#i need you to picture that line from the devils minion

[natandacat]

Anyone else thinking about a late 70s/80s era where a severely relapsing louis seeks out a daniel whose addiction has just gotten worse post-interview, featuring the worst bender in vampire and human recent history intermingled with a truly toxic and codependent romance... and of course who's there, with mop and mindlessness, to clean it up... by erasing their memories once again...

[ani-radio]

———————————————————————————————————————

*Ditty: a short, simple song

*Echelons: a level or rank in an organization, a profession, or society

*Folly: lack of good sense; foolishness

CHAPTER 1: The Invitation

The sound of muffled laughter echoed throughout the room, filling it with a whimsy aura, though there was no one in the room to laugh. The laughter spilled from the antique radio perched on Alastor’s mantel, where the Radio Demon himself sat plush on a velvet armchair, legs crossed and a wide grin stretching across his face. The static, the eerie melody, the faint echoes of applause–it was his symphony, his empire, and tonight, it had played its greatest performance yet.

“Ah, the Morningstar himself,” Alastor mused, twirling his cane idly as he stared into the fire roaring in his hearth. “I wonder, did you enjoy the show? Or did my little *ditty strike a nerve or two?

He chuckled to himself, his laughter carrying out the same eerie and unsettling quality like his broadcasts. It was rare for Alastor to turn his attention to anyone in particular in Hell’s higher *echelons. The other Overlord were predictable, their ambitions boringly transparent. But Lucifer? Now he was an intriguing figure–a devil who ruled without ever needing to lift a finger, a King whose charisma alone commanded loyalty and fear.

Of course, Alastor didn’t fear anyone. Fear was for mortals, and he left that part of him behind long ago.

Still, the thought of Lucifer tuning in, perhaps leaning in forward ever so slightly as Alastor’s words danced through the air, was… delicious. He could almost picture it: the King of Hell’s red eyes narrowing in either amusement or irritation–either way, both reactions were fine by him.

The sharp knock at his door pulled Alastor from his musings. It wasn’t the frantic, desperate knocking of the damned, nor the timid tapping of one of his minions. No, this knock was precise, deliberate, and carried an air of authority that few dared to wield in his domain.

“Ah, a guest!” Alastor sprang to his feet, his grin widening. “How delightful!”

He strode to the door and threw it open with theatrical flair, expecting one of Lucifer’s lackeys–or an overly ambitious Overlord who thought they could best him, the Radio Demon. But what Alastor didn’t expect was the elegant figure standing on his doorstep, clad in a perfectly tailored white suit, slick knee-high heel boots, a cane with a decorative apple on top, and hair the color of the sun and soft as silk.

Lucifer Morningstar.

“Alastor,” Lucifer greeted, his voice smooth and laced with an almost imperceptible edge. “I believe we have some… unfinished business.”

For a brief moment–a flicker– Alastor’s grin faltered. But he recovered quickly, stepping aside and gesturing grandly for Lucifer to enter.

“Well, well if it isn’t his royal Highness himself!” Alastor said, his tone bright as ever. “What an honor to host you in my humble abode! Do come in and make yourself comfort- Wait.. how did you find my home, if you don’t mind me asking?” Alastor turned to Lucifer.

“I have my ways,” Lucifer twirled his cane absentmindedly as he stepped inside, his presence immediately filling the room. The air seemed to shift around him, heavy with power and purpose. He moved with the ease of someone who knew they were the most important person in the room–because, of course, he was.

“Your broadcasts,” Lucifer began, glancing around the room with a faint smirk, “are… unique, to say the least. I particularly enjoyed tonight’s installment. Was it meant for me?”

Alastor chuckled, closing the door behind him. “Oh, Your Majesty, I couldn’t possibly confirm or deny such a thing! My broadcasts are for everyone–and anyone, after all. But if you happened to find it entertaining, well, that’s just a bonus, isn’t it?”

Lucifer turned to face him fully, his red eyes gleaming. “You’re a clever one, Alastor. Audacious, even. But there’s a fine line between audacity and *folly. So tell me, which side of the line are you standing on?”

Alastor’s grin sharpened, his crimson eyes glinting of mischief. “Why, the fun side, of course! I’ve found life–and afterlife, for that matter–is far too dull without a little risk, wouldn’t you agree?”

Lucifer’s smirk deepened, and for a moment, the room was silent, save for the faint hum of static from the radio. The tension crackled like electricity, neither of them willing to back down.

Finally, Lucifer broke the silence. “I’ll admit, you’ve piqued my interest, Radio Demon. I don’t often take the time to indulge in… distractions. But you, Alastor, seem determined to capture my attention. So, consider this your invitation to do so. Show me what makes you so special.”

Alastor tilted his head, his grin practically splitting his face. “An invitation, you say? Why, Your Majesty, I’d be delighted to accept!”

Lucifer stepped closer, his presence looming yet oddly inviting. “Be careful, Alastor. I don’t give second chances. Impress me, and you may find this arrangement… rewarding. But disappoint me, and, well…” He let the sentence hang, the unspoken threat heavy in the air.

Alastor’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Oh, I do love a good challenge. I promise you, Your Majesty, you won’t be disappointed.”

Lucifer smiled–a slow, deliberate curve of his lips. “We’ll see.”

And with that, he turned and strode out the door, leaving Alastor standing in the middle of the room, the hum of the radio growing louder.

The Radio Demon chuckled to himself, the sound low and gleeful. “Oh, Lucifer,” Alastor mused, “you have no idea what you have just started.”

The Devil’s favorite tune was just about to be written, and Alastor had every intention of making it a masterpiece.

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Previous | Present | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth

[themoonbutspooky]

The victim of tonights Devil's Minion obsession is (drum roll!) Lenard Cohen!! special attention paid to two songs off You Want it Darker.

Please consider

Leaving the Table:

Old!Daniel after regaining past memories of being with Armand and trying to get ahead of it all and reject him right away.

"I'm leaving the table I'm out of the game I don't know the people In your picture frame If I ever loved you or no, no It's a crying shame if I ever loved you If I knew your name"

but still feels that connection renewed and familiarity even as he draws away from him

"We're spending the treasure, oh, no, no That love cannot afford I know you can feel it The sweetness restored"

You Want It Darker:

Vampire!Daniel reasonably bitter with Armand about their history

"There's a lover in the story But the story's still the same"

"I struggled with some demons They were middle-class and tame"

but starting to embrace his future

"I didn't know I had permission To murder and to maim"

as well as looking to Armand as his maker to offer guidance while still being this mix of hesitant (perhaps a bit of sarcasm from Cohen in the above quoted line?) and ready to embrace his changed nature

"You want it darker We kill the flame"

Also maybe

"Hineni, hineni I'm ready, my Lord"

as the moment of turning (did he want to be turned? I think so. Did he ask for it from Armand? Much less likely IMO. ++ don't speak Hebrew/not Jewish/just skimmed google disclaimer) something about "here I am" as an "I'm ready" statement speaks to (an end to) the chase elements of their story to me.

Also also also the idea that what Armand wants ("you want it darker") might finally be the same as what Daniel wants ("to murder and to maim") That is for Daniel to be a vampire .... its so good to me. Needing permission to go off the rails and returning that permission with loving reverence. Finally being on the same page after so long.

[desertfangs]

💌 🖼 💋 for the ask game 😉

💌 a lesser-known quote/passage from canon that you think best describes your favorite character The lesser known part is a challenge because don't we all have Devil's Minion memorized? Y/N? So here's a quote from Prince Lestat:

“But I think it’s true, what Lestat is saying,” said young Daniel. He made no apology for contradicting Marius now. They had been together for a long time. “And I’m not surprised to hear this. Every single one of you that I’ve ever known has had this capacity, to appreciate beauty and to love.”

I love that it shows Daniel is not afraid to state his opinion, even if it's not popular, even if it's not in line with what Marius just said. Daniel has never been shy about speaking his mind with anyone, or in front of a crowd, or contradicting someone when he does not agree.

It also demonstrates Daniel's understanding of their kind. The first night he meets Louis, he understands that capacity for love! He's agonized by Louis closing himself off to it. He wants to show Louis he's wrong and that's part of what he says when he asks for the blood... so he can show him the possibility of love in the world, even for creatures like them.

🖼️ a work of art that you think represents your favorite character

Anon, you are going expose me a person who doesn't have a lot of knowledge of art 😭 I took one art history class in college but this is not my area of expertise. For some reason, I keep picturing Andy Worhol stuff? IDK.

But books are art! So I'm going to say the novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I imagine it's a novel Daniel read in his formative years and loved a lot because it's about traveling around and seeking some deeper truth.

💋 we all know your OTP, but if you had to pick someone else for both of those characters to be with instead of each other, who would be your first choice + why?

I already did this for Armand/Daniel. So I will do this for Lestat/Louis.

Lestat, as I said in the other post, is probably best suited to be with Armand if not Louis, although I will say, I see Armand/Lestat as a one of those things that's on again/off again a lot based on their moods, but then, I suppose that is true of all couples in the VC.

For Louis, it's a little harder. I love the hints of his friendship with Fontayne in the final trilogy. I think he needs someone who will put up with his need for solitude, who will not take it personality if he's just needing time to himself. So I don't know really know. Armand works with him, of course, we've seen that. But otherwise, I don't know. Louis/his books? (I am going to think of something brilliant for this in few hours and slap my forehead.)

Thank you for the ask, anon!!

[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

I will deliver, you know I'm a forgiver

another Daniel/Armand fic, this one set in the devil's minion era. read it below or here

Daniel has been gone nine hours, and he already regrets leaving Armand. They had fought viciously, and Daniel had lost his temper and stormed out. He hadn't even bothered to pack a bag. He just left with the clothes on his back and the money in his wallet. Rode the boat back to the mainland with the tourists and booked the first flight he could. Now he's sitting in first class, starring out the window and wondering what Armand is doing. Is he still mad? He has to be. Daniel wants to turn things around, go back and have things be like normal. He knows he won't be able to; Armand never lets him come back until he's desperate and begging. The thing is, he's still angry with Armand. But that anger has faded to a low simmer, background to his gnawing anxiety. What if this is the time Armand doesn't let him come back? He needs to do damage control. So when the plane lands, he goes straight to a payphone to call Armand. The line rings and rings before Armand answers. "What is it, Daniel?" "Hey," Daniel says, inwardly cringing. Armand always knows it's him when he calls. So he made him wait on purpose. And he sounds irritated. "I just wanted to call and apologize." "For?" Figures Armand isn't going to make it easy for him. "For everything." There's silence on the other end. Daniel mentally curses himself; of course that isn't good enough for Armand. "I'm sorry for what I said. I'm sorry for leaving." "Are you?" Armand almost sounds disinterested. Shit, this isn't going well. Daniel leans his head against the glass of the booth and sighs. "Do we have to do this? Can't I just come home?" Armand chuckles darkly. "You don't think it's going to be that easy, do you, Daniel?" It never fucking is. "Come on, baby, can't we just talk about this?" The dial tone sounds in Daniel's ear. He slams the phone back on its handle. He'll try again tomorrow. Daniel checks into a hotel and drinks from the mini bar until he passes out. He wakes with a hell of a hangover. Doesn't matter. He needs to try Armand again. This time, Armand answers after only two rings. Daniel wonders if he was sitting by the phone, waiting for him to call. "Daniel," "Hey, baby." Daniel closes his eyes and pictures Armand's face. "I miss you." "Do you?" "Yeah, I do," Daniel says. He sucks in a breath. "Can I come home?" "No, I don't think so." Daniel feels frustrated tears well in his eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If he had just stayed and cooled off, he'd be at home now. Armand may have forgiven him already. They'd have made up, maybe even had passionate makeup sex. He could be in Armand's arms right now, if only he hadn't lost his temper. "When can I come home?" Daniel asks. "That's up to you, isn't it?" Armand says, then hangs up. It isn't until after he hangs back up the phone that Daniel realizes he forgot to tell Armand he loves him.

/ Daniel spends the next three days drinking and sleeping. All his dreams are of Armand. He misses him acutely, so much it feels like a knife in his side. He misses their home. He misses their life. He's stumbling drunk, wandering out of a bar and searching for a cab when he decides to call Armand again. The line rings a few times, then Armand answers "Hello, Daniel." Daniel could cry, he's so happy to hear Armand's voice. "I miss you so much, baby. Please, let me come home." "Not yet." Daniel blinks back tears. "Soon?" "Perhaps." Daniel takes a shakey breath. "I love you." "I know," Armand says. "Goodbye, Daniel." It takes another three days for Daniel to try again. He's in a different city now, and he wakes up on the floor of someone's apartment. He doesn't remember how he got there. He drank and took some pills, then everything is a blur. He manages to stumble out and make his way to a fresh hotel. The first thing he does is eat and shower. Then he calls Armand. There's no answer.

There's no answer the next two days, though Daniel tries a dozen times a day. He calls out to Armand with his mind and is met with silence. It's only nearly a week later, when Daniel is crying and shaking and begging Armand mentally to just pick up the phone, that Armand answers. “Yes, Daniel.”

“Baby, baby, take me back. I'm sorry; I learned my lesson. Let me come home to you.”

“Alright, I suppose.”

Daniel is so relieved he could cry. “Thank you, sweetheart. I love you so fucking much.”

“I love you too, Daniel.”

[faerywhimsy]

I am being completely normal about quietly compiling a Devil's Minion playlist and chatting to @eosphoroz about it. Wanting to track it before I forget why I grabbed each of them.

AKA: I went and gave myself more than two hours of feels, and now need to talk about it.

Ended up being a bit of a fanfic rec along the way as well, if you stick with it 😅

Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Lorde cover (2013)

Daniel got everything he wants, coming to Lestat's house in New Orleans after his interview with the vampire. A vampire has found him here! Only, Armand is far more than Daniel bargained for.

Welcome to your life There's no turning back Even while we sleep We will find you

Let's Dance - David Bowie (1983)

I'll admit this one first found its way into my playlist because of this Daniel/Marius fanfic by the same name, written by @cup-of-lixx. (Just know it's not the song the author intended listened to along with it.)

But, fuck, if this isn't the song that goes hand-in-hand with the QotD, 'Go now, start running!' line, I don't know what to tell you.

