grand cosmic destiny where you have to actually fight evil monsters. Duck is amazing and I love him.

Ned: Ned is hilarious but also, his entire arc during the Shapeshifter hunt was incredible. The letters still make me cry to this day. Its always super fascinating when a character who appears to be (as much as you can in an RPG) comic relief at the beginning, get incredibly serious further down the line. Ned cared so much about his friends and I am so glad that Griffin gave Clint the opportunities to take over the narrative for a little while to give us those speeches.

Thacker: A goofy guy with some really weird snacks. Thacker was not Ned that is for sure but, he was a very nice inclusion. I always like explorer characters and Thacker is interesting, having explored somewhere dangerous, suffering the consequences but coming back with valuable information for the team.

Favorite NPC: Barclay

My favorite hunt is the Hunt for The Beast, it is the first one and there is so much else in the season to love but the aesthetics and vibes of this one were incredible. My favorite section of narration comes from the end of the third episode! “Which looks up at the sky, and then, with otherworldly malice, back down at the three of you...”

Amnesty’s and Graduation’s theme songs are tied for my favorites, they both make me smile so much.

The Amnesty Lodge themes are some of my favorite pieces of music ever. Never has any music ever made me feel as comforted as those two songs do.

This season’s vibe, setting, aesthetics, characters and inspirations are exactly my niche interest so, as much as I love all of the seasons of TAZ, Amnesty is by far my favorite.

Commitment

Nadia: We love a girl boss. 

Kardala: I like the research that Justin did into creating the character, and in classic Justin fashion, made her the funniest character in the arc.

Remy: He’s such a little guy. Remy is a springy little spiderman-esque guy who just wants to save the day.

Favorite NPC: N/A

Commitment is not my favorite of the seasons but I do like what Clint did with it, the story was unique and interesting.

Dust

Errol: A werewolf who wanted to president? Are you kidding? I love this little guy! I really liked that Errol lived in town but didn’t necessarily fall in line with the werewolf pack there. Him, instead, having a street that he looks after and protects is such a nice image. That and his whole attitude and semi-awkward personality, Errol was very easily my favorite of the bunch (not that I didn’t love the others)

Augustus: Augustus was an excuse for Justin to be hilarious with a ridiculous voice and I loved it. 

Gandy: Her enthusiasm for many of the situations that arose during the investigation was really nice. 

Favorite NPC: The Banshee

I loved this one! I continue to hope that they go back to Dust and even though that is unlikely, I still really liked the ideas behind this mini arc. A western, taking place at night, where werewolves and vampires make appearances, along with a whodunnit mystery taking place all at the same time? Sign me up! (Once again, an arc very much within my niche)

Graduation

Fitzroy: A king, honestly. Fitzroy is hilarious and such an interesting concept for Griffin to play. The voice and the vibes are immaculate and I am so proud of this boy’s progress. Also, he’s ACE!!!

Firbolg: He’s so 🥺. That’s the best I can articulate my thoughts.

Argo: My boy! Argo is such a sweet little guy who, just like his fellow roomies, did not deserve any of the bad things that had happened to them. Argonaut Keene is an absolute sweetheart and I wish him the best post canon fics. His voice and aesthetic are great. Also, he’s the first PC rogue! My class (and favorite subclass)!

Favorite NPC: Althea Song

School campaign!!! These boys deserve the very best and I loved every second of their journey. The entire campaign I was either aww-ing at the sweetness of the moments or cheering on these boys’ hairbrained schemes. 

Ethersea

Devo: Devo’s accent is wonderful and I also really like how concerned he was about taking care of Beck and Skittles as well as his speech about saving the animals for future children to see and learn about. That speech in general got me to tear up a little bit given the state of our real life world.

Amber: I love sharks and I do not wish to see any harm come to them, however, the blink shark hunter thing coming back from the prologues was very funny and a welcome inclusion. It brought us some really cool moments with said sharks and I appreciated that. I also really liked how strong she was in her own opinions. No one was going to make her move. Not to mention the vibe checks were always awesome.

Zoox: Zoox’s journey of self discovery was very cool. I love that our little Brinar ended up being something all their own.