If you say run I'll run with you And if you say hide We'll hide Because my love for you Would break my heart in two If you should fall into my arms And tremble like a flower

The Frail - Nine Inch Nails (1999)

In those moments when Daniel thinks Armand has lost Daniel's trail, he pauses to eat or drink something and struggles to learn to recoup his losses. Only then to find Armand staring at him from across the street, or from under that bus stop.

This little recognised piece is a 114 second instrumental without lyrics. But I feel the title and tone of the track perfectly incapsulate Daniel's human frailty in those moments he's forced to introspect on what his life has already become, and even Armand's last words to him.

"I am going to let you leave here. I want to follow you, watch you, see where you go. As long as I find you interesting, I won't kill you. And of course, I may lose interest altogether and not bother to kill you. You may have hope in that. And maybe, with luck, I'll lose track of you. I have my limitations, of course. You have the world to roam, and you can move by day. Go now. Start running. I want to see what you do, I want to know what you are."

Hurricane - 30 Seconds to Mars (2009)

That whole run and chase part of the story happens in a bunch of vignettes, doesn't it? Well, good thing I have a few other songs to cover this period of time. If the last one was from Armand's PoV, this is from Daniel's.

Do you really want? Do you really want me? Do you really want me dead or alive to torture for my sins?

Sacrament (Acoustic) - HIM (2003)

Is it possible to have a VC playlist without 'His Infernal Majesty' (omg). Never mind that Ville Valo and his host of songs remains my existing head canon for Lestat during his rockstar period, this song perfectly captures the pull Daniel begins to feel towards Armand before he's even come to accept it.

I know my weak prayers aren't enough to heal Oh the ancient wounds so deep and so dear The revelation is of hatred and fear

Way Out Of Here - Porcupine Tree (2007)

Once Armand starts letting Daniel out of his sight again—largely because Daniel starts demanding, begging, irritating about becoming a vampire—Daniel starts running away. That'll show Armand! Daniel thinks. Only, he begins to start to realise that his time with Armand isn't so easily forgotten as all that.

I'll try to forget you And I know that I will In a thousand years or maybe a week I'll burn all your pictures, cut out your face The shutters are down and the curtains are closed And I've covered my tracks Disposed of the car and I'll try to forget even your name And the way that you look when you're sleeping

Opheliac - Emilie Autumn (2006)

I already made a post on this, but the TL;DR is that this has both Daniel's dysfunction vs Armand's composure in the form of Shakespearean quotations as different viewpoints within the lyrics.

You know the games I play And the words I say When I want my own way You know the lies I tell When you've gone through hell And I say I can't stay

Wanna Be Sure - Aidan Hawken (2010)

Daniel always leaves, but he always comes back to Armand again. Daniel always leaves, but Armand takes him back again. Neither of them can help themselves.

I keep coming back To you everytime Washing the walls of the room that you slept And the place that you hide I wanna be sure That your hearts on fire And your gonna be pure And that your love is all mine

Video Games - Lana Del Rey (2012)

This one I feel viscerally whenever I read a fic where Daniel is high or drunk out of his mind and completely, completely devoted to Armand.

There are way too many of those to link here, it being the central canon theme.

He holds me in his big arms Drunk and I am seeing stars This is all I think of It's you, it's you, it's all for you Everything I do I tell you all the time Heaven is a place on earth with you

Bloodstream - Stateless (2007)

Boy, this one's a heart jerker brought across from another vampire fandom, also very much pressing on those themes of obsession and addiction.

I think I might've inhaled you I can feel you behind my eyes You gotten into my bloodstream I can feel you floating in me

Possession - Sarah McLachlan (1993)

And just because there's the tiniest hint of a sweetness in these years between our boys (although truthfully we do get more of it in fandom) it felt like this rounded out our trio of Daniel loves Armand more than he loves his own life songs, and sometimes Armand even knows it.

mercy in you by @apoptoses is a freakishly good example of a moment of the strange sweetness between them.

My body aches to breathe your breath Your words keep me alive And I would be the one To hold you down Kiss you so hard I'll take your breath away And after I'd wipe away the tears

I Grieve - Peter Gabriel (1998)

This song frequently pisses me right off. It's got this really sweet melody for like, the first 3/4 of it, and then it ends out on this ridiculously bop-hopeful melody completely at odds with the rest of it.

But today, when listening to it as a song that starts while Armand is coming to reconcile breaking his vow never to make a fledgling with his blood, followed by the false hope of what might come afterwards... it actually works fabulously.

And I can't handle this I grieve, for you You leave, me Let it out and move on Missing what's gone They say life carries on .... Did I dream this belief Or did I believe this dream? Now I will find relief I grieve

Bel Air - Lana Del Rey (2012)

The haunting melody playing in the background of the movie version of the mind vision of Venice that Armand creates for Daniel as he turns him, the last time before the veil of silence falls between them.

There's an argument with this song that the corruption of wealth as evil signified in a place like Bel Air could mean this place represents for Hell, which I gotta say is also On Point with Armand's warnings.

Don't be afraid of me Don't be ashamed Walk in the way of my soft resurrection Idol of roses, iconic soul I know your name Lead me to war with your brilliant direction

Hardest of Hearts - Florence and the Machine (2009)

I heard this song for the first time via this Armand/Lestat fanart by @martinijordan. What can I say, it also makes me think of Armand turning Daniel from his PoV.

My heart swells like the water at wait Can't stop myself before it's too late Hold on to your heart Because I'm coming to take you Hold on to your heart Because I'm coming to break you

Hero - Nickleback (2003)

Akasha has just been killed. Daniel's a vampire, Armand's a vampire, they're both alive and together, and for just one brief, shiny moment... it seems like everything between them is going to be just fine.

I am so high. I can hear heaven. No heaven, no heaven dont hear me. Now that the world isn't ending It's love that I'm sending to you.

Euphoria (Firefly) - Delirium (1999)

As a vampire, Daniel is suddenly exposed to senses unimaginable to his human self from before. It's intoxicating and raw in this new and completely different way that the alcohol, the drugs, they didn't even touch. Daniel was so, so right about this being the only thing he ever wanted.

I never want to loose What I have finally found There's a requiem A new congregation And it's telling me go forward And walk under a brighter sky Every nerve glowing like a firefly

It Can't Rain All The Time - Jane Siberry (1994)

Will I ever not also think of The Crow with this song? That movie with its many similar visual themes to VC. For me, this song is the very beginning of Daniel's madness after turning, before he realises it's not exactly a 'normal' part in the process of becoming a vampire.

Sometimes you can barely tell the difference Between darkness and light Do you have faith In what we believe? The truest test is when we cannot When we cannot see There's something wrong, and It's hard to belive that love will prevail

Anna Begins (Acoustic) - Counting Crows (1993)

Make An Exception, a Fucking Devastating fanfic by @hekateinhell, but also words that are present in the lyrics to Anna Begins.

So now I'm always thinking of Daniel's madness and this song together. (Go read this fic, it will tear your heart out and make you cry in the best way - note: this is also not the song that was intended for listening with this fic by the author.)

he's talking in his sleep It's keeping me awake and [Daniel] begins to toss and turn And every word is nonsense but I understand and Oh lord, I'm not ready

Bring Me the Disco King - David Bowie (2003)

Ahahaha, this is Armand railing at Daniel because he wants to leave, despite Armand determined that all fledglings are doomed to loathe their makers, and basically turning that into a self fulfilling prophecy that both of them must live through.

It was bad when Louis left him. It's gonna be 70,000,000 times worse with Daniel.

Killing time in the 70's Smelling of love through the moist wind Don't let me know when you're opening the door Close me in the dark, let me disappear Soon there'll be nothing left of me Nothing left to release Dance, dance, dance through the fire

The Wooden Boat - Miranda Sex Garden (1994)

Full on madness for Daniel. Not with Armand anymore, but immediately before Marius sweeps him up. Has anyone registered my love of the minor key for this playlist yet? Hnng.

Hear me out, there isn't going to be a 'The Model Trains' song. However, there is a 'The Wooden Boat' song, and it's just freaky and eerie with only three stanzas for over six minutes, growing into a crescendo of background noises that speak beautifully to Daniel's gradual overstimulation and the world becoming an impossible place for him to live in anymore.

Bonus: This can be followed by the title track, 'A Fairytale About Slavery' then 'Cover My Face', for maximum indie music mind fuck.

For a moment you were almost there Through your veil I saw you stare Follow me, I'll lead you through my dreams Let me share the only thing I call my own

Medicine - Daughter (2015)

I was listening to this on repeat and making myself cry while writing Daniel in his madness the other day (no I'm fine, thanks for asking).

Technically this is definitely well into the 'playing with model trains' timeframe for me, rather than Devil's Minion, but it definitely gives the same angst vibes so, screw it, I'm including it here.

You could still be, what you want to What you said you were, when I met you You've got a warm heart You've got a beautiful brain But it's disintegrating

Hello - Evanescence (2003)

Look, so Daniel is the Devil's Minion, so therefore any song that makes me think of him is still technically Devil's Minion.

Okay. So, if the last song is Marius watching over Daniel and being aware of his mental state, this is Daniel inside his own mind being incredibly aware of his own failing state, over which there's nothing he can do. Other than be conscious of it, which is actually a big step.

If I smile and don't believe Soon I know I'll wake from this dream Don't try to fix me I'm not broken Hello I'm the lie living for you so you can hide Don't cry

My Beautiful - Lennon ft. Travis Meeks (2001)

Every single incredibly unsatisfying phone call between Armand and Daniel whilst Daniel is still vacationing at the Marius Home for Wayward Vampires (term taken from the fanfic scars by @serenwanders)

You called, I answered, but baby I'm only half awake 'Hush little one, with you here everything is going to be okay,' Is all you say but what if things don't go that way? It's over, we both know, we're both tired of playing the parts I said, 'Goodbye,' you said, 'Oh well nothing's really lost,' Call every now and then just to hear your voice talk to me You still say, 'Everything's all right' But it's not and that's something you're too blind to see

Just Give Me A Reason - P!nk ft. Nate Ruess (2012)

A tiny bit of hope in the jungle, and another phone conversation no doubt. Marius is trying to convince Armand that, after all his time with Daniel now, from Daniel's perspective at least, it seems to him all is not lost.

Alternate take: This is Daniel absolutely shitting himself as he and Marius ready themselves for Daniel to see Armand in person again for the first time in decades.

Just give me a reason, just a little bit's enough Just a second we're not broken just bent And we can learn to love again I never stop, you're still written in the scars on my heart You're not broken just bent and we can learn to love again

Rolling in the Deep - Adele (2011)

Everything is so. freaking. polite. when Armand and Daniel see each other that first time. It's like they're pod!versions of each other in front of everyone else.

But when they get a moment to themselves, there's this blow out argument, an end to treading on egg shells like they have been since Armand turned Daniel nearly 30 years ago. It's messy. Armand blames Daniel for leaving him. Daniel blames Armand for doing his best to make Daniel hate him. And, at the end, the arguing feels so familiar and comfortable that both of them start to relax in the beginning of healing their past together.

You had my heart inside (you're gonna wish you) Of your hands (never had met me) And you played it (tears are gonna fall) To the beat (rolling in the deep)

Hello - Lionel Richie ft. Jennifer Nettles (1983)

Forgiveness. Can you imagine? Indulging in obsessive behaviour is something Daniel will always have to watch for, but he and Armand have been through Hell together and come out the other side now at Trinity Gate. They earn their happiness and, finally, an ability to see and accept each other as (relative) equals.

And they never let each other go again.

Hello, is it me you're looking for? I can see it in your eyes, I can see it in your smile You're all I've ever wanted and my arms are open wide 'Cause you know just what to say, and you know just what to do And I want to tell you so much, I love you

[secret-engima]

So, RL this week was /hellish/. I'd like to thank you again for all your chapters and world builds and snippets - they really helped brighten otherwise unbearable days. Thanks again!

*hugs* Sorry to hear that! But I’m glad my stuff could help. Here- have a snippet! Sorry it’s angsty.

...

     Roman took the ragged armchair across from them and tried not to feel like there was a battle line drawn in the sand between him and Neo now, “Alright. We’re alone and secure. Now, tell me what’s going on, Neo. You burst into my room, crying your eyes out, tell me some story that makes no sense, and then run. You’re gone for a week and a half, you help assassinate Marcus Black, and now you’re back.” Neo blinked at him, surprised, and Roman clicked his tongue, “The whole underworld knows that Marcus Black is dead, Neo. His supply runners showed up just as a bullhead of the same make and model as yours was leaving and they took pictures. Roman pulled his copy out of his breast pocket and held it up accusingly, “There’s only once Semblance I know that leaves glass shards like this.”

     Neo glanced down at her shoes, then raised her eyes to meet his and nodded, “It’s true. I helped kill him.”

     “For the love of the Brothers, why, Neo? By rights he should have eaten you alive!”

     Neo stared at him helplessly for a long moment, like she didn’t know where to start. The four year old put a gentle hand on her knee and looked up at her trustingly. Neo ran a hand through his dark hair before exhaling heavily, “We met Cinder in the late spring. We had no idea how much of a threat she was at first, she was cocky and young, arrogant and entitled. But … she had a right to be…” Roman watched the story unfold from her fingers and felt very confused. That confusion increased when Neo told him of meetings he had apparently had with this “Cinder” woman, then rapidly escalated to alarm when Neo mentioned the woman’s plan to sabotage the upcoming Vytal festival.

     The upcoming fortieth Vytal Festival.

     That was seven years away from the current date.

     He tried to interrupt but Neo’s fingers kept moving and he had to watch quietly or lose the thread of information. She told him of operations that went against his own code of conduct. Stealing dust from any source, even the small businesses that he preferred to patron —keeping the locals friendly meant more hideaways from the law if things went south, keeping them wealthy compared to the big corporations and competitors meant they would be grateful enough to look the other way—, working with the White Fang terrorists. Killing people for a plan that wasn’t his. Risking Neo. Risking the city to call down Grimm from Mountain Glen. All under the fear of Cinder and her mysterious employer.

     It made no sense. These were events that hadn’t happened. He knew they hadn’t happened.

     …Hadn’t happened yet. No. No that was impossible. Semblances could do wild things, but time travel? Perhaps if it was only a few hours back or less, but years? No.

     And yet, the more the story unfolded, the worse Roman’s stomach knotted. Neo told him about Cinder’s two minions, Emerald and Mercury, and the two older brats flinched guilty and that told him that their names were a bit too on the nose with their hair color. The littlest barely reacted, just leaned tiredly against Neo’s side, watching her hands as she kept telling her ludicrous story of a Vytal festival sabotaged and airships stolen and-.