Favorite NPC: Ol’ Joshy

What I think was most interesting about this season, beside the looming fear of anything being out there in the depths of the ocean, was that the boys made this world together. This was not something that one of them made for the purposes of the others playing in it. They played a separate game to make the world they would be playing in. It was intensely collaborative and I think that was really cool. 

Cannot wait to see what’s next!

[keyofjetwolf]

END SEASON

My theory is that Kira is with Mrs S and Mr Shotgun in some lovely undisclosed location, and we’re not going to hear from them for quite a while, which will a) give the “Who Is Mrs S Realliy?” worm a chance to really burrow in there for Prime, and b) set Kira safely to the side of the story for a while.

So yeah! We end with Kira and Mrs S missing, Prime beat to shit having just killed(nahh) Helena and told Earbud CEO to go fuck herself, Cosmic cracking the code but also still coughing up alarming amounts of blood with no particular recourse in sight, and Suburbia in her happy delusion that everything will be fine now when it very much will not.

I WIILL DEFINITELY NEED TO CONTINUE THE SERIES. Particularly as the things it looks like it wants to discuss are only becoming more complicated, and it hardly started on easy mode in the first place. As I said earlier, there’s no way I’ll be able to give it a liveblog treatment, but when I get the time to watch, I’m sure I can also scrape together some extra minutes to post some thoughts.

My deepest thanks to @skylineofspace​, who has been one of my patrons from the very beginning. They’ve brought us so many words over the years, and I feel fortunate to have been able to talk about Orphan Black AND get paid for it. If you’ve enjoyed the show too, please take a moment to thank them.

Until next time, my little clonesicles, whenever that may be.

[kimabutch]

After a little exploration, I’ve come to the realization that I haven’t really ever encountered cosmic horror that I find genuinely scary, and that its central premises generally aren’t the things that scare me at all. 

Like, I find the idea of Unfathomable Beings Beyond Our Mortal Realm just... too unfathomable to really terrify me. This eldritch being that I can’t comprehend could destroy our world at any point? I guess there’s nothing I can really do then, so I can’t be worried, you know? And while the ‘madness’ element can scare, my fears of unreality are based on the idea of not accurately perceiving the world, as opposed to, like, too accurately perceiving the world — it only gets to me if the PoV character seriously thinks something’s wrong with themself, at which point it’s not even really about the supernatural.

Which is not to say that I don’t enjoy cosmic horror, at times! It can be super fun, just not particularly scary for me, at least not without other horror elements. 

Anyways, thinking through this, I feel like my reaction to various types of horror can be divided into three categories — and I apologize, but the TMA entities terms are useful for this.

1. Horror that, on its own, never really scares me. Cosmic horror falls into this, as does anything that focusses on how small or insignificant humans are (the Vast.) Generally, just the knowledge that people could die at any moment (the End) also doesn’t really scare me. Also cannibalism. 

2. Horror that only scares me in particular media or when presented in certain ways. Almost any kind of body horror falls into this for me: I’m fairly unfazed hearing people talk about burrowing worms (the Corruption) or supernaturally wrong bodies (the Flesh), because I have mild aphantasia so can’t really picture it well. However, it might make me gag if I could see it. This is also true of heights for me. Also jump scares, which obviously don’t work in written form. 

Other things in this category only scare me in certain contexts — like, themes of isolation (the Lonely), manipulation (the Web), and the unknown (the Stranger) are so frequently so fundamentally wrapped up in unreality/not being able to trust one’s own senses that they can be scary to me, but if they lean away from that element, then they won’t. 

3. Horror that has the capacity to scare me on its own in any context, so long as it’s well-presented. This is, of course, a sliding scale. Things like darkness, mindless violence/destruction (the Desolation/Slaughter), being watched (the Eye), being chased (the Hunt), or mass extinction need much more skill and time to scare me than my biggest fears, of unreality (the Spiral) and of enclosed spaces (the Buried). Those last two can fuck me up just thinking of them, and even mild depictions of them can be hard for me to sit through, and I rarely want to. 

That’s a lot of rambling, but as I search for spooky Hallowe’en reads, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Of course, as I said, the appeal of horror isn’t always just being scared, and as a bit of a weeny who needs handholding through some types of horror, I can appreciate those that only mildly horrify me.

[flashfuture]

I’m down for a meta post about the entities, I don’t really understand them.

OOOh okay

So entities are beings that are pure whatever light

So Parallax is Fear

Ion is Will

Ophidian is Avarice/Greed

Butcher is Rage

Adara is Hope

Proselyte is Compassion 

Predator is Love

Entity is Life

The idea is that Parallax the worm was trapped in the central power battery. That it was corrupting Hal for years. Yet somehow no one noticed this. That’s where the Yellow weakness is supposed to come from as well. 

But these entities didn’t exist until 2005 ish. The other emotional spectrums didn’t either. Well, Fear did but that was supposedly Sinestro’s doing. And Star Sapphires were sort of separate. But with Green Lantern Rebirth the Green Lantern Corps, Star Sapphires, Sinestro Corps all became a part of this emotional spectrum. This introduced the Orange, Red, Blue, and Indigo Corps as well.

Mmk but we didn’t even see the last 4 until 2008. And White Lanterns weren’t introduced till the Blackest Night event. 

Parallax itself from even how we saw it act in Rebirth in no way matches how Parallax!Hal behaved during Zero Hour. And when did Parallax even leave Hal? If it was when he gave the ring to Kyle why would he go mope by the source wall? All very strange. Parallax doesn’t seem the type to wanna die reigniting the sun either. 

So I’ve always had this theory in my head that Kyle spawned the entities. Okay which sounds insane but they really did not exist even a little bit until 2005. 

Kyle was the one to ‘discover’ that Parallax was a giant space worm

When Kyle was Ion the first time it wasn’t a being of Will. Kyle just got an upgrade from siphoning off the will Hal left in the sun. Which again either Hal was having a major Will powerup or he was having a major Fear powerup. In which case it would be Parallax in the sun and Kyle would have been possessed. 

That didn’t happen. Ion was Kyle with a lot of power. Kyle wanted to go back into time and stop Hal from ever becoming Parallax, save Coast City. So Spectre!Hal was all please don’t do that for me and Kyle sort of went with it. 

But then the Guardians are like oh Ion is a being of pure will and that’s who possessed Kyle but again Ion 1.0 behaved very differently to Ion 2.0 where it was an entity. Ion 1.0 made Kyle cold and removed it was taking his humanity same as the massive Will boost did to Parallax!Hal. Ion 2.0 was basically just Kyle but more stubborn. 

But the Guardians know everything right about all of history. So maybe they were keeping Parallax a secret. But they certainly didn’t seem to be you know considering Parallax the fear worm nor the other entities existed. But then Kyle was the one to bring them back to life. And as children no less. So Kyle had quite a hand in the second generation of Guardians. He’s their maker. Who’s to say he can’t influence how they think or what they know.

Every one of these entities are parasites. They want to feed and feed until there is nothing left. Sound familiar to maybe Oblivion? Oblivion which was a cosmic-level threat that regular Kyle spawned through his subconscious. 

In fact, all these entities are very volatile. Like pure emotion put to life. And these entities are very strong. Cosmic beings. Yet one human, in particular, has been able to house them all in him and overcome all of them. One Kyle Rayner. Kyle, who, has on more than one occasion had reality-bending powers. Kyle was the one who had to ferry the entities past the source wall to refill the emotional wells almost like they were drained by making giant incarnations of these emotions and the Entities had to be put back. This is where Kyle learned the life-equation too which was just more powerups to be had. Kyle basically became the Life Entity. 

And another point is that Hal adored Kyle after the whole hitting me with a pipe thing. But Kyle also immediately decided at that moment he was gonna do his very best to live up to Hal’s legacy. Kyle was the only one who thought to ask Hal to restart the sun because he believed Hal was a hero. Kyle set up the memorial to Hal and arranged his funeral.

All of Hal’s messes were cleaned up very nicely too. Genocide who? Everyone is alive again thanks to Kyle. Kilowog everyone's favorite hardass? Kyle brought him back to life too. Those lanterns Hal killed in space? Eh, they aren’t really dead, surprise. The Corps and their reputation? Kyle put a lot of work into making that good again. 

So yeah very easy to then say Hal was brainwashed the whole time. Even though every instance of people being possessed by Parallax is nothing like what Hal was like. Because again goes back to really a very poor understanding of Hal’s character. The Man Without Fear. But you know who isn’t without fear? 