     Death. His death. He died except he was still here, so that was nonsense, but the tears dripping down Neo’s face as she blatantly skipped over parts of the story to introduce the last brat were uncomfortably convincing. She sped up the story, skipped more details, but not enough to let Roman convince himself this was fake. The details she included were too precise, too vivid, too lived in. She told him about devil’s deals and revenge, about war and an enemy that had been ruling over Grimm kind since the dawn of human history as it was known. About siding with that evil because there was nothing left for her but to fall in line like the rest of them.

     Until the Grimm Queen’s newest pet captured someone. A young boy who apparently … was her enemy? The descendant of her enemy. Something. Important. Neo’s hands started shaking too hard to sign and the tiniest of the kids rested his hand on her elbow. Neo’s hands dropped and she looked at him in open concern that felt too raw, too ingrained, and curse it all he knew this was impossible, but Neo didn’t lie like this. Not to him. Not to anyone. She never lied with tears. The near-toddler looked at Roman and Brothers above his eyes were creepy. Too … deep. They drilled right through Roman’s head and into all the dark corners no one should see and he wondered if the kid had a mind reading Semblance or something.

     “Salem wanted me because I had information she needed,” the child spoke with a deadly seriousness that was at complete odds with his tiny, soft, young voice and seriously what was Roman’s life right now. The practical infant gripped his little knees and refused to drop his gaze from Roman’s skeptical one, “She tortured me. For a long time. She broke me. And I … I don’t really know what happened after that. It’s … fragmented. But when I came back to myself, it was to find that Neo, Emerald, Mercury and … two others … had saved me. Rescued me from her lair. They defected with me, to the other side, and together we fought in a war that would decide the fate of all humanity.”

     Roman leaned back with a scoff he didn’t feel, because this at least was a narrative trope he knew, “You lost.”

     The child shook his head, “We won. If by winning you mean ‘destroyed Salem forever’. But the cost…” His bottom lip wobbled and he blinked rapidly as Neo and the other two brats all reached out to touch him, ground him in sympathy.

[famej]

Model

Mammon x Reader

Camera flashes filled the room, capturing the demon’s face. Poses after poses, from cute to extra hot and with or without clothes, every little patch of Mammon has been immortalized.

I was sitting on a bench, far away from all  the lights, on the side of the shooting spot. Mye yes were glued to the handsome demon, unable to understand how this man who always made bad decisions for himself and getting himself in trouble most of the time, coudl also be a model for the most famous fashion brandin all the devildom.

Apparently, his thirst for money could make him do anything and «  anything » meant becoming hot to the point he’d make you wanting more.

The flashes died down and the photographer put his camera down.

-«  Five minutes break and we’ll do the swim suits » he said before the crew scattered around in the studio.

Mammon looked in your direction and waved before leaving his spot and trotted twoard you.

He stopped right in front of you with a bright smile, you stood up.

«  How was it ? Did I make your heart melt with my beauty ? » he teased, flexing his muscles exageeratingly.

After rolling my eyes and chuckling at his antics, I answered :

You were really good ! Honestly I have trouble admitting that the Mammon I kno can be that good looking and charismatic »

«  Ah thanks ! I knew you… Oi ! What does that mean ? I’m always good-looking and charismatic ! And you forgot smart as hell ! »

«  Sometimes more than others… » you teased «  Want some water ? » you asked, grabbing the bottle of fresh water you’d kept especially for him.

He accepted your gift and took a big gulp ; he didn’t even finish drinking that a member of the staff came to take him to get changed.

«  See you later, MC, don’t take your eyes off me  or you’ll miss one of my glorious pose » he shouted through the room before running off.

I shook my head and let myself fall back on the bench.

While Mammon was in the changing room, the background completely changed . The color whent from white to night blue  and on the floor was a sort of low pool of water . Going with this set up came hoses placed above the water. Only with the materials before your eyes, you had a brief idea of what could be the incoming photoshoot.

Next thing, Mammon re-appeared, wearing a white swim trunk, matching his hair and fitting perfectly i ncontrast with his tanned skin. Oh and were those abs I was seeing ? Yeah they were ! It definitely wasn’t the same person you were living with ! The one doing stupid things, who stole his brothers’ stuff to buy ridiculously luxurious items, and who ended more often than not hung by his feet from the chandelier. But this Mammon walked past you, throwing yo a wink over his shoulder before settling in his previous spot. He stepped in the water while the photograph ordered two of his minions to work the hoses.

 « This one will be for summer, you’ll make all the girls fawn over you and the other demons will be crazy jealous ! Give it your all and you’ll be our next face, Mammon » he told his model

The staff turned the hoses on and the avatar of greed received the water from above, switching to super model mode. Arms extended and head lighlty thrown back, eyes closed with a satisfied smile. The water poured down on him, drops glistening on his exposed skin.

«  Yeah ! Just like that ! »

Mammon brought his hands to his hair, pushing his wet mane back, then gave a seductive look at the camera. Followed, was a cliché of him sliding his hands from his neck down to his lower belly, stopping a few seconds on his defined abs. The photographer was capturing every bit of his sexiness as, well as you, trying to immortalize this image in your mind forever.

«  For the last one, be sexy as hell, we want our readers to drool »

The demon grabbed the hem of his swim trunk and lowered it enough so the white hair of his happy trail was exposed. He lowered it even more to show off the very last few of his pubes before his engine. V-line perfectly shadowed and garanteed to please all Majolish fans.

The photographer let out a bunch of satisfied noise and obscene onomatopeias before putting his camera away.

«  Perfect ! Mammon, dear, you will be Majolish next man model, you’re amazing ! »

The latter looked at you and gave you thumbs up, punctued by a wink, with an exaggerated mouth movement. Yeah, usual Mammon was back.

I waited quietly until he came back from changing, all the previous sights of Mammon clear in my head.

« Y/N are yo uready ? »

I shook my head, chasing my impure thoughts away and followed him out of the studio, eager to got my hands on a copy of that magazine.

**

Two weeks later, Majolish had published their new edition of their ashion magazine and on the cover was an unknown handsome demon.

Knwoming the release date, thanks to that unknown demon who kept throwing hints your way, in case you forgot, you decided to wait for the morning opening and buy as much as you could.

When you left, a bunch of girls were gushing over Mammon’s pictures and you thanked yourself for being so well organized, ‘cause the news had spreaded and all the copies have been sold out within the first minutes of the shop’s opening.

The house of Lamentation was rather quiet at this hour, weekends meant that the inhabitants, except Lucifer would sleep in, leaving the household in utter quietness.

So, itw as easy to trottle back to your room without been seen. Arrived there, you sat on your bed and spreaded all the copies on your blanket. Your took one and admire dit. The picture was beautiful, Mammon’s skin was wet, his hair pushed back and trunk low on his hips. Sooooo hot !!! You couldn’t refrain a squeal of happiness. Yo uhad to keep those copies somewhere safe where no one especially the second born, who has the curious habit to rummage through your stuff like a raccoon, would find it.

Speaking of the devil, he bursted through your door, screaming, terrorizing you in the process.

«  MC ! Have you seen the cover ?! I received the picture by e-mail a minute ago. I’m so hot ! »

He speed walked to your bed, not caring that he was still in his pajamas, his hair looking like a bird’s nest.

Before you could do anything, his eyes fells on the numerous magazines.

«  Ugh… »

None answer came to your mind due to the embarrassement you were feeling.

«  How many of these did you buy ? Damn, this picture is amazing ! What do you think ? »

He looked at you intently, his self pide evident on his face.

«  Why do you think I bought some many ? You look marvelous ! »

It was too much to look at him, you kept your eyes on the magazine, hoping that not seeing his face would prevent the incoming blush. The silence became heavy, normally Mammon would blabber nonsense to fill the blanks.

«  AHAHAH Of course I am ! I always look fabulous , I’m the great Mammon after all ! »

It shoulve have sounded so confident but the stutter and blush didn’t make it very convincing.

«  You’re right. I’ve seen you during the photoshoot and it’s not surprising, you’re a really good model. Here, take one as a souvenir, I keep one for myself and distribute the others to your brothers, I bet they’ll be proud of you » you smiled at him, handing him one of the copies.

He seized it and looked at the cover, before lowering the magazine, and looking at the floor.

«  Do…you really think that ? »

He looked adorable when he was flustered. Oh Mammon…

«  Of course ! And if you ever get the other pics I can make an album so you’ll have you own professional book that we can look at whenever we want »

He perked up at your words and dared to show you his flushing face.

«  Well, thanks, I’ll think about it. But… you know, you have the real me to look at right ? »

That made you get off your bed and walk up to him. And got on your tiptoes and kissed his cheek, which made him blush even more than he already was.

«  I know that . But I’m just showing how proud of you I am, Mammon »

And then you wrapped your arms around him, hugging him tightly.

The avatar of greed was speechless, his arms laid at his side,  under  his disbelief. But he slowly  encircled your little frame, letting himself slump against you, even burying his face in the crook of your neck.

«  Thank you » he whispered , holding you thight

«  Don’t thank me for pointing how amazing you are, Mammon »

That was the only thing he need to start tearing up in their embrace, thanking whoever decided to send you to him.

[msiopao]

Taeseong with the Members

KOREAN BIG MINION

constantly teases joong with his height

joong keeps teasing him with his constant squinting

feeds into joong’s minion fascination and always buys anything minion tae sees

tae always calls him ‘appa’ and proves his point as joong is always having to drag him home from the studio

‘yah, enough with composing. the computer is making your eyesight worse’

calls joong ‘leader-nim’ and pesters him to death

‘leader-nim!’ ‘lEAdEr-Nim!’ ‘LEADER-NIM!’

‘wHAT tAESeoNg?!’

‘hi’

their long times in the studio made them really close and when tae gets into it, he GETS into IT

deep talks

the only person who can make tae open up

tae isnt emotional but tears up a little whenever joong reminds him that he’s always enough and completes ateez

‘min taeseong, im not talking to you as a leader, but as a brother. even when you think you’re dragging ateez down or lacking, you’re not. in fact, you always push us and you’re the glue that keeps us together. we are family and we never leave family behind.’

TOOTHLESS

tae always clings to hwa like a koala

calls him ‘eomma’

absolutely HATES tae’s smoking habits

‘YAH! MIN TAESEONG! if you’re going to smoke, do it away from the building!’

‘b-but, i’m in the,,,, balcony?’

‘get that AWAY FROM HERE, YOU HEAR?!’

helping hwa cook is tae and him’s bonding time

tae is constantly wowed by how handsome seonghwa is

number one seonghwa stan

favorite movie is How to Train Your Dragon because toothless looks like seonghwa

that one wave fancam of seonghwa? 

tae has seen it millions of times

in their vlives, seonghwa is always seen patting tae’s head and runs his fingers through his hair

always the first one to notice that tae’s down and when he’s not talking, seonghwa tells joong immediately

‘taeseong-ie acts like he’s so cool and manly all the time but he’s actually the biggest softie i know.’

EMMA WATSON FANBOY

sat through the Harry Potter movies and Beauty and the Beast movies for Emma Watson

awkward line 

clowns him a lot

‘uRi sAGuiLKKA?!’

‘istg child if you DONT STOP’

absolutely adores his birthmark

hates it when the makeup covers it because its precious and part of yeosang that’s being hidden from the world

‘first his lines now his beauty mark?’

they initially didnt get along since they both had kinda cold personalities but became close after that

tae loves to hear his voice and tae looks forward to the day that he gets more lines

yeosang tried to teach tae how to skate but tae just seems to never know how to balance

like seonghwa, tae gets so blown away with how beautiful yeosang is

tae tries not to stand between yeosang and seonghwa bc the amount of attractiveness and talent they radiate

‘we all have that but they just seem to radiate it more,, is it the increased handsomeness?’

tae always hugs him and stuff but cringes whenever yeosang so much as wraps an arm around his shoulders

‘seong is very weird. he loves to give affection but when its given back, he just has this face of discomfort. there’s no equality with him.’

HARRY POTTER STAN

harry potter fanboys

these two have Harry Potter marathons constantly

tae loves literature and books and finding someone else who likes harry potter in his group really made him happy

they’re the moodmakers of the group and are always hyper together

tae thinks mingi and yunho are the best dancers so he always tries his best to match to their level

both absolutely hate to wake up early and are by far the laziest members in the morning

poor san who has to wake them up and drag them out of bed

hides tae’s cigs and lighters and sometimes, throws them out

‘i swear i put it here. yunho, did you see it?’

*yunho shaking his head with an angelic innocent face*

tae’s not stupid tho so he knows it’s yunho throwing them out

ends up getting really angry w him and just,,,,

chaos

their room has a bunk and a twin bed and yunho sometimes steals tae’s bed and tae just letting him have it and sleep in the bottom bunk

kinda tiny so he loves wearing yunho’s sweaters 

‘tae and I are very similar so we do the same things and share everything like our clothes and bed. he doesnt like it when another member does it but since we were classmates in school, he’s comfortable with me.’

MOUNTAIN

absolutely ADORES his smile

i mean,,, look at that

tae loves to poke his dimples and tae just breaks out into giggles when san tries to bite his finger

shiber is their adopted child

whenever tae or san is feeling down, a plushie fixes everything

thats why san has so many of them

1/3 of yutaesan room

the devil gang gang

it was san first and tae got really fascinated and tried to mimick him

ended up perfecting it

rip atiny

san’s low self-esteem always made tae sad so he is always telling him how perfect and talented he is

but san also tries to give it back which never works since tae is a witty little demon

perfect example:

‘how is the most beautiful person in the world today?’

‘i dont know, choi san, how are you today?’

*blubbering nonsense*

tae dies a little inside everytime choi san makes cute little noises

‘CHOI SAN, say purple again’

affection and skinship 24/7

‘if min taeseong was a girl, i’d marry him on the spot.’