Kyle. Kyle was terrified to fight Parallax so if Kyle made Parallax making it the fear entity makes sense. Because Kyle Rayner feels fear, he feels everything. 

Kyle is all Heart and maybe this time his heart was trying to cover for Hal.

This is the only way this makes sense to me. Because it stays true to both stories. Hal really did go evil. And everyone believes Hal was being brainwashed. 

It’s just it’s sad to see Emerald Knight decayed with retcons because we can’t have our heroes go bad. This is just my thoughts and ramblings on it because I’m a stickler for those 90s days and hate things that muddle them up. 

[deans-haunted-baby]

The Ones Left Behind

Alrighty time for some truth bombs. I’ve had almost a week to absorb the end of Supernatural and season 15 as a whole. And I think this is the moment where I need to throw in my two cents. For all intents and purposes I won’t go in-depth into 15x20 seeing as that conversation will just open up a whole other can of worms and I don’t need that headache. I have my reasons for being less than indifferent with how the Winchesters’ story concluded. So I won’t go there.

Instead I’ll be focusing all my energies on the unsatisfying conclusions of 4 particular characters. Two of which were main cast members (one that was on the show 12 years and one 4 years) while the other two (played by the same dude) were brought back after a decade long hiatus for a much-anticipated comeback only to be wasted and mangled unfairly by Dabb and his hack horde of a writing staff. Call this a follow up to my last post. If I sound bitter I am because these people don’t have a single clue on how to helm these characters, their relationships or their storylines 😠 Nor do they deserve them.

And yes I’m well aware of Kevin Tran, Rowena, Ketch and several others who got the shaft on this show. Those could be future posts for another time.

But I cannot stress this enough; ADAM MILLIGAN, JACK KLINE, MICHAEL AND CASTIEL ALL DESERVED FUCKING BETTER. There is no arguing these facts, none whatsoever. Not one of these characters deserved that exit to be the final chapter in their story. I won’t do an entire analysis of each character’s arc and role in the show as I’ve already done that in my rant about 15x19. But I will highlight how much season 15 royally screwed over these characters and tossed them aside like trash; as if none of them were ever part of/contributed anything to Sam and Dean’s history/world building of Supernatural’s universe.

*WARNING* This is going to get heated.

Before I dive into the heart of these issues I want to state this is not a “shipping post”. I don’t ship anyone on Supernatural, hopefully this blog has been pretty self-explanatory. So I have no arguments/opinions in those areas. I’ve been a fan of this series for 15 years because of the characters, the familial bonds and relationships formed between characters throughout its run. And I’m well-aware that the Winchesters are the lead protagonists of the show, no need to remind me. These are purely my own thoughts based what I’ve obtained from show canon. Let me just say I can’t get over just how much these writers contradicted and ignored what they put forth in the journeys of these four individuals. its a real headscratcher.

You mean to tell me that after TWELVE DAMN YEARS of Castiel being a rebellious warrior angel, searching for his own identity and meaning in life; making that promise to Kelly Kline about raising Jack as his own/risking his life for him. After sacrificing himself for his son a year ago, acknowledging he was satisfied with his role as a father which restored his faith; that it was all because of/for Dean Winchester? 

You mean to tell me that after Michael, THE PRINCE OF HEAVEN and PROTECTOR OF HUMANITY, was locked away in a cage with a human whom he emotionally bonded with for thousands of years (10 years our time); who was abandoned, betrayed and manipulated by his neglectful/abusive father. After choosing free will and aligning himself with TFW for humanity’s sake, just sided with the Earth’s destruction because his little brother called him names? 

You mean to tell me that Jack, A THREE YEAR OLD CHILD, who’s barely just beginning his life and spent his entire duration on the show wanting to be normal and not wanting to be special. Connecting and being integrated with humans; a child who’s biggest fear was outliving everyone he ever loved. Is suddenly ready to walk away from his family, his home and his teddy bear; to give up being a kid forever and run the universe?

You mean to tell me that Adam, SUPERNATURAL’S MOST INNOCENT CHARACTER and FORGOTTEN THIRD-WINCHESTER BROTHER, after being eaten by ghouls; pulled away from his mother out of Heaven, manipulated by angels, trapped in Hell for thousands of years because Sam and Dean left him there to rot. After coming back and helping his neglectful siblings save the world only to be ripped away from his best friend and THE ONLY OTHER PERSON who gave a damn about him; is sentenced to a life of loneliness, homelessness and turmoil until he dies and ends up in Hell where he’ll mostly be tortured and turned into a demon?

NO. I DO NOT AND WILL NEVER ACCEPT THIS BULLSHIT! 

Season 15 not only manages to contradict itself where these characters are concerned (while assassinating them before the final curtain). But the writers deliberately discarded them before giving us that *sarcasm inserted* epic solo-Winchester conclusion. Regardless of how you feel about Adam, Castiel, Jack or Michael, ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS are connected Sam and Dean’s story and part of Supernatural. And when you throw them away like they mean nothing, you’re essentially throwing away a part of the show’s history. You’re ignoring 15 years worth of story building. 

As I said I’m not going to go into 15x20 for reasons, it doesn’t offend me as much as what was done before that finale. Because I think those other show exits really affect 15x20 even worse than people realize. You want to know why, I’ll explain.

Lets start off with Castiel and Jack, OH BOY! We know where they end up; running Heaven and the Earth together which is all fine and dandy. I love my Dadstiel father/son duo being an endgame family unit. But here in lies the problem, we never saw it. Not even a cameo. And technically their onscreen storyline ends at 15x18 and 15x19 which is an ugly, anti-climatic bookend to an incredibly deep relationship that had 4 years of development. First you have Castiel who completely forgets why he made that deal with the Empty to begin with. HIS FUCKING SON. Not to mention it wasn’t about true happiness it was about giving himself permission to be happy; there is a difference. And then you have Jack wandering around next episode, vacuuming up power cause suddenly he’s a machine now, acting like he doesn’t give a shit over losing his dad to an entity HE’S BEEN DREADING ABOUT FOR A FUCKING YEAR. 

Towards the end of season 15 I noticed neither of these characters were acting like themselves. Their motivations, their personalities and strong ties to one another had mysteriously dissolved. Castiel became less concerned about the danger his son was facing after 15x15 (what the hell was that in 15x17?) and more about speaking when spoken to by either Sam or Dean. Does he know how Dean truly feels about Jack; proclaiming the child is “not family”? I doubt the in-character version of him would let Jack leave with Dean after that insult. Castiel’s not even worried whether or not his son is alive or safe before he makes the big confession later. And for some reason Jack (who’d become heavily suicidal) was more concerned with clinging to the Winchesters, willing to die for them, instead focusing on himself and the one person who’s shown him nothing but unconditional love and given him strength since birth. Both of these characters are canonically depressed and suffer from low self-esteem that was never resolved which makes me furious. 

When Chuck killed Jack at the end of season 14, this devastated Castiel in the first half of season 15. He actually got to grieve that loss throughout the episodes and deal with his anger over it, allowing the audience to anticipate the day they’d be reunited one last time. This part of Castiel’s S15 arc also ironically mirrors Jack’s S13 arc of mourning Castiel’s death until resurrecting him. And when this son finally returned to his father, who got to rescue him, it was such a poignant moment between the two. It was a cathartic payoff after witnessing Castiel in so much pain over Jack. There was so much building up between that Dadstiel reunion in 15x11 and the Empty’s pact in 14x08; this was suppose to be a tragic yet pivotal plot-point in both Jack and Castiel’s stories. And with SPN wrapping up we all expected something BIG. Yet somehow the writers retconned the whole thing by making it all about Dean, which is such a gross disservice to these characters and 4 years of storytelling.

For instance, since 15x18 was Castiel’s exit episode, why wasn’t he allowed to hug his son or Sam goodbye one last time? Why didn’t he have more of a focal role instead of standing around majority of the episode with barely any dialogue as so much precious air time was wasted on frivolous things? Why didn’t he get one last badass fight scene with someone like Death instead of being choked out and tossed around like a powerless mortal? Why did the group need to be split up to begin with when it served no purpose either than that *ugh* moment? Why wasn’t Jack allowed to call Castiel “dad” once before the show ended? He deserved to hear his son address him as dad!

AND WHY THE HELL COULDN’T JACK FEEL CASTIEL’S DEATH THE MOMENT IT HAPPENED? 