ICANNOTENGLISHI

look how perfect this man is sjikfdhfjd

N E ways

this tol boi makes tae feel real intimidated and scared

when they first met, tae actually tried to distance himself from mingi

had this scary vibe and aura from him

but when mingi laughed and giggled after mingi made a sarcastic remark

it was over,,

tae used to love piggyback rides from him but stopped when he had a back problem

instead just constantly backhugs him

when they were in kq fellaz, tae always stayed behind w mingi to practice some more

tried to teach him english but gave up because mingi couldnt stop laughing at tae

‘the way you speak it is just so funny!’

as a fellow rapper, tae is constantly wowed with mingi and has this small smile whenever he raps

deep voice for D A Y S

in australia, tae went with him to get medicine and wanted to help him badly but was too busy laughing 

another affection victim

‘i remember when tae was still this short little dude but now he’s almost my height. what have they been feeding them?’

GIGGLES

laughter and giggles 24/7

woo gives tae cheek kisses all the time and tae gags

but tae does the same thing to him

thinks grey-haired woo is the superior form of the perfection called jung wooyoung

shares the same adoration for BTS 

while woo likes jimin, tae loves taehyung

the rare times that tae gets drunk, woo is the only one he listens to

‘yah, mingi, call wooyoung. he needs to get him to bed’

‘wOoYOUnG?! WHERE?!’

atiny loves it during fanmeets that tae and woo sing together since tae trained to be a vocal and woo loves his voice

tae does whatever he can to make woo laugh 

addicted to his laugh

tae actually met woo’s parents and woo’s mom loves tae

whenever woo does anything sexy, tae just cringes and turns away

jung wooyoung say my name era is tae’s death

‘JUNG WOOYOUNG!!!’

tae just love wooyoung

periodt

‘even though we have a long schedule or practice, seeing tae makes everything more bearable.’

APPLE

TERRIFIED

jongho scares all of his hyungs but scares tae the most

when tae first saw him break an apple, his eyes practically bugged out of his head

refuses to go to the gym with jongho bc this boy is ripped and makes tae feel terrible

took tae a while to actually get used to him

now, tae squishes his cheeks and just hugs him very tight

‘my baby!!’

like how na jaemin is to park jisung

he stresses tae out sometimes 

tae constantly buys him food the most out of the members bc jongho is a growing boy 

we been knew that jongho just belts out some song and tae gets so startled all the time

it echoes throughout their dorm

can carry tae in one arm which terrifies his members more

‘is,,, is that??’

‘oh yeah, gucci released a new bag’

‘i’m the bag’

tae cried when jongho graduated and was like a mom and filmed the whole thing and took pictures

hates affection which makes tae give him more affection

tae and seonghwa are his moms

‘tae-hyung always wakes me up by hugging me but when i return the hug he leaves.’

yeosang: ‘maybe he’s scared that you will literally crush him to death?’

[shirtlesssammy]

6x10: Caged Heat

Then:

Meet Crowley, King of Hell

Now:

Crowley is busy torturing...himself? Nope, it’s an Alpha Shifter. He informs Crowley that when he dies, he goes to Purgatory. Crowley wants more information. 

Crowley’s holding a bunch of baby shifters for leverage on information about Purgatory’s location. The shifter won’t budge so Crowley chops his head off. 

At night, the Winchesters arrive at a factory to drop off one rugaru to a couple of demons. Dean asks about Crowley but they’re not on the Need to Know list. 

Dean and Sam head back to their hide-a-way home. Dean is done dealing with demons, but Sam points out they don’t have any other plan. Dean wonders if Sam wants his soul back. Sam points out that he’s working for Crowley. Dean walks off to get some booze and when he turns to talk to Sam some more, Sam’s gone. He pulls his gun and wanders to a side room, where he finds Sam passed out on the floor. A demon comes behind Dean and knocks him out too. 

Cut to the boys tied up and Meg walking into the room. 

She’s looking for Crowley. She holds a knife to Dean’s neck for information when Sam laughs (much to Dean’s stress) and realizes that she can’t kill them. She’s running from Crowley. Sam tells her that they’ll work with her to find Crowley but they want the first stab at him before she finishes him off. 

Once free, Dean is angry and asks Sam what the heck he’s doing making a deal with the demon that killed Ellen and Jo. Sam says they need her. Ah, soulless Sam is always the pragmatist. Sam assures Dean that they will kill Meg and her minions the first chance they get-- they’re bringing insurance. 

Later, Sam is outside, praying to Castiel. Cas doesn’t appear. He then starts describing the plot to Raiders. That Biblical artifact thirsty boy is there in a heartbeat. Sam wants Cas’s help but Cas is in the middle of things upstairs. Sam threatens to kill Cas if he doesn’t help them. 

Ahem, let’s all pause at Cas’s retort and bask in the pure BAMF energy.

“Will you...boy?”

Whew. 

Anywho. 

Sam does get Cas to come back to their place.

Dean is surprised (ok, but like dude, if you really wanted him to show, why didn’t you pray? We’ve already seen him show when you pray to him. You don’t have a profound bond for nothing.)

Cas performs a locating spell, but it doesn’t work. They head to the Campbell bunker of knowledge and Samuel finds them. Dean demands to know where Crowley is. Samuel isn’t talking. Dean then asks Cas to leave (which kinda blows my season 15 brain ---they have so much more to go through to be a real family.) Dean asks Samuel what Crowley has on him. He pulls out a picture of Mary and tells them that Crowley is going to bring her back if he helps him. Dean tells him that it’s a path he doesn’t want to go down --this is how the bad guy gets them every time….AGGHh, Chuck!!! Dean also uses the word Achilles heal again (ahem.) Also, they will find another way. Samuel kicks them out.

Later, the brothers are busy working on research while Cas indulges in his favorite pastime: watching porn TV. 

He’s very confused. Dude’s been watching humanity for eons but he’s clueless AF. Dean is appalled that he’s watching porn without him in front of them. 

Samuel arrives and is disturbed by their group activities. He has the location where they drop the monsters they’ve been collecting. The monsters never leave. 

Team Free Will meet up with Meg and her gang.

Meg hopelessly flirts with Cas. Then they get down to the business of tracking Crowley. Sam demands her knife and then proceeds to kill one of her demon buddies. He was justified though and they all know it. 

Sam loads up on weaponry, while Dean spends some quality time (awkward silences) with Cas. Cas is glum. He expresses doubt about their plan to get Sam’s soul back. Cas describes the likely situation in the cage: Lucifer and Michael have been using Sam’s soul as a toy. 

Cas projects a future of madness and trauma on an ensouled Sam. Dean chooses to glibly ignore this because he has utter faith that with Cas’s help, they can do anything. (Crying noise) In the shadows, Sam overhears everything. 

Outside Crowley’s compound, the team starts their assault. The side door is unlocked, making it laughably easy to get in. The Winchesters smell a trap! The interior is lined with cells, many of them occupied by monsters - dead or alive. A djinn from an earlier episode pleads for help. Crowley’s got some kinda reach, alright!

In the distant hallways, a hellhound snarls. The camera zooms in on poor, traumatized Dean.

Everybody runs for it, and a demon falls to the hound. Meg is 100% done with the high death rate of demons in the Winchesters’ company and tries to smoke out. She opens her mouth to no avail - Crowley’s warded the place in such a way that it keeps demons firmly attached to their meatsuits. She’s in this for the (hopefully) long haul. Sam hands her Ruby’s knife so she can kill hellhounds, but Meg turns it down. The Winchesters will need that to kill Crowley. She’s got another plan. 

But first, uh, she has ANOTHER another plan?

Meg kisses Cas, her hands sliding under his trench coat in a way that we have definitely not ever pictured doing in any way. Nope. 

He spins her around and pins Meg to the wall in a way that we have definitely not ever pictured Cas doing in any way. Nope.

“I learned it from the pizza man,” Cas tells a stunned Meg. 

Meg shakes it off and hoists Cas’s blade, purloined from his coat. (What did she do, snake her arm down his sleeve? Lol) She’ll fight off the hounds with that instead. She slashes at the hound while the others move on. 

A bright light flashes suddenly, and Cas disappears just as Samuel pulls his hand away from an angel banishing sigil. Samuel, you giant bag of dicks! He betrayed the Winchesters to resurrect Mary. Crowley and his demons swan in and gain control of Sam and Dean. 

The Winchesters are tossed into cells. Meg, injured but victorious after her fight with the hounds, gets attacked by a demon possessing Christian Campbell. 

Samuel stops by Dean’s cell to explain himself, and Dean bitterly reprimands him for his betrayal. Samuel insists that Mary’s his blood, and Dean and Sam aren’t close enough to count. “What exactly are you supposed to be to me?” Samuel asks, further cementing my hatred of his character. 

Dean looks up and his MASK OF REVENGE is clearly pulled over his face. “I’ll tell you who I am. I’m the guy you never wanna see again.” CHILLS. He promises revenge on Samuel. 

Samuel walks away from his little confessional moment, and two demons arrive to drag Dean away. 

Meg, meanwhile, has been stripped of her clothing for sOMe ReaSoN. The only things covering her up are the warded bands pinning her to a torture table. I. Just. Why? Why, show? (Excuse me while I glare directly at Robert Singer from across many, many miles.) To Meg’s credit, she looks like she’s ready to do some cool murder (I’ll help). Demon!Christian starts to torture her. 

Sam chews a hole in his own arm while he waits in his cell, which is not disturbing AT ALL. DAMN, soulless Sam! Dean arrives in Crowley’s interrogation room, and it’s full of bloody bays and intestines. SO unsanitary. The demons chuck two monsters in with him. It’s to be a cage match, I see! 

When demons arrive to grab Sam, they find that they’re trapped in his cell. Sam grins with a bloody mouth at the demon trap he scrawled on the ceiling with his own blood. I mean…GROSS but mad props all the same. 

Meg continues to get tortured when Dean creeps up and kills Demon!Christian. He frees Meg and they start operation, GET CROWLEY. Sam and Dean lure Crowley in with a fire alarm and trap him in a demon trap. (This one’s spray painted, thank goodness.) 

Sam demands his soul back from Crowley, but ye olde King of Hell refuses. He can’t get into the cage to rescue Sam’s soul. Crowley questions WHY Sam would want his soul back, after all his soft marshmallowy center is surely enduring in the pit. Dean hands Ruby’s knife to Meg and she heads into the demon trap to kill Crowley. 

Crowley proves why he’s the reigning King (or at least how he’s stayed alive for so long) by tackling Meg and flinging the demon knife up into the ceiling to split apart the devil’s trap. Things are looking bad for our heroes when Cas flaps in. “Castiel,” Crowley smiles. “Haven’t seen you all season.” Cas presents a bag of bones and informs the room that he’s found Crowley’s skeleton. 

Crowley bows to the threat and lets the Winchesters go. When he admits that he really, really can’t save Sam’s soul, Cas burns the bones. It’s…DRAMATIC.

Outside, Cas confesses that the battle in Heaven is going poorly but that there’s nothing the Winchesters can do to help.

“I wish circumstances were different. Much of the time I would rather be here,” Cas confesses. CAS! Dean forgives him and Sam gives Cas one more mission before he flaps off to Heaven: destroy the monsters locked up in Crowley’s prison. Cas flaps off (and into my spin-off show, SAD ANGEL ASSASSIN). Dean promises Sam that they’ll figure out another way to get his soul, but Sam argues against any plans at restoration. He’d rather be functioning and soulless, thank you very much. Sam walks away, leaving Dean shouting fruitlessly after him.

I Learned it from the Quote-za Man:

Remember when we used to gank demons?

Okay, officially over the foreplay. Satisfy me, or I please myself

Hugs and puppies all around

I can’t believe you fell for that. That was the plot of Raiders, idiot

If the pizza man truly loves this babysitter, why does he keep slapping her rear? 

This what you boys do, sit around watching pornos with angels?

I learned that from the pizza man

I’ll tell you who I am. I’m the guy you never wanna see again

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[lady-divine-writes]

Kurtbastian one-shot “Haunted House” (NC17)

Summary: Longing to feel like a teenager again, Sebastian rents time in a haunted house to make out with his husband. (1552 words)

Notes: So, I missed these two, and I had intended on posting this in October, but I decided against it. I actually posted it for another pairing instead. Welp. Here it is.

Part 56 of Daddies

Read on AO3

“Why?” Kurt asks. And that’s all he needs to ask, because after the length of time he and Sebastian have been married, Sebastian knows exactly what that one-word question means. Ergo:

“Because,” is his only reply.

“What about Tom-Tom? We told him we’d be home before midnight!”

“Tom-Tom’s fine,” Sebastian assures him, leading him through crowds of adults and kids dressed in every costume under the sun, from about a dozen Pennywise clowns to an entire coven of vampires (one Klingon included), and something Sebastian thinks might have been a slutty minion. Or maybe a slutty Tic-Tac? He doesn’t look too long. He doesn’t need to lose his erection. After Kurt put on his costume - the tightest white slacks known to mankind, a clingy satin shirt, and the most epic angel wings ever crafted - his hard-on has been a constant presence since Tricks-or-Treats earlier.

Which is why Sebastian tossed Thomas into bed as soon as the babysitter arrived, grabbed his husband, and raced out for a little adult fun.

“We shouldn't be doing this!” Kurt snaps, but mostly to cover up for the fact that he’s giggling – proof that he’s having a better time than he’s letting on.

“That's what makes doing this so much fun!” Sebastian pulls Kurt along, speeding past a ticket taker, up a short flight of stairs, over a tension barrier, and through the ‘employees only’ entrance, plunging them into the pitch-black belly of this hotel-turned haunted mansion - the biggest, most elaborate one in the county. It’s renowned up and down the Eastern Seaboard. People travel for miles around every year just to come.

And they just skipped a line of about a hundred people and raced in like they own the place.

Which they could. Sebastian did mention something earlier about a ‘big reveal’. Buying up a famous haunted house sounds like the kind of investment his husband would make.

Kurt glances over his shoulder at the people glaring venomously at them as they fly by, one of whom he may have actually clipped with his wing. “Sebastian! We’re going to get caught!”

“We’re not going to get caught! I paid All-Season Productions two grand to have the run of the place for an hour as long as we behaved ourselves.”

“Well, we’re not off to a good start. Cutting in line is just plain rude.” Kurt doesn’t mention that the way Sebastian throws his money around can be a real turn on sometimes. Even though the man is richer than Rockefeller, Kurt doesn’t need them going into debt over blowjobs.

“What do I care about being rude? It’s never been a concern of mine before.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a father now. The people in this town know you.”

“Then they should know I’m an asshole.”

“That’s big talk for a man who just spent two hours in an inflatable pumpkin costume pretending to be Jackie the Jack O’Lantern at Thomas’s school’s Halloween Carnival.”