The show already established to the audience the significant cosmic bond these two characters shared since before Jack was even born. It was so powerful it boosted Castiel’s grace. Jack could remember who Castiel was from the womb and that he’d protected his mother. Not to mention HE FUCKING RESURRECTED CASTIEL OUT OF THE EMPTY ONCE WITHOUT GOD’S POWER. You’re telling me Jack couldn’t feel his dad being taken away forever despite how far apart they were? No, he’d feel it in his heart. Had we’d been given a scene like that at the end of 15x18 (something of substance) with actual grief shown in 15x19 maybe the episode would’ve faired better for them. 

That said it wasn’t, because Jack was treated the exact same way in his final exit. Hardly any lines and just a bunch of scenes of him standing/walking around until that pathetic reveal at the lake. HE DOESN’T EVEN GET TO INTERACT WITH JAKE ABEL’S MICHAEL/ADAM which would’ve been a great follow-up to the AU!Michael storyline in seasons 13 and 14. I swear these directors didn’t give Alex and Misha any motivation during their last three episodes and it’s evident in their hollow performances. But why would they when the scripts are basically telling their characters to quickly fuck off so the brothers can have their final outing. Jack doesn’t even behave like himself after he becomes the new God. His personality is apathetic, cold, alien, stiff and way too mature for the 3 year old child so closely connected to his family/the human world. In that moment I saw Alex Calvert not Jack Kline. It’s bad enough he doesn’t get a meaningful farewell but again Castiel, HIS DAD, is a complete afterthought to this kid 🥶

And that’s what we’re left with. Forever. A frigid, hollow ending to one of Supernatural’s most healthy, touching, family dynamics. It makes you wonder what was even the point. I can’t even fully enjoy the fact that its canon Jack and Castiel are together fixing Heaven because of what the show presented onscreen as their last hurrah. It’s not sitting right and it makes 15x20 even less appealing to me.

Moving onto Michael and Adam. Get ready for this. I could rant forever about how dirty my boys were done by this show. How they were discarded in the SPN series finale recap etc. just as they were FOR THE LAST TEN FUCKING YEARS. Was there even a plan going on here or was this just everyone making things up as it went? Their ending is the most unsatisfying and cruel thing because its INCOMPLETE. There is no real closure or resolution with them thanks to the monstrosity that was 15x19. AND NO ONE CARES ENOUGH ABOUT THEM TO GIVE A SHIT. 

Much as I’ve enjoyed this show for many years, it NEVER deserved Jake Abel, his talent or his time. I keep seeing so many anti posts about Dean Winchester’s final fate in Supernatural and all I can think about is “try being an Adam Milligan fan for the last decade”.  I’ve had to watch this boy go through hell with nothing to show for it either than years of memes. ridicule and the show’s mockery in forgetting him. Actually he’s the ONLY CHARACTER in this series you’re encouraged not to remember 😡 Also quick question: why give us this really interesting and healthy relationship between an archangel and its vessel if nothing was ever going to become of it? 

At this point I don’t know why Adam or the idea of him was even introduced way back in season 4 let alone revisited in season 5. Because the only thing I see when I look at this character now is SAD WASTED POTENTIAL. Storylines never explored. Relationships that never got off the ground. Backstory we never got to see (like for instance his past with John Winchester and his time in the cage). A character’s birthright (Men of Letters) that was never actualized. AND the unexplained factor that Adam could look directly at Michael’s true form without his eyes burning out (making him a special case). And the thing is he could’ve been a really great character, both him and Michael. They could’ve easily reached popular status just like Castiel given the chance since Jake is a freaking acting-powerhouse. We were given a taste in 15x08 just how awesome these characters could be and how they could’ve contributed so much to the story and its core group. But unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be.