“Yup. And I was an asshole jack o’lantern,” Sebastian grumbles.

Kurt snickers. It’s too much fun teasing his husband, and Sebastian makes it way too easy. But as sexy as it is seeing his husband be Mr. Large-and-in-Charge with his AmEx card, it’s sexier watching him in the role of dedicated and loyal married father - a role he plays so well.

Besides, he ditched the puffy pumpkin costume, and now he’s dressed as the hottest devil this side of Hades.

Kurt can’t wait to get his hands on Sebastian’s horns.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere where no one will look twice at us.”

“Then why did I bother dressing in costume?”

“Because Kurt, let’s face it, you love dressing in costume. You’ve got more costumes than clothes. You’d wear costumes even if it wasn’t Halloween.”

“True, true. But what are we doing here anyway?” Kurt follows close behind as Sebastian leads him up a winding staircase covered in torn sheets soaked to dripping in fake blood. “We’re running past all the performers. Are we not here to be scared?”

“Nope. We’re here to make out.”

“You paid two thousand dollars so we could make out in a haunted house?”

“Mansion - yes.”

“We could have spent that money on a room in the Hamptons! And still had money left over for dinner!”

“Come on, Kurt! Do something different for once! Have a little fun!”

“Fucking in the Hamptons is fun. And I still could have worn the costume.”

“Isn’t this something teenage you would have done?”

“Not particularly,” Kurt groans, reaching down to rub his cramping left calf mid-run. “Don’t you think we're a little old to be messing around like teenagers?”

“Never! Don’t you miss being a teenager?”

“Miss puberty and acne and high school and homework? Not an inch.”

Sebastian exits the staircase at the second to the last landing and pushes Kurt up against the cleanest of the goop-spattered walls. He’d been searching for this floor specifically – the one with the huge picture window he’d seen from the outside. It overlooked the main thoroughfare, its lights and decorations, with a hawk-eye’s view of children in costume begging for candy while their older siblings roll their eyes, swiping sweets from their pillowcases when they’re not looking.

“I’ve managed to find us the most horrifically romantic spot to hide away and be alone,” Sebastian says, brushing his nose against Kurt’s cheek, nudging his head to the side so he can reach his neck past his collar. “Don’t kill the mood.”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt whispers, startling when he hears footsteps race by, the whirring of a chainsaw giving chase a little too close for comfort. “I might be a little nervous.”

“Why, babe?”

“Because …” Kurt swallows hard “… I know all the makeup and the sound effects and whatnot aren’t real, but …” Kurt jumps when a power drill buzzes from somewhere close by, followed by a bloodcurdling scream “… it’s still unnerving.”

“That’s part of the fun. I wanted this to be memorable … thrilling … heart pounding …”

The drill buzzes again, closer this time, and Kurt shudders.

“You managed heart pounding. Bravo.”

“Don’t be nervous,” Sebastian murmurs, licking circles down Kurt’s neck with the tip of his tongue. “It’s just you and me here.”

“And the lovely cast of All-Season Productions apparently. Two thousand dollars richer, I might add.”

“Relax, will ya?”

“I’m trying to, but I …”

Sebastian’s mouth on Kurt’s quiets him down, the press of his body quelling his trembling … or making it worse. At this point, Kurt can’t tell. The whole building seems to be shivering with actors laughing and screaming kids. But that bleeds away when Sebastian takes hold of his wrists and pins them at his sides, weaving their fingers together in a gesture that’s more endearing than possessive.

But still possessive enough to make Kurt’s toes curl.

His body relaxes underneath Sebastian’s weight and his heat – everything from Kurt’s head to his feet melting against the wall. The whiz of the chainsaw doesn’t bother him anymore, neither do the resulting screams. He’s only vaguely aware of footsteps as they race up and down the staircase or barrel down the hall.

The ones that come to a screeching halt a few feet beside them, and the groan that follows soon after? That’s harder to ignore.

“Eww!”

“What!?”

“What is it, Kendall!?”

“A zombie?”

“A skeleton?”

“A decapitated body being feasted upon by a rabid werewolf!?”

“No. It’s old people making out!”

“Gross!”

“Are you serious?”

“See for yourself!”

“Yeah, no. That’s not okay!”

“How can they allow that in here? Don’t they know they’re going to scar us for life!?”

“Let’s get outta here! Find that guy with the chainsaw and forget all about this!”

“I don’t think I can! It’s gonna haunt my nightmares!”

“Sebastian …” Kurt growls, hands balling into fists.

Sebastian can’t answer his husband, snickering into his shoulder while the air echoes with conversation.

“I don’t know, Kendall. That guy dressed like an angel was kinda hot.”

“Emily! He looks like my dad!”

“Yeah, and …?”

“…”

“Okay, you’re not allowed over to my house anymore.”

“I thought you said no one would see us!”

“That’s not what I said! I said no one would look twice at us!”

“I’d say they looked more than twice, Sebastian!”

“Meh. A devil and an angel making out? They probably thought we were part of the show.” Sebastian leans in for another taste of his husband’s waiting mouth when his head suddenly pops up. “Wait a minute … they only mentioned you being hot. What about me? Hey, Emily!” Sebastian yells down the hall, fighting to be heard above the whine of power tools. “What about …?”

“Sorry, babe.” Kurt grabs Sebastian’s chin, tilting his mouth back his way. “Apparently I’m the hot dad in this relationship, and you’re going to have to be okay with that.”

“Yeah, you are,” Sebastian purrs, loosening Kurt’s tie to make it easier to assault his neck, particularly that sweet spot above his collarbone that he likes to have nibbled. “Does that mean I’m going to get a spanking later on?”

Kurt grins. He takes one of Sebastian’s hands and drags it down his body, planting his palm on his crotch. “Only if you earn it, naughty boy.”

[darkspellmaster]

Castlevania Season 3 Trailer Theories Part 2: Locations and Scenes

So the images are not in order from the trailer, but I intend to talk about them as we go.  Since this is part two I’m going to try to strictly talk about the scenes that seem to be happening in the story. 

So let’s talk about this one. This is actually one that intrigues me because of what it appears to be. Earlier in the trailer, we see some sort of portal or energy being made, and that portal there is probably what that one weird shot with all the colors is connecting to. I’m wondering if that’s also an Evo Crystal, but we will get to that later. And the room that they are in, reminds me a lot of Curse of Darkness’s forge room for Hector. 

Now while it’s not identical the rooms offer the same sort of set up. In the center of the room, there’s an alchemy set up. This alchemy set up is designed to create monsters or innocent Devils as in the game Curse of Darkness. Each monster is made with a different set of instructions in-game, in this case, it’s from different crystals that help you make different types. 

The room that Sypha and Trevor are in looks very much like an innocent devil's room if it wasn’t like the game version of it. On top of that, there’s the leviathan cross with the added feature of Saturn from Alchemy. 

Abysmal_abyssal explains it more here in regard to what this is. 

So more than likely Trevor and Sypha ended up in one of the rooms where Hector may be making monsters. Or where someone is making them. What’s interesting here is this is a moment in time where Trevor unleashes both of his whips, the holy one with the Belmont symbol on it, and the Vampire Killer that has Sara’s soul in it, and either it’s creating that insane fire or Sypha has helped with her fire to create this epic moment. But it’s clear that Trevor is fighting something big. 

You don’t go doing this unless you’re attacking something insanely large. And given that the Cult seems to have the first part of the symbol on their armbands, I would think this is something that they created for Trevor to fight, or became. 

You can see on the very bottom of the whip that Trevor is using, it’s marked with the sign of the Belmont family, making me think this is another sort of holy whip that was given to him and is basically something that he combines with the Vampire KIller in order to unleash some really devastating attacks. 

It’s clear that this is the monster that the fire attack hits, and probably is the monster that is later reforming that Trevor and Sypha are dealing with.

 It becomes damn clear that this thing, given it’s eyes in the reforming process, is a part of Leigon and seems to be the big bad monster on the second poster. Now what role it has in the story, I’m not sure, but given the whole “Raise Hell” line in the trailer, it makes me think that that is what the cult brings into being. 

We also get a glimpse of this room when Trevor is seen readying his attack, and earlier in the trailer we get a shot with Sypha and the winged monster. 

You can catch the beast right in the upper left corner of the top picture next to the portal, thing, that seems to be letting them in. 

We also have Sypha fighting in the same room, clearly trying to help Trevor, but she’s not in all the shots. So was she hurt during this fight and that unlocked his ability to really access the power of the whip through the thought of keeping her alive and safe? 

Part of the situation with the Vampire killer is that Sara believes that every male that holds that whip is connected to Leon, or is Leon, so her power seems to be enhanced when the wielder feels that someone is in danger and needs to be protected. 

Looks like the lighting from the Monster Legion is attacking the Church, and destroying everything in a radius, this is probably tied to the priest and the soldiers coming to see what’s going on in the earlier picture. What’s interesting is that we also see one of the Legion monsters jump into this building. So I’m not sure in the timeline where the lightning strike happens.

We see this right after we see the church get hit by the storm, which shows that the Judge is connected to some military units. What for, I’m not sure, but it’s clear that it’s not exactly a good situation at all for him to be in. 

Taking a wild guess here that the village that is being blown up has something to do with the lighting blast we see in the church, as the center of the destruction. It seems to destroy a lot of the place and I’m guessing it may have to do with Legion infecting all of the places, as the humans later fall to their doom with thorn crowns on their head symbolic of Christ. 

We have this legion piece leaping at the church and going into it, though we don’t know why they’re attacking this town. this could be the same town or a different one, it’s hard to say due to the dark colors and the rain. 

The village being attacked, same sort of lights that are in the village were Trevor and Sypha are dealing with the cult, there’s an indication that someone may have summoned these things from Legion and it’s causing a mighty downfall on the village. 

We also get a moment when the Legion is discovered by a poor sop, that was in a barn. 

We later see Isaac looking out at a tower that seems to be housing Leigon, so I have to wonder if this is the same village that’s being attacked. 

There’s something about this moment that makes me think that this is the connecting thread to Miranda telling Isaac to kill them all. It looks likely that there’s going to be a fight between Legion and Isaac and the question will become who will win. I have to wonder if Germain may play a part in trying to stop him or connecting himself to Hector in this case. 

We also see Legion come down with full force as it seems to have made all the people in town turned into it’s zombie minions. 

Which seems to indicate that it’s only grown in the time that we first see it attack. Isaac seems to be the force that will control it, which is interesting given that Leigon is typically not an easy enemy to beat at all, indicating that his powers have grown exponentially by this point. 

When the body hits the devil forge weapon we see it being sucked in. This makes me think that all of this is connected to the idea that Isaac is trying to recreate the Crimson stone to bring back Dracula and is being used by Death to do so, by wrecking the hell out of Leigon’s creatures and then using them against Trevor and the others to either destroy Carmilla and Free Hector, or kill them both and Trevor and his crew for the death of his master. 

So this is a weird one. Given that there are souls in there flying towards the center, I can only guess that this is forming some sort of demon. We see that the town this is happening in is the one that Trevor and Sypha are visiting and where the evil cult is, so I guess this is part of their goal, to create some sort of portal or creature with the dead people in the fire. It honestly looks like it’s forming something. 

 S

So this is a weird one. Given that there are souls in there flying towards the center, I can only guess that this is forming some sort of demon. We see that the town this is happening in is the one that Trevor and Sypha are visiting and where the evil cult is, so I guess this is part of their goal, to create some sort of portal or creature with the dead people in the fire. It honestly looks like it’s forming something. 

This is another mystery. If you enlarge the image you’ll see four creatures that seem to be crawling over the rocks, and when panned out we see that there is more than just that one group of four. The image in the back I’ll get to when I put the picture up, the image in the front is slightly strange. So it appears to be a statue of a woman who seems to be in possibly the throws of ecstasy, seeing her body language and all. Now, why would such a huge statue need to be created? Unless this is some sort of depiction of Mathius and his first wife Elisabeth. Or showing how Incubi create Succubuses. It’s something that has me very perplexed. 

Yet another one, from a cave, looking off into the distance. If I can hazard a guess, I’d say this is something connected to Isaac’s plot in some way. The statue, as with the other one in the previous picture, shows a woman standing up with her arms over her head stretching. Now I could be wrong and this may be a man, but the hips indicate a female form. The thing she’s standing on kind of looks like a hand, but it also reminds me of the Innocent devil's cauldron where the petrified monsters are being held. 

Clearly, this is a rocky place and given the transition, we’re shown that it’s some sort of weird temple or something like that.  

aaa

So here is where I have to bring up the Crimson Stone. In the center of Isaac’s forge weapon, we see the red stone, and the Crimson stone is actually the lower phase of a philosopher stone. When Mathias beat Walter he used the crimson stone to collect his soul to complete it. Just like the Vampire Killer, the stone that Dracula has needs a soul, a vampire soul, to power it. 

Or it could be a fire orb as from the game. Though I think given what Isaac does with the Legion guy later in the trailer it’s clear that this could be the markings of a new Crimson stone. Which would be bad. 

Here’s the thing about this guy, he starts off looking like this...

As you can see, his body is very lanky like Grant DaNasty, our missing team member. and clearly he becomes a monster. The problem is that if it’s is Isaac changing him, where is he going to put him in the story? I suppose that Hector can undo this and have him help them out, but something about this moment is making me think this is just Isaac creating more of his monster army than grant showing up at that point. Though it’s important to note that the transformation is clearly done with forging, meaning that Hector can do something like this too, which probably will come into play with the whole Curse of Darkness storyline. 

aaa

Remember the image above where we have a portal. Well, this is either going to be that portal or an Evo Crystal. This is designed to be an object that helps Hector evolve or bring to life the Innocent devils in the Curse of Darkness game. There’s a center there to this, and Warren did say it’s going to be a Psychedelic Horror season and given we have Legion coming, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have Innocent devils and hints of how the Vampire Killer came about. 

This also could be the creation of a new Crimson Stone. 

A second strange woman in the trailer when Hector cracks his twin whips. I’m still trying to figure out if this is one of the vampire minions or Carmilla herself, or another unnamed character at this point. Clearly, she’s being destroyed in blinding light. She may be one of the demons as well. It’s hard to tell. But it’s clearly a woman being wrecked here. 