Michael will never redeem himself after years of scrutiny and being made out to be some kind of unhinged monster. This show constantly enjoyed pounding into our brains how fearsome Michael was. Warned us via Lucifer (LUCIFER, PEOPLE!) that he wasn’t rational, compassionate and didn’t care about anything except war, death and destruction. And that he was incapable of feelings and emotions. This is how Supernatural saw Heaven’s Prince and guardian of the Earth. Christ, they actually did a two-year storyline about an evil Michael from the AU world who enjoyed torturing and killing while trying to destroy the universe. I want to know WHAT THE HELL THIS SHOW’S WRITERS HAD AGINST THESE CHARACTERS? Why they felt the need to bring back Jake Abel, AFTER A DECADE OF FANS WANTING THIS, if it was simply to piss all over his characters one last time before the show wrapped. This is absolutely unprofessional and childish; the fact that Jake is taking this bullshit in stride makes it all the more shameful 😡

We could’ve learned so much more about Michael’s past and his present relationship with Adam. These characters didn’t need to sit in the cage for a decade they could’ve easily been incorporated back into the show as far as season 8 or 10! And been an asset to the Darkness storyline in season 11.There were characters and storylines introduced that served no purpose. Why did we need to keep seeing characters like Charlie Bradbury or (as much as I like him) Crowley or Garth (love him too) or Lucifer or Abaddon or the Wayward sisters? I would’ve much preferred having Adam and Michael around and got to know them instead; especially after 15x08. I would’ve wanted to see what their dynamic with TFW could’ve become had they been long-time allies. Did John ever tell Mary about Adam’s existence? I’d like to see what her reaction would’ve been like had the Winchesters remembered him during that damn 300th episode. I guess that’s another loose end untied.

But because of what Supernatural did to these two characters, it forever taints Sam and Dean. I don’t think Dabb or purist fans realize this. But when new viewers come into this show about two brothers preaching important things like “saving people”, “family first” or “family don’t end in blood” they’re going to see how badly the main protagonists treated their innocent half brother. How Castiel and Jack were treated. They’re going to see the heroes of the story abandoning this kid in Hell forever with no intention of EVER rescuing him. And that’s why their final appearance leaves such a bad taste going into 15x20. Cause as much as Dabb and co didn’t give a shit about Adam and Michael they also didn’t give a rat’s ass about protecting Sam and Dean’s integrity. That’ll be a stain they can’t undo. 

So through all of it, we’re stuck with the abomination that is 15x19 aka the eye-soar to an unfinished/unpolished story of two horribly disregarded characters. Michael gets the pleasure of being character assassinated right before he’s stupidly killed off instead of going out a hero or becoming the next God (as it was his birthright and the setup was there in the narrative). And Adam gets killed off-screen, OUT OF HIS OWN DAMN BODY, then brought back by Jack only to live a miserable, isolated existence since his brothers have nothing to do with him (the dog and car are more important); his best friend is dead, he has no job or money or a fucking home and he’s legally dead! Really what is there left for him besides the brutal fate awaiting in Hell when he dies?  

SERIOUSLY THEY COULDN’T GIVE US ONE SCENE WHERE THE WINCHESTERS CHECKED IN ON ADAM TO MAKE SURE HE WAS SAFE?! 🤬 His last scene pretty much sums up this shit for what it is. Tragic. I feel like crying for this poor sweet boy.

Congratulations Dabb, BL and co for giving us these much deserved broken story arcs of characters you destroyed and made OOC before leaving the airways. You did your show’s protagonists justice by doing this *sarcasm inserted* after 15 years of being onscreen. I doubt these idiotic decisions are going to age well in the long run. They certainly don’t look good on the Winchesters. Anyway that’s my hot take for the day. 

ALL THESE ACTORS AND THEIR CHARACTERS DESERVED BETTER.

[stained-brutal-crackpot]

*looks at the last ask you answered* TELL ME ABOUT UR SIGNUS HCS

This post might get long, which is pretty much standard for all my other headcanon dumps, so. Yeah

Okay so the standard stuff: what's canonically confirmed about Signus?

- They're some kinda void cryptid, no one knows where it came from

- They were worshiped by the Statigel clan until they all got Fuckin' Merked. This also included them deriving some of their weaponry & equipment from the power of Signus itself, which was pretty much lost once the whole place was destroyed. I haven't managed to find any information on what happened to it after this.

- Their next appearance in the Calamity timeline is when someone hired them to kill Yharim, but they weren't able to because DoG pulled a fucky wucky and trapped them in a pocket dimension for god knows how long

- After this, they had at least some hand in Statis's death, meaning that they switched sides before the rebellion leaders died

Alrighty so. Everything from this point forward is Very Non Canon and I'm being very careful here because Signus in particular does not leave as much room for lore expansion as some of the other chrs and I'm particularly interpreting them as being a lot more sympathetic than the "unga bunga I kill whoever you point me at" characterization that seems so popular these days. Got it? Good. Anyways moving on (take a shot every time I say 'anyways' or 'moving on')

- I have a lot of thoughts about Signus's exact origins but at risk of getting too far from canon I'm not going to talk about that here or possibly ever. We're starting off at their first known appearance: being worshiped by the Statigel clan.

- It's mentioned that the clan used its power to improve on and strengthen their equipment. The Statigel clan doesn't seem like the type to exploit their deity's power for their own ends (*cough* ANAHITA *cough*), and neither does it seem like Signus wouldn't know about what was happening, so they were probably fine with what the clan was doing. Plus, worship seems to be what strengthens gods in the Calamity universe, so the clan likely wasn't on Signus's bad side.

- Gonna digress a bit here with one little tidbit of a theory I have, and it's to do with the cosmic kunai. Yeah, that confusing ass knife I don't know how to draw. In the lore, Statis is reported as having received it from his clan's elders, which isn't unreasonable because as we've established, they've been drawing upon Signus's power for their weapons, right? But the thing is that the cosmic kunai can't be crafted— it drops directly from Signus. (And I know, you don't have to tell me, don't try to get lore from gameplay and all that, crafting recipes are non canon, etc etc. This is a theory and I'm not claiming it to be canon at all, I'm just reading way too deep into it.) I've taken this (probably incorrectly, but whatever, I'm too far gone by now) to mean that they were, at some point, directly given that weapon for one reason or another, implying that Signus was probably genuinely cool with the whole worshipping deal.

- Okay so everything is cool and dandy for maybe a couple hundred years until the unrest within the clan and outside of it due to the royal family's fuckery starts to happen. Signus likes these silly flesh bags enough to give them free shit, but not enough to go through the hassle of saving them from imminent destruction. They give their best equipment to some kid, unleash said kid upon the world to do some good ol' fashioned mass murdering, and then subsequently die.

- Whoops. No more worshipping perks. They're kinda bummed out about the slight loss of power, and they do check in on the sole survivor of the people who venerated them from time to time, but revolution and trying to take down tyrannical shitty governments is boring— frankly, this void cryptid has better things to do, and anyways the kid seems to be doing just fine on his own. It's basically the deific equivalent of putting your Sims on "care for self" and scrolling through your phone for three hours. Oh hey would you look at that, there's some new dude in town aiming to become Calamity's Next Top Tyrant. Huh.

- Moving on: as it turns out, this vengeful new upstart and his cute pet dragon are horrible, horrible people! Who would have guessed? Signus is kind of appalled but not nearly enough to take action. There's a growing rebellion too, which coincidentally just so happens to be located in the mountains where their old worshipers used to live! That's fun. They sit back with some popcorn for a bit and watch everything go down, but they're not gonna interfere unless someone asks them to.

- Shocker! Someone's asked them to interfere! Mr. Sole Survivor kid over here does some summoning ritual at one of the mountain shrines and hires them to do what they do best: murder! Signus is like "Yeah ofc I gotcha bro" and blips off to go do some tyrant murdering. It's an important job from a loyal customer, so they zip over to the Jungle Temple and get ready to rock.

- Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. This is not good. What the fuck is this spiky blue hotdog doing? They clocked in for another regularly-scheduled murder for hire and now they're trapped in a pocket dimension with this worm trying to kill them? They did not sign up for this. So now Signus, feeling pretty terrible now that they both A) have lost some of their power due to the worshiper situation and B) have failed their first and possibly most important contract ever, is decidedly not having such a good time. And when said worm offers them a job, they decide it's not like they've any other way to get out of there and accept, figuring that they'll just work out the failed contract another time. Maybe they'll offer a refund or something.

- This decision quickly proves to not be good, as later this kid shows up at the temple looking frighteningly dead inside, and then Signus has to kill the last remaining person with any sort of faith in them.

Whoops.

- So, having had the one thing they even marginally gave a shit about destroyed, they resign themself to working for this edgy teenage emo worm in exchange for more power and something to do to pass the time. Yay...?