This is a hard one. Design-wise this is stunning, but the location is hard to place. This is where the cave with the statues is seen. The ground is clearly lava-like, and my only guess is that this may be hell. But where and how is the question? Though I have a feeling that this is not that at all and Isaac or someone has made it into this. 

This could also be the  Baljhet Mountains, which in Curse of Darkness connected to the Abandon Castle and the Garibaldi temple. Both places of significance for Hector in the main Curse of Darkness game and where he met with St. Germain and also had to fight Legion. What’s interesting here is that it looks like they’re giving a lot of that to Isaac. This could be the area that Issac is using to create his monsters. 

So we know that Isaac is doing some devil forging here to make his own army. I have to wonder if this is tied into the world we see in the above image. Though it’s clear that he’s traveling farther out to reach where Legion probably is laying in wait. 

So this is an important moment. An early shot shows Isaac hitting one of the Legion dolls and destroying it. However, when he hits it, it goes into the red stone at the bottom of his forge. This may indicate that Isaac may have some form of Crimson stone-like object attached to his forge which is what is allowing him to create the monsters that he does. Keep in mind that when the stone works right it sucks a soul in, so this may be doing that. 

Said earlier moment above shows how this is working, with the aim being to destroy the possessed person. 

Given review information, it seems like Issac is going to be going against a magician, possibly St. Germain, who may be trying to stop him from going on this path (which could lead to the resurrection of Dracula). This is probably part of that journey. 

Building in the back shows that this is the town where Trevor and Sypha are punching the cult guy in the trailer. This is also where the village is burning and other shots show that this could be used by the villains to summon Legion and bring Isaac and Trevor into contact. (It would be very weird if Isaac supplants Grant as the fourth team member. But I don’t see that.) Isaac may be controlling them, or this is the town where Legion is making its a haven. It very much seems like this is where Isaac is going to run into his main villain. 

So again, back to those weird mountains. As you can see there are beings on the lower part of the scene, but it’s hard to tell if they are just monsters or people or statues. What’s also interesting is the image of the woman and a man in a lustful embrace above, and we don’t see the man again in the other statues. I’m not sure what this is supposed to be hinting at? The creation of Alucard? Mathis and his first wife Elisabetha? How Germain came about? It’s interesting because I wasn’t expecting that, and there’s not been anything quite like it in the games. Unless I missed something in Curse or Lords of Shadow, because that’s the only ones I can think that would use this. 

So remember the flames that were coming together? This is showing how those souls are being sucked up. This may be a moment where they could join into one being, or stone. It’s clear that this is one of the people in town that is being burned and probably attacked by the Legion monster later. This also could be a named character that’s being taken in by possibly Carmilla or by Isaac or the weird cult group that seems to be coming into play. 

For sure though this scene is connected to the burning village we see earlier in the trailer and part of the whole merging of fire. I think it has ties to the weird cult that seems to be coming into being since Dracula’s death. 

This may be the death of Carmilla or one of her minions. It’s clear again that this is a woman being hit by Trevor’s whip and connected to the scene where he’s using both. If I can hazard a guess on this, I would say this may be Lenore what with the shoulder designs, but the face makes me think it’s Carmilla, which makes me wonder if this is one of the last scenes in the show where Trevor activates his true power against her. 

Honestly I kind of hope that Hector helps him out with this because we’re pulling more away from Hector as lead to his own story. 

Remember the fire with the guy in it? I think this may be the town where that’s happening with the cult. It’s clear by the architecture that this house is the main one in town and that more than likely another shot from the trailer shows the house’s interior on fire. The question is who set it, and why is this town apparently attacked twice? First with the Legion monsters (Maybe the Judge stops them back in the past) and the second has it being on fire as it rips through the town. 

Given the nature of the flames, I don’t think this is a natural fire either and that Trevor may have to save the village from the cult that’s coming into play. 

Interior of the house from the above picture. Notice the windows and designs. This is the house in question from above, the problem is that we don’t know who owns it. My guess is that this could be Sala’s place or the Captains. However, whoever owns it clearly is in for a bad time given the whole place seems to be engulfed in flames from a villain. I will say the designs are very pretty though, and the background artists did a fantastic job on it. 

See the house in the background? It has the same design as the one burning. Given this is just before Trevor punches the cult guy, I would have to guess that the two were called in to look into the situation in town and things get out of hand fast. 

This could be the Alchemy room since it seems very similar to the designs we saw earlier. But...it’s clear that Legion is there as well, so Trevor is going to have a fight with them. (You can clearly see the eyes on the monster being remade.) 

So is this Isaac or Carmilla, or the Judge, or Death doing this? 

This shot is tied to the same shot of the two female characters being killed earlier. It’s clear that Trevor is going all out on whatever is in that room, and we can see the two bodies being taken down by the light of the twin whips. I love the fact that on his back around his shoulders you can make out what could be seen as angel wings, which ties into Leon’s connection to the crusades and wanting a connection to the light to save his beloved Sara. Maybe Trevor tapped into that and is now connecting to Sara there since the whip can only be used by Male members of the Belmonts and Morris families. 

It’s an amazing use of just inks by the way. 

There’s a lot more there, but with the series only a few days away I think I’m going to cut it here for the trailer speculation and want to bring up another aspect that’s being talked about a lot going forward. 

[gavillain]

Maleficent

I guess I kinda like this one? ;)

Lol, jk, Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty/Kingdom Hearts) is my favorite fictional character of all time. I love literally everything about her. All of this is on my villains’ list entry on my profile, but I’ll copy and paste it here so I can get my praise for her out there.

So oftentimes when I set out to explain why Maleficent is my favorite villain, I struggle a bit. Usually in villain list entries I just go over the elements to them that I like with a bit of analysis and personal narrative mixed in for good measure, and I'm certainly going to do a bit of that here. However, that's not really the big picture. Maleficent is more than the sum of her parts, more than whatever interesting analysis I could pin on her, more than some childhood story I can relate back to you. She's literally a villain I could go on for a paragraph gushing about how excited I get by the back of her head, I love her so much. She just transcends explanation; she is villainous perfection incarnate. She is the perfect model who all my other favorite villains are in some form or fashion a reaction to. She is fundamental.

Though really, when you get down to it, there's not really some big huge secret to why Maleficent is simply the best. She's just the perfect blending of elements to create a whole that never could have been achieved if anything was handled slightly differently. No other villain is quite that same perfect balance of threatening, regal, powerful, charismatic, entertaining, visually stunning, and intriguing all put into a single package. And because all of these facets to her are there, they create a solid entirety that can only truly be described as a masterpiece. 

So let's actually get into some of those parts that make Maleficent the greatest Disney villain of all time and my personal favorite villain period. First there's her name. The word "maleficent" is a Latin derived adjective meaning "doing evil or harm." Her very name describes the evil that she inflicts upon others. Yet, though "maleficent" is an English adjective, it's not one with widespread popular use. However, even to a casual viewer who might not know that "maleficent" is anything other than the character's name, the meaning behind her name still gives the same impression because it phonetically sounds like a blending of the more commonly used words "malevolent" and "magnificent." Her evil and regality both are phonetically ingrained within her very name, yet unlike the ridiculously derivative names that you may see crop up in bad fanfictions or pretentious fantasy novels, it still very much sounds like a name. It rolls off the tongue beautifully, yet it's not complex, and from the moment you hear it spoken, you know she's not someone to be trifled with.

The next big element to Maleficent that warrants discussion is, of course, her magnificent character design. And Disney is of course known for their incredible artistic vision, but, from where I'm standing, Maleficent is one of those figures where that vision is most apparent. Sleeping Beauty on the whole is designed to emulate the style of medieval tapestry, so for Maleficent to blend, she had to become essentially a meeting ground between the demonic religious symbolism apparent in pre-renaissance art as well as a believable human female form. She couldn't be too monstrous or the climax with the dragon wouldn't have the same emotional resonance, and she couldn't be too human or they'd risk her just looking like the Evil Queen again and clashing with the stylized and intentionally different look of the rest of the film. And if you look at the concept art for her, you'll see that it took a while to get to just the right design.

So why is this one of the great Disney villain designs to the point where it's pretty much the gold standard that all of the villains in the 90s were in some way looking to duplicate? Well, first of all, there's those medieval demonic elements that crept in. The horned headdress (yes, it's a hat) is the most obvious detail, clearly meant to invoke the idea of the Devil, later complimented by her vocally invoking all the powers of Hell. From these horns we know she's an inhuman force of evil and sin before she even speaks a line. Her dress has a motif of flames in the sleeves and train, again, invoking the notion of Hell fire, and the collar of the dress is based on bat wings. And not only does all of this character design shorthand her evil, it harmonizes together beautifully thanks to the purple, black, and green color scheme that is applied in just the right way. Not to mention, of course, that the entire design foreshadows her dragon transformation in the climax (put a pin in the dragon for now).

This design is one that honestly never fails to make me gush in awe. It's such an artistic masterpiece that flows so elegantly and powerfully that I by and large credit it's incredible design for getting me to love villains in the first place. When I said earlier that I could gush about the back of her head, I genuinely meant that. A lot of people scoff at character design being used as a metric for liking a character, but in the realm of animated film, character design and animation is job number one. And here's the truth of the matter: Maleficent would still be on a pedestal among Disney villains even if she was just this magnificent character design. But she's not. She's more than just this magnificent, unparalleled design.

When a design as beautiful as Maleficent's, finding a voice that can breathe life into it in a way that harmonizes and accentuates the quality of the design is not an easy task. A poor voice casting could have killed Maleficent right where she stood. Thankfully, Walt personally suggested that they bring back Eleanor Audley, who had previously worked with them on Lady Tremaine. Audley of course blended so well with the animation because she was such a talented actress and because Maleficent's facial expressions were modeled on Audley's own. But Audley in general turned in the greatest performance as a villain that I have ever seen. Her delivery is just melodic, and she brings a great degree of power, control, and arrogance to the role simply through voice. It's absolutely stunning.

Of course, Audley's not working alone on that front. The actual dialogue writing on Maleficent is top tier stuff as well. These two elements working in perfect harmony helps gives Maleficent one of the most subtle yet charismatic personalities in all of Disney. She's stern, powerful, and she inspires fear in all who encounter, yet she's not just some domineering bully. She also has a delicious little playful quality to her, such as when she pretends like she's embarrassed about showing up unwanted and pretending to leave without causing a scene directly before cursing Aurora. She's coy, and she uses that to play with her enemies' emotions. But if you test her, she'll explode in violent storming rage. She's this beautiful blend of powerful regality, playful coyness, and loud wrathfulness – a perfect evil personality.

Her role in the story isn't especially complex. She's a fairytale villain, and she fulfills that role nicely. She's not complex or deep with a tragic backstory; she doesn't need to be. She's a fantasy evil incarnate, and she does it marvelously. Every bit of misfortunate that befalls the characters in Sleeping Beauty is directly attributable to her. She allows her minions to do some of the dirty work, but most of the time she's right there taking action for herself. She curses Aurora, causing King Stefan and Queen Leah to miss out on raising their daughter, and she later kidnaps Prince Phillip and plans to keep him locked away until he's an old man so that when he awakens Aurora, he'll be old and she'll be young. She uses time as a weapon to inflict suffering and misery. For all that she hurls lightning, her modus operandi is almost always to cause internal pain and strife, and I love that quality to her.

A lot of people tend to oversimplify and misrepresent her motivation as her just being upset that she wasn't invited to a birthday party, and, honestly, that's such a blatant oversimplification that it barely deserves to be dignified. Maleficent is a villain entirely motivated by her arrogance and desire for respect. Any act of disrespect to her is an act of war, no matter how insignificant it might seem. She lets no affront to her go unpunished, and that's why she's so terrifying. Though also, what's nice about how her motivations aren't spoon-fed to the audience is that it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. We're left with a lot of questions about why Maleficent cares so much about disrespect, and every possible answer makes her more interesting. She's a perfect example of how effective "less is more" can be in storytelling.

And of course, it all culminates in the best finale ever put into a Disney film: the final battle against the dragon. Actually, there's no dragon anywhere in the original Sleeping Beauty fairytale, but because Sleeping Beauty was striving to be a grand medieval fairytale fantasy epic unlike anything the studio had ever produced, and because having Prince Phillip throw a sword into a human looking Maleficent would be unseemly for a family film, they decided to put the cherry on top with the most recognizable medieval fantasy creature to face against the brave knight in shining armor. And it really is the perfect climax to the story. Prince Phillip, who is wielding the Sword of Truth and Shield of Virtue and fighting on behalf of true love, clashes against Maleficent, who invokes all the powers of Hell to become a Satanic creature motivated by hate and pain. It is the ultimate symbolic battle of good triumphing over evil, and the fact that Maleficent so perfectly incarnates that evil makes it all come together.

So, naturally, it is already very apparent that I greatly admire and enjoy Maleficent and think she's an incredible villain. Yet, the question still remains: why is she the number one spot? Why was she the villain who clicked with me on such a profound level that I can write an over four thousand word essay on how much I like her purely recreationally? The answer is honestly pretty simple: consistency. Maleficent is the one villain who, no matter where I am in my life, she's always to some extent at play. 

She was my favorite villain when I was a kid whose movie's tape I wore out rewatching. She was my favorite villain to drag my parents to the Disney store and start my collection of villain merchandise I have to this day. She was my favorite villain at the Disney parks when I'd visit and watch her in the shows. She was my favorite video game villain when I got into Kingdom Hearts as I got older. She was my roleplay character who I played on the side while playing Hades. She was my favorite villain to edit with when doing the villain tournaments. She’s my favorite villain who I write for on a consistent basis with my fanfic. And she's my favorite villain now with all of that looking back and still having the same enthusiasm for her as the first time I watched the movie.

In a kind of bizarre way, Maleficent has been one of the biggest constants in my life. No matter how things have changed, no matter where I've gone or what I've become, she's always been right there, holding my hand through all of it. Other villains and characters, love them though I do, come and go in phases. Maleficent never does. She's always there, and in some way, every single villain who I love has some element that links them back to her. She's that inescapable bedrock to everything fictional that I love and hold dear.

She's the Mistress of All Evil, one of the greatest villains of all time, the single most important fictional character in my life, and my absolute personal favorite. Long may she reign!

[canchewread]

Editor’s note: earlier this afternoon I managed to smash my foot into a coffee table and I’m increasingly starting to suspect that I broke at least one toe. As a result I haven’t had time to write a full edition of “The Skinny” today; in the meantime here’s a short essay on history, propaganda and the CIA.

In a recent essay about changing mainstream attitudes towards Edward Snowden and the national security state, I talked a little bit how the business of recording and analyzing history is riddled with class-based structural barriers that largely serve to protect and support establishment power and as such, elite capital. Obviously where I deal with this most in my writing is in the real-time record of history reported and analyzed by the media - after all, this type of orthodox, pro-establishment propagandizing happens every day on the evening news.

Today I'm going to switch gears and talk about books, specifically actual history books about war, foreign policy and espionage. After finishing Edward Snowden's new biography “Permanent Record” I went back to my shelf and pulled down Tim Weiner's 2007 book "Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA" - a volume I've reference many times in my writing but have never sat down to read from cover to cover until a couple of days ago.

While this isn't exactly a normal book review, I like to note up front that I’m not here to explicitly trash Legacy of Ashes - it's not like Weiner's tome is an objectively bad or horrifyingly inaccurate history book; it did after all win a Pulitzer Prize.

Based on hundreds of direct interviews and massive hordes of (then) recently declassified documents, Legacy of Ashes is mostly what it purports to be - a complete history of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency from its formation up until roughly 2006. Obviously different scholars have different primary sources but if you're in mainstream liberal media or military scholarship and you write about national security, this is a book you'll be expected by most informed observers to be familiar with; as I said, I've referenced it quite often in my work as well.

Of course, in light of the fact that the book was released right around the same time as the full exposure of CIA's staggering failure in the lead up to and aftermath of 9/11 and its complicity in Bush's secret prisons hiding America's torture program, the author understandably takes an overall "dim" view of the CIA. From cowboy covert operations in the fifties and sixties, up on through to the horrifying failures that lead to the invasion of Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction our government knew they couldn’t find (because they didn’t exist), Legacy of Ashes tells the tale of a wayward, out of control intelligence agency that has never been capable of its supposed primary function – keeping the President informed of what is happening beyond America’s borders.

In the general sense then, it’s fair to say that for the average reader the book almost certainly comes off as a shocking indictment of the Central Intelligence Agency and many of the men who have had leadership roles inside the agency - so what's the problem? It almost sounds like I'm recommending it - doesn’t it?

Unfortunately however Tim Weiner is an affluent former New York Times journalist with a Journalism degree from Colombia and a career's worth of contact with minions of the national security state; in other words Weiner is about as "establishment" as they come and the effect that has on both his overall worldview and his study of the CIA's history, screams off virtually every single page in Legacy of Ashes.

Like all too many national security "muckrakers" Weiner starts with the basic hypothesis that the CIA and U.S. intelligence agencies in general are good, justified and necessary for the defense of the country - the whole mom and apple pie American feel good story. The repeated abuses and failures of the agency, from the author’s perspective, are simply an obvious byproduct of the arrogance, incompetence and personal failings of individual leaders - failings that are often magnified by the byzantine bureaucratic structures inherent to a "free" and "open liberal democracy” like the United States.

In Weiner's account the CIA itself is not the problem, but rather the faulty individuals entrusted with its sacred task. Catastrophic failures in intelligence that have all too tragic consequences are a result of individual hubris, mission drift and plain old American cultural arrogance; the question of whether or not there should have even been a Cold War for example, simply doesn’t come up - even as the author openly admits that everything the CIA and the US government thought it knew about the Soviet Union turned out to be wrong and was based on lies produced to order by, yes the CIA. Leader after leader and planner after planner are revealed to be flawed human beings consumed by petty emotions or false assumptions and thus wholly unsuited for the job. Every U.S. president is a poor helpless dupe, grasping to extend his power to protect America from harm without realizing what he's now empowered the wayward CIA, lead by "the wrong men", to do next – even as those same men continually empower the CIA to do more and more damage in the “service” of protecting American interests abroad. In this worldview American “cloak and dagger” imperialism comes off as a sort of tragic accident; rather than a purposeful activity designed to bolster American power not just in a military sense, but in a global economic sense on behalf of American corporations as well.

In particular, Weiner's curious assessment of Allen Dulles as a bumbling incompetent obsessed with reckless covert military actions and derisive of the CIA's real work, gathering intelligence, paints a very different and somehow less harmful picture of the former CIA director than previously released accounts that delve deeper into the control Dulles exhibited over American media and the ruthlessness with which he marched men to their deaths in the dubious service of the Cold War on communism. While anyone who has read Dave Talbot’s “The Devil’s Chessboard” will have no real problem accepting that Allen Dulles was an unhinged psychopath whose vision was clouded by myopic hatred of the Soviet Union (and anti-capitalism as a whole), Weiner’s portrait of a gout-ridden dilettante withdrawing into a world of public relations and spy-novel trickery doesn’t line up very well with Dulles’s staggering level of (malignant and xenophobic) influence over multiple U.S. presidents and American foreign policy. We are after all talking about a man who might have had a hand in assassinating an American head of state to not only save the CIA but also prolong the Cold War in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Another good example of how the author’s proximity to his subject influences the way he presents the history of the CIA can be found in the way Weiner's suggestive prose repeatedly implies, but does not directly state, that Fidel Castro killed John F Kennedy; an extremely unlikely if not almost impossible scenario in light of the secret peace talks the Kennedy administration has since been revealed to have been trying to conduct with both Castro and Nikita Khrushchev.

It would be one thing if Weiner were just repeating information from CIA interviewees who believed Castro had Kennedy assassinated, but the problem is that Weiner himself is clearly purposely leaving a trail of clues towards his own belief that Fidel Castro had John F. Kennedy killed in retaliation for the CIA's botched plots to assassinate Castro; clues that are scattered throughout the entire book - it comes up at least a dozen times in the first 250 pages for example.

Naturally this theory has the benefit of not only indirectly absolving the CIA itself (and shifting the blame to Robert Kennedy) but also supporting the author’s primary thesis – namely that the CIA is horribly run and has at times been completely out of control but ultimately the agency is worth salvaging; a position that undoubtedly makes Weiner’s ex-CIA friends and sources happy no matter how much they protest otherwise.

In the author’s worldview, even the existence of the CIA is an unfortunate compromise for the pure as snow “democratic” Pig Empire, a result of America’s desperate need to fight the more talented, sophisticated and ruthless Soviet intelligence machine - an admission of inferiority that may seem scandalous on its face, but likely serves the CIA and its efforts to obscure the real, decidedly imperialist purpose of the agency just fine on the whole. Weiner could have and quite probably should have named the book “Legacy of Ashes: Confessions of the real CIA” or something similar because this feels like a confessional, or perhaps national therapy more than it feels like excoriation and condemnation.

Legacy of Ashes uses the agency’s own records and officers to gleefully point out all of the CIA’s already admitted mistakes, but the larger questions of how and why the world’s only superpower keeps letting dangerous cowboy intelligence officials “lead it” by the nose into “accidental” atrocity after “accidental” atrocity is left wholly unasked and unanswered. In the end you’re left with a book that largely consists of a full and detailed chronicle of the CIA’s known public history from the perspective of an exasperated but ultimately sympathetic parent who just wishes the agency would stick with the important work of gathering intelligence. 

So that simply leaves one question; did Tim Weiner sit down to write a limited hangout for the CIA at the time of its greatest need? I can’t definitively answer that question but truthfully, I doubt it. The lens through which Legacy of Ashes views the CIA seems to me wholly a product of who the author is, or rather who he’d simply have to be to end up a world renowned national security reporter for the New York Times; an influential media figure with the resources, time and gravitas to speak to hundreds of former CIA employees.

Weiner comes from a lived experience and professional environment where American imperialism is a dirty foreign smear, the CIA’s purpose is purely defensive and questioning whether or not the problem is American global hegemony itself, as opposed to rogue cowboys running an unsupervised spy shop, is strictly verboten. If the author were the kind of guy who thought the CIA deserved to be shattered into a thousand pieces and American imperialism is a source of global suffering, not global stability - well I highly doubt you’d have ever heard of his book.

All of which isn’t to say that Legacy of Ashes is a worthless book; if like myself you’ve read dozens and dozens of other books on not only the CIA but also U.S. imperialism, it’s fairly easy to tease out the facts from Weiner’s strictly liberal orthodox opinions and desire to ultimately preserve the agency. Unfortunately however if you are not an accomplished history student or largely unfamiliar with the minutiae of CIA’s history as a whole, it’s safe to say that Legacy of Ashes is only going to tell you part of the story - the what, and not the why.

This is because if you ever did figure out the real reasons why, you’d see no justifiable reason for America to even have a CIA.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog. Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord! 

[mtvswatches]

Wynonna Earp 1x09 Bury Me with My Guns On

Wynonna Earp 1x07 Walkin’ After Midnight

Spoilers disclaimer (please read before sending messages or writing comments.)

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) Oh, wow…

This definitely reminded me of this…

2) “She is also a distraction I cannot afford right now.” Too late, Doc, you’re officially distracted…

#swoon

3) This is exactly what happened and I cannot be convinced otherwise…

But in all seriousness, it’s quite interesting how Wynonna finds herself chasing any kind of feeling now that she’s done with the rage and revenge. The problem is, no matter how many revenants she puts down, she’s never going to get her family back and she’ll never get the forgiveness she so desperately craves. She needs to come to terms with these facts, and she needs to find a new purpose now.

I also find it interesting how she doesn’t find it hard to open up to Doc. For someone who’s quite closed-off and who puts up all these walls, she opens herself up rather quickly with the people she cares about.

4) Holy shit, she’s not messing around…

5) Oooh, this is gonna be like “When She Was Bad”, right?

6) Wynonna is going to be psychoanalyzed on the day she decides to go bad. This should be interesting.

7) Man, this girl is all tough and shit but she definitely wears her heart on her sleeve…

DOLLS: We need to be careful, alright? You're not even a real deputy, Earp, come on.

WYNONNA: No. I'm just the one with the big-ass gun who sends the fiends of Hell to their deaths.

DOLLS: Technically, it's not the gun that kills them, it's…

WYNONNA: Oh my God! You stupid government lackey, you left me in there with a bureaucratic sadist and I was alone and scared.

DOLLS: You're not alone, Earp.

WYNONNA: Or a murderer.

DOLLS: Okay.

WYNONNA: Just once, I want you to say it. That you care about me. Pussy.

It’s kind of refreshing to see this type of portrayal of women, you know? She’s hard as nails but she’s also not afraid to express her feelings and show her vulnerability to others, and that doesn’t make her any less of a badass. You can be both, what do you know?

And not only did Dolls not tell her that he cares about her, but he also took away her badge. Uncool.

8) Oh, that’s a big promise, Wynonna…

That’s like calling bad luck, is all I’m saying.

9) OMG…

She made this poor dude piss himself. Guess the Bad Girl thing is already backfiring.

10) She finally got her way…

11)

What is Drek, other than the witch’s baby/son? Is he a Revenant or is he something else altogether? I’m thinking he’s something else. And what does she mean when she says they “will be gods”? All I can think of is she wants to sing in the meadows…

12) “Lord, girl, you need to blow off that steam.” Please tell me he’s going to bang off the steam out of her. Pretty please?

13) SWEET LORD JEBUS, PRAYER WORKS!

14) So… the Sheriff dismissed Nicole’s report of what she had experienced herself by defining “Purgatory” as quirky. Riiiight. But then, he picked up her report from the trash. So, he’s either waking up and starting to believe there are supernatural forces at work here, or he is the Sheriff because he’s been in the know and assigned precisely to dismiss any type of supernatural claims – a la Snyder in BTVS. Either way, I think it will be an interesting turn of events.

15) They are having two completely different conversations, and I love it…

NICOLE: Um, can we talk?

WAVERLY: Yeah.Yeah. God, we're totally overdue.

NICOLE: I'm not I'm not crazy, right? There's something going on here.

WAVERLY: No. You're not crazy.

NICOLE: Okay.

WAVERLY: I'm not sure I'm ready to get into it.

NICOLE: Why?

WAVERLY: Because it's different for me, right? And it's really personal.

NICOLE: But it's personal for everybody, right? I mean, they must know. People must whisper about it.

WAVERLY: My God, I hope not! No, I kind of only just discovered it. When I met you.

NICOLE: Me?

WAVERLY: Yeah. You're kinda special.

NICOLE: Okay, maybe a little bit more open- minded, but it's not like I have some mystical gift  or something.

WAVERLY: No, I get it. You're a lesbian, not a unicorn, right?

NICOLE: What?

WAVERLY: What?

“You’re a lesbian, not a unicorn” is such an iconic line. Also, there’s no reason you can’t be both, what do you know?

16) I still don’t know what Bobo is looking for, but I guess that’s it for Drek and his brother...

I’m guessing the reason Drek burned to death is that the Stone Witch used one of his brother’s bones to build him up, right? And who was Drek’s father? I wonder if we’ll meet him…

But I keep coming back to this question – what is Bobo after? What is this “lead” the witch promised him?

17) *heart eyes* *fans self*

18) So Doc still wants to kill the witch, even though he now knows it will probably kill him, too. But Wynonna is having none of it…

Get it, boy? She doesn’t want you to die, she wants to keep you around.

19) Why didn’t Wynonna run after Doc? He couldn’t have run that far away in 5 seconds…

20) I really enjoyed the whole conversation between the Sheriff – Randy – and Dolls. I think Dolls is a bit arrogant and he underestimates how useful Randy could be. I also liked how Randy admitted that he figured out the real reason Dolls had set up shop in Purgatory a long time ago, but he’d chosen to turn a blind eye because it didn’t really affect him and he strikes me as the type of guy who just wants to do his job, go home and have a beer. But now his own deputies – and friends – are getting hurt because of all the weird shit that’s been going on in Purgatory, and he won’t have that. So he’s decided to get involved.

Now, I’m not saying that he’s not honest about his intentions, because I’ve totally bought his whole “let’s work together” spiel. But I’m not dismissing but my other theory just yet. There’s still that guy who was a judge or something who had the picture of the seven, so the Sheriff could still be playing lackey to the higher-ups.

21) Waverly just told Nicole that maybe they can be just friends, and I’m like…

22) I LOVE HER…

23) Um, no, I don’t like this!

What the hell is going on? Is this some “I’ll fight my own battles” macho bullshit? Because I expect better than that from Doc. Or is it simply because he doesn’t want her to interfere with him killing the witch?

24) Can… Bobo smell that Doc and Wynonna had sex? That’s so creepy.

25) It’s really smart how Doc put Bobo into a no-win situation. He had to either let Doc go with the Witch or show his minions he wasn’t a man of his word, which would probably turn into a revolt against him. So he obviously chose the lesser of two evils.

26) What does Bobo mean by “I have a very special surprise for you”? What the fuck is he going to do?

27) I really like how supportive Gus is of Waverly, encouraging her to live her own life like she wants and with whom she wants, but I still don’t understand why she would sell the bar? And I’m afraid Bobo’s going to be the new owner. Is that his surprise for Wynonna?

28) Well, considering one of his minions just showed up at Shorty’s asking for Wynonna, I’m guessing that’s going to be the case.

29) I don’t like this…

WYNONNA: Who won't you make a deal with, huh? First a witch, then the Devil himself. You're nothing like… You're just nothing.

DOC: You can judge me all you want. What do I care for some broken woman's evaluation of my character?

There’s so much subtext here is overwhelming. First, there’s Wynonna unfinished line “you’re nothing like...” I think she was going to say something along the lines of “you’re nothing like I thought you’d be.” But that would’ve shown vulnerability at a moment when she didn’t feel Doc deserved it. So she hits him where she knows it will hurt him most. And he pays her back in kind by calling her a “broken woman.” But we know he’s not indifferent to Wynonna’s judgment of his character. On the contrary, it affects him greatly. He’s just probably trying to convince himself otherwise.

30) How many times are they going to point guns at each other in one fucking episode?!

31) So we finally know something about the origin of the Earp curse…

WYNONNA: Tell me about the Earp Curse.

CLOOTIE: The details are hazy, as that was my demon husband. Revenge for the death of our boys. Direct and manly and, quite frankly, boring.

WYNONNA: Not the first word I'd use.

CLOOTIE: Us girls like to take vindictiveness to the next level, don't we, Wynonna? And I wanted my own revenge on Wyatt, so I went after what Wyatt loved most. His best friend.

DOC: You're a liar.

CLOOTIE: I threw it a few juicy morsels like "health" and "longevity," and you were mine.

DOC: You tricked me.

CLOOTIE: When Wyatt found you buried in a whore's muff instead of underground, when he learned of our deal, his heart broke in two. Then I threw you down a well, so that even if Wyatt softened, came looking for you…

DOC: Did he?

CLOOTIE: And you got to spend decades in the dark, knowing your best friend despised you. John Henry. This whole time, you thought it was personal, but it's always been about the alpha dog.

DOC: You shut your lyin' mouth.

CLOOTIE: You're a good sidekick, dear "Doc," but you'll never be a hero. A perpetual second choice. But in the end, everyone chooses the lawman. Everyone.

So the Earp curse and Doc’s curse were two sides of the same coin, one cast by the witch’s husband and the other by the witch herself.

What I find the most interesting, though, is the fact that Doc was Wyatt’s Achilles heel. What did she mean when she said that Doc was what Wyatt loved most? I can’t help but feel gay undertones in that. I mean, why else would Wyatt be so hurt to find Doc buried in a “whore’s muff”? Were they ever romantically involved? I’m going with this theory and I love it.

Also, why did she look pointedly at Wynonna when she said that “in the end, everyone chooses the lawman”? Does this mean Wynonna will choose Dolls over Doc at some point? Because I don’t want that!

32) I love how Wynonna used their previous conversation to talk Doc out of killing the witch right then and there.

33) OMG they’re going to bury her in salt flats!

34) Yes!

WAVERLY: I've always wanted to do things that scared me. But, well, it's not so easy to be brazen when the thing that you want, that scares you to death, is sitting right in front of you. NICOLE: I scare you? WAVERLY:  Yes. Yes, you do. Because I don't wanna be friends. When I think about what I wanna do most in this world it's you. Oh God, that sounded so much more romantic in my head. Just jump in any time, Nicole, because I really, really don't know how to do this. NICOLE: Oh, sure you do. WAVERLY: Maybe I should just stop talking. NICOLE: See, you're getting better at this already. WAVERLY: Maybe you should stop talking too. NICOLE: Maybe you should make me.

I knew they would become a thing, but I really wasn’t expecting to feel so much for them? They’re super sweet together but also super hot, and I definitely got all tingly inside watching them.

35) So… we still don’t know what “the lead” is. We know what it is for, but we don’t what – or who? – it is. But I fear what Bobo might be able to do if he can break himself from the triangle and from Wynonna’s curse…

I really don’t know why they didn’t bury her completely. Oh, wait, is it because if they did, she would die and therefore Doc would die? Yes, that’s probably it.

36) Wynonna basically just asked Doc on a date, and I’m here for it.

37) So, Dolls faked a report of Wynonna passing the deputy exam or something.

38) Called it!

39) I guess that whole “no one’s ever taking anything from us again” thing instantly backfired, huh? What a packed episode, and there are only a few left in the season! I can’t wait where this all leads up to!

40) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi.Thanks!

[envision-fandom]

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Peter Pan and Felix Fanfiction

What if Peter Pan and the other lost boys had been transported over to Storybrooke when Regina set off the curse and had lived an almost ordinary life growing up there? And what would that mean for you and your online pen pal?

Peter Pan was your childhood friend, next door neighbour and most recently your arch nemesis. 

You had been brought up together in the small town known as Story Brooke and you were inseparable as children. But now that you were older, and had more sense, you knew to keep him as far away from you as humanly possible.

You see Peter had created a type of reputation for himself since you both began high school four years ago and he was now the most feared boy in school, and in fact, the whole town. 

He had gathered a group of followers ‘The lost boys’, consisting of the meanest, largest, nastiest bunch of guys in school and to your confusion, the most gorgeous guy you had ever laid your eyes on- Felix. 

The Lost boys always got themselves into unholy situations, such as underage drinking, drug use, sex, stealing, but most of all fighting. By God did they all like to fight. 

It came to no surprise anymore when they would walk through the halls, covered in cuts and bruises or even on the odd occasion blood and you had grown so used to it, you would find it unusual to see them without a black eye or busted lip. 

They were the centre of attention and rumours spread about them everyday like wildfire, which would always leave you rolling your eyes and sighing at the absurdity of high school life. 

You swore you were the only one who wasn’t obsessed with the lost boys, or at least not all of them. 

But Felix was so much different compared to the rest of them. 

He was tall and skinny, with just the right amount of muscle. 

His long, wavy blonde hair always looked like perfection and his sharp jawline and shy smile was enough to make you drool. 

He had perfect grades and hardly ever took part in the crazy schemes Peter had come up with and yet for some strange reason, he was selected as second in command, which meant his popularity instantly shot through the roof. 

You had liked him since your first day of school, when he sat beside you in class and borrowed you a pencil. 

He had seemed like the most kindest and generous guy you had met and soon enough you had fallen in love with him. 

So when Peter had taken him away from you to join his ridiculous gang, you were furious and swore your hatred towards Peter, making him your arch nemesis. 

From that day forward you tried to ignore Pan and keep him and his gang as far from you as possible, but of course that only meant he wanted to annoy you more.

You always found yourself at the forefront of his childish pranks and although he never put you in any real danger, he had threatened your reputation as a moral student and you were sick of the mistreatment against you.

All you wanted was a normal high school life. Not to be followed around and embarrassed constantly in front of the boy you liked by a misogynistic asshole like Peter Pan. 

Thankfully, you were able to release your stress to your secret online Pen pal. Who goes by the username ‘Neverland99′.

You had met on the school’s chat line, when you were looking for information on an English playwright and he had come forward and provided you with a bunch of useful information. 

After that, you had begun talking ever night after school, which then lead to Good morning texts and even a few cheeky messages during the school day. 

Both of your identity’s still remained secret, but you knew almost everything about him. All except his name. 

He is in the same year group as you and his dream is to study poetry at college- which is a secret he has never told anyone before. 

You felt so connected to him and you easily found yourself revealing your secrets to him too, which lead to you becoming an emotional support for each other and he was always there for you when times were tough. 

You dream about him a lot and even though you have no idea who he is or what he looks like, you always pictured him with Felix’s face and just prayed that maybe your mysterious Pen Pal was him. 

You were thankful it was the weekend, as it meant you wouldn’t have to be pestered by Pan and his minions. 

You got up early and headed into work at Granny’s diner, excited to see your best friend Wendy. 

She attended the girls private school next to yours, which meant you never got to see her much. But you were glad you both worked together, as you could rant to her about your awful week and your dislike for Peter and like for Felix. 

You were just beginning to tell her about your late night messages with your pen pal, when your phone buzzed in your pocket. 

You glanced down to reveal a message from him saying ‘Are you working right now?’, which sent a smile straight to your face. 

Wendy lent over your shoulder and laughed “Speak of the devil.” She joked and you playfully hit her on the arm. 

“Nothing could ruin my mood right now.” You tell her and you instantly curse your words, because Peter and his lost boys had just walked in. 

“Ahh Y/N, my oldest friend!” Pan declares, as he sits down at the bar in front of you “How about you serve me a sandwich love?” A few of the lost boys laugh at his mocking tone and you are forced to refrain yourself from punching him right on his smug face, not wanting to risk losing your job. 

You take in a deep sigh, before meeting Pan’s eyes “Sure, what would you like on it?” 

You hated how his smirk widened and the way and evil glint flashes in his eyes “Surprise me.”

You turn on your heel and head to the kitchen to begin making his sandwich, slightly glad to be away from his intense stare- it had always sent a shiver down your spine. 

You buttered the bread and then smiled darkly to yourself, beginning to plan the best revenge. 

Being ex best friends with Pan meant that it did have it’s perks and growing up with him, you had noted the exact foods that he loved, as well as the one’s he hated. 

You placed pickles, mustard and tinned sardines on the bread, which he hates and then covered them up with layers of lettuce and cheese, which he likes. 

You took the sandwich out with your brightest customer service smile on your face, which you used to get more tips and placed the plate in front of him. 

You were slightly shocked to see him in deep conversation with Wendy and the fact that he was making her laugh. But you didn’t dwell to long on this, as you were excited to see the shocked look on his face when you “Surprised” him with his sandwich. 

He glances over at you and knots his brows in confusion at your bright smile, “Cheese and Lettuce.” You state and he nods in response, clearly he was expecting you to be pissed off for having to wait on him. 

“Thanks, you remembered what I like, what a good little servant you are.” He mocks and you roll your eyes, before glancing over at Felix, just to make it seem less conspicuous and if you had to look somewhere, it may as well be at the guy you like. 

You returned your eyes back on Pan, just as he took a bite of the sandwich and his reaction did not disappoint.

His face went as green as the pickles and he certainly didn’t look as attractive spitting out his food, on the verge of throwing up. 

He ran out of the diner, his followers chasing after him. You couldn’t help but laugh out loud that your plan had worked, but you instantly stopped when you noticed Felix still in the doorway, watching you. 

Your smile faltered as you stared at each other for a while, before he winked at you and left, leaving your heart beat pounding in your chest. 

You couldn’t believe Felix had winked at you and you were still flushed, even after returning home after work. 

You ran up to your bedroom, wanting to replay the moment in your head and revel in your victory, but stopped dead in your tracks as you swung your bedroom door open. 

Peter was lying down on your bed asleep. 

You sighed in disgust, it had been years since he had broken into your bedroom. 

He used to climb his way up onto your balcony every night and would sometimes stay the night, but that was before he became a complete asshole. 

You stood over his sleeping body and hated how attractive he looked not snearing at you. You shook him vigorously, wanting to get rid of him as soon as possible and hating the fact that for a brief moment you admitted he was attractive. 

He looked up at you with gentle eyes, before pulling you down onto the bed and hovering above you, his hands pressing against your wrists, preventing you from breaking free “Welcome back love, hard day at work?” 

You look up at him and smile “Actually it was quite pleasant after you had left.” 

He glared at you and the sight of his dark green eyes caused your body to shiver “You know I didn’t appreciate you making a fool out of me in front of my friends.” 

You try and push him off, but you are unable to move “Well now you know how it feels!” You spit back, annoyed at his arrogance. 

“Oh Y/N, you know I can make your life a whole lot worse. What I do to you, it’s child's play. I could turn your whole world upside down.” 

You glare back at him, shocked at his threatening behaviour.

“But I won’t...” He continues “If you help me out.” 

“Why should I help you?” You ask, curiously. 

“Because, as I just said, I could make your life a whole lot worse and you’re the only one who can help me...” He trails off at the end and finally lets go of your arms. 

You sit up questioningly, intrigued that Pan would come to you for help “What do you need help with?”

He stares out of your window awkwardly “Well, truth be told. There’s this girl I like- your friend Wendy.” He finally looks back at you with pleading eyes “I was hoping you could help set me up with her.” 

You laughed mockingly “You can’t be serious. As if I would help sadistic fuck boy like you, get with my innocent best friend! She’s way too good for you.” 

You stand up and gesture to your balcony “So you won’t help me?” 

You sigh, annoyed that he didn’t take your obvious hint for him to leave “No I won’t, now can you go?” 

You weren’t sure what would happen when you refused to help Pan, but it wasn’t what you were expecting. 

He simply lay back down on your bed and closed his eyes. 

“What the hell are you doing?” You ask. 

He opened one eye to look at you and shrugged “I’m staying here until you agree to help me.” 

You raised your eyebrows at him in response “Seriously? You’re going to resort to these childish games?” 

He ignored you, so you sighed in defeat and headed to your bathroom to get changed out of your work uniform and ready for bed. 

You were hoping Pan would be gone when you returned, but of course he was in the same position as when you left him. 

You were exhausted after work and wanted to sleep, bu couldn’t because he was taking up all of the room on your bed. You began to make a makeshift bed on the floor for yourself, when finally an idea popped into your mind. 

“Peter?” 

“Yes?” He responded almost instantly. 

“I’ll help you... only if you help me in return.”

He turns to face you and rests his head on his arm “I’m listening.” 

You cough awkwardly “I will help you with Wendy, as long as you help me with Felix.” 

He raises his eyebrow at you and smirks darkly “You like Felix?”

You could not believing you were about to admit your feelings to Pan, but you felt you had no other choice “Yes. Yes I do.” 

He laughs mockingly, before reaching his hand out towards you “You’ve got yourself a deal.”